Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025 that imported shrimp sold in U.S. grocery stores has tested positive for radioactive contamination and called for stricter federal inspections of foreign seafood.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Kennedy displayed a poster of the alien from the film *Alien* to illustrate his warning. He said the Food and Drug Administration found cesium-137, a radioactive isotope, in raw frozen shrimp imported from Indonesia and sold under the Great Value label at Walmart locations across several states, including Louisiana.
Kennedy said the FDA issued a recall in late August after the discovery. Days later, he said the FDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found more contaminated products, including more than 26,000 packages of shrimp cocktail and 18,000 bags of cooked frozen shrimp sold at Walmart and Kroger stores.
“This shrimp is not being inspected,” Kennedy said. He added that NOAA reviews only about 1 to 2 percent of seafood imports, compared with 50 percent in the United Kingdom. He said foreign suppliers often raise shrimp in polluted water and treat them with antibiotics.
Kennedy urged increased inspections to protect U.S. consumers and promoted Gulf Coast shrimp as a safe alternative. “NOAA needs to do a better job of inspecting the shrimp that is sold from other countries that don’t abide by the same standards we do,” he said.
