As Fukushima goes from bad to worse, the worldwide coverup of health effects goes into overdrive
In the very week of the UN's release of UNSCEAR's report on health effects of the catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi, an op-ed appeared in the New York Times, Fear vs. Radiation: The Mismatch.
Coming as it does in the midst of the last few months' worth of ever worsening conditions and increasing radioactive releases at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, it isn't difficult to understand the purpose of this bit of reassuring fluff. It was written by David Ropeik, an instructor of risk perception and risk communication at the Harvard Extension School. Ropeik also created and directs a training program for journalists - Improving Media Coverage of Risk. Thus we begin with the understanding that Ropeik's subject of expertise is not radiation or the health effects of radiation exposures. It is the "management" of public risk perception.
So it's hardly surprising that Ropeik comes right out in his second paragraph saying the radiation from Fukushima "has been relatively harmless, which is similar to results found after studying the health effects of Chernobyl." I'd bet that most people here didn't know that the disaster at Chernobyl was "relatively harmless" to the people of Belarus/Ukraine and everywhere else under the plumes, many of whom are still struggling with leftover cesium and strontium. I know I didn't.
Ropeik goes straight from "harmless" Chernobyl into the falsehood that the fear of radiation is what does harm, not nuclear weapons, melting and/or exploding reactors, burning spent fuel pools or terroristic 'dirty bombs'. All the really cool kids, Ropeik tells us, know that radiation isn't the least bit harmful to humans and other animals. So long as you don't get killed by the blast or vaporized by all that "relatively harmless" radiation, that is. Echoing one of the most controversial 'findings' extrapolated from the Hibakusha project, Ropeik asserts as if it were fact that only one half of one percent of the 10,929 cancer deaths among the bomb survivors were caused by radiation. As if cancers come with neat little labels telling doctors and pathologists precisely what caused them. They don't.
It is well known and well documented that certain types of radiation emitted by certain radioactive isotopes released by bombs, burning spent reactor fuel, melting/exploding reactors, and medical/extraneous exposures cause thyroid cancer, leukemias, organ cancers, bone cancers, etc. These cancers can take awhile after exposure to show up - usual range given as anywhere from 5 to 50 years - but if the doses are high enough it doesn't take long at all. Thyroid cancers didn't start showing up until 5 years after Chernobyl - which not surprisingly coincides exactly with when the statistics-keepers started looking for them - but thyroid cancers in children are now 25 times 'normal' in the Fukushima area, with more than 44 cases so far among the 47% of children diagnosed with thyroid nodules and cysts as of last year. The rates will continue to rise.
So far they haven't been testing for strontium or any of hundreds of radioactive isotopes other than iodine and cesium which are present in the contamination plumes. A lot of those isotopes are gone by now, having already done their biological damage. So far all urine tests in northeastern Japan - all ages - have tested positive for cesium. Which along with Strontium will be around in diminishing abundance for 300 years.
But, as with assurances after the meltdowns at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, we are told that it's the fear of radiation that really causes all the known health effects of radiation exposure. Bet you didn't know that fear of radioactive iodine (several isotopes) causes thyroid cancer, did you? That's because it doesn't. Radioactive iodine does. Primarily in children. It does worse things to the fetuses of pregnant women.
What I found most objectionable in Ropeik's op-ed is his propagation of the known-to-be false narrative - the 'official' radiation release figures from TEPCO and the Japanese government. All of which have been since the beginning completely ignoring the vast inventory of isotopes released. This "risk management" expert who knows zip about radiation probably has no clue that it is physically impossible to selectively filter certain isotopes from being released by total meltdowns and/or exploding reactors and/or burning spent fuel pools. Everything - from transuranic actinides to activated carbons and iron to noble gases and everything in between - have been/ are being released into the air and water.
As if to demonstrate his essential ignorance of radiation, Ropeik writes something so utterly clueless it would be hilarious if it weren't so dastardly, almost as if trying to give himself away to those who actually know something about radiation...
...(most radiation can't penetrate skin much less walls or windows)...
Hint: "Most" radiation does not come in the form of alpha or beta particles. It comes as gamma (very high energy X-rays, pure energy), and from this mess, neutrons. In fact, most all of the isotopes that decay by emission of alpha or beta particles also emit gamma. And sometimes neutrons.
This deception forwarded while informing us that just staying indoors when the local melting/exploding reactor is dumping nasty crap on us will provide ample protection. Wow.
Both gamma and neutron radiation can go right through walls and windows (and bodies). Shelter-in-place is not an adequate defense against meltdown/explosion or spent fuel fire levels of radioactive isotopes. They are in the air. They will get in your house, and into your body if you aren't taking specific precautions. Where they will irradiate your sensitive internal cells point-blank, whether incorporated into molecules as calcium or potassium, or on their way through your digestive tract, or blasting entire cells in the lining of your lungs, or just wreaking havoc on your blood filtering organs.
Ropeik finishes with a condescending flourish:
... Without a much broader and persistent effort by various branches and levels of government to help the public understand the actual biological effects of radiation, we will continue to face the threat of deep historic nuclear fears that simply don't match the facts.
Gotta love that THREAT characterization. That's really turning Truth on its ear! What I see is that we are forever treated to lies, obfuscations and claptrap by ignorant hired gun PR carnies who don't know gamma from beta or cesium from plutonium, trying to sell us ridiculous falsehoods trading on the old standby "what you don't know can't hurt you." For the purpose of covering up the fact that the nuclear Death-Eater cult is feeding us cancer-causing radioactive crap by the tens and hundreds of tons.
Here's this week's outrageous report from UNSCEAR [UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation] on health effects from Fukushima. Plus...
PSR: Annotated Critique of UNSCEAR October 2013 Fukushima Report to the UN General Assembly
HRN: Statement: Japanese civil society requests that the reports of the UNSCEAR on Fukushima be revised
Doctors Say UN Science Report Systematically Underestimates Health Impact of Fukushima Catastrophe
And here's a bit of immediately pertinent Truth that Ropeik didn't pay any attention to before crafting his deceptive fluff piece...
WSJ: Watchdog Approves Tepco's Plan to Retrieve Fuel Rods
Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, has expressed concerns about the fragile state of the nuclear fuel left in three reactors and the spent fuel pool in the No.4 building. If improperly handled or destabilized by another major earthquake at the site, the fuel could discharge large amounts of radiation into the environment.
So. Here y'go -
Surviving A Nuclear Holocaust