Time.com: Fukushima dangers “may not be as grave as we first feared” — Only 10 people surveyed had high levels of radiation, says study — Only 10% of Chernobyl release

Published: November 17th, 2011 at 4:58 pm ET
By ENENews
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48 comments





Early Report Suggests Low Radiation Exposure in Fukushima, Time.com, Nov. 17, 2011:

[...] Now a preliminary report published in PLoS ONE finds that the dangers may not be as grave as we first feared. Over on TIME’s Ecocentric blog, our colleague Bryan Walsh reports:

The PLoS study, led by Ikuo Kashiwakura, found only 10 people among those surveyed with high levels of radiation exposure — and even those levels were not elevated enough to require decontamination. (The study covered March 15 to June 20.) Almost everyone else surveyed had low to nonexistent levels of radiation contamination, while the Hirosaki [University] staff members on site had undetectable radiation levels.

Preliminary Reports Show Little Radiation Exposure in Fukushima, Time.com Ecocentric, Nov. 16, 2011:

  • The Fukushima Daiichi meltdown released “about one-tenth the amount released after the Chernobyl disaster” [Uses the low-end figure provided early on by Japan Gov't and Tepco; Subsequently contradicted by numerous scientific estimates]
  • “A preliminary report (PDF) published in the November 16 PLoS ONE indicates that the situation may not be as severe as first feared”
  • “The PLoS paper should allow Fukushima residents some relief”

There’s an interesting comments section at Time’s Ecocentric… take a look, you can ‘like’ certain comments without signing up. No option to dislike, as might be useful for this comment by David Ropeik:

Bravo for reporting on this, unlike most of the new media, which reports on any kind of human-made radiation as the ultimate bogeyman, and fails to report on anything that puts that risk, which is certainly real but lower than most realize,  in perspective. The 20 year meta analysis of all public health research post-Chernobyl by the World Health Organization found that the psychological harm from the accident, from fear, uncertainty, mistrust, was FAR worse than the cumulative health damage from radiation. Looks like Fukushima may turn out to be the same.

Who is David Ropeik?

Nuke-O-Noia Could Be The Worst Threat To Japan, NPR, March 16, 2011:

David Ropeik is an instructor at Harvard University and author of How Risky Is it, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts.

Catastrophe! Disaster! Fear of a meltdown! All true. So is the fact that no matter how much radiation eventually comes out of the nuclear plants in Japan, the actual damage to human health won’t be as bad as many people fear. In fact, the fear itself may be much worse. [...]

Radiation can cause cancer. It’s just not as carcinogenic as we fear. It causes treatable cancers (like thyroid). It also causes cataracts and birth defects if pregnant moms are exposed, but no long lasting genetic damage. [...]

See also from today: New Scientist asks "How did the population of Fukushima prefecture dodge the radioactivity?" -- Chernobyl 10 times more radiation

 

Published: November 17th, 2011 at 4:58 pm ET
By ENENews
Email Article Email Article
48 comments





Related Posts

  1. Head of Fukushima health study: 100 mSv/yr OK for pregnant moms — “Effects of radiation do not come to people that are happy… They come to people that are weak-spirited” June 11, 2011
  2. New Scientist asks “How did the population of Fukushima prefecture dodge the radioactivity?” — Chernobyl 10 times more radiation November 16, 2011
  3. New NILU, ZAMG study: Release of radioactive xenon from Fukushima more than double Chernobyl — Largest in history — Started “immediately” after quake October 24, 2011
  4. Fukushima is already at or above Chernobyl levels and it continues to release significant amounts of radiation, says former U.S. Energy Dept. official June 11, 2011
  5. High internal radiation exposure detected in young children — 16 people with internal exposure over 1 millisievert October 22, 2011

48 comments to Time.com: Fukushima dangers “may not be as grave as we first feared” — Only 10 people surveyed had high levels of radiation, says study — Only 10% of Chernobyl release

  • chaossquared

    Oh for goddness sake

    Report Comment

  • StPaulScout StPaulScout

    Time should send several of their top people over to the reactor site at Fukushima. They could live on site for a year and let us all know what is happening on a daily basis. The could live in reactor 3′s control room…….

