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Dear Senators and
Representatives:

I trust you agree that the children of the United States deserve equal protection. So why are children in the US allowed to eat 12 times more man-made radioactive cesium in their food than children in Japan?

I urge you, in view of Fukushima’s ongoing triple-meltdown radiation catastrophe, to demand that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) be required to lower the recommended amount of radioactive cesium now permitted in the US food supply to 5 Becquerels per kilogram (5 Bq/kg). Japan restricts cesium contamination to 100 Bq/kg, while the US allows up to 1,200 Bq/kg of cancer-causing cesium in food.

I also urge that you call for widespread testing of the US food supply immediately. It is our right to know how contaminated our food is and our choice whether or not we eat it.

Japan’s nuclear industry and government have lost control (once again) of its ruined reactor complex at Fukushima, a site that continues to leak 300 to 400 tons of radioactively contaminated waste into the Pacific Ocean every day. This contamination is adding to the existing toxic releases from atomic bomb tests and nuclear reactors over the past seven decades.

The American Medical Association has called for the testing of all US seafood. Canada is going to start testing its salmon in light of an historic drop in salmon population. South Korea has been testing imports from Japan, returning food with small amounts of cesium contamination. Blue fin and Albacore tuna caught off of the California and Oregon coasts have been contaminated with Fukushima cesium. Radioactive jam from Bulgaria labeled “organic” and discovered in Japan has since been recalled there. This same brand of preserves is now being sold on US grocery store shelves. How are we supposed to protect human health against internal contamination by poisoned food if we don’t know how contaminated it is?

As an elected official, I urge you to support, co-sponsor and see to the passage of legislation requiring such food testing immediately. At 1,200 Bq/kg of cesium, the FDA recommends a limit twelve times less protective than that of Japan. The Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network filed a formal Citizen Petition with the FDA one year ago urging it to significantly lower the currently allowed levels for radioactive contamination in food and to establish a national database of findings. Yet the FDA has not responded in a timely way. Even with the continuing releases of radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific from Fukushima — 300 to 400 tons every day — and despite food testing by other countries, the FDA has stated to the press that it still sees no danger from reactor-borne radioactive materials in food — even though fetuses, infants and children are far more vulnerable to a given radiation exposure than are adults.

The FDA’s March 2014 website update states that it still sees no reason to test seafood because the levels of cesium contamination are “within range.” However, that range is 12 times what Japan allows its citizens to consume in food. Indeed, the fact is that there is no level of radioactive cesium poisoning in food that can be called safe or harmless.

US food testing is urgently needed, particularly seafood imports from the Pacific. I urge you to take a stand and encourage your fellow Congress members to do the same.

Please inform me of the action you will take in this regard.

Yours sincerely,

— John LaForge is a co-director of Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog and environmental group in Wisconsin.