Stanford Publication: Were TV experts paid to say Fukushima Daiichi had a small leak when it was the largest in the world?

Published: May 31st, 2012 at 12:03 pm ET
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On the Cesium Road
Hoover Institution’s Hoover Digest
Toshio Nishi
April 6, 2012 no. 2

[...]

Expert reassurances abounded. As soon as the disaster hit Fukushima and for months after, one scientist after another from famous universities and government agencies appeared on nightly news programs, intoning with an air of superior knowledge that radioactive dust and vapor in the air or fish or rice failed to pose “an immediate health risk.” We, unschooled in the fields of radioactivity or medicine, wondered, if not immediately, then when? Will we have cancer?

The experts lectured us that our intense anxiety and aversion about all things radioactive were groundless. They even implied, with little subtlety, that our deepening fear resembled herd thinking, a panic attack. Were they paid to say that the lethal leak was actually a small amount when it was the largest in the world? Or that the accident could be controlled with available safety procedures when the reactors still lie in ruins and no one can account for the deadly water and steam?

Those scholars and experts do not appear on national TV anymore. No one wonders why.

But when the experts disappeared, Tokyo Electric Power Company appeared, acknowledging on television that a reactor meltdown had indeed occurred within the first few hours of the quake and tsunami. This admission of a triple meltdown popped up two months after the accident, during which time Tokyo Electric had obstinately refused to admit to any such thing. The confession came too late for those people who had stayed but a little distance away from the reactors and were unknowingly rained upon by radioactive dust and vapor day after day. Tens of thousands of children lived nearby.

[...]

Toshio Nishi is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 1991 to the present, Nishi has been a distinguished guest professor at Reitaku University in Chiba, Japan, and from 2004 a graduate school professor at Nihon University in Tokyo. [...] From 1985 to 1991, Nishi was a foreign correspondent for NHK Journal, a radio program of Japan’s largest media system. [...] Nishi has been one of the most sought-after speakers on Japan’s national speaking circuit. He has been a member of the board of regents of Executive Forum of Japan since 2000. From 1997 to 1999, Nishi was a commentator for TV Tokyo. Nishi is chairman of the editorial board and a monthly columnist for Kokkai News (a news magazine on politics), Japan’s oldest monthly magazine.

h/t Akio Matsumura

Published: May 31st, 2012 at 12:03 pm ET
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29 comments to Stanford Publication: Were TV experts paid to say Fukushima Daiichi had a small leak when it was the largest in the world?

  • kintaman kintaman

    If this proves to be true, which I believe it will be as I suspected this all along since last year, I say that these "experts" should all be FORCED to work doing manual clean up at Fukushima Daiichi. Their families should also be force to live in the contaminated areas that Fukushima families are living in now. Give their homes to the families suffering now.

    This may sound extreme but why should they simply get away, get a mild slap on the wrist or a simple prison sentence. Let the punishment fit the crime. I say show NO mercy for these monsters.

    I will add that seeing these "experts" on TV added to the already tense situation with my Japanese in-laws and my own Japanese relatives when I was warning them all that they were being lied to. They questioned my sanity and even if I was truly of Japanese blood for saying such things. It was crazy really, but given the extreme circumstances I can understand. There is a permanent rift between my mother in-law and myself that resulted from this but I must really attribute it to my inability to contain my anger at the lies spewed forth on the TV. Whenever an "expert" or Edano appeared on TV after the disaster to calm the people down I always exclaimed in a very loud way that they were lying to the people. I am sure many still in Japan are feeling a growing rage and want to do something about it….hopefully they will get their pitchforks ready soon.


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    • bleep_hits_blades

      kintaman, I just wanted to say that I have long admired you for your intelligence/wisdom in being able to face the truth and act on it and make the difficult decision to move your family. That shows much intelligence and strength of character, and also love of your family – not being a flatterer here, just stating the truth as I see it.

      The conflicts with (some) family members sound familiar, in a general way, as I have long been the lone non-conformist/ 'conspiracy theorist' in a for the most part rigidly conformist family – or as I call them 'fit-in-skis' – those to whom 'fitting in' is more important than the truth, even than the truths that are 'killing us softly' and not so softly, slowly and not so slowly – depending on who and where we are (how I helplessly pity those poor people in Afghanistan and the Mid-East and other parts of the globe which are being pillaged and 're-structured' by the international corporate/banking elites).


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      • HoTaters HoTaters

        One of my Japanese friends (an artist studying in the U.S.) said his [REMOVED] relatives were bound to tradition. They could not understand why he would become an artist, and leave his homeland to go and study in the U.S.

        No knock on [REMOVED], but it was an interesting comment coming from a Japanese man.