    Report Comment

    • Or to the uranium mining sites for hard labour.

      See
      http://www.deccanherald.com/content/205318/welcome-shift.html
      The unacceptable dangers of nuclear fuel cycle force us to comment as under:
      The horrors of uranium mining are too grotesque as nuclear power programmes deliver no electricity to society after satisfying the hunger for electricity by the nuclear industry(1).
      And see what happened at Jadugoda at
      http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/2345/59/
      The indictment against nuclear power is heart rending. An excerpt from the above sisterhood URL:
      4 The World Uranium Hearing (WUH) took place from 13-19 September 1992 in Salzburg, Austria. Founded by Claus Biegert in December and it is registered as a non-profit organisation in Munich, Germany. It was an unprecedented gathering of indigenous people affected by the nuclear industry, with focus on uranium mining. In the Hearing, about 80 indigenous and 30 non-Indigenous people, representing 25 indigenous nations and 27 countries, made testimonies. All continents were represented. It was a massive indictment against the nuclear industry for contaminating water and land and for disregard of human rights.
      It is especially painful to note the witchcraft practiced by the nuclear industry and indeed by modern civilization against the peoples of the world and indeed against all life to say that mining is harmless. The foundation of modern civilization itself is false: to see no interconnections in nature and indeed no interconnections between modern civilization and nature. Thus all strands of nature’s interconnections are being poisoned by radionuclides irreversibly. This is seen so clearly in Jadugoda as brought out by the two URLs in the URL cited.
      Mahatma Gandhi grasped this glaringly in 1908 when he proclaimed: ” Given enough time modern civilization will destroy itself.” Jadugoda is a typical example of how uranium mining is destroying life .
      1…

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  • Bobby1

    The nuclear industry spin machine is in full gear now. A couple of weeks ago, we had the reports of criticality, with xenon and krypton releases, then it comes out that iodine-131 is all over Europe.

    So we have this kind of ridiculous nonsense come out to make people not add 2 and 2 and come up with 4.

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  • toadvine

    Yeah,right. These accounts of Chernobyl cancers were/are understated. The were a lot of kids from that area who were treated at hospitals for leukemia here in Canada. I wish guys like Ropeik would just go away. He is so full of BS. The Russians have done thousands of studies and there were close to a million cancers. WHO is on the nuclear power team.

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  • TheWorldIsBlind

    I want data – not some paid off scientist telling me things are ok. I want hard facts, radiation maps, and ion analysis. I believe this is a bunch of crap in my opinion, I definitely think its worse than we originally thought, not the other way around. HARD PROOF PLEASE. STOP THIS NONSENSE. ENENEWS – Can you verify that only 1/10th of Chernobyls radiation was released???

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    • jonjon

      Enenews doesn’t endorse this David guy I believe, I’m sure actually. The article is listed to show how outrageous and out of the loop the nuclear lobby truly is.
      This David guy, who’s most likely on the nuclear lobby pay roll, has enough bad faith or ignorance to tell us the WHO has concluded this and that about radiation, and therefore it’s true. The WHO has signed an agreement with the IAEA in 1959 and that agreement still holds true today. It took a Fukushima for people to wake up to this fact. Unfortunately Chernobyl wasn’t enough… Let’s hope fukushima and the Internet helps bring about the changes we need.

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    • ion jean ion jean

      The LIES just keep flying like shit in the wind…FukU must be at least 50 times worse than Chernobyl

      Plus they are in unKnown territory with a melt through or five, steaming groundwater and massive ocean contamination

      Time magazine is FULL OF NUTTY BUTTIES from the litter box!

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  • TheWorldIsBlind

    ADD to the fact that at least 3 Nuclear containments had MELTOUTS occur, and that the Japanese government doesn’t even know where the hell the corium is. So why are these reports coming out? Tomorrow it will be – Radioactive Cesium found 500km from nuclear power plant, worse than originally thought??

    sick of this crap – lets get to the damn facts.

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  • Flapdoodle Flapdoodle

    How large was the “sample group”?
    Who were they?

    Perhaps it was 10 tourists from South America.

    Report Comment


  • Nuke plant director: ‘I thought several times that I would die’

    Wearing a white radiation protective suit, Masao Yoshida, director of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, took questions from reporters on Nov. 12.

