By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

Radioactive shrimp and other radioactive commodities will continue to enter the U.S. in the coming months, according to a U.S. intelligence bulletin reported by ABC News.

The contamination is “very likely” to continue for the foreseeable future and spread beyond the contaminated Indonesian imports already intercepted since last summer. The imports include shrimp, spices and sneakers, according to the bulletin.

The bulletin comes less than a month after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled about 84,000 bags of frozen raw shrimp imported from Indonesia, citing possible contamination with Cesium-137, a radioactive isotope.

The FDA initiated the first recall in an Aug. 19, 2025, notice, announcing certain frozen shrimp products processed by Indonesia-based PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati, or BMS Foods, may have become contaminated with the isotope and “may pose a safety concern.”.

A recall announced last month was one of 12 recall notices the FDA has issued since August.

The brands recalled in the most recent batch included Market 32, sold in Price Chopper stores in the Northeast, and Waterfront Bistro brands sold at Jewel-Osco, Albertsons, Safeway, Lucky and other stores, largely in the Midwest and West.

BMS Foods is responsible for about a third of shrimp imports from Indonesia, which is the third-largest exporter of shrimp to the U.S., according to Consumer Reports.

In the fall of 2025, government regulators in Indonesia uncovered signs of extensive radioactive contamination at the site where the shrimp was processed, in Java’s Cikande industrial district.

Concerns deepened in September 2025, after the FDA found Cesium-137 in a shipment of Indonesian cloves originating from a spice exporter more than 400 miles from the Cikande area.

Indonesian officials maintain that exports remain safe. However, the FDA announced broad new import controls on Oct. 3. These measures apply to all shrimp and spices from Java — an island with roughly 150 million residents — and a neighboring region.

Cesium-137 can remain dangerous for up to 300 years

Cesium-137 is a byproduct of nuclear fission. It’s used in weapons testing, the operation of nuclear reactions, and nuclear accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Cesium-137 is present in the environment from nuclear weapons tests that occurred in the U.S. in the 1950s and 60s, and from nuclear reactor accidents, such as Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The radioactive isotope has a half-life of 30 years, but it can remain dangerous for 300 years. This is especially true when the isotope is ingested or inhaled, which allows it to be distributed in the body’s soft tissue, leading to an increased risk of cancer.

The health warnings about Indonesian imports raised alarms in the U.S. media, and Consumer Reports found evidence that a wide swath of Indonesia’s land may be contaminated.

‘You shouldn’t have to use a Geiger counter’ to eat shrimp

U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and John Kennedy (R.-La.) launched an inquiry on food safety following the start of the recalls. They demanded responses from major grocery chains, including Walmart, Albertsons and Kroger, about their procedures to prevent contaminated shrimp from reaching shelves and their policies around recalls.

“You shouldn’t have to use a Geiger counter before you make sure that your shrimp is safe,” Cassidy told KSBW Action News. He said, “shrimp that the European Union would not accept was sent to us instead.”

In an op-ed published in The Hill, Kimberly Roberson, author of “Silence Deafening: Fukushima Fallout … A Mother’s Response,” said the problem of radioactive contamination goes far beyond shrimp and Indonesian imports.

In 2025, the World Customs Organization launched Operation Stingray to disrupt the illicit trafficking of nuclear or radioactive materials. As part of the operation, administrations globally seized 51 shipments in three weeks.

Roberson is director of the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN). The network has been raising awareness about the threat of radioactivity in food since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi triple nuclear meltdowns and quadruple hydrogen explosions released radioactive chemicals into the Pacific Ocean.

Those chemicals traveled across the world.

Roberson told The Defender that Cesium-137 and 134 from Fukushima were detected in cow’s milk in Vermont, and shortly after in locations from Maine to Florida.

FFAN submitted a Citizen Petition to the FDA in 2013, demanding tighter regulations and lower allowable radioactivity levels. The agency hasn’t addressed the group’s demands.

In 2023, Fukushima began periodically releasing large amounts of radioactive water accumulated at the plant since the 2011 disaster into the Pacific.

Local fishing groups, residents, neighboring countries and many scientists and environmental organizations strongly oppose the discharges, citing concerns about the contaminated water’s effects on human and environmental health.

Japan’s prime minister claimed that fish from the ocean where the water was released remained “safe and delicious.” But that didn’t keep China, Russia and South Korea from banning the import of Japanese seafood.

However, the U.S. government didn’t ban imports from Japan. Instead, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel announced the U.S. military would buy bulk Japanese seafood for service members stationed at military bases in Japan and explore more broadly how to help offset China’s ban on Japan’s seafood.

At the time, the FDA downplayed concerns, Roberson wrote, claiming that the isotope is readily excreted and not a safety concern.

This week, according to news reports, Japan restarted the world’s largest nuclear power plant, in north-central Japan, for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Trump administration considers weakening radiation protection standards

More recently, Roberson’s group asked the Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take on the issue. However, the FDA again declined to do so, saying it was unlikely the Fukushima water dumping posed a threat to U.S. citizens.

In May 2025, two months after FFAN first wrote HHS about nuclear radiation’s impact on food, the Trump administration signed executive orders requiring the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consider dramatically weakening its radiation protection standard.

Roberson told The Defender the announcement was shocking.

“I watched with tremendous hope when Trump issued the executive order from the Oval Office to establish Make America Healthy Again,” she said. But the orders that followed a few months later were “absolutely awful.”

“The guard rails are off for the public, especially kids and pregnant women,” who are more susceptible to radiation exposure,” Roberson said.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warned that if the limits were gutted according to Trump’s suggestion, the new standard “could allow four out of five people exposed over a 70-year lifetime to develop a cancer they would not otherwise get.”

“We see evidence of consumer goods contaminated with radioactivity all around us,” Roberson wrote. “Instead of downplaying the problem, the FDA should tighten and enforce protective standards.”

“A communications strategy designed to soft-pedal radioactive contamination of food won’t make America healthy. Only setting and enforcing science-based standards will,” she said.

Related articles in The Defender

• U.S. Buying ‘Safe and Delicious’ Fukushima Fish Banned by Other Countries
• Discovery of Radioactive Fish Near Fukushima Reignites Concerns Over Plan to Dump Contaminated Wastewater
• Japan Plans to Dump 1.2 Million Tons of Contaminated Fukushima Wastewater Into Pacific Ocean
• Japan’s Unsolvable Fukushima Problem: What To Do With More Than a Million Tons of Radioactive Water
• Japan to Dump Radioactive Fukushima Water Into Ocean, Could Damage Human DNA, Greenpeace Warns
• ‘The Sea Is Not a Garbage Dump’: Groups Protest Plan to Dump Radioactive Water Into Pacific Ocean

The post ‘You Shouldn’t Have to Use a Geiger Counter’: Radioactive Shrimp Recall Signals Broader U.S. Food Safety Threat appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More