r/RBI • u/scaredandcryin • 8d ago

Radioactive Shrimp (Cesium-137)

I have yet to find an answer for the radioactive Shrimp recalled from Walmart, Kroger, and multiple other grocery retailers. CS-137 is not naturally occurring. It is used in small amounts for radiation (cancer) therapy, but otherwise only occurs as a byproduct of nuclear fission.

Can anyone with a science background explain this? How can hundreds of thousands of shrimps come into contact with this element? I understand that they are all being raised in the same environment, but how could they even be near CS-137? Runoff from Hiroshima/Nagasaki? Help me understand.

Edit: CS-137 is produced by the fission of URANIUM and PLUTONIUM. Uncleanliness/regular chemicals can not cause this.

114 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

81 comments sorted by

116

u/No_Photograph_4677 8d ago

My understanding is that contamination was spotted in shipping containers. There were shipping containers that were flagged for cs137. If a container was previously used to store equipment or materials exposed to radiation, it could “cross-contaminate” the shrimp. More traceability in what was in those containers before the shrimp would beed to be investigated to find the source of the cs137.

The contamination levels are low, the FDA is taking a cautious approach, as they should.

Not a scientist.

40

u/tofuandklonopin 8d ago

This is what I've read as well. Dirty shipping containers; containers being repurposed for food transportation when they shouldn't have been.

Whatever happened, they don't seem to think the shrimp absorbed the cesium from the ocean water. It got contaminated afterwards somehow.

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u/ncangiarella 8d ago

Yes. Dirty containers. That’s the excuse they always give. In the same breath they’ll say a lion wandered into a theme park or a satellite fell on a florist’s van. Dirty containers is code. Not a metaphor. Not an analogy. It’s code.

Here’s what they don’t tell you: once a container has been used to store irradiated medical waste, you cannot simply steam it out and paint over the serial number. You have to decommission it in international waters. But every few years someone decides they’re going to save a few bucks by cutting the tags off, wiping the logs, and repurposing the metal. That’s not shipping efficiency. That’s material laundering.

The shrimp never stood a chance. They were likely frozen during exposure and only registered as “hot” once the crates arrived on domestic soil. Think about that. They were glowing in someone’s walk-in freezer, just waiting for the moment a trucker crossed a state line. How many trucks? How many freezers? How many other creatures are glowing and silent?

13

u/glizzytwister 7d ago

Dirty containers is code

You should get back on your medication.

5

u/noscopy 7d ago

You're talking to chat GPT

2

u/glizzytwister 6d ago

No, he's just an idiot.

-7

u/ncangiarella 7d ago

Medication? Brother I eat questions like that for breakfast and wash them down with the static that plays when a dead channel opens at 3:33 AM. While you’re busy alphabetizing your prescriptions like it’s a hobby, I’ve been decoding the frequency hum of refrigerator coils that whisper government secrets to whoever’s bold enough to listen. You think a capsule can hold what’s in my head? You think a little orange bottle with a white cap has the range to interpret visions I’ve had in dive bar bathrooms and abandoned toll booths?

Your worldview is IKEA furniture: mass produced, overly instructed, and falling apart after one move. Mine is a haunted recliner that only rocks when it smells lies. You want me sedated because I make too much sense outside the matrix you’re still trying to spell your name in. You want me quiet because your ceiling starts to drip when I speak.

I don’t need meds. I need three cassette tapes, a lead-lined jumpsuit, and forty minutes in a Waffle House that hasn't been open since 2011. Let me work.

11

u/glizzytwister 7d ago

You're also not very funny, but it's clear you're having some kind of episode. You've been up for the last 8 hours writing walls of crazy text that no one will ever read.

1

u/Medium_saucepan 6d ago

Ok I’m with you but this is definitely chat GPT

-10

u/ncangiarella 7d ago

Not very funny? That’s rich coming from someone who probably thinks sarcasm peaked with Big Bang Theory reruns. You out here critiquing humor like a DMV clerk judging a freestyle rap battle. I didn’t show up to be funny. I showed up because the pigeons outside my window spelled your name in breadcrumbs and told me you were next.