    Masao Yoshida responds to questions from reporters in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Nov. 12. (Pool photo)
    http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311dis…J2011111317366

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  • McDuck McDuck

    More BS non-rational propaganda.

    What’s worse is that like the recent New Scientist POS article, it appears to be a pre-scripted talking point designed to manipulate those that only trust “mainstream” news sources, and further bias them against truth tellers.

    I damaged a friendship with a nice gal over Fukushima because she only listened to NPR exclusively, and wouldn’t bother with “conspiracy theory” for fear of damaging her professional credibility. Thanks for crapping that up even more, and making me look like a paranoid dick, “Dave”.

    Fun fact about David Ropeik:

    “He has Bachelors Degree (’72) and Masters Degree (’73) in Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.”

    Source:
    http://dropeik.com/dropeik/background.html

    So he has a Masters Degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, just like Chelsea Whyte that wrote the other recent pro-Nuke propaganda piece. You can’t make this crap up.

    Learn what these elitist criminals look like folks. They’ll be put on trial for their crimes against humanity someday.

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    • ben ben

      David Ropeik said:

      Radiation can cause cancer. It’s just not as carcinogenic as we fear. It causes treatable cancers (like thyroid). It also causes cataracts and birth defects if pregnant moms are exposed, but no long lasting genetic damage.

      —————————

      “Nuclear radiation is the most carcinogenic thing that exists – said AIOM president Carmelo Iacono – and it cannot be kept under control, as the Fukushima tragedy proved. Let’s drop the nuclear plants project and let’s start staking on alternative energy, which pollutes much less and which, unlike nuclear energy, does not pose a threat for health”

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    • Bobby1

      David Ropeik, homeland security, the advertising council:

      “He was a contributing expert to the Department of Homeland Security Task Force considering changes to the color-coded alert Homeland Security Advisory system…

      He was an Advisory Board member of the America Prepared campaign for terrorism and natural disaster preparedness, a joint effort of the Department of Homeland Security, the Advertising Council, the sloan Foundation, and a consortium of businesses and individuals.”

      Other members of the America Prepared advisory board include James Carville, Mary Matalin, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Les Moonves, Bill O’Reilly, and Harvey Weinstein. A who’s who of media political spin doctor types.

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      • ben ben

        David Ropeik said:

        Bravo for reporting on this, unlike most of the new media, which reports on any kind of human-made radiation as the ultimate bogeyman, and fails to report on anything that puts that risk, which is certainly real but lower than most realize, in perspective. The 20 year meta analysis of all public health research post-Chernobyl by the World Health Organization found that the psychological harm from the accident, from fear, uncertainty, mistrust, was FAR worse than the cumulative health damage from radiation. Looks like Fukushima may turn out to be the same.
        ———————————-

        What’s his (David Ropeik) estimate about Chernobyl casualties?

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        • ben ben

          Estimates of the number of deaths potentially resulting from the accident vary enormously: Thirty one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers.[10] A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests it could reach 4,000 civilian deaths, a figure which does not include military clean-up worker casualties.[11] A 2006 report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[12] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more.[13] A Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.[14]

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    • girlygrrll

      So Mr. Ropeik isn’t even a scientist? Nice….

      Report Comment

  • dosdos dosdos

    Uranium prices are rising again, a sign that demand is rising again.

    This tripe has been circulating the last few days. Makes me want to puke every time I run across it.

    He needs to drink some Daiichi water with the minister, but without the switcheroo.

    Report Comment

  • jec

    What is it about CANCER that is okay? Its difficult to live without a thyroid-victim needs daily medication, blood draws every several months. SCANS to check for recurrence.And if the medication is not taken–go look up “CRETIN”–which is what happens when the human body does not have thyroid hormones. Oh..and then there is an issue for women who need to carry a baby to term..if they can get pregnant. How do I know? Not from a university course..My family has several cases of this disease, my daughter has thyroid cancer..diagnosed LATE..she was 30( you are too young to have CA..so they didnt test her correctly)–and now its outside the thyroid. So for any scientist who thinks CANCER is okay and curable–its not. Once you have the disease..you can have the cells surgically or oblated with radiation have chemo all all of the above..but it still can re-occur. Its a wait and watch situation. No one should make it “sound easy and okay…” It NOT OKAY…it does not go away easily and safely.

