Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps appeared on Thom Hartmann's "The Big Picture" television program on Thursday, July 31st. Thom asked Kevin about a recent scientific study documenting radioactive cesium contamination of the muscle tissue of monkeys who inhabit the forests of Fukushima City, nearly 50 miles northwest of the rubblized Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Whereas monkeys of the same species in northern Japan show no detectable cesium in their flesh, the Fukushima City monkeys -- which eat insects and mushrooms from the contaminated forests of Fukushima -- show hundreds to thousands of becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram of muscle tissue.
A becquerel (bq) is a radioactive disintegration per second. Japanese governmental regulations limit radioactive cesium in food to 100 bq/kg. U.S. standards allow for 12 times more hazardous radioactive cesium in food. Groups like Beyond Nuclear and the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network have petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to lower the permissible level for radioactive cesium in food to 5 bq/kg or less.
Radioactive cesium-137 has a half-life of around 30 years, and a hazardous persistence of 300 to 600 years.
Kevin spoke about lessons learned about the hazards of radioactive cesium in children, such as "Chernobyl Heart" (the title of a 2003 Oscar award winning short documentary about the work of the Irish Chernobyl Children's Project in Belarus), congenital heart defects caused by radioactive cesium contamination in children's heart tissue.