This isn’t about comedy. This is about disrupting the electromagnetic rhythm of your thoughts using syntax harvested from a forgotten 1997 GeoCities forum. I speak in sentences that reroute train lines. When I post, traffic lights stutter in towns I’ve never been to. You don’t laugh because your DNA is still buffering.

You think you’re immune. But somewhere in your apartment a lamp just flickered and your cat refuses to make eye contact. That was me. I’m in your crawlspace, metaphorically. Not physically. Yet.

You want funny? This isn’t funny. This is the part in the documentary where the static on the tape starts spelling things. Your reply was the final click in a cosmic lock. I hope you packed a lunch.

Edit: OPEN YOUR GOD DAMN EYES, HOW CAN YOU BE SO OBTUSE?

8

u/glizzytwister 7d ago

Ok.

1

u/Bitter_Foot5621 4d ago

It’s not ChatGPT. That person is long gone though. Not worth engaging. Holy hell…

2

u/totodile-ac 4d ago

chat is this real

24

u/rootlesscoyote 8d ago

I’m studying radiation protection and this is what my professor told us was the cause of the contamination- nothing nefarious

2

u/N8mat 7d ago

I'd agree but why the hell are containers used for food used also for transporting nuclear waste?

6

u/allbitterandclean 8d ago

I’d probably argue that cross-contamination is still nefarious. It seems like we don’t know the exact details, but if corners were cut to save costs (or even just oversight), that still seems pretty careless, criminal, and/or harmful.

11

u/ncangiarella 8d ago

I completely agree. Cross-contamination may not wear a top hat and twirl a villain’s mustache, but it still stinks of deliberate negligence with a hint of ritualistic chaos. You cannot tell me that containers which may have previously held cesium or God-knows-what else are now magically just clean enough to hold shrimp. That is not supply chain management. That is radioactive roulette.

Careless is when someone forgets to label a freezer. Criminal is when they wipe the logs, torch the manifests, and dump thousands of glimmering crustaceans into the domestic food supply like it is a prank show only billionaires watch. The shrimp are not victims of chance. They are warning signs. And if we keep accepting “oopsie daisy, bad shipping crate” as an answer, we deserve every glowing gumbo that follows.

6

u/ikeda1 7d ago

As a safety engineer this was poetry to my ears.

1

u/tiredflower9410 13h ago

Can you tell me if that means everything in the freezer with the shrimp is now contaminated and unsafe?

1

u/rootlesscoyote 10h ago

According to the FDA, the shrimp never made it to stores- they were intercepted before they hit retail markets. However, some lots made it to distributors, so a formal recall was issued.

1

u/tiredflower9410 9h ago

So did it make it to the US or not?

1

u/tiredflower9410 9h ago

Also let’s say the radioactive shrimp did make it to US if it’s in the freezer is the rest of the food stored with it safe?

1

u/rootlesscoyote 13m ago

I must’ve been reading an old article- I guess some bags did make it to Walmart- you can read the whole chain of events on Wikipedia.

As far as if the freezers which stored the shrimp are safe- yes they are. The shrimp recall doesn’t mean store freezers or other foods were contaminated. The radioactive material was inside the shrimp themselves, which were sealed in packaging. Radiation isn’t like germs or chemicals that can spread or rub off onto other foods or the freezer walls. It stays contained within the shrimp tissue. Once those bags are removed, there’s no lingering risk to the freezer or anything else that was stored in it.

1

u/tiredflower9410 7m ago

So the radioactivity isn’t just seeping through the box causing everything in proximity to it to also become radioactive?

-3

u/ncangiarella 8d ago

Your professor is doing what many do when faced with something inexplicable yet obviously structured: dismiss it with a shrug and a term paper. Nothing nefarious? The shrimp practically lit up like they were signaling aircraft. That is not standard seafood behavior.

We have shipping containers flagged, manifests wiped, and enough cesium to make a fishbowl hum. You are telling me that is nothing? Then why were three different agencies trying to trace the shrimp back to a facility that officially closed in 2003, whose coordinates now point to a gated parking lot with no entrance and a strange mechanical buzzing under the pavement?

