The modern world has many hazards. Some of them are well known like e-coli and forever chemicals. But from time to time something news comes out to threaten our existence and today we have a new one, that is, radioactive shrimp.

Let us have a look at a news article reporting on this new threat. In a posting, an essay written by Richard Hall and Rebecca Schneid reports the following.

https://time.com/7310679/fda-shrimp-radioactive-warning-recall/

The Food and Drug Administration has warned the public not to consume certain frozen shrimp products sold at Walmart due to possible contamination with Cesium-137, a radioactive isotope.

It said the warning affects the Great Value brand of raw frozen shrimp sold at the superstore, adding that anyone who purchased the products should dispose of them.

A statement from the agency said the FDA was “actively investigating reports of Cesium-137 (Cs-137) contamination in shipping containers and frozen shrimp products” shipped from Indonesia.

(This is an illustration from one of Mark Twain’s travel books published in he 19th Century. We may presume in the current situation that he is retreating from radioactive shrimp. jp)

The article does a good job of explaining what industrial uses are made of Cesium-137 which is good substantial reporting but gives no clue as to how the shipping containers from Indonesia got contaminated.

It seems to me that in the future Wal-Mart might do radioactive checks on incoming goods. An Internet shows that radiation detection devices are quite inexpensive and readily available. In fact, Wal-Mart itself has a good variety of the devices which it sells online.

This incident is a rebuke to those that claim government is an unnecessary burden. Without the FDA and the US Customs and Border Patrol, we would never have known we were in any danger.

My compliments to both agencies.

James Pilant