Published: December 21st, 2011 at 12:50 pm ET
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CMAJ: Public health fallout from Japanese quake, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dec. 21, 2011:
A “culture of coverup” and inadequate cleanup efforts have combined to leave Japanese people exposed to “unconscionable” health risks nine months after last year’s meltdown of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, health experts say.
Tilman Ruff, Associate Professor in the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne; Chair of the Medical Association for Prevention of Nuclear War
- This “arbitrary increase” in the maximum permissible dose of radiation is an “unconscionable” failure of government
- “Subject a class of 30 children to 20 millisieverts of radiation for five years and you’re talking an increased risk of cancer to the order of about 1 in 30, which is completely unacceptable”
- “I’m not aware of any other government in recent decades that’s been willing to accept such a high level of radiation-related risk for its population”
- Following the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, “clear targets were set so that anybody anticipated to receive more than five millisieverts in a year were evacuated, no question”
- In areas with levels between one and five millisieverts, measures were taken to mitigate the risk of ingesting radioactive materials, including bans on local food consumption, and residents were offered the option of relocating
- Exposures below one millisievert were still considered worth monitoring
- In comparison, the Japanese government has implemented a campaign to encourage the public to buy produce from the Fukushima area
- “That response 25 years ago in that much less technically sophisticated, much less open or democratic context, was, from a public health point of view, much more responsible than what’s being done in modern Japan this year”
- Ruff similarly charges that the government has mismanaged the file and provided the public with misinformation
- Ruff argues the government must examine the provision of compensation for voluntary evacuation from areas outside of the exclusion zone where there are high levels of radioactive contamination
- Without such compensation, many families have no option but to stay
- “At this point, the single most important public health measure to minimize the health harm over the longterm is much wider evacuation.”
Published: December 21st, 2011 at 12:50 pm ET
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If people on the West Coast of the U.S. (and ostensibly Western Canada) received slightly more than half the dose of radiation Japan received, early on in the crisis, what does this mean for us here in the U.S.? What risks are we being exposed to ?
Meanwhile the global nuclear industry and nuclear war death machine circles the wagons ….
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What does it mean for the U.S., for Canada, and for the entire Northern Hemisphere, that is ? Just looked at the projections of spread of radiation from French study — it’s pretty clear there were high levels of contamination spread all over the Northern Hemisphere.
http://enformable.com/2011/11/analysis-of-fukushimas-accident-by-french-national-data-center/
The data on these maps look a lot more scarey than what most of us probably saw in the Flexpart modeling.
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If people on the West Coast of the U.S. (and ostensibly Western Canada) received slightly more than half the dose of radiation Japan received, early on in the crisis, what does this mean for us here in the U.S.? What risks are we being exposed to ?
Meanwhile the global nuclear industry and nuclear war death machine circles the wagons ….
http://enformable.com/2011/11/analysis-of-fukushimas-accident-by-french-national-data-center/
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Sorry, I just double posted.
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No worries I have not seen that info but do visit that site to view both of the live web cams. Thanks again.
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The children as in the last article will receive far more than 20mSv in a year.
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Depends on how you measure it.
Based on the dosimeter readings from the children 60km away that was debated last week – they might not. As I recall those children received an annualized dose of between 2.4 and 4.95 ms.
It would not surprise me to see these children’s readings to be just slightly more. After all, the parents this close to the accident are probably being pretty careful and limiting outdoor activities.
The real danger for these kids is the iodine exposure – which is very high – and the inhalation exposure to plutonium – which is 100% deadly and known to exist up to 45km from the plant.
Neither of those is included in dosimeter readings.
I’m amazed they don’t have dosimeters. I guess the kid’s parents don’t understand the severity of what they are exposing the kids to. I would pay any price to get my kids out of that area.
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Well, I am not so sure about the validity of those dosimeter tests. Didn’t a participant not send in their child’s dosimeter and got a results sheet in the mail? If true, I wouldn’t give the rest of the results any credence. Let’s not forget cumulative low-dose effects, and internal accumulation through food, water, and air. Quite grim in anyone’s estimation.
Are the Japanese still holding onto the donation of geiger counters and dosimeters in that big warehouse?
I’ve been wondering about the parent’s motives as well. My guess is the parent’s simply can’t afford to move. I believe they at least have a gut instinct they shouldn’t be there, especially the kids. Is anyone Japanese on this site that can offer us some insight into that matter?
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Bones, your post got me wondering about dosimeters in general.
I Googled the word and got lots of hits, as expected. What I didn’t expect is that most of the top-ranked hits got flagged by Kaspersky as “Unknown Web Page”, which means, I think, that they’re not getting much traffic. I would have expected them to be flying off the shelves.
I’m off to spend some time in the Enenews FORUM: Methods for combating radiation and its effects, which I’ve not done before. Maybe all is revealed there.
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Good point – I acknowledge if the dosimeter tests were fudged then all my statements go out the window.
Can’t afford to move is not an answer. If you can walk, you can leave and should.
More likely is comfort and uncertainty.
Your choice is to start on very hard life today by giving everything up and walking out of Fukushima and possibly in the future have a not so hard life, or continue with a not so hard life right now knowing in the back of your mind that you will possibly get sick and die, but hanging your hat on the government who is saying “all is well.