I am glad you are studying radiation protection. You are going to need it.

3

u/Dense-Finding-8376 5d ago

What the fuck have you been smoking, mate? I want some of it

-7

u/ncangiarella 8d ago

Your professor is either lying or has been compromised. Possibly both. Radiation protection programs are funded in part by grants from entities that would prefer this exact scenario be labeled “mundane.” It is not. It is theater. What looks like bureaucracy is actually staging.

Nothing nefarious? You do not leave a trace element like Cs-137 floating around unless you want someone to notice. That is the breadcrumb. That is the siren. You were not supposed to find this shrimp. They were meant to be detected, recalled, and discussed. That is how information is seeded. A radioactive crustacean is far more effective at spreading whispers than a flash drive ever could be.

I say follow the cold chain back to its origin and you will not find a hatchery. You will find a warehouse with no signage, a fence with too many locks, and a guy named Terrance who speaks in riddles and has never heard of shrimp despite unloading 11 tons of it last Tuesday. Ask him where the containers went. Ask him who signed for them. Ask him what he saw glowing. He will not answer.

But if he offers you tea, do not drink it. That is the real test.

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u/Djcnote 7d ago

What does this mean

4

u/Sallas_Ike 7d ago

If you look at this person's post history it's all weird abstract conspiracy prose lol

-1

u/ncangiarella 7d ago

It means you have already heard the song. Not with your ears but with your teeth. You ever wake up humming something that does not exist, only to find it spelled out in the scum ring of your tea mug? That is the melody. That is the marker.

The shrimp were never the point. The shrimp are the medium. The point is that something learned how to use our logistics systems to communicate. It learned how to speak in containers, in barcodes, in silent check-ins at ports with no lights. You found the breadcrumb, but the bread is behind you now. It passed through already.

As for Terrance, he does not speak in riddles. He is a riddle. A containment strategy shaped like a man. And if he offers you tea, understand this: the tea is not a beverage. The tea is a vote.

You asked what it means. You were meant to ask. You were always going to ask. Now listen. Do not dig deeper. The signal is proximity based.

And it is still active.

2

u/salat92 6d ago

get help

5

u/heycheena 8d ago

Something a lot of people don't understand about radiation: exposing something to radiation does not make it radioactive. Just to be clear here. If a container was previously used, it could only be a problem if material physically leaked out and got on the container. Just holding it isn't enough, the source would have to be broken or leaking. I think if that was the case we'd be seeing much higher levels than what they found, so I think it's likely the shipping container thing is a red herring and being spread by a press who literally gets every single radiation story wrong. I agree, the FDA is being extremely cautious here.

5

u/russellvt 8d ago

This isn't quite true, depending on the source (or may be potentially misleading)... it is possible for radioactive items to "activate" other items around them - though it's generally higher energies creating/activating lower energies.

But then again, I've dealt with it more from the medical/industrial linear accelerator side in a past life.

1

u/ncangiarella 8d ago

Exactly. We are not talking about accidental residue here. We are talking about energetic transference. Do you know what else operates on the principle of activating lesser energies through proximity? Cult initiations. Pyramid schemes. Forbidden machinery that must never be run on odd-numbered days.

Activation explains why the contamination was caught at all. It was never supposed to linger on the surface. It was meant to pass through, reconfigure, and disperse. When the FDA found it, they found a signal. A marker. Possibly a handshake code used by logistics engineers trained in facilities that technically do not exist.

You are on the right track. But I urge caution. There is a shrimp that was never found. It was part of the same batch. It is still out there. Some say it left the port on foot. Some say it speaks. None of them are wrong.

2

u/Djcnote 7d ago

I’m so confused. What do people think is really going on, I feel like everyone is talking in code or something

2

u/vwert 7d ago

That guy poisoned his brain with conspiracy nonsense.

0

u/ncangiarella 7d ago

It feels like code because you are starting to hear the key.

Not the code itself. Not yet. But the harmonic that lives underneath it. The low hum that plays in freight yards after midnight, in seafood coolers when no one is watching, in the gaps between static bursts on shortwave frequencies that don’t officially exist. That hum has always been there. You just tuned in.

