Nuclear Meltdown Watch

[eyeno]

Noticed a pattern of anomaly around the first half of February in particular 14th and 15th ish on the EPA Radnet map on many stations across the country, mainly Western area of US. Just thought I would throw that in the hopper for mind jerk in case anybody may stumble upon the cause in your travels. Some monitors register spikes, some are turned off or otherwise funky. This is just a few, there are others.


http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radne ... ey-bg.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radne ... gs-bg.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radne ... ld-bg.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radne ... ta-bg.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radne ... ta-bg.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radnet-reno-bg.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radne ... ls-bg.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/radne ... ke-bg.html

[eyeno]

George Monbiot and Helen Caldicott with Physicians For Social Responsibility interviewed on Democracy Now. VIDEO

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/30/p ... _debate_on

[seemslikeadream]

^^^Thanks


Are they purposely letting contaminated water run into the ocean so they don't have to deal with where to put it?

Japan nuclear update: Where will they put the radioactive water?
As pools of highly radioactive water are found beneath Japan's damaged reactors, authorities hoping to protect the ocean and groundwater are struggling to find adequate storage

[StarmanSkye]

The official 'response' to this ongoing unmitigated disaster just boggles.

Seems to me, the technological fix should consist of a massive incinerator-dehydrator with activated-carbon scrubbers. Or perhaps via desalinization. Barging the water 'away' (to WHERE????) seems like yet another half-assed profound idiocy. It appears this will be the pattern for how this debacle will be 'managed', always reacting in a confused, disjointed, impulsive & inept floundering manner instead of proactive & comprehensive -- maybe that's just the nature of a nuclear-disaster pandora's box.

But until they can remove the damaged fuel rods and place them in a proper cooling-pool repository with circulating-water and a heat-exchanger, they're going to continue pumping some 700 tons of water per day -- which will either evaporate or leak into the ground and the water-table and/or ocean.

They should have begun moving heavy-equipment ie. cranes and salvage machinery onsite ASAP in order to begin removing the wreckage from the reactor buildings in order to clear the cooling pools and reactor access. Although that's VERY problematic where the spent-fuel has been damaged by overheating which caused the zircalloy cladding to oxidize and burn, or boiling-off of water or leaking then being exposed to air. The fairewind update re: reactor #4 cooling pools w/ analysis by engineer Arnie Gunderson shows severe damage of the boron-lined spent-fuel boxes comprising the fuel racks in the pools which appear to be drained. So much of the fuel bundles are apparently melted, being a major source of radioactive release.

BTW: Just in: The bodies of 2 missing TEPCO workers have been found in the turbine-building basement of Reactor #4 --
Also, the latest crack-sealing operations to plug-up a suspected route for contaminated water reaching the sea have apparently failed.

[Jeff]

[StarmanSkye]

^^^^^
MAN is that freaky -- seems to tie-in with the observed 'blue light' phenomenon.
Inadvertant localized criticality -- as if there weren't enough curveballs to be alarmed by.

[eyeno]

Here are two articles from Harvey Wasserman, author and editor of nukefree.org, that should be spread far and wide.

The first article is “Safe” Radiation is a Lethal Three Mile Island Lie and addresses the government lies about so called “safe” doses of radiation.

The second article is People Died at Thread Mile Island discusses the government orchestrated cover up of the Three Mile Island incident.

Note the parallels between the Three Mile Island cover up and the events that are occurring right now.

“Safe” Radiation Is a Lethal TMI

Harvey Wasserman


There is no safe dose of radiation.

We do not x-ray pregnant women.

Any detectable fallout can kill.

With erratic radiation spikes, major air and water emissions and at least three reactors and waste pools in serious danger at Fukushima, we must prepare for the worst.

When you hear the terms “safe” and “insignificant” in reference to radioactive fallout, ask yourself: ”Safe to whom”? ”Insignificant for which of us?”


http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/0 ... and-13567/

[eyeno]

Shippers Tokyo route as U.S. Says radiation maintain wiped away easily

Five of the six biggest container shippers are maintaining routes to Tokyo and Yokohama after the U.S. Navy said radiation on vessels from the leaking Fukushima Dai-Ichi

nuclear plant can be scrubbed off with soap and water.

A.P Moeller-Maersk A/S, Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM SA, the top three, are still serving Japan’s two busiest container ports, 2 1/2 weeks after an earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima plant, 220 kilometers (135 miles) to the north. Among the top six shippers, only Hapag-Lloyd AG, the No. 4, is diverting vessels to docks in the south of the country.

