Radioactive shrimp memes bombarded social media after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked Walmart for a recall. Yes, this means that certain bags of shrimp from the superstore chain contained radiation. No, eating the shrimp will not give you shrimp-based superpowers. Stop asking.
Walmart recalls shrimp contaminated with radioactive isotope
The recall targets Great Value brand raw frozen shrimp and currently impacts 13 states. A sample test detected the radioactive isotope Cesium-137 among the shellfish from Indonesia, which can make you sick at low levels of exposure over time.
Radiation sickness is very serious, but all these decades of comic books full of superheroes who got their start from exposure to radioactive animals means that social media isn't taking it very seriously. Instead, everyone's making memes about the powers they might gain from eating the Walmart shrimp.
This soon evolved into posts showing what might happen if you do eat the value brand seafood, drawing from old memes and popular media. There's also no shortage of jokes targeting Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Francis Kennedy Jr.
If you've already eaten some of this shrimp and didn't start glowing, that's probably because you need to consume it consistently over time to see any obvious effects. Donald Schaffner, a Rutgers University food safety expert, called the risk of illness from eating a bit of radioactive Walmart shrimp "quite low."
Still, please don't eat the shrimp. Just make memes.
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