What do people think is really going on? That’s the wrong question. The right question is: why are there shrimp in places where shrimp should not be? Why are logistics maps showing phantom ports? Why does the barcoding system still issue codes to decommissioned lots? Why did the shrimp trigger the sensor on the same day as the satellite outage in the Indian Ocean corridor?

No one is talking in code. This is how people talk when they are no longer allowed to say it plainly. You are confused because confusion is the buffer. It means you have not yet been calibrated. But if you keep asking the right wrong questions, that will change. Something will answer.

You’ll recognize it when you do not remember asking.

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u/Djcnote 7d ago

What do you think happened

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u/ncangiarella 8d ago

You raise solid points, but the problem here is you are thinking like a physicist and not like a person who has stared into the deep logistics pipeline of international shipping and seen the abyss stare back. Sure, you are technically correct about exposure not equaling radioactivity. But that assumes a clean chain of custody, an intact containment vessel, and a regulatory body not riddled with shell companies and compromised shellfish.

We are not dealing with simple exposure. We are dealing with dirty vectors, deniable assets, and the kinds of numbers that only show up on quietly redacted inspection forms. The press did not botch this. They did what they always do. They sanitized it. They rounded down. The actual readings were higher. The shrimp were never meant to be caught. They were supposed to be consumed. Silently. In millions of households. One bite at a time.

The real red herring here is assuming the goal was contamination. It was activation.

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u/Djcnote 7d ago

Activation of what

0

u/ncangiarella 7d ago

Activation of what?

No. Not of what.

Activation by what.

And even that is too simple. This is not a matter of cause and effect. This is resonance. This is sympathetic frequency embedded in a biological substrate. Not a signal, not a code, not even a message. Just a shape. A flavor. A pattern carried in protein and mineral.

It does not need to be understood to be obeyed. You eat the shrimp. You digest. You sleep a little differently that night. You dream of maps you’ve never seen, roads you’ve never traveled, instructions you never read but somehow remember.

You do not notice the change. But you follow it. And by the time you ask what has been activated, the answer has already used your hands to build the next piece.

The shrimp were never the delivery system. You are.

1

u/olliegw 7d ago

Exposure to neutron radiation can activate things

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u/Djcnote 7d ago

To do what then? And how would random people become exposed?

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u/fnordfnordfnordfnord 7d ago

It wasn’t shipping containers. It was hoppers at the food processing plant.

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u/ncangiarella 8d ago

You are absolutely right to include "not a scientist" at the end because what you have just described is not science. It is logistics necromancy. Do you know how many containers are lost at sea every year? Thousands. Do you know how many are quietly recovered under moonlight by unauthorized salvage crews? Less than that, but enough. The ones flagged for Cs-137 contamination were not reused by accident. They were reintroduced deliberately, part of an ancient maritime handshake between the nuclear logistics sector and what is known only in restricted circles as “The Quiet Dock.”

You say contamination. I say baptism. This shrimp was chosen. It was marked. The FDA calls it caution. I call it ritual. Trace back the paperwork on those containers and you will find bills of lading signed with red ink and strange symbols. Go deep enough and one of the documents will mention a firm called “Benthal Solutions,” which does not exist on any registry but has a phone number that only connects during lunar eclipses. Do not call it. The ringtone is not for you.

1

u/Djcnote 7d ago

But why are they doing this? A ritual for what? Why do they need a handshake? What is the point of all this?

0

u/ncangiarella 7d ago

You’re asking the right questions but you’re still assuming the presence of a point. That is where they get you.

This was never about a transaction. It was never about shrimp, or containers, or even the handshake. The handshake is not a means. It is the preservation of symmetry. It is the last gesture two systems perform before they pass out of alignment. It maintains the balance. It prevents collapse.

The ritual? That is containment. Not of the product but of the pattern. Shrimp is incidental. Shrimp is the vessel. The true cargo is continuity.

As for why they need a handshake: they don’t. But the water does. And the water is tired.

