(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
FDA warns public to throw out potentially radioactive shrimp [1]
['Jennifer Sandlin']
Date: 2025-08-20
Welp, if you live in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, or West Virginia, and you've recently bought shrimp at Walmart, you're going to want to check to make sure you didn't get the ones that are radioactive. I wish this were just a plot point from The Simpsons, but, unfortunately, it's real.
NBC News reports that the Food and Drug Administration is warning the public that they should throw away — and definitely not eat or serve — certain shrimp products sold at Walmart, including Walmart's own "Great Value" brand frozen shrimp:
Health officials said in a news release that it is investigating reports of Cesium-137 (Cs-137) contamination in shipping containers and frozen shrimp products processed by an Indonesian company, PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati of Indonesia, also known as BMS Food . . .
NBC News further explains that:
Cs-137 is the radioactive form of Cesium, "a soft, flexible, silvery-white metal that becomes liquid near room temperature" used for medical devices and gauges, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Repeated exposure to low doses of Cs-137 can increase the risk of cancer, "resulting from damage to DNA within living cells of the body," health officials said in their news release.
The FDA announcement states that health officials are currently testing samples and have not, to date, "confirmed the presence of contamination in any product in commerce." However, they are advising the public to throw out any of the following products, to be safe, because:
. . the product appears to have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with Cs-137 and may pose a safety concern. To date, FDA has learned that Walmart has received implicated raw frozen shrimp, imported after the date of first detection of Cs-137 by CBP, but from shipments that did not alert for Cs-137. FDA has recommended Walmart recall this product. Consumers should not eat or serve certain lots of Great Value raw frozen shrimp sold at Walmart stores in AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MO, MS, OH, OK, PA, TX, and WV: Great Value brand frozen raw shrimp, lot code: 8005540-1, Best by Date: 3/15/2027 Great Value brand frozen raw shrimp, lot code: 8005538-1, Best by Date: 3/15/2027 Great Value brand frozen raw shrimp, lot code: 8005539-1, Best by Date: 3/15/2027. If you have recently purchased raw frozen shrimp from Walmart that matches this description, throw it away. Do not eat or serve this product.
Read the full announcement from the FDA here.
Previously:
• That shrimp you're eating may have been peeled and packed by slaves
• Diners sue Japanese steakhouse for serving meals tainted with meth
• Japan: record high radiation levels found in Fukushima fish, more than a year after nuclear accident
• Dead Lobster: seafood chain sinking into bankruptcy
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://boingboing.net/2025/08/20/fda-warns-public-to-throw-out-potentially-radioactive-shrimp.html
Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/
