November 19, 2013 — Health officials say Fukushima radiation doesn’t pose a public health threat in the United States.
Andy Norris keeps putting it off. But he plans to stop eating his twice-a-week tuna sandwich. He’s worried about the traces of radioactive particles from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster detected in local albacore.
Norris is a 42-year-old documentary filmmaker with graying hair tied back in a ponytail. The Manzanita resident already eliminated local seaweed from his diet after reading about radiation found in California kelp post-Fukushima. He’s raised $750 in pledges for a community Geiger counter to share between Tillamook and Clatsop counties so residents can test fish and tsunami debris.
He’s not Chicken Little, he said. He just wants his diet to be safe.
“We’re not going to grow three legs,” he said. “But we could get sicker and have a gradual loss of vitality. That’s my concern.”
Along the Oregon coast, while reservations like Norris’ aren’t unheard of, they aren’t common, either. A pocket of doubt persists despite reassurances from scientists and federal health regulators that Pacific-caught seafood is safe to eat.
Read the full story at The Oregonian