Cancerous fish in Pacific after Fukushima

In March 2011 a tsunami caused by an earthquake hit the Fukushima reactor in Japan. Cancerous fish are being found on the US west coast, where currents have likely carried radiation from the Fukushima reactor to fish stocks closer to the US, and fish have picked up radiation from near Fukushima. Tumors are caused by abnormal cell growth, and radiation is one cause of tumors. Fish, and people who eat them, are being exposed to dangerous levels of cesium-137 and strontium-90.

This is what cancer on fish looks like:

Below is salmon with tumors.

Map of Pacific salmon range.


Below: This is what tumors look like in sliced, raw fish. Source.

Here's an estimated fallout map of the Fukushima radiation.
More info on currents and radiation patterns from Fukushima.

What the "experts" say

Government "experts", pundits, and bloggers alike have claimed it's safe to eat the cancerous fish after no testing has been done on them. But radioactive cesium has been found in 15 Pacific bluefin tuna in this study from PNAS. The study says tuna have definitely transported radioactive materials from the Fukushima reactor across the Pacific to the US. The scientists found no cesium in pre-Fukushima tuna. Another blog says this radiation is only 5% of eating a normal banana.

Doses of radiation are cumulative for a lifetime, meaning the dose never goes away, is never diminished, and it stays in your body for a lifetime. The more radiation you are exposed to, the more likely something will go wrong with your body. Until we have more information about the prevalence of the radiation in Pacific seafood, ignoring the impact is foolish and irresponsible.

The NRDC says eating cancerous fish is ok: " Could Fukushima radiation in U.S.-caught fish increase over time to levels that would present a significant health impact to individuals? In our judgment, the answer is “No” due to dilution of the radioactivity released from Fukushima in the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean." They do explain how they think dilution works and why the radiation levels are safe.

Even the Japanese Prime Minister said “There are no health-related problems until now, nor will there be in the future.” That's an impossible claim to make. He cannot control the future, nor does he care since he won't be in office then. Increased cancer rates around Fukushima in Japan may not show up for another 20-30 years, but the damage is already done to the people. It's up to you to keep your family safe by not making foolish assumptions about the safety of food. After all, when has the government ever made a conservative assumption that something is safe?

Caution is required here, not reliance on bureaucrats who just don't care about what happens to people when they are no longer in office. Get educated, know your food and where it comes from, and you should be in a more healthy position.

More links

1. Superstation95. Fukushima radiation is damaging more animals than just fish. Also affected are seals, shrimp, and polar bears. Furry animals have a loss of body hair, an obvious component of radiation poisoning.
2. Nuclear-News. Scientists estimate number of deaths from cancer just from eating radiated fish.
3. The Fish Vet. More info on cancerous fish caught in upper Alaska, Vancouver, and Alberta.

Overfishing statistics

Some statistics on over fishing across the world.

1. 200 million people depend on fishing for jobs and food. About 20% of people in the world rely on ocean products as their primary protein source. [3]
2. Nitin Desai, Secretary General of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development,  warns that over fishing poses a major threat to the food supply. [3] Overfishing is not sustainable. 
3. In the north Atlantic region, in the last decade, commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock and flounder have fallen by as much as 95%. [3]
4. By using catch reconstructions, the numbers from FAO look misleading, and the real situation is much worse. The edible fish catches peaked in the late 1990s and have been declining ever since. [5]
5. By looking at Figure 3, the catches have declined much more steeply in some Atlantic fishing areas. [5]
6. As fishing technology increases in efficiency, fishing boats catch more fish, and it gets more difficult for the fish population to replenish itself.
7. Fishing fleets from Europe, China, and Japan regularly break the law and fish the waters of more poor nations, adding to the problem. [6]
8. Atlantic cod stocks have already collapsed in 1992. [6]
9. West Africa doesn't report 60% of the actual fish caught. China doesn't report 92% of it's caught fish! [6]
10. Jack Mackerel in the south Pacific have declined from 30 tonnes per year to less than 3 tonnes in 20 years. [7]
11. Shrimp trawl nets are like clear cutting the ocean floor. They disrupt coral, and catch animals that are not wanted. This "bycatch" is thrown back into the ocean, dead. Bycatch from shrimp nets runs from 40% to 98%. [8]
12. From 2012 to 2013: Pacific sardine landings down 38%, blue crab landings down 36%, Atlantic menhaden landings down 25%. [11] 
13. In 2010, 91% of fish stocks are Fully Exploited, Overexploited, or Collapsed. [13]
14. 99.5% of Atlantic salmon have disappeared from the Wild. They have disappeared from Europe, Scandinavia, around the Baltic Sea, the Russian rivers Neva and Narva, the Luleälven and Umeälven of Sweden, from the Odra and Wisla in Poland, and the Vilia of Belarus. EcoWatch, Mar 14, 2016. Anna Tonteri has a thesis about salmon here as a PDF.

Sources

1. Bite Sized Vegan video. March 2016. Youtube. 
2. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2012. UN FAO. 148 pages. PDF here. 
3. Overfishing: a Threat to Marine Biodiversity. UN. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link to page. 
4. General Situation of World Fish Stocks. UN FAO. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. PDF here.
5. Pauly, Daniel & Dirk Zeller. Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining. Nature Communications 7, Article number: 10244. Jan 2016.    doi:10.1038/ncomms10244. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link to full study here. 
6. Andrei, Mihai. Oceans are running out of fish – much faster than we thought. ZME Science, Jan 20, 2016. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Article here. 
7. George, Russ. Who killed the jack mackerel? Dec 20, 2015. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link here. 
8. A Study of the Options for Utilization of Bycatch and Discards from Marine Capture Fisheries. Section 9: Discards and Bycatch in Shrimp Trawl Fisheries. FAO Fisheries Circular No. 928 FIIU/C928. UN FAO. Oct 1997. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link here. 
9. Banaka, Lee. U.S. National Bycatch Report First Edition Update 2. NOAA. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link here. 
10. Status of Fish Stocks 2013. NOAA Fisheries. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link to page here.  
11. Sustainable Species, By the Numbers. NOAA Fishwatch. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link here. 
12. Annual fish landings data source. NOAA Office of Science and Technology. Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link here. This can output a table of one or all fish species, for a date range from 1950 to 2014. for all US states or just one. This table of numbers can then be used to make a graph. You can also download an ASCII file of the numbers. This ASCII file appears to be a comma-delimited file. 
13. Rogers, Alex D. State of the Ocean Report, 2013. International Programmer of the State of the Ocean (IPSO). Last accessed Mar 31, 2016. Link to web page here.  Direct link to PDF. This is a collection of studies, and the first page of the PDF lists the studies inside it.