Exclusive: Japan nuclear body says radioactive water at Fukushima an 'emergency'

Via reuters.com, 5 August 2013 - Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an "emergency" that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country's nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

A view of the destroyed roof of the No.3 reactor building of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen in Fukushima prefecture February 20, 2012.

This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters.

Countermeasures planned by Tokyo Electric Power Co are only a temporary solution, he said.

Tepco's "sense of crisis is weak," Kinjo said. "This is why you can't just leave it up to Tepco alone" to grapple with the ongoing disaster.

"Right now, we have an emergency," he said.

Tepco has been widely castigated for its failure to prepare for the massive 2011 tsunami and earthquake that devastated its Fukushima plant and lambasted for its inept response to the reactor meltdowns. It has also been accused of covering up shortcomings.

It was not immediately clear how much of a threat the contaminated groundwater could pose. In the early weeks of the disaster, the Japanese government allowed Tepco to dump tens of thousands of metric tons of contaminated water into the Pacific in an emergency move.

The toxic water release was however heavily criticized by neighboring countries as well as local fishermen and the utility has since promised it would not dump irradiated water without the consent of local townships.

"Until we know the exact density and volume of the water that's flowing out, I honestly can't speculate on the impact on the sea," said Mitsuo Uematsu from the Center for International Collaboration, Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute at the University of Tokyo.

"We also should check what the levels are like in the sea water. If it's only inside the port and it's not flowing out into the sea, it may not spread as widely as some fear."

NO OTHER OUTLET FOR WATER

Tepco said it is taking various measures to prevent contaminated water from leaking into the bay near the plant. In an e-mailed statement to Reuters, a company spokesman said Tepco deeply apologized to residents in Fukushima prefecture, the surrounding region and the larger public for causing inconveniences, worries and trouble.

The utility pumps out some 400 metric tons a day of groundwater flowing from the hills above the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the basements of the destroyed buildings, which mixes with highly irradiated water that is used to cool the reactors in a stable state below 100 degrees Celsius.

Tepco is trying to prevent groundwater from reaching the plant by building a "bypass" but recent spikes of radioactive elements in sea water has prompted the utility to reverse months of denials and finally admit that tainted water is reaching the sea.

In a bid to prevent more leaks into the bay of the Pacific Ocean, plant workers created the underground barrier by injecting chemicals to harden the ground along the shoreline of the No. 1 reactor building. But that barrier is only effective in solidifying the ground at least 1.8 meters below the surface.

By breaching the barrier, the water can seep through the shallow areas of earth into the nearby sea. More seriously, it is rising toward the surface - a break of which would accelerate the outflow.

"If you build a wall, of course the water is going to accumulate there. And there is no other way for the water to go but up or sideways and eventually lead to the ocean," said Masashi Goto, a retired Toshiba Corp nuclear engineer who worked on several Tepco plants. "So now, the question is how long do we have?"

Contaminated water could rise to the ground's surface within three weeks, the Asahi Shimbun said on Saturday. Kinjo said the three-week timeline was not based on NRA's calculations but acknowledged that if the water reaches the surface, "it would flow extremely fast."

A Tepco official said on Monday the company plans to start pumping out a further 100 metric tons of groundwater a day around the end of the week.

The regulatory task force overseeing accident measures of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, which met Friday, "concluded that new measures are needed to stop the water from flowing into the sea that way," Kinjo said.

Tepco said on Friday that a cumulative 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium had probably leaked into the sea since the disaster. The company said this was within legal limits.

Tritium is far less harmful than cesium and strontium, which have also been released from the plant. Tepco is scheduled to test strontium levels next.

The admission on the long-term tritium leaks, as well as renewed criticism from the regulator, show the precarious state of the $11 billion cleanup and Tepco's challenge to fix a fundamental problem: How to prevent water, tainted with radioactive elements like cesium, from flowing into the ocean.

Fukushima radiation leaks rise sharply, officials baffled

Via opednews.com, 11 July 2013 - Fukushima Situation Normal, in The SNAFU Sense of "Normal"

Bad as the situation is at Fukushima, it's gotten worse.

Perhaps you've heard that radiation levels of the water leaving the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power plane and flowing into the Pacific Ocean have risen by roughly 9,000 per cent. Turns out, that's probably putting a good face on it.

By official measurement, the water coming out of Fukushima is currently 90,000 times more radioactive than officially "safe" drinking water. 

