User:Bluerasberry/Radioactive contamination of food

Radioactive contamination of food is radioactive contamination of the food web in an ecosystem. Within the food web, radionuclides can bioaccumulate up the food chain to affect humans and make the issue more concerning.

Radioactive contamination of food always has its origin in human activities with nuclear technology. Causes of contamination include the generation of radioactive waste from nuclear power and fallout from the use of nuclear weapons. The anti-nuclear movement advocates for social awareness of the dangers of contamination of food among other risks of nuclear technology.

Movement of contamination in food chains
Scientists have proposed various models for describing and predicting how radionucleotides move through food chains.

One aquatic experiment reported observing bioaccumulation up a food chain in an experimental environment of predator fish eating contaminated prey fish.

If there is contamination in the environment, then a range of factors determine how quickly the radionuclides will accumulate into the human food supply.

Livestock accumulate radionuclides by eating plants which are contaminated.

Caesium and strontium contamination has been noted as problematic.

Various other social movements, such as for general environmental protection, have taken up a response to radioactive contamination as part of their mission.

History
Magazines in the United States began publishing concern about nuclear fallout in 1955, at which time a poll showed that only 17% of United States respondents recognized the term "fallout". Politician Adlai Stevenson II included a halt to nuclear testing in his political campaign for the United States presidential election, 1956, and thereafter there was public concern on the topic. In July 1958 the Public Health Service began monitoring radioactivity in milk in ten cities in the United States. In 1958 scientists at Consumers Union proposed that radioactive contamination was a consumer issue and that a routine product testing approach to measure radioactive particles in food would be helpful to the public.

In 1959 Consumers Union published research data indicating that that because of nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, all milk now contained radioactive Strontium-90 due to international contamination by nuclear fallout. This publication was the first time anyone had provided information to the public about worldwide radioactive contamination. Previously, popular publications had only imagined that the danger of nuclear weapons testing was in the vicinity of the bomb and not a regional or global issue. Various activist groups continuously used data published by Consumers Union to back arguments which they wanted to make about the nuclear arms race.

After a nuclear test Strontium-90 goes into the atmosphere and is distributed worldwide, but will naturally concentrate in certain products including milk. Consumers Union contacted the Public Health Service and the United States Atomic Energy Commission only to find that these agencies had an incomplete record for checking milk for radioactivity, and to get a request for the organization to verify and expand government research on this issue. Consumers Union purchased milk from 27 US cities and had it tested for Strontium-90 and found that levels of the isotope in milk had risen as compared to levels before nuclear testing. The study confirmed Public Health Service's analysis and measured a national average of 8 micromicrocuries in milk, which the editors interpreted as a low number but "a potential hazard". Consumers Union sought review from the Public Health Service, which praised the report, and the Atomic Energy Commission, which agreed with the data but disagreed that the isotopes constituted dangerous radiation. In March 1959 Consumer Reports published an article called "The Milk We Drink" in which it presented the data and stated that "This report cannot be ended with a clear recommendation" about what anyone should do with the data or what it could mean for a person's health because the implications "have not yet been set by science". Consumers Union called for a government response to this information and a halt to nuclear testing.

Within weeks of the publication of that report, newspapers around the country republished the findings. Sales of milk declined and the dairy industry published reports encouraging people to drink milk for health and dismissing Consumer Reports' presentations as sensationalism. Government officials began to speak more about nuclear testing and discussion of nuclear contamination became part of political discourse, and government officials committed to reduce fallout and increase research into contamination. In the Berlin Crisis of 1961 the Soviet Union conducted an atomic test and the United States did shortly thereafter, but underground. The public demanded explanations about the dangers of fallout from these tests. In 1961 President Kennedy said that "The milk supply offers no hazards". By this time public discourse in the United States no longer considered fallout in milk to be a serious concern compared to nuclear warfare. In 1963 the United States, Britain, and Russia signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which limited the above-ground testing which causes fallout.

Decades later various commentators reflected that when Consumers Union raised the issue it was a necessary warning.