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Greenpeace analysed 60 seafood samples from Japanese grocery stores and supermarkets throughout eastern Japan, and found 34 were contaminated with radioactive cesium-134 and cesium-137, and some at levels up to 88 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg).
While the samples are well below the 500 Bq/kg limit set by the Nippon authorities, the contaminated seafood still represents a health risk, especially to pregnant women and children. It should be noted that this 500 Bq/kg radiation threshold is set extremely high – over three times the 150 Bq/kg limit imposed by the Ukraine govt after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986!! (A 1972 experiment with dogs showed a single dose of 140 Bq/kg was lethal within three weeks.)
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It was also recently reported that radiation levels emitted from the Fukushima plant were actually twice as high as government estimates had originally assumed. And one of the radioactive elements found in much higher quantities was cesium-137, the same substance Greenpeace detected on seafood.
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