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  • arclight arclight

    bleah! (redacted)
    thought id pop in and put my tupenny in…

    but no long lasting genetic damage

    Silent bombs for the Motherland
    Residents of a remote part of Kazakhstan still suffer the fallout from Soviet nuclear tests.
    Gerald Sperling Last Modified: 25 Jul 2010

    http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2009/07/20097311050441793.html

    Witness – Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland – Part 1
    “Between 1949 and 1989, the Soviet Union exploded 460 nuclear bombs in eastern Kazakhstan. The damage residents suffered as a result of being exposed to high levels of radiation has been passed on and seems to have intensified in the following generations.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aUVQiKVKJQ&feature=relmfu

    Witness – Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland – Part 2

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwCbuNJa2XI&feature=relmfu

    Witness – Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland – Part 3

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzF7dzQuhpQ&feature=relmfu

    Witness – Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland – Part 4

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3hyqM-8xfM&feature=relmfu

    and this

    and this badly working flash? website….wow!! check out the pictures f£$%”%k!!!

    http://www.dinarasagatova.com/polygon/

    if you have a problem negotiating the site
    click on the bottom link on this search page and use that to move around the site

    http://www.metacrawler.com/search/web?fcoid=417&fcop=topnav&fpid=2&q=polgon+victims+kazahkstan&ql=

    in case that search link doesnt work..

    Semipalatinsk polygon :: Nuclear Warfare
    http://www.dinarasagatova.com/polygon/

    Found Exclusively On: Google
    Informational web site about Semipalatinsk polygon, a former Soviet nuclear test site located in eastern Kazakhstan. Web site features audio and photo galleries, …

    http://enenews.com/sunday-night-movie-lead-radiation-doctor-we-were-wrong-a-huge-new-group-has-appeared-the-children-of-parents-who-have-been-irradiated-video-1hr-2min

    the whole thread has great links

    Report Comment

  • hbjon hbjon

    Ben has a point. After all only a million people died a slow agonizing death from Chernobyl. And the good people who emerged from the concentration camps in Nazi Germany (WHO) say that stress is more dangerous than Plutonium. The EPA has said that radiation sources won’t make the trip to America. News is blacked out regarding Fukushima. (for the most part, except fringe internet sites). No info on thousands of fishermen that got blasted by fallout. No info on thousands of workers from Fukushima. Only a few people allowed to speak on the subject Arnie, Chris, and a few others. No lively debates going on. (except here). I can go on forever, but too pissed off right now.

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    • Pallas89juno Pallas89juno

      Dear Hbjon: You’re right. No info from the status quo authorities and MSM/corporate and coproratist representing only media on anything. Probably tens of millions more currently in the process of dying from Chernobyl related fallout, many hundreds of thousands of these young children with “Chernobyl Heart” (their hearts severely shrunken beneath normal masses) dying of severe cardiovascular disease often before their 10th year of life! Please see the easily found documentary “Chernobyl Heart”.

      Report Comment

  • Pallas89juno Pallas89juno

    Time, Newsweek, Business Week,NYT, etc., are still sticking with the White House, Pentagon disinformation that we’ve only murdered (“killed”) a total of 50,000 or so civilians in Iraq…not counting Afghanistan, since our latest illegal invasion of Iraq initiated on totally false premises beginning March 17, 2003 to the present, when by 2006 or so, the UK Medical Journal, Lancet and Johns Hopkins University in the U.S., were both indicating by very reproducible studies on the topic that between 650,000 and 1.2M Iraqi civilians had by then been killed by U.S. troops. If this number sounds large because you’re used to seeing numbers that are so much smaller, please research the reportage of the statement by Mad Albright and Bill Clinton as to the 567,000 children that died as a result of their pursuit of GHW Bush’s, “food for oil” terrorism against Iraq. The year, 1996. As to U.S. troop deaths in desert warfare in Iraq after nearly 9 years (from March, 2003) of ongoing U.S. terrorism in Iraq, ongoing despite propaganda saying there have significant reductions in enlisted troops, of only 5K or 6K deaths from troops numbering more than a million cycled an average of more than two tours each through Iraq? Does this make sense? Study how many troops would have died from natural causes in this time period with that number of troops. You’ll see we’re not even being given the correct number if it were only those dying of natural causes who were counted among U.S. troop deaths in Iraq alone, not counting Afghanistan. Are Time or Newsweek relevant or accurate sources of information?