These are the highest radiation levels measured at Fukusmima since March 2011, when an earthquake-triggered tsunami destroyed the plant's four nuclear reactors, three of which melted down.

As with all nuclear reporting, precise and reliable details are hard to come by, but the current picture as of July 10 seems to be something like this:

"   On July 5, radiation levels at Fukushima were what passes for "normal," which means elevated and dangerous, but stable, according to measurements by the owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

"   On July 8, radiation levels had jumped about 90 times higher, as typically reported.  TEPCO had no explanation for the increase.

"   On July 9, radiation levels were up again from the previous day, but at a slower rate, about 22 per cent.  TEPCO still had no explanation.

"   On July 10, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) issued a statement saying that the NRA strongly suspects the radioactive water is coming from Fukushima's Reactor #1 and is going into the Pacific.

We Must Do Something About This Thing With No Impact

"We must find the cause of the contamination . . . and put the highest priority on implementing countermeasures," NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka told an NRA meeting, according to Japan Times.

As for TEPCO, the paper reported, "The utility has claimed it has detected "no significant impact' on the environment."

"in the SNAFU sense of "Normal'"

Neither the NRA nor TEPCO has determined why the level of radioactivity has been increasing. Both characterize the increase as a "spike," but so far this is a "spike" that has not yet started to come down.

Here's another perspective on the same situation:

"   10 becquerels per liter -- The officially "safe" level for radioactivity in drinking water, as set by the NRA.

A becquerel is a standard scientific measure of radioactivity, similar in some ways to a rad or a rem or a roentgen or a sievert or a curie, but not equivalent to any of them.  But you don't have to understand the nuances of nuclear physics to get a reasonable idea of what's going on in Fukushima.  Just keep the measure of that safe drinking water in mind, that liter of water, less than a quart, with 10 becquerels of radioactivity.

"  60 becquerels per liter -- For nuclear power plants, the safety limit for drinking water is 60 becquerels, as set by the NRA, with less concern for nuclear plant workers than ordinary civilians.

"   60-90 becquerels per liter -- For waste water at nuclear power plants, the NRA sets a maximum standard of 90 becquerels per liter for Cesium-137 and 60 becquerels per liter of Cesium-134.

At some of Fukushima's monitoring wells, radiation levels were in fractions of a becquerel on July 8 and 9. At the well (or wells) that are proving problematical, TEPCO has provided no baseline readings.

"  9,000 becquerels per liter -- On July 8, according to TEPCO, the company measured radioactive Cesium-134 at 9,000 becquerels per liter.  Since TEPCO characterized this as 90 times higher than on July 5, the implication is that the earlier reading (about 100) was less than twice as toxic as the allowable limit and only 10 times more toxic than drinking water for civilians.

"   11,000 becquerels per liter -- TEPCO's measurement of Cesium-134 on July 9.   

"    18,000 becquerels per liter -- TEPCO measurement of  Cesium-137 on July 8.

"    22,000 becquerels per liter -- TEPCO's measurement of Cesium-137 on July 9.

"    900,000 becquerels per liter -- TEPCO's measurement of the total radioactivity in the water leaking from Reactor #1.  This radiation load includes both Cesium isotopes, as well as Tritium, Strontium and other beta emitters.  There are more that 60 radioactive substances that have been identified at the Fukushima site.

A becquerel is a measure of the radioactivity a substance is emitting, a measure of the potential danger. There is no real danger from radiation unless you get too close to it -- or it gets too close to you, especially from inhalation or ingestion.   

Nobody Knows If It Will Get Worse, Get Better, or Just Stay Bad

The water flow through the Fukushima accident site is substantial and constant, both from groundwater and from water pumped into the reactors and fuel pools to prevent further meltdowns.

In an effort to prevent the water from reaching the ocean, TEPCO is building what amounts to a huge, underground dike -- "a deeply sunken coastal containment wall."  The NRA is calling on TEPCO to finish the project before its scheduled 2015 completion date.

Meanwhile, radiation levels remain high and no one knows for sure how to bring them down, or even if they can be brought down by any means other than waiting however long it takes.

Report from Steadily Increasing Radiation in Hawaii

From http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.hk/2013/04/report-from-steadily-increasing.html

In response to a Hawaii based news blogger who puts full effort into his work, he asks an innocent question....are we in danger from Fukushima.

