Supporters,

Yes, you read that correctly. For the first time ever, a picture of a shrimp is featured on the new inverted food pyramid (and ironically, a freakishly out of proportioned one at that), with continued advice for pregnant women to eat up to 12 ounces of it per week.  And this is in the midst of ongoing radioactive shrimp recalls that began nearly 6 months ago. Something is beyond fishy here. See FFAN's recent press statement below: 

Source:  Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network https://nislappdc.org/fukushima-fallout/

PRESS STATEMENT

For immediate release 

Contacts:  Kimberly Roberson, Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network, ffan0311@gmail.com,     

                         Stephen Kent, KentCom LLC, skent@kentcom.com 

By Boosting Shrimp, FDA Food Pyramid Soft Pedals Radioactive Contamination, Says Health Advocate [Washington, DC-- January 20, 2026] Historic FDA recalls of shrimp found to be contaminated with radioactive Cesium-137 began in August 2025 and continue today.  On December 23, 2025, USAToday reported that FDA issued an expanded warning about shrimp potentially contaminated with Cesium-137 being sold at major retailers, leading to recalls in 17 states just before Christmas. On January 16, 2026, ABCNews reported that a new Homeland Security bulletin said this radioactive contamination was “very likely” to continue for the foreseeable future and spread beyond Indonesian imports already intercepted.

On January 7, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins released new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030 featuring a new, inverted food pyramid emphasizing protein sources, which for the first time included an image of shrimp, which was very large and noticeably out of proportion with other foods. The guidelines continue to recommend that pregnant women eat between 8 - 12 ounces of shrimp per week.  

In social media posts and a Fox News appearance last week, Secretary Kennedy Jr. said that "mercantile interests of the food industry" had driven prior versions of these federal dietary guidelines, and claimed the new version corrected this. 

But amid falling shrimp sales nationwide, the National Fisheries Institute was quick to endorse the new guidelines’ focus on seafood “including salmon, shrimp, and canned tuna.”  In an August cabinet meeting, when Secretary Kennedy announced increased FDA inspections of imported shrimp, he boosted US-produced shrimp, saying his purpose was “to make sure that Americans are not buying and eating contaminated shrimp and putting our shrimpers out of business.”

Commenting on these developments, Kimberly Roberson, director of the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN), published a column in The Hill on January 18 and issued the following press statement today:

“For the first time, radioactive contamination is now part of FDA’s food pyramid.

“This is not accidental. There’s no way the timing of FDA’s new, unprecedented focus on shrimp, while multiple recalls are playing out and affecting shrimp sales, is coincidental.

“Secretary Kennedy and FDA officials, including Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Kyle Diamantas, know full well that shrimp is a vector of radioactive contamination and the target of massive recalls. For one thing, numerous cases of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol testing shrimp shipments and finding they were contaminated with the lethal isotope Cesium-137 made headline news in media outlets ranging from the Associated Press to Martha Stewart Living.

“For another, we and other health advocacy groups warned HHS and FDA repeatedly about these public health risks. After Fukushima, a 2013 FDA Citizen Petition demanded tighter regulation and lower allowable radioactivity limits in food, including Pacific seafood. FFAN collected 1600 comments and many thousands of companion signatures on it.

“That was 13 years ago, and FDA has yet to recommend or even address more protective standards for radioactivity in food.  It has also declined to put warning labels on potentially contaminated seafoods, which means consumers are in the dark and can’t make informed decisions.  

“In 2025, we wrote to Secretary Kennedy, FDA officials and other relevant agencies – twice -- asking them ‘to finally address the impact of radiation contamination of U.S. food on the trajectory of cancer and chronic illness by setting and enforcing much safer levels for Americans’ and urging the Make America Healthy Again Commission to include radioactive contamination of food among the possible root causes to be investigated.  

“But the Commission entirely ignored radioactivity in its 2025 report.  FDA chose to downplay the issues we raised in our petition, letters, and press releases, with its website and other materials claiming ‘Cs-137 is readily excreted and does not accumulate in seafood.’ 

“But according to a report by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), the international body that advises governments on managing radiation risks, when we ingest it, even in the tiniest amounts, Cesium-137 does accumulate in our bodies, where it causes health damage.

“The ICRP also stated in that same report, ‘There may be situations where a sustainable agricultural economy is not possible without placing contaminated food on the market. As such foods will be subject to market forces, this will necessitate an effective communication strategy to overcome the negative reactions from consumers outside the contaminated areas.’

“That’s what including shrimp in the new, upside-down FDA food pyramid amounts to: a ‘communications strategy’ designed to overcome negative reactions from consumers and get them to accept radioactive contamination of food – in this case shrimp --as normal. What’s next?

“Although it will not make America healthy again, soft-pedaling radioactive contamination may invigorate the bottom lines of mercantile interests in the seafood industry, as well as the nuclear industry, which recent Executive Orders rolling back radiation exposure standards and related regulations are designed to benefit.  

“It’s especially egregious and disingenuous that FDA dietary guidelines continue to recommend pregnant women consume up to 12 ounces of shrimp weekly while recalls of radioactive shrimp are ongoing.  As Secretary Kennedy, FDA, and other federal agency officials must know because health advocacy groups pointed it out by writing directly to them, research clearly proves that pregnant women, fetuses, and children are much more sensitive and vulnerable to radiation exposure than the general population.  

“The European Commission has faced up to the issue of radioactive contamination. For example, it  supported the ‘Chernobyl Ecology and Health Project’ which tracked people who consumed food contaminated with Cesium-137 and concluded it accumulates in organs and has genetic mutational effects. 

“If Europe can face up to this, why can’t we? Americans need and deserve stronger, protective, science-based standards for radioactive contamination in food to make Americans healthy, not a PR campaign designed to blunt well-founded public fears about radioactivity in our food.”

#####

Call 1-888-SAFEFOOD on Monday, mark your calendar so you don't forget, and let them know what you think. You can leave a message for the Deputy Commissioner of Human Foods, Kyle Diamantes.  Thank you.