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Very well stated. I’m loathe to judge those parents, because I’m not 100% certain what I would do in their circumstances. If they were being told the full truth of what they are being exposed to, and still decided to keep the children there, that would be altogether different. But we know they are being lied to and purposely misinformed.
Still, at a certain point, you would think a parent’s instinct would kick in and know that their child is being endangered. Apparently, no one has learned anything from Chernobyl, and it’s the children who will pay the most. It’s heartbreaking to look at those young, innocent faces, and realize what they will be facing. God damn these bastards that promote this death industry to make a buck.
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barrier free source of the topic article including free pdf download can be found here:
Public health fallout from Japanese quake
http://www.cmaj.ca/site/earlyreleases/21dec11_public-health-fallout-from-japanese-quake.xhtml
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Traduction française:
http://aweb2u.free.fr/dotclear/index.php?post/2011/12/21/Un-risque-accru-de-cancer-de-lordre-denviron-1-pour-30-eleves
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Update: Fire at collapsed #3 spent fuel pool is getting bigger.
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James, if you happen to see this, would you please elaborate? I hadn’t heard about this.
Oh, Joy.
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Hmm, I’ve been posting about it for the past two days.
Sometime in the past few weeks the #3 Spent Fuel pool collapsed. It’s been on fire for the past three days at least.
I caught a glimpse of the raging inferno the other day when they left the cloaking off the cam view.
flames 50-60 feet high – maybe higher. Tacomagroove says big boom is coming. I don’t know.
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Quote from the above pile of self-serving dung: ““I’m not aware of any other government in recent decades that’s been willing to accept such a high level of radiation-related risk for its population”
That is tripe. Or else the Esteemed Professor is Reallly sheltered.
Everyone on this sight can list a dozen such capricious exposures, in 30 seconds. not even hard.
List the Atolls, bomb tests, Simi valley, iraq, afghanistan, any reactor you want to list is easy, it just is super duper easy.
this “fellow” of the “nuclear health” department is obviously a shill for the industry.
his department by even being called health is a riot.
it should be the nuke death department, right?
bloody freaking obvious.
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Seen this about US infants suffering from Fukushima’s Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/medical-journal-article-14000-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-reactor-disaster-fallout-2011-12-19
and tghis
Why does TEPCO and the Japanese Gov’t want to declare it’s Fukushima disaster Stable and more importantly, what do they hope to accomplish by doing it now; Is it a trail balloon?
A. If the people “swallow” this Nuclear Baloney (NB) then TEPCO and their other Gov’t Leaders get to keep their jobs and march onward toward a nuclear future while the Nuclear refugees are “encouraged” to return to their Fukushima homes; letting history be the judge of whether or not this was the RIGHT decision.
B. The people of Japan reject the concept of a “cold shut down” in which case TEPCO, in time, gets nationalized and Japan develops a 20 year plan to replace it’s reactors with solar of all flavors!
C. The people of Japan are insulted by what TEPCO and their Gov’t is saying and take to the streets to DEMAND immediate change. TEPCO and their Government overseers are both swept away in order to placate the people of Japan. The Nuclear Refugees get settlements and the area around Fukushima is closed to all but scientific personal for the foreseeable future. Japan’s PM pledges to “race” Germany toward New Japanese developed Solar and being Nuclear within FIVE years…
The Japanese people are now at a cross roads that will define both their future,their children’s future and possibly the future of Nuclear Power on Earth!
What will they now do:
…Bow to TEPCO?
…Accept their Leaders vow to do better?
…Or Demand much less Nuclear ASAP?
This is a decision that only the Japanese People can make;
… I hope they make US proud of them!
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Amazing: Japan Gone Nuts: NISA Declares No Contaminated Water Leak From Fuku-I, in the Past, Now, and the Future!
http://is.gd/Cu8YWN
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The Japanese government is saying that the the radiation releases are ‘under control’. On April 25, the Japanese government raised the ‘acceptable’ radiation exposure limit for children from 1 mSv/year to 20 mSv/year. So now all children are safe, because they will not get anymore radiation than that from external sources. (Forget about measuring internal radiation sources; that does not count at all.)
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/08/201181665921711896.html
The DAILY radiation release from Fukushima is estimated at 13 TRILLION Bequerels per day. With plastic cover over unit #1 it is now down to 10 Trillion Bq per day, as long as filter is working well and taking out up to 90% of the total airborne radiation, according to Arnie Gunderson.
This amounts to 100 Trillion every ten days, 1,000 Trillion Bq every 100 days, and 3000 Trillion every 300 days. This has been going on since the effort started to get this all to ‘cold shutdown’. Is this their definition of ‘cold shutdown’?
So where is the filter material? Who is in charge of disposing of it or changing it? Where is the report saying how often they change it out? Who is measuring the total amount collected and verifying this, plus the types of radiation found?
http://fairewinds.com/content/update-gundersen-if-you-love-planet-dr-hellen-caldicott
I cannot believe that with this level of radiation release, that the Japanese government and TEPCO are INVITING the public and the media to come back CLOSE to the plant, while at the same time raising radiation ‘acceptable’ limits for everyone in food, air, water and etc, with no regard for public safety.
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