I answered with the following.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I have been measuring radiation regularly on Oahu since about 9 months after Fukushima when I got my first Geiger.   I ending up shipping that one to a Japanese family with young kids who really needed it.   Then I bought another.

Oahu has been steady at around 12000 clicks per 8 hour period.   That is 25 clicks per minute.

Amazing, in round numbers, Oahu in the last 3 weeks has been 14400 clicks per 8 hours, or 30 clicks per minute   

This is a stable 20% increase, probably due to radiation in the water finally making its way here.    this will be cesium and strontium, as well as uranium and plutonium ALL which are quite nasty.  

This is not an emergency level.
At 100 clicks per minute for 1 year, you stand a significant chance of increase in cancer, but keep in mind, cancer in not the only end result of radiation, all kinds of weakness and openings for disease.

At 500 clicks per minutes for 90 days, you stand a significant chance of increase in cancer. 

Fukushima continues to spews radiation into the air through steam releases from under ground coriums at water level (varies with tides).   Also TEPCO has large dug earthen pool with flimsy liners that were meant for final treatment water, but the final treatment system still has not been certified, so they have been putting highly concentrated strontium water in there.    The cesium was mostly removed by the initial treatment system.    Strontium is far more dangerous than cesium, as it acts like calcium and goes direct to the bones and doesn't leave.    Leukemia is a likely result, as well as other bone disease, and blood disease and weakness.   

These large earthen pools were formed with 4mil PVC liner.   Your average architectural or fish pond liner in Hawaii would be made with 20 mil or 30 mil liner.   

In the last 2 weeks, there are 5 to 7 really large earthen pools that TEPCO has admitted as leaking badly, these used to hold the highly dangerous and highly concentrated Strontium.

Also, some coriums remain in the reactor vessels (all the vessels are breached) and beneath the vessels.   They have been pouring water on them for YEARS to minimize the amount of criticality which releases massive radiation, they sometimes fail.

They also fail in keeping the spent fuel pool powered up with cooling circulating pumps, having failed three times in the last 6 weeks.    TEPCO is getting worse at their task of protecting the world.   They have no financial incentive to do this right.  The spent fuel pools are far more dangerous than the coriums if that is possible to believe.    There is far most mass in the spent fuel pools, and the nasty isotopes are higher..   

TEPCO has no right to be in charge of this plant anymore.   

I have studied this situation several thousand hours, and have a masters degree in the relevant sciences to understand it. 

The world is in harm, several tens of billions of USD needs to be dedicated to accelerate the reduction of radioactive emissions.  

There are nuclear and US security implications for why no real action is being taken.   The nuclear village has failed us again.

Is Fukushima Radiation Causing The Epidemic of Dead and Starving Sea Lions In California?

 

Painting by Jonathan Raddatz

What’s Causing the Mass Die-Off and Starvation of California Sea Lions?

Associated Press reports:

At island rookeries off the Southern California coast, 45 percent of the pups born in June have died, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service based in Seattle. Normally, less than one-third of the pups would die.
It’s gotten so bad in the past two weeks that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an “unusual mortality event.” That will allow more scientists to join the search for the cause, Melin said.
***
Even the pups that are making it are markedly underweight ….
***
Rescuers have had to leave the worst of them in an effort to save the strongest ones, she said.
***
Routine testing of seafood is being done by state and federal agencies  and consumer safety experts are working with NOAA to find the problem.”No link has been established at this time between these sea lion strandings and any potential seafood safety issues,” NOAA said in a statement.

Given that the FDA has refused to test seafood for radiation, we’re not that confident that the government is looking that hard to see if Fukushima fallout is the cause.

Reuters notes:

From the beginning of this year through last Sunday, 948 sea lion pups came ashore in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, according to figures from NOAA.
“There really isn’t an oceanographic explanation for what we’re seeing,” Melin said. “We’re looking at disease as a possibility and also at the food supply, and it could be some combination.”

CNN reports:

This is an unprecedented crisis for the species in this state says the Pacific Marine Mammal Center.
***
“So we are seeing exponentially higher numbers” [Keith Matassa, who runs the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach said].
***
When you say off the charts, this is what you’re talking about.