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  • I posted a comment at the site. I encourage others to do so as well. Use links and provide citations if possible.

    Report Comment

  • Ron

    “It causes treatable cancers (like thyroid). It also causes cataracts and birth defects if pregnant moms are exposed, but no long lasting genetic damage. ”

    Well that’s certainly a ringing endorsement! Yesserie sign me up!!!

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  • but no long lasting genetic damage. ” ????

    TV: Many Chernobyl scientists dead — Survivors with chromosome/DNA damage (VIDEO)
    http://enenews.com/pbs-many-chernobyl-scientists-dead-survivors-chromosomedna-damage-video

    Soviet Radiation Doctor: We were wrong — A huge new group has appeared… The children of parents who have been irradiated (VIDEO, 1hr 2min)
    http://enenews.com/sunday-night-movie-lead-radiation-doctor-we-were-wrong-a-huge-new-group-has-appeared-the-children-of-parents-who-have-been-irradiated-video-1hr-2min

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    • ben ben

      Was this article published in Nature, i would like to see Nature editor reply.

      ———————-

      Initial submission

      When you are ready to submit the paper, please use the online submission system for the journal concerned. When the journal receives your manuscript, it will be assigned a number and an editor, who reads the paper, seeks informal advice from scientific advisors and editorial colleagues, and compares your submission to other recently published papers in the field. If the paper seems novel and arresting, and the work described has both immediate and far-reaching implications, the editor will send it out for peer-review, usually to two or three independent specialists. However, because the journals can publish a small proportion of the papers in the field or subfield concerned, many papers have to be declined without peer-review even though they may describe solid scientific results.

      http://www.nature.com/authors/author_resources/how_publish.html

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  • karaa karaa

    how can someone downplay cancer? It is suffering and fearing and despair.
    how can someone downplay birth defect? tremendous suffering, crying and despair.
    thank you enenews for publishing those article, it shows uns how dangerous this sort of people are
    and besides: if the situation is not as bad as they FEARED, we can read beyond the lines: no matter what their lies are now, they FEARED. why didn’t they evacuate the people?

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    • anne anne

      Some people are willing to give up life itself in order to amass wealth. These people are so insecure they cannot live without pretending that they are gods. This story is as old as time, from the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to the story of “Faust”. They sell their souls to the devil. They have tunnel vision. No matter what you tell them they cannot see the arguments or reality or the truth. They are hurdling us all into oblivion very quickly.

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  • pure water

    Chernobyl still kills, and nobody seems to notice, so they try to play the same trick again! But:
    http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-by-highest-death-rate-from-lung-cancer.html

    http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-by-highest-death-rate-from-heart-disease.html
    Can you see the pattern – those, who are closer, die from heart disease, and more distant, from cancer, and this is only one type of cancer!

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  • Ship’s chronometers are also running backwards. The flow of time is reversed in this universe. The longer we stay here, the younger we will become.

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  • Hogweed

    If you actually read the paper, rather than the spun press reports, the emergency responders were scanning evacuees with geiger counters looking for levels of contamination that were so high there was an immediate danger of death.

    When they arrived in Fukushima City the paper says the air radiation level was 10 microsieverts per hour. That is the evacuees were being evacuated into an area at 10 microsieverts per hour – which is insane.

    You had to be almost glowing in the dark before they could detect high levels of personal contamination.

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  • Sometimes people lie so often and so long, that they actually start believing their own lies..

    I think that many industries need to say things that they know are not true, in order to justify their own existence, because the truth is too horrible to admit both to themselves or to anyone else.

    Witness; Congress called in all of the tobacco company executives and they all testified UNDER OATH, that tobacco does NOT CAUSE CANCER.

    Uh huh, so it was the tooth fairy causing all of the lung cancer in these lung cancer patients then, right?

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