        [RACIST LANGUAGE, FINAL WARNING]


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        • HoTaters HoTaters

          Bleep, I'm more or less in the same shoes as you are. A sister and her husband are academics, so they are now fairly open minded about a lot of things. This has been a great relief, as the rest of the family can be pretty rigid. if I were to mention DU and the true situation in Fukushima, I suspect most of them would roll their eyes or get the "deer in the headlights, I'm somewhere else" look on their faces ….


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          • bleep_hits_blades

            HoTaters, I keep wondering if they – in their own hearts and minds – have retreated even a few baby steps from their rigid adherence to the MSM 'established dogmas'.

            Seems it's just gotta be harder to deny the obvious as the game progresses/gets more in our faces and scarier.

            I just don't see how their position is supportable, given what is coming down in the world today… on the other hand, if they don't check out the alternative media online, it is possible still to have head firmly inserted in posterior – as we see from the la-la-landers all around us who are blithely unaware that they and their families are being soft-killed as we speak/write/wring our hands…


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            • HoTaters HoTaters

              2 Bleep, yes, I wonder too if hearts & minds will begin to change once it is clear there is a direct threat to everyone.

              I know many, many highly intelligent people who have bought the "spin" hook, line, and sinker. It's nearly impossible to reason with them about anything on which the mainstream media has promoted a particular position.

              Fukushima, 9/11, and so on ….

              We tried to get an architect friend to look at data from Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Our friend wouldn't even look at the evidence. A successful, intelligent commercial architect. Sad.


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    • AGreenRoad AGreenRoad

      Fukushima; Today's Titantic and Costa Concordia; via A Green Road Blog http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/fukushima-todays-titantic-and-costa.html

      Just like an 'unsinkable' ship, FUKU captains are proclaiming everyone is safe.. Meanwhile, the ship is sinking…

      How many people will be rescued?

      How many will be locked up in steerage?


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  • bleep_hits_blades

    Enenews 'no ka oi' (plagiarizing Maui's motto, Maui no ka oi, Maui is the best). Another great find here. Truth – long may it cautiously poke its head, upon which there is a price, out of its timid little hidy-hole.

    Yes, you see, mal/misfesance is not just a temporary aberration that sometimes crops up in govt. – it is SOP in govt. We have a bunch of gangsta govts. running the world today – money & lots of it makes people abandon whatever scruples they might have had before getting into the political game.

    It's a cryin' shame that most people are to varying degrees ignorant of that 'secret' which lies like an ugly out-of-control infection at the heart of virtually all govts. & their big business cronies/bosses.

    My guess all along has been that TEPCO has been refusing offers of aid from other countries because it has too many skeletons in the closet, too many dirty big & little secrets that it HAS to protect or face public humiliation & maybe even some legal proceedings involving charges of 'high crimes & misdemeanors' & betrayal of public trust & collusion against the public interest not just of Japan but (as we see) across the invisible/man-made borders.

    It's high time we/someone forced the abandonment of the prevailing double standard, by which we get the book thrown at us for minor infractions, while the big corporations & govts. commit outrageous crimes against humanity & walk free & even are awarded medals (Obama, Nobel Peace Prize?!?)


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  • CaptD CaptD

    Time will show that the entire Fukushima Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster was "controlled" by the Nuclear Fascists* in a "failed" attempt to protect their market share of the Energy Business…

    They are spending huge amounts of money now trying to shore up their RISKY technology and are using all their Gov't. contacts to hinder development of all other forms of Energy production. Germany will be their test case, because now Germany is showing the World that they can begin to phase out nuclear and still grow their economy!

    The Web has allowed people from all over the Planet to cut through their Nuclear Baloney* and see nuclear reactors for what they are, the BIGGEST RISK mankind faces…

    * http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nuclear+fascism

    ** http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Nuclear+Baloney


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  • HoTaters HoTaters

    Am glad to see the academic community finally beginning to speak out, and speak the truth. This is what I have been waiting for. Once the scientific community gains momemtum in the consensus to tell the truth, the game of lying and obfuscation is over.

    People will listen to the academics.


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    • HoTaters HoTaters

      My point being true academics (and not those producing studies with specious results and conclusions, i.e., pseudo-science) will have academic integrity, and will report the actual findings. They will not just shut up because their views are unpopular. This has long been the tradition in the real academic community.


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  • labmonkeywithagun labmonkeywithagun

    One Bq of cesium does NOT equal one Bq of a banana.

    There are different kinds of radiation.
    One Bq just says a nuclear decay, not what kind.

    Alpha stop with a piece of paper. Why? Because as soon as it finds other atoms it tries to become stable by giving off energy to everything around it. Can "ionize" a few hundred thousand before things settle to ground state. Not much of a problem outside the skin, but lungs can't take many "Hits" before you get lung cancer. This is why you don't want to breath a even few atoms of plutonium.