CBS News reported last week:

”They’re very sick,” said Keith Matassa, who runs the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach. His team is nursing 115 sea lions back to health. “A normal sea lion at this age — 8 to 9 months old — should be around 60, 70 pounds,” said Matassa. “We’re seeing them come into our center at 20 to 25 pounds, and really they look like walking skeletons.”

AP notes:

Biologists knew last spring that this year’s supply of anchovies and sardines could be limited, Boehm said.
“These two species of fish are an extremely important part of California sea lions’ diets, and females simply may not have been able to nurse their young sufficiently, resulting in abandonment, premature weaning and subsequent strandings,” he said.
Besides anchovies and sardines, sea lions also eat squid and other ocean creatures.

Time reported in April 2011:

Few people want to see the ocean’s anchovy stocks wiped out by radiation either. That’s just the scenario that seemed to be developing, however, when reports coming out of Japan revealed that elevated levels of cesium-137 had been found in anchovies in the waters off Chiba, near Toky0—a direct result of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
***
In the big-fish-eats-little-fish way of the ocean, the radioactive contamination eventually gets passed up the food chain, concentrating in fats which get consumed and stored, until the isotopes finally come to rest in the very largest creature at the top of the food chain ….

Huge die-offs of sardines were also reported in the Chiba area of Japan after Fukushima.

Moreover, the Vancouver Sun reported in January 2012 that 94 per cent of the anchovies and 92 per cent of the sardines sold by the Japanese to Canada contained radioactive cesium. Some of the fish were caught in Japanese coastal waters; but others were made many hundreds of miles away in the open ocean.

(Note: there may be additional reasons for fluctuations in the numbers of anchovies and sardines other than radiation.)

Moreover, radiation from Fukushima was directly deposited into the kelp off the Western coast of North America … especially in Southern California.

Fish that eat the kelp have also gotten exposed to the radiation … as have the animals that eat those fish.

NOAA reports:

Sea lions … feed on the fish that live in kelp forests.

(Images here.)

There are numerous other routes in which the Fukushima radiation could be getting to the sea lion pups.  We noted last year:

A 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents.
MIT says that seawater which is itself radioactive may begin hitting the West Coast within 5 years.
In 10 years, peak radioactive cesium levels off of the West Coast of North America could be10 times higher than at the coast of Japan.
As we’ve previously noted, Reuters reports that Alaskan seals are suffering mysterious lesions and hair loss:

Scientists in Alaska are investigating whether local seals are being sickened byradiation from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
Scores of ring seals have washed up on Alaska’s Arctic coastline since July, suffering or killed by a mysterious disease marked by bleeding lesions on the hind flippers, irritated skin around the nose and eyes and patchy hair loss on the animals’ fur coats.
***
“We recently received samples of seal tissue from diseased animals captured near St. Lawrence Island with a request to examine the material for radioactivity,” said John Kelley, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“There is concern expressed by some members of the local communities that there may be some relationship to the Fukushima nuclear reactor’s damage,” he said.

Here’s a picture of one of the injured seals:

We reported yesterday that a new scientific paper shows that the Fukushima radioactive plume contaminated the entire Northern hemisphere during a relatively short period of time ….
Radioactive fish are also being found off the West Coast.
A California-sized island of debris from Japan is also hitting the West Coast.
And West Coast residents have also been exposed to Fukushima radiation from the air.  See this, this and this.

Unfortunately, the nuclear accident is nowhere near contained.  Japanese experts say that Fukushima is currently releasing up to 93 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium into the ocean each day, the reactors have lost containment, and groundwater is flooding into the stricken reactors (delaying clean-up).

And things may get worse for California, instead of better .

2013-03-31 15:30:12
Source: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/03/is-the-epidemic-of-dead-and-sick-sea-lions-in-california-from-fukushima-radiation.html

FUKUSHIMA: Japan's Nuclear Disaster Spreads Far And Wide - Tsunami Debris Keeps Coming Into Washington State!

March 26, 2013 - UNITED STATES - A dock set adrift by the 2011 tsunami in Japan is now being dismantled and removed from the Washington state beach where it beached. 

The dock washed ashore in a remote section of Olympic National Park and was found Dec. 18, 2012, by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter search. The area was at first all but impossible to access because of high seas and a swollen stream cutting off the approach, according to the Washington state government. 

