Why the FDA is warning you not to eat certain shrimp from Walmart

David J. Neal, Miami Herald on Aug 19, 2025

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Possible contamination of shrimp by a radioisotope led the FDA to issue a do-not-eat-or-sell warning Tuesday for three lots of frozen shrimp sold under Walmart’s Great Value brand.

The primary concern isn’t that there’s enough Cesium-137 in Great Value Frozen Raw White Vannamei Shrimp to cause immediate health problems, but that it could be part of repeated low level exposure that increases the risk of cancer “from damage to the DNA within living cells of the body.”

This involves Great Value Frozen Raw White Vannamei Shrimp in 2-pound bags with lot Nos. 8005538-1, 39-1, 40-1, all with a best by date of 3/15/2027. Neither Walmart nor Indonesia’s BMS Foods, aka PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati, has issued a recall, although the FDA has recommended Walmart do so.

The big box colossus that accounts for over 20% of U.S. grocery sales said the shrimp went to stores in Florida, Missouri, Kentucky, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

(Rare is the recall actually made by the FDA or USDA. Almost all food recalls are made by the manufacturing company voluntarily, but not out of altruism. Along with concerns about civil liability, companies don’t like their names associated with outbreaks, deaths or major health issues.)

What’s Cesium-137 and why is that the problem here?

“Cesium-137 is a radioisotope of cesium that is man-made through nuclear reactions and, because it is widespread worldwide, trace amounts of Cs-137 can be found in the environment, including soil, food, and air,” Tuesday’s FDA alert said. “FDA food monitoring focuses on radioisotopes (radionuclides) that are not normally present and are generally the result of human activities.”

The FDA said Customs and Border Protection found Cs-137 in BMS Foods shipping containers in ports at Miami, Savannah, Houston and Los Angeles. Among the samples the FDA collected, breaded shrimp tested positive for Cs-137 and a shipment of frozen shrimp from BMS Foods.

“The level of Cs-137 detected in the detained shipment was approximately 68 becquerels per kilogram, which is below FDA’s Derived Intervention Level for Cs-137 of 1200 Bq/kg,” the FDA said. “At this level, the product would not pose an acute hazard to consumers.”

Testing hasn’t turned up contamination in any product that made it to shelves, the FDA said — the shrimp “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.”

“To date, FDA has learned that Walmart has received implicated raw frozen shrimp, imported after the date of first detection of Cs-137 by CBP, but from shipments that did not alert for Cs-137.”