More packages of frozen shrimp potentially affected by radioactive contamination have been recalled.

More packages of frozen shrimp potentially affected by radioactive contamination have been recalled, federal officials said Thursday.

California-based Southwind Foods recalled frozen shrimp sold under the brands Sand Bar, Arctic Shores, Best Yet, Great American and First Street. The bagged products were distributed between July 17 and Aug. 8 to stores and wholesalers in nine states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, and Washington state.

The products have the potential to be contaminated with Cesium-137, a radioactive isotope that is a byproduct of nuclear reactions.

  • fullsquare@awful.systems
    23·
    3 days ago

    some foods (and other things, like blood and some other medical products) are irradiated in order to sterilize them and make them last longer, 137Cs sources are used for this purpose because this material is easily available but can’t be used for other purposes (like radiography)

    • peoplebeproblems@midwest.socialEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      But it doesn’t exactly explain how the cs-137 contaminated the shrimp. Usually when irradiating anything the source is quite decoupled from the target.

      This story is sorr of getting weird

      • fullsquare@awful.systems
        7·
        3 days ago

        the source getting damaged or corroded somehow is the simplest explanation i can think of now, cesium is likely in form of chloride which is very easily soluble in water

        or maybe it was intentional sabotage by competitor, who the fuck knows

        The best known Chinese rodenticide, containing about 6–20% TETS, is Dushuqiang, “very strong rat poison”. It has been used for mass poisonings in China: in April 2004, there were 74 casualties after eating scallion-flavored pancakes tainted by their vendor’s competitor; and in September 2002, 400 people were poisoned and 38 died from contaminated food.[11][12] In 2002, there was one documented case of accidental poisoning in the US.[6]

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetramethylenedisulfotetramine

        • lemming741@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          Smaller sources for sensing and detection are ceramic. Cobalt is preferred for larger sources but the half life is only ~5 years so I’m sure there are plenty of applications where the solubility of CsCl is outweighed by the 30 year half life.

          • fullsquare@awful.systems
            1·
            2 days ago

            CsCl is also much less active per gram because about half of fission product cesium is stable (on top of longer halflife)