“Sedmoy Kontinent” was fined for radioactive blueberries

“Izvestia” have discovered that the supermarket network “Sedmoy Kontinent”, as requested by Rospotrebnadzor, was fined for 100 thousand roubles for the sale of frozen blueberries with the excess of radiologic norms. The Court of Arbitration of the city of Moscow took the respective decision in late October (“Izvestia” has the text of the court act).

The Moscow Department of Rospotrebnadzor in July of 2012 conducted a field check in a Zelenograd supermarket and discovered cesium-117 in the berries. This is a radioactive nuclide of cesium, which is found in radioactive fallout and the dumping of nuclear waste-processing plants.

Alexander Zanadvorov’s “Sedmoy Kontinent” was unable to avoid the fine despite the objections by the manufacturer – “Icebit” CJSC, which submitted to the court the results of an independent sanitary expert’s study. The court found that it was not proven that the production from the same shipment, in which the laboratory of the Federal Budget Health Institution “Nygiene and Epidemiology Center in the city of Moscow” had found cesium-117, was studied.

The court documents contain no information on how great was the excess of the maximum permissible level of the dangerous metal, and Rospotrebnadzor refused comments. Alexey Titov, Senior Scientist of the Radioactive Security Section of the A.I.Burnazian Federal Medical Biophysical Center, believes that it is impossible to receive a large dose of cesium at once.

He elaborated: “However, it depends on the dose: without knowing the amount, one cannot discuss the harm to the organism. Sanitary normatives are calculated in such a way that if a person permanently consumes products with the highest acceptable level of radioactive elements, that person will receive 1 millisievert per year, which is the highest acceptable dose for the people”.

Evgeny Kulgavchuk, President of the Professional Association of Medical Sexologists, agrees that acute negative effects can hardly be the case here: “The mere fact of presence of cesium-137 is not as important as the level of excess and the volume of the consumed product. The doses have to be exceeded tenfold, hundredfold, even thousandfold for there to be clinical manifestations, and that requires consuming such products regularly and for a long time”.

According to A.Titov, radioactive substances are most commonly found in wild berries, mushrooms and meat of wild animals – knowing their origins is sufficient, and the geography of radioactive areas is common knowledge. This information must be present in the quality certificates, which may be requested in the store.

It also makes no sense to visit the stores with dosimeters.

A.Titov says: “The “mass consumption” dosimeters may only indicate such products, which are hazardous to come close to. Small doses of dangerous stuff, even at the normative level, may only be discovered in laboratories”.

Vladimir Chuprov, an ecologist, head of the energy program of Greenpeace of Russia, suggests collecting berries by oneself or buying them in safe places. Hoiwever, he points out that earlier the problem of radioactive berries was only present at non-controlled markets, and the purchase in a store was like a guarantee of that the products are free from radiation.

V.Chuprov told “Izvestia”: “This is news to me that nowadays this protection may be circumvented. All products must pass a sanitary check before getting to the stores’ counters”.

Advocate Alexander Yevdokimov, Head of Litigation and Arbitration Practice of the Law Firm "YUST", confirms that this situation is a precedent.

He said to “Izvestia”: “If I am not mistaken, this is the first case in the arbitration practice, when Rospotrebnadzor brings a retailer to liability for this kind of offences juridically. For understandable reasons, the commercial organizations try not to call attention to such cases and not to take the matter to public court proceedings”.

According to A.Yevdokimov, there are laws governing the area of sanitary and epidemiological well-being and the radiation security of the people. Pursuant to those laws, all persons conducting their activity in the sphere of retail trade in food stuff must ensure the compliance of that stuff to the sanitary requirements. Other lawyers, when questioned, said that that requirement is easily circumvented, since the expert’s study is often perfunctory.

The representative of “Icebit” CJSC stated that the ruling by the Court of Arbitration of Moscow will be appealed against. “Sedmoy Kontinent” has already filed an appeal. All “Sedmoy Kontinent” stores, which the correspondent of “Izvestia” was able to contact by phone, informed that no “4 sezona” blueberries were offered for sale.

See here.