The “radioactive shrimp” is a tempest in a teapot. The amount of radiation detected was a mere 68Bq/kg (Becquerels per kilogram) — which is 1.838 _nanocuries_, to use a more familiar measurement scale. For the average adult, this works out to an exposure (if I’ve done the math properly; going from “activity” to “absorbed dose” requires a few assumptions along the way) of about 0.0000884 rems — 88.4 _microrems_ — if you eat the whole kilogram of shrimp.
By comparison, most of us receive about 600 millirems a year just through natural radioactivity in the environment, plus the various technologies we use on a daily basis. (If you still have any CRT TVs or monitors in your house, you’re picking up a couple of millirems from those over the course of a year; if you have smoke detectors, that’s about 0.1mrem, and so on.)
NOBODY was going to get radiation poisoning from a bag of Wal-Mart shrimp. It’s not clear why the FDA even publicly intervened in this to begin with; their normal standard for intervention is 1200Bq/kg of detected activity, over 17x higher than these supposedly “radioactive” shrimp. (And the FDA’s own recall notice even admits this.)
Chalk it up to bureaucratic virtue signaling.
As Thomas Sowell pointed out, the first priority of any bureaucrat is the continuation of his job, and to hell with the mission if it gets in the way.
John..permit me to repeat that the job of gummit is to get bigger..and who what when is doing a better job .. anywhere?
August 26, 2025 at 9:37 am
Oldarmourer
Walmart needed to be punished for not being ‘woke’ enough and a subtle message sent to those companies straying from the path so the leftover dei’s in the departmant acted accordingly. It’s going to take forever to weed them all out, especially when the managers doing the weeding are the ones that should be gone first. The wokism is intrenched so deeply thanks to the perversion of the educational system from instruction to indoctrination that it might never be possible to get rid of all of it, but it’s still worth trying.
Was the fear over the shrimp not so much about the absolute dosage–which as you point out, is trivial–but about the difference between the radioactivity of those batches over the normal amount in such a shipment? It might have been an indicator that the shrimp were shipped in a container that had previously been used to ship something very much more troubling. I hope someone is looking into _those_ records.
This element is also highly poisonous to humans. This is one way you could be affected if you ate enough shrimp. Even though the radiation is very little.
Natural cesium (in salts and other compounds) isn’t particularly poisonous. In animal experiments it shows low toxicity.
Note: Cesium metal is highly hazardous because of its tendency to ignite spontaneously and to react violently with water. The same is true of sodium and potassium metals. Compounds like cesium chloride and cesium sulfate are pretty harmless.
However, the radioactive isotope, atomic weight 137, which is a product of uranium fission, is poisonous by virtue of the radiation it puts out. That’s what was found in the shrimp. The Wal-Mart brand wasn’t the only contaminated one. Radiocesium was also found in 5 other brands: Sand Bar, Arctic Shores, Best Yet, First Street, and Great American Seafood Imports
(I never buy Asian seafood.)
August 26, 2025 at 9:44 am
Oldarmourer
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
“Keeping the populous alarmed”………witness Odipshit’s constant “frantic” proclamations that we needed to “Do ‘XXXXX’ NOW, or ‘XXXXX’ was going to bring about certain global catastrophes……and it would all be OUR (USA) fault!!
Yes….panic the people and get them to stampede right off the cliff just like the lemmings the Dims think we are!!!
23 Comments
Oft times a prophet is someone whose love for and pursuit of Truth is such that they are the first to perceive Reality.
And get punished for it.
And never being believed, as Cassandra found out the hard way.
clear ether
eon
And as Rand pointed out, probably burned at the stake with the fire he harnessed for his fellow man.
Being right is not a pleasure but a burden.
But, sadly, a necessary one.
“Prophesy is not to foretell the future, it is to show God’s hand in things after they have happened.”
The “radioactive shrimp” is a tempest in a teapot. The amount of radiation detected was a mere 68Bq/kg (Becquerels per kilogram) — which is 1.838 _nanocuries_, to use a more familiar measurement scale. For the average adult, this works out to an exposure (if I’ve done the math properly; going from “activity” to “absorbed dose” requires a few assumptions along the way) of about 0.0000884 rems — 88.4 _microrems_ — if you eat the whole kilogram of shrimp.
By comparison, most of us receive about 600 millirems a year just through natural radioactivity in the environment, plus the various technologies we use on a daily basis. (If you still have any CRT TVs or monitors in your house, you’re picking up a couple of millirems from those over the course of a year; if you have smoke detectors, that’s about 0.1mrem, and so on.)
NOBODY was going to get radiation poisoning from a bag of Wal-Mart shrimp. It’s not clear why the FDA even publicly intervened in this to begin with; their normal standard for intervention is 1200Bq/kg of detected activity, over 17x higher than these supposedly “radioactive” shrimp. (And the FDA’s own recall notice even admits this.)
Chalk it up to bureaucratic virtue signaling.
As Thomas Sowell pointed out, the first priority of any bureaucrat is the continuation of his job, and to hell with the mission if it gets in the way.
John..permit me to repeat that the job of gummit is to get bigger..and who what when is doing a better job .. anywhere?
Walmart needed to be punished for not being ‘woke’ enough and a subtle message sent to those companies straying from the path so the leftover dei’s in the departmant acted accordingly. It’s going to take forever to weed them all out, especially when the managers doing the weeding are the ones that should be gone first. The wokism is intrenched so deeply thanks to the perversion of the educational system from instruction to indoctrination that it might never be possible to get rid of all of it, but it’s still worth trying.
Was the fear over the shrimp not so much about the absolute dosage–which as you point out, is trivial–but about the difference between the radioactivity of those batches over the normal amount in such a shipment? It might have been an indicator that the shrimp were shipped in a container that had previously been used to ship something very much more troubling. I hope someone is looking into _those_ records.
This element is also highly poisonous to humans. This is one way you could be affected if you ate enough shrimp. Even though the radiation is very little.
Natural cesium (in salts and other compounds) isn’t particularly poisonous. In animal experiments it shows low toxicity.
Note: Cesium metal is highly hazardous because of its tendency to ignite spontaneously and to react violently with water. The same is true of sodium and potassium metals. Compounds like cesium chloride and cesium sulfate are pretty harmless.
However, the radioactive isotope, atomic weight 137, which is a product of uranium fission, is poisonous by virtue of the radiation it puts out. That’s what was found in the shrimp. The Wal-Mart brand wasn’t the only contaminated one. Radiocesium was also found in 5 other brands: Sand Bar, Arctic Shores, Best Yet, First Street, and Great American Seafood Imports
(I never buy Asian seafood.)
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
— H.L.Mencken
“Keeping the populous alarmed”………witness Odipshit’s constant “frantic” proclamations that we needed to “Do ‘XXXXX’ NOW, or ‘XXXXX’ was going to bring about certain global catastrophes……and it would all be OUR (USA) fault!!
Yes….panic the people and get them to stampede right off the cliff just like the lemmings the Dims think we are!!!
Heh, I read that as “Keeping the populace armed…”
Panicking the people in that circumstance would lead to much better outcomes…
In which case, the prophecy and its logical conclusion are the same.
a wise man once said …If you are a pessimist long enough, you will become known as a prophet.
Mari got a titty out for baby? She doesn’t have a suckling does she?
Just holding.
Who is Steve fransen…my ai,who btw is dumb as dust..can’t pull him up.
Some heppn a brother out…ok.?
Mark Twain: “Prophecy: two bull’s eyes out of a possible million.”