Japan tsunami debris. Photo by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Japan tsunami debris. Photo by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Now, the Undersea Company of Port Townsend, Wash., is dismantling the dock, which measures 65 feet (20 meters) long. The sea and wind have pushed sand and cobbles around the dock, so workers will first excavate it and then use saws to cut it into manageable pieces to be helicoptered out. The work began March 19 and is expected to take several days.  

Tsunami debris 

Two years after the massive tsunami swept ashore in Japan, debris from the event is still trickling ashore on Pacific isles and along the Pacific coast of North America. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has confirmed 21 pieces of debris by serial number or other identifying marks, including the dock in Washington. 

Other confirmed debris includes small, derelict boats, a 25-foot-long (11 m) steel tank and a soccer ball found by kayakers in Washington State. A second floating dock set adrift by the tsunami washed ashore in Oregon. 

Japan tsunami debris. Photo by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Japan tsunami debris. Photo by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Japan tsunami debris. Photo by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Marine researchers and coastal dwellers have also reported seeing an uptick in Styrofoam and housing insulation. These materials can't be definitively tied to the tsunami, but the timing and sudden influx suggests that they were part of the estimated 5 million tons of materials dragged out to sea by the tsunami. 

Much of that debris, an estimated 70 percent, sunk off Japan's coast, but little is known about the remaining 1.5 million tons and how much might end up on U.S shores. 

Dock dangers 

The docks are of particular concern, because both harbored marine species that could potentially establish themselves on the Pacific coast. The dock that washed ashore in Oregon held about 13 pounds (about 6 kilograms) of organisms per square foot, according to Oregon State University. Marine specialists immediately set to work removing and destroying these potentially invasive species. 

After the Washington dock was spotted on Dec. 18, crews managed to reach the debris on Dec. 21. Tests showed no sign of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown that followed the tsunami, which is typical — so far, tsunami debris has not been radioactive. 

Japan tsunami debris. Photo by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Japan tsunami debris. Photo by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The initial crew also attached a tracking buoy to the dock to ensure it could be found if it washed back out to sea. By the time experts trekked to the dock, wind and waves had scoured most of the organisms from its sides. But in January, a team removed the floatation bumpers from the sides of the dock and decontaminated them with a bleach solution to help prevent any more potential invasives from entering the surf. 

The dock weighs 185 tons and stands 7.5 feet (2.3 m) tall. It's made of Styrofoam material encased in steel-reinforced concrete. Part of the reason it was crucial to remove the dock, according to the state government, is that the dock had been damaged, allowing Styrofoam to spill out and potentially be ingested by marine mammals, fish and birds. Containing the foam will be the first priority for the removal team. - Yahoo.

WATCH: Tsunami debris keeps coming in Washington State. From a fishing boat to the recent discovery of a shrine, debris from the 2011 Japan tsunami is still showing up on US shores. NBC’s Brian Williams reports.

The latest object to wash ashore in Oregon that appears to be Japan tsunami debris could have strong cultural significance in its homeland. 

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department said the 16-foot-long object was discovered Friday near Oceanside in Tillamook County. 

Workers believe it could be the top of a torii, the gateway entrance to a sacred site.
Photo: Judson Randall.

It is made of heavy wood and has been painted red. Workers believe it could be the top of a torii, the gateway entrance to a sacred site. 

The department said the shape closely resembles the top, horizontal part of the free-standing archways found in Japan. 

 It is made of heavy wood and has been painted red.
Photo: Judson Randall.

The object was partially covered with marine organisms when it was found. 

It is now being stored in a secured state park maintenance yard. The parks and recreation department is now waiting on word from the Consular Office of Japan in Portland on how to proceed. 

Any visitor can report unusually large amounts of debris or other notable objects by calling 211 from the coast or sending an email with photos and location to beach.debris@state.or.us. - KPTV.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department said the 16-foot-long object was discovered Friday near Oceanside in Tillamook County.
Photo: Judson Randall.

More debris that may have come from the Japanese tsunami has been reported at Oceanside Beach.

The Oregonian quotes a resident who spotted the wooden debris, Judson Randall, as saying it may be the top of a Japanese temple gate. 

Park rangers hauled away the orange-painted piece of wood after it washed ashore Friday. - Statesman Journal.

Codex Alimentarius and GM Food Guidelines, Pt. 1

by Brandon Turbeville

Over the last two years, I have written extensively about the Codex Alimentarius guidelines and how they relate specifically to vitamin and mineral supplements, food irradiation, and the use of Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).


