The Fish Saga
So Clem is now trying to sway my view on the subject of eating fish that might or might not be tainted with radioactive material from Fukushima. He sent me a link to this new article published on Deep Sea News by Dr. M. While Dr. M sites many other scientists, Dr. M doesn’t reveal his own identity other than he is a deep sea biologist. I am going to admit that his lack of being open about his identity is a little alarming. However, I was happy to see his opinions or findings were back with real people who have written some powerful articles based on what appear to be solid findings or opinions on basic scientific knowledge.
First lets address the whole fish with radiation or cesium. An article by scientist Miriam C. Goldstein, in nut shell dispels the talks and suggestions that there is a extremely large amount of radiation or cesium in fish in Japan or the west coast of the U.S. My favorite quote “If you are still worried about the cesium from Fukushima, Robert Emery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston says you’d need to eat 2.5 to 4 tons of tuna in a year to get a dose of cesium-137 that exceeds health limits. That’s a lot of sushi.”. Now I checked and Miriam is a legit scientist, she’s got a website, other social accounts and several videos on youtube of her speaking engagements and talks. I will admit that this debunk is warming me up to eating fish.
Then there are those videos I mentioned with a man walking on the beach with a geiger counter. I did see two other videos also with the same finding. The only reason I question this finding in the article, is because both quotes are taken from two separate government agency findings or statements. In a nutshell the California Department of Public Health states “Recent tests show that elevated levels of radiation at Half Moon Bay are due to naturally occurring materials and not radioactivity associated with the Fukushima incident,”. The Director of the Environmental Health Services for San Mateo County, also stated “that the radiation is due to naturally occurring minerals typically found in coastal geology.” I am not totally sold on this debunk because those are two government agencies. To make matters worse, the only debunk about the beach radiation by an independent party was by Dan Sythe who is the CEO of a company who makes radiation detection equipment. Now do you think, maybe, just maybe, his a little bias considering most of his income comes from government sector?
Another interesting debunk was about the starfish melting due to radiation exposure. Basicly, scientists state that if the starfish are wasting away due to radiation exposure from Fukushima then other sea life would be exhibiting the same outcome.
Am I completely swayed by the this article. Not really, I am more alarmed the author sited mostly from his own websites articles and other government agencies. The whole idea is the government could possibly sugar coating the whole subject with possible false claims that are harmful to the general public. I am a little more swayed to eat fish because those findings are more independent. And well yes, I agree the whole starfish story was literally a topic with endless origins. I give Clem a B- for his effort. I think he mainly forwarded the article to debunk the starfish.