Are the fish and other seafood safe to eat?
To date, there is minimal to no risk of seafood contamination.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) routinely measures radiation levels in commercial foods to assure a safe food supply. The FDA is the primary agency conducting routine testing and monitoring of food imported from Japan and other countries before and after the Fukushima nuclear accident. As of March 2014, FDA had tested 1,345 food products imported from Japan, 225 of which contained seafood from Japanese waters; none of the imported products contained radioactive material concentrations that would pose a health risk to humans if consumed.
Per the request of the Alaska Departments of Environmental Conservation and Health and Social Services, FDA has agreed to conduct testing for radiation in several fish species that will be collected from Alaska waters this spring and summer.
Testing of seafood for Fukushima-derived radiation by academic institutions, research organizations, some Pacific states, and Canada supports the safety of Pacific seafood. For example, a study by Fisher et al. (2013) found insignificant cancer risk associated with Fukushima-derived radioactive material for someone who would consume a lot of Pacific bluefin tuna caught in California coastal waters (these tuna likely foraged very close to the Japanese coast, according to the study authors).