I have also detailed the history and workings of the international organization as well as many of the current day to day manifestations of Codex guidelines as they appear in domestic policy. 

However, there is yet another area in which Codex guidelines will play a major role in the development of food policy – namely, the proliferation of Genetically Modified Food.

The Codex committee that serves as the main battleground for the consideration of GM food is the Codex Committee on Food Labeling. This committee is extremely relevant due to the fact that it can effectively reduce the power of the consumer to virtually nothing if it decides not to force companies or countries to label their GM food, thus removing the ability of the consumer to boycott and/or avoid those products. While it is well-known that public sentiment is unimportant to those at the top, governments and corporations tend to pay more attention when votes and sales reflect that sentiment. However, if Codex continues on its’ way to allowing unlabelled GM food onto the international market, the repercussions of consumer reaction will be entirely neutralized. 

A brief discussion of the history of Codex in terms of GM food is necessary here to understand the direction that the organization is moving towards in regards to it. 

For most of the seventeen years that Codex member countries have debated the safety of genetic modification of the food supply, the result has been little or no progress for one side or the other. 

In 1993, at the behest of the Codex Commission, the CCFL agreed to begin working on the labeling aspect of GM food. Interestingly enough, the CCFL asked the United States, the country that was the most militant in its support of genetic modification, to develop a paper that would guide the committee’s discussion at the following session. When this session arrived, there was a flurry of opinions tossed around from several different countries. The most sensible position was that all GM foods should be labeled under any circumstances. Yet other countries, especially the pro-Gm ones, argued that labeling should only be required when there is the introduction of health or safety concerns, allergens, or when the food is significantly different from its traditional counterpart.[1] This is a debate that largely continues until this day.

The concept of “substantial equivalence” versus “process-based” labeling has also become one of the most hotly contested issues within the Codex GM food labeling debate. Process-based labeling simply means that the driving factor behind the labeling guidelines is the process by which the food is created, grown, or otherwise produced. Therefore, the qualifying factor for labeling GM food would be the process of genetic modification itself, forcing all GM food to be labeled as such. This is essentially the mandatory labeling of all GM food. When this concept was first introduced in 2001, it was supported by such countries as the European Union, India, and Norway. Its staunchest opponents, of course, were the United States and Canada.[2] Although this method of labeling standards was by far the most sensible if one were concerned about food safety and consumer rights of choice, it has been all but abandoned since the brief discussion at its introduction. The attention then has necessarily turned to the competing set of standards known as “substantial equivalence.”

“Substantial equivalence” guidelines are by far the most onerous means by which to label GM food outside of the scheme of voluntary labeling (such as what Canada has already pushed for).[3]


This set of standards not only provides loopholes through which GM food may enter the food supply, but also opens the door to total acceptance of GM food absolutely free of labeling. The idea behind the substantial equivalence labeling method is that the GM food will be compared to its conventional counterpart in terms of safety and composition.[4]

The food would then only require a label if it was found that there was a substantial difference between the GM product and the natural food or there were an introduction of a common allergen through the process of genetic modification. While at first it may seem that there is a legitimate consideration of safety under these principles, such an impression is far from the truth. 

Several problems exist with the concept of substantial equivalence. First, as is often the case with government and bureaucratic initiatives, the semantics of the term “substantial equivalence” leaves the door open to the possible acceptance of virtually all GM food. While I will discuss this aspect further in future articles where the accepted Codex guidelines for testing GM food is mentioned, brief mention is still required early on in order to understand the dangers of the use of this labeling standard.

In order for a food to require labeling, it must do one of two things – introduce a new allergen or be significantly different from its “traditional counterpart.”[5] The former requirement refers to the introduction of something along the lines of the peanut gene or the introduction of another common allergy to a food, thereby causing a potential allergic reaction to the food after consuming it. However, there are thousands of food allergies besides peanuts. Codex itself admits in its GM food test protocol that the determination of what may be an allergy is a very difficult procedure. It says “At present, there is no definitive test that can be relied upon to predict allergic response in humans to a newly expressed protein.”[6] 

Although the guidelines go on to say that these potential allergens should be tested on a case-by-case basis, it is clear that the testing mechanisms being recommended are not necessarily geared for determining the potential allergenicity of newly introduced GM foods. Especially on the scale that is needed to deal with the immense diversity of GM prototypes being introduced and the even greater variety of individual allergies that exist in the population. 

