Fishing out the truth

Related tags Food standards agency Aquaculture

Radioactivity checks on farmed salmon from Scotland and Northern
Ireland exposed to Sellafield radiation show that there is no cause
for concern from eating these fish, according to the results of
work undertaken by both the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the
Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

Radioactivity checks on farmed salmon from Scotland and Northern Ireland exposed to Sellafield radiation show that there is no cause for concern from eating these fish, according to the results of work undertaken by both the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

The work was designed to investigate whether significant amounts of technetium-99 and other radionuclides originating from the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria were present in farmed salmon.

The FSA arranged the Northern Ireland sampling and analysis, while SEPA undertook the work in Scotland. Samples of salmon were collected from 14 farms in Scotland and three samples from one fish farm in Northern Ireland between March and May 2003. The fish farms were chosen to represent a range of distances from Sellafield along the routes affected by radioactive discharges dispersed by the plant.

The results show that even people who eat a lot of salmon containing the highest concentrations of radioactivity measured in these studies would be exposed to an insignificant dose of radiation. The report states that levels in the farmed salmon are comparable with that previously found in wild fish.

Technetium-99 could not be detected in 12 of the 17 samples, according to the FSA, with the highest concentration in the remaining samples being 0.13±0.03 becquerels per kilogram. Caesium-137 was also found in 14 of the samples. The highest concentration measured was 0.84±0.33 Bq/kg.

Even at the maximum concentrations found in these studies, the FSA insists that a person would have to eat 1000 portions of salmon a day for a year to reach the annual permitted EU radiation dose.

Caesium-137 is discharged into the Irish Sea from Sellafield and from other nuclear establishments. Yet as it is also present in the environment as a result of the accident at Chernobyl, the source of that found in these studies is not certain, concluded the report. No other radionuclides were found in any of the samples.

Related topics Food Safety & Quality

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