    Beta decay is potassium 40 and carbon 14, stop easily by a piece of paper, not great for you, but only effects a few other atoms which settle down quickly. Less ionization, more a jump in electron orbits without the electron actually leaving the atom.

    Another biggie is doesn't keep going and making other "daughter" isotopes that also undergo decay. Cesium does.

    Cesium is gamma, a hyped up X-ray. INSIDE your body. Ionizes lots and lots of atoms with those working their way back down…..they do that by spitting out lower energy gamma, then high energy X-ray, then lower X-ray, ect all the way down to finally heat.

    But keep on believing eating radioactives are good for you. I'll go with only to treat cancer by KILLING IT.

    A friend of mine said repost this, he is not free to post it in Japanese at the moment……please feel free to spread it and change it in any way you want.
    Thanx,
    ;) )


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  • odylan

    What "the TV experts" said is called "nukespeak" and the following is worth watching in full: http://blip.tv/envirovideo/enviro-close-up-613-nukespeak-5864602


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  • glowfus

    t.v.?,,,t.v. is so last century. an ancient media brothel.


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  • odylan

    glowfus – With respect all TV is not "last century" or "an ancient media brothel". The "blip TV" link at 1:17pm above is worth 45 minutes of anybody's time.


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  • glowfus

    back to topic; re the fuku2 (daini) 12 feet of water from tidal wave and coolant disruption; as you already know; 4-20-12 mr. hosono, "ten other reactors in considerably severe condition, 14 total in extreme situations." so we have similar designed machines with similar accident and expect a completely different outcome ? yes it can happen that way or, of course,,todays article.


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  • TheBigPicture TheBigPicture

    Everyone in the nuclear industry stayed quiet when they shouldn't have.


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  • bleep_hits_blades

    Re academics being 'more open-minded' – very often, I have not found that to be the case. In fact many of them are MORE close-minded & conformist because they have more to lose – namely their higher status & better pay.

    I have 2 sons; one was home-schooled & the other went to public schools & then to university & has a Ph.D. in a scientific field & does research. Both are very bright; however, the Ph.D. is rigidly closed to this info, while my home-schooled son is very open-minded & checks things out before accepting/rejecting (& is pretty much on the same page as many here on enenews in terms of his grasp of our situation as regards control/censoring of information).

    When I tutored in the public schools here in Hawaii I expected more openness & curiosity about my researches into the control of information — but I encountered the timid 'whipped' conformity of most of the teachers I worked with.

    The professional ranks actually discipline themselves/one another to conform to the 'accepted wisdom' – or they face much painful ridicule, social/ professional ostracism, & even loss of livelihood and in some cases might even be prosecuted for the 'crime' of disagreeing with the prevailing dogma – for example, holistic health practitioners can be criminally charged for offering alternative therapies for cancer, etc., even with informed patient consent.

    I've met many 'controlled' professionals; most open-minded group I've found are the inde contractors.


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    • doctorwhowhatwhere doctorwhowhatwhere

      As a teaching academic for nearly thirty years, bleep, I tend to agree with you, especially where the sciences are concerned. Too much research funding comes from corporations and agencies with their own heavily slanted agendas, when what we most need is agenda-free funding that simply backs the finding of new knowledge and answers. In my experience, there are few academics who will buck the system, and those who do are often marginalized and discredited.


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  • StPaulScout StPaulScout

    Is it not the function of the modern media to say whatever their masters pay them to say? I mean "Were experts paid to say…."? Fucking right they were. And they will be paid today, tomorrow and everyday until the media is taken back over by people interested in the truth.


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  • Heart of the Rose Heart of the Rose

    Oh.. heck ya… they were paid..and others volunteered readily…enjoying complicity.


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  • Heart of the Rose Heart of the Rose

    PS…In a sociopathic society ..complicity is to be enjoyed and rewarded.
    This is one of the fail points that got us into this situation.


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    • BreadAndButter BreadAndButter

      So true, Heart. It's mostly not the best who make it to the top, but the toughest who wrestle their way through.
      Hat's off to the professor for speaking so openly.


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  • TepcoSievert TepcoSievert

    Last december, I was in France, listening to the news on France-Infos radio channel. There was an item about Japan, where a record-sized tuna had been caught near Fukushima and bought for an also record-price by a sushi restaurant chain wishing to "support the area of Fukushima". The Tokyo correspondent of that radio station commented. I was absolutely shocked to hear him state that this event was noteworthy as " … some SLIGHTLY CONTAMINATED (" … de l'eau légèrement contaminée" … ) water" had been leaked into the ocean around Fukushima "AT THE TIME OF the crisis". That very same correspondent back in march and april of 2011 had been describing the massive leaks that occurred as TEPCO tried to cool the crippled reactors. I couldn't believe my ears. This guy must have been either paid or threatened by his bosses.


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