It should also be noted that while there is some discussion of known allergens, there is no in-depth discussion of the very real possibility of new and previously unknown allergens being introduced due to the process of genetic modification. Indeed, the monitoring of the food once it enters the food chain is only occasionally mentioned throughout the Codex “Foods Derived From Modern Biotechnology” document and those mentions are vague and open-ended.[7] So the question that follows is whether or not all of these potential allergens will be labeled as such, or if only the most common ones will be considered. 

Second, the requirement that a food must be compared and found substantially equivalent to its “traditional counterpart” (natural food) is misleading as well. To begin with, one must ask the question of what exactly “substantial equivalence” means. Quite obviously, the term does not mean that the GM product must be identical. This, in itself would negate the process of genetic modification. 


Therefore, differences must necessarily be accepted. However, it is not at all clear just to what level these differences may exist and still be considered equivalent and/or safe. Nowhere is “substantial equivalence” clearly defined. The criterion for what is substantial and what is not is left completely open and subjective. 

The closest thing there is to a definition is made by Nick Tomlinson of the UK Food Standards Agency in his report, “Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on Foods Derived from Biotechnology” where he references the 1996 expert consultation where substantial equivalence was defined as “being established by a demonstration that the characteristics assessed for the genetically modified organism, or the specific food product derived there from, are equivalent to the same characteristics of the conventional comparator.”[8]

Here again the term equivalence is used with the connotation that equivalent does not translate into identical or same. Tomlinson makes this clear when he says:

The levels and variation for characteristics in the genetically modified organism must be within the natural range of variation for those characteristics considered in the comparator and be based upon an appropriate analysis of data.[9]

By not exactly being descriptive as to how wide a range this “natural range of variation” may be, it is apparent that substantial equivalence does not correlate to identical or even anything that would remotely be considered the “same.” Indeed, the very nature of genetic modification precludes this as a possibility to begin with. 

The concept of substantial equivalence is unfortunately the theory of labeling requirements adopted by Codex. It is also very similar to the criteria used in the United States and Canada. 

As to be expected in such pro-GM countries as the United States, the GM labeling requirements are even less restrictive than those of Codex. For the most part, labeling of GM foods in the United States and Canada is completely voluntary. 
Sources: 

[1] MacKenzie, Anne. A. “The Process of Developing Labeling Standards For GM Foods In The Codex Alimentarius.” AgBioForum, Vol.3, Number 4, 2000. pp. 203-208.http://www.agbioforum.org/v3n4/v3n4a04-mackenzie.htm Accessed May 24, 2010. 

[2] “Canadians Deserve To Know What They Are Eating: Food Safety Must Come Before Trade.” Canadian Health Coalition, Media Advisory, May 1-4, 2001.http://www.healthcoalition.ca/codex.html 

[3] Ibid. 

[4] “Safety aspects of genetically modified foods of plant origin, a joint FAO/WHO consultation on foods derived from biotechnology, Geneva, Switzerland 29 May – 2 June 2000”. World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/ec_june2000/en/index.html 

[5] MacKenzie, Anne. A. “The Process of Developing Labeling Standards For GM Foods In The Codex Alimentarius.” AgBioForum, Vol.3, Number 4, 2000. pp. 203-208.http://www.agbioforum.org/v3n4/v3n4a04-mackenzie.htm May 24, 2010. 

[6] “Food Derived From Modern Biotechnology.” Codex Alimentarius 2nd Edition. P.20ftp://ftp.fao.org/codex/Publications/Booklets/Biotech/Biotech_2009e.pdf 

[7] Ibid. 

[8] Tomlinson, Nick. “Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on Foods Derived from Biotechnology.” 2003. ftp://ftp.fao.org/es/esn/food/Bio-03.pdf Accessed May 24, 2010. 

[9] Ibid.

[10] “Guidance For Industry: Voluntary Labeling Indicating Whether Foods Have or Have Not Been Developed Using Biotengineering: Draft Guidance.” Food and Drug Administration. January 2001.http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/GuidanceDocuments/FoodLabelingNutrition/ucm059098.htm

This voluntary labeling scheme based on the concept of substantial equivalence is both a prime example of the weakness of both standards as well as a dark omen as to the direction of Codex guidelines as they continue to be developed.[10]

Original post @ http://www.activistpost.com/2013/02/codex-alimentarius-and-gm-food.html