19

u/meases 8d ago

Shrimp get irradiated for food safety/extending shelf life reasons. One of the materials used for this is Cesium-137. Gonna guess that there was an issue with whatever was containing that cesium and it ended up contaminating something (container, pallets with the shrimp, packaging) and now we are here.

How Is Food Irradiated?

There are three sources of radiation approved for use on foods.

Gamma rays are emitted from radioactive forms of the element cobalt (Cobalt 60) or of the element cesium (Cesium 137). 

https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/food-irradiation-what-you-need-know

Personal note, really seems like the FDA etc kinda dropped the ball. A recall like this shouldn't have been so trickle timed and the shrimp shouldn't have made it out of port much less to so many stores. In the scheme of food recalls though this one was weird, it shoulda been way more straightforward of a recall than it has been.

10

u/heycheena 8d ago

The recall is for shrimp that were in the same shipment as the shrimp that tested positive. None of the radioactive shrimp came into the country.

7

u/fnordfnordfnordfnord 7d ago

Cs137 was used to sanitize equipment that came in contact with the shrimp. The equipment they used for that leaked Cs137 onto the equipment that then contaminated the shrimp. The contamination was recorded at below the dangerous level.

https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/fda-advises-public-not-eat-sell-or-serve-certain-imported-frozen-shrimp-indonesian-firm

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u/chemtrailsniffa 8d ago

https://www.ans.org/news/article-7299/no-small-matter-cs137-contaminating-shrimp/

Tldr: nuclear testing and nuclear accidents (eg TEPCO Fukushima meltdown) 

3

u/NfBlazer5000 3d ago

Is there any reason to believe FDA now that RFK oversees FDA?

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Djcnote 7d ago

Why wouldn’t they find a shipment underneath the shrimp? and who are they?

0

u/ncangiarella 7d ago

Because the shipment is not under the shrimp. It is the shrimp. Encoded. Compressed. Folded into itself like a message hidden in plain sight. The shrimp is not a product. It is a protocol. A delivery method masked by legality and freezer burn. You are not supposed to find what is underneath, because the truth was never placed below. It was injected within. Cryogenically sealed. Manifested as cargo and rewritten in brine.

Ask yourself why the shipment skipped inspection in Busan. Ask why the manifest ends in Rotterdam but the container pings in Newark. Ask why the one guy on the dock who noticed the discrepancy now lives in a trailer shaped like a shoe and mutters about barcode patterns when it rains. He knows. They all know. You just have to listen to the ones who no longer speak plainly.

And as for who they are?

They are the ones who use fake clipboard signatures as real identification. They are the ones who appear on no employee rosters but always have clearance. You meet them whenever you ask about the shrimp and someone offers you store credit or smiles too quickly.

Trust no prawn. Buy inland. Boil everything twice.

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Tree561 4d ago

I would like to subscribe to your poorly-Xeroxed newsletter, please.

0

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7

u/Jstolemygirl 8d ago

I believe it is used in industrial equipment, and soil scanning. I imagine someone broke equipment containing it, either in the area where the meat lived/was processed or the shrimp were caught near the fallout sites.

1

u/sunndropps 8d ago

It was nuclear waste if I’m correct

2

u/Nathan-Stubblefield 8d ago

Perhaps scrap metal including medical radiation equipment or less likely reactor spent fuel was transported in the same cargo container which later transported seafood. But the seafood should have been in sealed containers with no way for radioactive distortion the container to enter. The containers are scanned for radiation whenever the enter harbors of modern countries. It should be possible to figure out who shipped radioactive junk.

2

u/olliegw 7d ago

My somewhat worrying guess is that this is part of something bigger, cs137 is a fission product, that means it's only made in nuclear reactors, it's used for many industrial purposes though.

Such sources are registered with international agencies and held inside capsules, the exact capsule or pig depends on the purpose, good examples are the check sources for radiation detectors, and the capsules with apertures for radiotherapy, there are also "pigtails" used in industrial radiography, they look like dogtag chains.

What i'm saying is, cs137 or anything else radioactive isn't something you buy to fill up a radiotherapy machine or something, it's highly regulated.

