A U.S. senator from Louisiana has a dire warning for people who eat “radioactive,” imported shrimp: You could end up looking like the alien from the movie “Alien.”
Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, spent more than five minutes on the Senate floor Wednesday discussing radioactive shrimp and aliens, with a blown-up photo of the alien from the 1979 movie “Alien” behind him as a reference.
‘Will cause you to grow an extra ear’
What they’re saying:
Kennedy used the “Alien” movie prop as a way to address the federal government’s failure to inspect imported shrimp, “which don’t abide by the same rules that we abide by in America.”
“Mr. President, this is a photograph of the alien from the movie ‘Alien.’ This is what you could end up looking like if you eat some of the raw frozen shrimp being sent to the U.S. by other countries. Now, let me tell you what I am talking about.
“If you eat it, how could you end up looking like the alien in ‘Alien’? Because the shrimp was radioactive. I kid you not. It had a radioactive isotope in it called cesium-137. It will kill you. Even if it doesn’t turn you into the alien if you eat this stuff, I guarantee you will grow an extra ear.”
Radioactive shrimp
Big picture view:
Kennedy said in late August, the Food and Drug Administration found that frozen shrimp from Indonesia was contaminated with the radioactive isotope, and was being sold at Walmart stores in 13 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia.
The FDA issued a recall on the Great Value frozen shrimp, but Kennedy said a few days later, “it happened again.”
This time, Kennedy said, the FDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found 26,460 packages of shrimp cocktail and 18,000 bags of frozen cooked shrimp being sold at Walmart and at Kroger stores nationwide. They contained the same radioactive isotope.
Recalled radioactive shrimp (FDA via FOX Business)
“How could this happen in America? This is unconscionable,” Kennedy said in his speech.
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“I will tell you how, because that shrimp—that shrimp from other countries, which don’t abide by the same rules that we abide by in America, which, if you eat it, may turn you into the alien or, at a minimum, will cause you to grow an extra ear—is not being inspected.”
Kennedy said imported shrimp are supposed to be inspected by NOAA, which is part of the Department of Commerce, but only about 1% of imported shrimp is inspected before it hits the market, “on a good day, 2%.”
“The United Kingdom inspects 50 percent of the farmed seafood coming into its nation,” Kennedy said. “Even China does a better job than the United States of America. This is unconscionable. There is no excuse for it.
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“This shrimp—and I am not just picking on Indonesia; it is other countries,” Kennedy continued. “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. But the normal antibiotics that they put in these foreign shrimp are bad enough that if you eat enough of the foreign shrimp, you become resistant to certain bacteria here in America because the antibiotics don’t work on it anymore because you have eaten so many shrimp that contain the antibiotics.”
Why Kennedy went nuclear on radioactive shrimp
Dig deeper:
Kennedy’s alien-infused shrimp diatribe may seem random, but it’s part of a larger push to better regulate foreign shrimp that threatens Louisiana’s once-booming shrimping industry.
According to PBS, 25% of all shrimp consumed in the U.S. comes from Louisiana. In recent years, importers have brought in more foreign shrimp to the U.S. than the amount that’s consumed each year, essentially driving down the price for Louisiana shrimp.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy (Sen. John Kennedy’s office)
The problem became so pervasive, restaurants and retailers weren’t always aware they were serving imported shrimp instead of Louisiana shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico.
“Now, I am biased. I believe in homegrown Louisiana shrimp, fresh out of the Gulf, not radioactive,” Kennedy said. “But I understand that some stores prefer to buy foreign shrimp because it is cheaper. Now we know why: The damn stuff is radioactive.
“NOAA needs to do a better job of inspecting the shrimp that is sold from other countries that don’t abide by the same standards we do to the consumers of the United States of America.”
The Source: This report includes information from U.S. Sen. John Kennedy and PBS.
