Radioactive shrimp: Senator warns Americans they could soon look like an ‘alien’ or ‘grow an extra ear’

US Senator John Kennedy has shown the US Capitol an image of an alien from the Alien film franchise to warn Americans what they could soon look like if they do not act to tighten food regulations.

The Republican, who is the Senator for Louisiana, brought in the large printout, which he placed on an easel, to deliver his warning.

“Mr President, this is a photograph of the alien from the movie Alien,” Senator Kennedy began.

“This is what you could end up looking like if you eat some of the raw, frozen shrimp being sent to the United States by other countries.”

Explaining what he was talking about, Senator Kennedy brought up a recent large-scale recall where raw, frozen shrimp from Indonesia, sold at Walmart under the Great Value label, were stripped from shelves after a radioactive discovery.

An enormous “do not eat” warning was issued after a positive test result for a radioactive isotope, Cesium-137 (Cs-137).

“The shrimp was radioactive,” Senator Kennedy said on Wednesday.

“It’ll kill ya. Even if it doesn’t turn you into the alien, if you eat this stuff, I guarantee you, you’ll grow an extra ear.”

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Senator Kennedy mentioned another case, which occurred days later, that he said involved 26,460 packages of shrimp cocktail and 18,000 bags of frozen cooked shrimp sold at Walmart, “containing the same radioactive isotope”.

“How could this happen in America?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you. That shrimp from other countries, which don’t abide by the same rules that we abide by in America, which if you eat it, will turn you, may turn you, into the alien, or that at a minimum will cause you to grow an extra ear, isn’t being inspected.”

Senator Kennedy said US departments were only inspecting one per cent of the seafood coming into the US, saying that the UK and China do better.

Raw frozen shrimp products that were processed by PT Bahari Makmur Sejati (doing business as BMS Foods), a company located in Indonesia, and sold at Walmart stores in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia is potentially at risk after multiple shipping containers that carried the meat, returned positive results for Cesium-137 (Cs-137).

“In conjunction with other information, FDA determined that product from PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati violates the Federal Food, Drug, & Cosmetic Act in that it appears to have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with Cs-137 and may pose a safety concern,” the FDA said in a statement.

The FDA specified that the Cs-137 detection was actually in a shipment that did not enter the US commerce.

It said long-term exposure, like eating the product over time, could create an “elevated risk of cancer, resulting from damage to DNA within living cells of the body”, however, it did not say it would turn Americans into alien-like creatures.

“If you recently purchased one of the impacted lots of Great Value raw frozen shrimp from Walmart, throw it away. Do not eat or serve this product,” the FDA advice to Americans said.

The FDA said that initial testing had not yet confirmed if any of the products that had made it into Walmart stores or into American homes had positive Cs-137 results.