U.S. health officials have issued several recalls of shrimp in recent weeks over concerns about radioactive material. And now a sitting U.S. Senator has taken the opportunity to warn people in the most dire terms possible. With help from a visual aide, of course.
Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, took to the Senate floor with a giant poster board featuring a screenshot from the classic 1979 film Alien on Wednesday. And he wants you to know that Americans are going to look like the chestburster from that movie if we’re not careful.
Kennedy posted a video of his warning on his X account, though the senator’s version of the video is just 3 minutes and 37 seconds long. The entire speech, which is available on the Forbes YouTube channel, is five and a half minutes.
“This is a photograph of the alien from the movie Alien,” Kennedy helpfully explained. “This is what you could end up looking like if you eat some of the raw frozen shrimp being sent to the United States by other countries.”
Kennedy went on to list some of the brands that have been recalled from places like Walmart. And he turned back to the posterboard and his dire warning. “If you eat it, how could you end up looking like alien in the Alien? Because the shrimp was radioactive. I kid you not.”
“It had a radioactive isotope in it called cesium-137. It’ll kill you. Even if it doesn’t turn you into the alien if you eat this stuff, I guarantee you’ll grow an extra ear,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy’s claim isn’t really true, whether he’s kidding or not. Obviously, nobody wants to be eating shrimp that could potentially contain radioactive substances. But it’s not going to kill you without repeated exposure at a much higher dose.
The Cs-137 found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection near shrimp distributed by BMS Foods of Indonesia last month registered at 68 Bq/kg, well below the level for federal intervention, which is 1200 Bq/kg. The American Nuclear Society noted at the time that 68 Bq/kg is similar to the radiation levels found in bananas.
Cs-137 is not naturally occurring like the radiation in bananas. And nobody wants any level of radiation in their food. But there’s no evidence that the radiation that could potentially be present in shrimp is going to kill you (at least not in the way that Kennedy suggests), and the FDA recall notices all mention that. It’s not going to make you grow an extra ear. The concern around eating the recalled shrimp is purely long-term, involving repeated low-dose exposure, which can contribute to cancer.
Kennedy represents Louisiana, which is America’s largest shrimp producer. So it makes sense that he would highlight the issue. But he clearly has an incentive to make foreign shrimp sound scary.
Kennedy’s video clip on X didn’t include almost two minutes of his remarks. The senator would go on to say that he wasn’t picking on Indonesia, but then made another claim that seemed to suggest shrimp producers overseas were intentionally making the shrimp radioactive.
“This shrimp, and I’m not just picking on Indonesia, it’s other countries,” Kennedy said. “This shrimp is grown in conditions that you can’t possibly imagine. Dirty water. They shoot the shrimp full of antibiotics. I confess, I didn’t know they were shooting them full of this radioactive isotope.”
There’s no evidence that any shrimp producers are “shooting them full” of radiation. The most likely explanation is accidental contamination from some kind of industrial equipment. The average person would likely be surprised at how radioactive material is used in consumer products like smoke detectors. But we don’t know how the shrimp may have been potentially contaminated at this point. There’s just no logical reason to intentionally do it.
“Now, I’m biased,” Kennedy conceded in a portion of the remarks that he didn’t tweet.
“I believe in homegrown Louisiana shrimp. Fresh, out of the Gulf, not radioactive. But I understand that some stores prefer to buy foreign shrimp because it’s cheaper. Now we know why. The damn stuff’s radioactive,” Kennedy continued.
“And NOAA needs to do a better job of inspecting the shrimp that is sold from other countries who don’t abide by the same standards we do to the consumers in the United States and America.”
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