Remember Fukushima?

[Jeremy Roenick]

Remember Fukushima????  You know, that massive nuclear accident (that now eclipses Chernobyl many times over) that happened in Japan that gets no play in the media because the Bachelor, Casey Anthony, Big Brother, and the Governator's divorce are much more important!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-19/thyroid-radiation-exposure-found-in-children-near-tepco-plant.html

Thyroid radiation exposure found in children near Tepco plant

TOKYO - Medical tests on children living in three towns near the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant found 45 percent of those surveyed suffered low-level thyroid radiation exposure, Japan’s government said in a statement. While the statement didn’t comment on the source of the contamination, the announcement follows reports of radioactive material found in food after radiation leaks from the meltdown of three reactors at the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Fukushima safety fears

The down-playing and cover up of this is almost criminal.  Just how bad is it, how bad is it going to continue to get?  I hear stories that radioactive steam is escaping from the site right now.  Japan has suffered several major aftershocks of 6.0 mag or greater in the weeks and months after the big one, that some think underground pipes have been ruptured by the aftershocks.  This steam is spewing all kinds of deadly isotopes into the atmosphere.  The radioactive iodine is a major concern for the locals, but because it has a relatively short half-life, folks in the US west coast can let that concern go.  However, its the Cesium, Plutonium and other components associated with MOX reactors that have half-lives in the thousands of years that are of most concern.  Breathing just one particle of these elements is a death sentence.

Remember how Japan and the US government insisted in the weeks following the initial explosions that no reactors had melted down.  And only in the several months following did TEPCO finally admit that the reactors melted down in the hours after the hydrogen explosions.

How much are the people purposely not being told, and just how big of an environmental disaster is this?

[NCVol]

I heard a piece yesterday on that on Thom Hartmann's show.  The stories are frightening with a worst case, that is increasingly not at all a remote possibility, just by any measure catastrophic for Japan and the entire area.  China is raising alarms about the contaminated seawater in fishing grounds that could threaten their food supply if trends keep worsening. 

It is surreal that we've sort of buried that story in the "cannot talk about" file. 

I've had to completely rethink my views on nuclear power.  I'm increasingly convinced that the skeptics of nuclear power, those deranged hippies, environmentalist whackos, were right all along. 

[Jeremy Roenick]

I've had to completely rethink my views on nuclear power.  I'm increasingly convinced that the skeptics of nuclear power, those deranged hippies, environmentalist whackos, were right all along. 

Agreed.  I used to be of that camp too.  When nations build reactors in seismic zones and store backup generators in the basement, you have wonder about the safety with such obvious design flaws.

I keep hearing from folks inside the industry here that US reactors are much safer.  I hope they are right. I hope we never have to find out, but I'm now a skeptic.  So much so that I store Potassium Iodide and Potassium Iodate on hand just in case.  Don't hope to find this stuff if one of the TVA reactors takes a swan dive.  You better have it on hand, or get out of the downwind zone as fast as you can...

[Jeremy Roenick]

Fukushima update.  Only with time will the truth be known, and the devastating consequences of man's folly....

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/medical-journal-article-14000-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-reactor-disaster-fallout-2011-12-19

Medical Journal Article: 14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout

This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.

and yet Tepco and the Japanese government insisted for weeks that the reactors had not melted down.  The scope of the disaster in Japan must be gargantuan given that we are beginning to actually tie US DEATHS to Fukushima fallout. 

[The One Man Gang]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/medical-journal-article-14000-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-reactor-disaster-fallout-2011-12-19

If you actually read the article you'll find the "14,000" is based on no real data whatsoever.  They linked supposed increases in death rates over a random period of time to the Japanese reactor.

Using their techniques one could just as easily link those "deaths" to the Jerry Sandusky scandal or the rise of Newt Gingrich in the polls.

[NCVol]

No real data, except the levels of radioactive iodine in the atmosphere hundreds of times normal.  And the five fold increase in pneumonia and influenza.  And the fact that infant deaths went up, as they'd expect if the cause was radioactive contamination, since they're the most vulnerable. 

The way to debunk the deaths would be to allege that the increase of hundreds of times normal (which was measured) has no health effect, especially on young kids.  Or, alternatively, that the increase in radiation levels was due to some cause other than the nuclear meltdown that we've been lied to constantly from day one.  Or maybe just argue that the measurements of iodine 131, a known result of nuclear accidents, and a definite health hazard to humans, are bogus, made up.  But there was plenty of data that doesn't allow us to dismiss the study, just because the numbers come to an inconvenient conclusion. 

When you have large numbers, and we do in this country, they behave on a very predictable pattern over time.  And when they don't, there is always a reason, other than chance.  The death rate in infants doesn't JUST go up, for no reason.  It could be there is some OTHER reason for the marked increase in infant deaths, but that would be controlled for, or should be in the study.  So we can guess with a large amount of certainty something happened that caused the spike in death rates in infants, and the only question is what that was. 

Furthermore, if the Jerry Sandusky scandal resulted in atmospheric levels of radioactive substances to increase by several hundred fold, then that's an awesome comparison, but I don't know of any study that links radioactive fallout to sex of any kind.  Gingrich is a pox on America, and a cancer in the republican party, but only in the theoretical sense. 

[Jeremy Roenick]

Furthermore, a similar increase in mortality was reported throughout the western US in the years following extensive atomic bomb testing in the SW United States during the 40's and 50's.  A sad fact that the government would never admit to, yet the numbers are there to be examined.

[Dementia_Madness]

Don't forget John Wayne...

http://www.sonicbomb.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=87

[NCVol]

And don't forget all those workers on the site of the NYC 9/11 attacks dying early deaths.  Hey, there was no risk, they tested the air and it was fine to breath.  No worries, except for lung disease, cancer, and dying early.  Could just as easily be the fault of Rudy 9/11.  Or maybe it was the Red Sox... 

 

[NCVol]

Don't forget John Wayne...

http://www.sonicbomb.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=87

Never heard that story about John Wayne.  Very interesting. 

I guess I can understand why Wayne's death wasn't directly linked, since he was a huge smoker, but the fact that the crew suffered such a large incidence of cancer is pretty damning evidence.   

[Dementia_Madness]

Never heard that story about John Wayne.  Very interesting. 

I guess I can understand why Wayne's death wasn't directly linked, since he was a huge smoker, but the fact that the crew suffered such a large incidence of cancer is pretty damning evidence.   

Yeah, very interesting story, I only learned of this a couple of weeks ago.

[Jeremy Roenick]

I-131 gets into the ground, cows eat the grass, people drink the milk.  That simple.