Sushi industry hurting from radiation scare
The sushi industry in Japan in disarray after speculation that the Fukushima nuclear disaster may have contaminated fish from the region.
Story from PRI's The World. Use audio player above to listen to full report.
Scientists say it's highly unlikely that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant could contaminate the sea, the fish and then people. Nevertheless, the global sushi business is suffering due to fear of contaminated fish.
"And it's not just because fish stocks have gone down," says Narita Yoshitaka of Tsukiji Sushi-ko in Japan. "The export side of the business has almost been paralyzed." And, Yoshitaka says, "people's confusion about radiation isn't changing."
Fish from the sea, which are commonly shipped worldwide for sushi, are less likely to become contaminated. "The ocean is so huge in terms of the amount of water in the ocean, that any radioactivity in the ocean gets enormously diluted just by the amount of water in the ocean," says David Brenner, director of Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research in New York. "And so the amount that would reach one through fish is actually very small indeed. It's more an issue for the local rivers and streams near the Fukushima plant."
For both business and health concerns, it may be too soon to know the actual damages. "It's not people getting a high dose of radiation from eating a piece of highly contaminated fish," says Brenner. "It's large amounts of people getting small amounts of radiation from eating foods that are way below the regulatory levels in terms of contamination over a generation or two, that’s really the long term issue that we face from Fukushima."
Read full story on The World website.
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