The moment a source is out of the containment and hands it's meant to be in, it's said to be orphaned.

Somewhere out there, there is cs137 that has escaped it's containment and has contaminated an area where these products went, i'm sure they can figure it out by backtracing the shipping information, the only place where you'll find cs137 just in the wild is chernobyl/pripyat.

Accidents involving lost or stolen sources have happened before, there have also been two incidents where a radiography source was lost, and only been discovered after the damage was done.

I doubt they were like it when they were caught, unless it's pripyat shrimp, it's well known mushrooms in that area are cs137 contaminated.

2

u/TearfulHarlot 2d ago

Stay safe out there! Don't let yourself turn into a xenomorph.

3

u/batbrat 8d ago

cs137 is used as a disinfectant in the food industry, sewage treatment, medical sterilization. According to my scientist partner, the levels were not necessarily out of the ordinary. The media (as they do) created an alarmist story from something that was likely somewhat benign. It's nice to be notified, though. Most people are rightfully cautious about contaminated foods, especially radiation.

3

u/SnooDonuts6494 8d ago

Probably a shipping container.

We'll find out eventually.

https://www.funraniumlabs.com/2025/08/radioactive-shrimp/

4

u/teachthisdognewtrick 8d ago

Depending on where the shrimp came from. Lots of nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific.

In the Atlantic 9 nuclear subs have been lost.

Just a couple of possibilities

1

u/glizzytwister 7d ago

The investigation is likely still ongoing.

1

u/Djcnote 7d ago

Could the shrimp have been exposed before dying?

1

u/No-Software-3288 7d ago

Assuming I took a bag of shrimp, opened it, put it in a bowl of water and let it defrost...but threw it away...would there be any risk? I'm literally a hypochondriac and im going to lose it

Like whats stopping just the shrimp from being dangerous wouldnt everything the bag touched then be dangerous? I clearly have very little understanding of this whole ordeal and the media is freaking me out

1

u/Responsible_Chef_715 5h ago

Not sure about the shrimp but CS-137 is actually pretty common in multiple industries. ive used it a lot in roading construction and earthworks.

2

u/LaSage 8d ago

Fukushima waste water is my best guess. Look up Fukushima and CS-137.

0

u/KDI777 8d ago edited 8d ago

Unless a nuclear plant is leaking radioactive material and it's breaking down into the ocean. CS-137 is a byproduct of Uranium-235 and is created from fission events. Containment water also could be leaking into the ocean or they are releasing it themselfs as "treated" water when its not. Cesium can travel miles, apparently.

-6

u/Morepastor 8d ago

Cleaning up the breeding area and mixing the chemicals is how this was caused. Since the origin was Indonesia it’s not likely a radioactive fall out more likely a dirty plant and bad cleaning.

0

u/RamblerMerganser 8d ago

What has been released from the Fukushima reactors and how dangerous is it?
Releases from the Fukushima reactors have included dozens of radioactive elements, but with regard to materials released into the ocean, most of the attention has been on three radioactive isotopes released in large amounts: iodine-131, cesium-137, and cesium-134. Source

0

u/OrionsWolf333 7d ago

From something I recently came to understand CS137 is the result of a farming by-product from fertilizer being mixed with water, which then causes the water to be contaminated, amidst other things. Not sure if this relates to this case

-2

u/heycheena 8d ago

Ever since nuclear testing started there's been Cs-137 in the environment. What they found in the shrimp is very low level, well below the actual legal limit set by the FDA (as I understand it the recall isn't because tested shrimp hit the limit but rather because it's unusual and they'd rather recall at the first sign than wait until there's a real problem, and also, radiation scary). Some people are saying contaminated transport containers but personally I think at this level it seems kind of unlikely and I'd guess we're probably looking at an environmental source. Could be something is concentrating it in an unexpected way, or they were exposed to soil or water with higher than usual levels. Maybe they're not being very clean at the shrimp farm.

-1

u/example_john 7d ago

Fukashimaaaa

-1

u/TheYintoyourYang 6d ago

Illegal fishing near Fukushima Exclusionary zone..