Don’t worry about radiation

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has amped up its nationwide monitoring of milk, precipitation and drinking water since damage done to Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant from the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused high levels of radiation to spread. So far, screening samples have shown U.S. radiation levels are not a cause for concern, according to an EPA press release.

Results from a milk sample taken in late March from a dairy in Spokane, Wash., showed radiation levels more than 5,000 times lower than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s threshold for what constitutes as a public-health concern. In early April, the EPA released its first results for drinking water taken from samples collected in Boise, Idaho, and Richland, Wash. The samples showed minuscule traces of radiation, as expected.

Patricia Hansen, an FDA senior scientist, noted that individuals are regularly exposed to low levels of radiation without knowing it, and should not be concerned about these findings.