The Japanese government is allowing ships to sail as close as 30 kilometers to the stricken reactors, and the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, says operations in and out of Japan can continue as normal, with levels of radiation presenting no medical basis for imposing restrictions.

“These are extremely low levels and are easily cleaned off,” Commander Jeff Davis, a spokesman for Seventh Fleet, which is helping with recovery efforts, said by yesterday by telephone. “Even if they weren’t, they still wouldn’t rise to the level where they would cause any harm to human health.”

Tokyo port, which accounted for 22 percent of Japanese container throughput last year, according to market researcher Alphaliner, has tried to ease fears through steps including posting information about radiation readings. Levels were safe as of March 27, according to the Transport Ministry’s website.

Sales of radiation-detection devices to companies shipping cargoes to and from Japan have increased, U.K.-based safety- equipment supplier International Mining & Marine Ltd. said.

Trade Hub

Japanese ports handle about 4 percent of the world’s boxes and, prior to the quake, 18 percent of the containership fleet by capacity was due to call in the country, according to data from the research unit of Clarkson Plc, the biggest shipbroker.

CMA CGM, based in Marseille, France, said on March 25 that all of its owned and chartered vessels would continue to call in Japan as scheduled, serving nine ports — none of them in the contaminated area.

Evergreen Marine Corp. of Taipei, the fifth-largest container line, is serving Tokyo and Yokohama as usual, spokeswoman Katherine Ko said by telephone. Neptune Orient Lines Ltd.’s APL unit, the world No. 6, is maintaining services to Yokohama, Japan’s second-biggest container port, spokesman Mike Zampa said today.

“Alarm bells aren’t ringing for the shipping industry at this stage,” Jan Fritz Hansen, executive vice president of the Copenhagen-based Danish Shipowners’ Association, whose members account for as much as 7 percent world sea transportation, said yesterday by phone. “It’s pretty much business as usual.”

Nagoya Return

Hamburg, Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd said March 25 that it would resume services to Nagoya, Japan’s third-largest container port, though the moratorium on sailings to Tokyo and Yokohama will be lifted only when the locations are “considered safe,” adding that “security is above everything.” Ships are being rerouted to ports further away from Fukushima, such as Kobe.

The U.S. fleet has taken steps to avoid contamination, including trying to keep ships upwind from the Fukushima plant and asking helicopter pilots to fly with windows closed, Davis said. For sailors on some land missions within 50 nautical miles of the power plant, it’s also administering potassium iodide.

Radiation on the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and helicopters using the ship as a base was cleaned off after the vessel passed through a plume on March 13, the spokesman said, adding that there was both surface and air contamination.

“It’s absolutely possible to protect our people against the possible effects of radiation while carrying out our mission to help the Japanese people,” Davis said. “It is a risk that absolutely can be mitigated and managed.”

Debris

The navy is working with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to clear harbors of wreckage from the March 11 tsunami and helping deliver aid. The seven container ports damaged in the disaster handled only 1.3 percent of Japanese container volumes last year, according to Alphaliner.

Japan is advising against sailing within 80 nautical miles of Fukushima because of debris dragged out to sea, Hidefumi Akagi, who is responsible for advising companies on ocean routes at the Japan Coast Guard, said today by phone.

Container lines including Copenhagen-based Maersk have set up their own exclusion zones that go beyond official recommendations. Neptune Orient’s APL division is keeping ships 200 nautical miles away from the plant and has stopped taking bookings for cargo to be hauled by land or barge into “high- risk” areas.

China Action

Overseas authorities are also scanning cargos, and the MOL Presence was turned away from the Chinese port of Xiamen last week after passing more than 120 kilometers off the coast of Fukushima prefecture on March 16. The vessel showed “abnormal” radiation levels, according to a March 25 notice on the website of the Xiamen Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.

The MOL Presence exhibited a maximum of 3.5 microsieverts per hour of radiation, operator Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. said late yesterday, citing a report from the Chinese authorities. A chest X-ray gives a dose of 20 microsieverts, according to the U.K. Health Protection Agency’s website, and Jack Edlow, whose Washington-based Edlow International Co. specializes in shipping radioactive materials, said the quantity is “barely detectable.”

The ship, which was loaded with 4,698 containers, is heading for Kobe, Japan, where Mitsui will arrange for another inspection, the Tokyo-based shipper said.

Detection Devices

U.S. Customs and Border Protection scanned 355 boxes at the port of Los Angeles on the first container ship to arrive from Japan following the quake, according to operator APL. All boxes on the vessel, the APL Korea, were cleared for delivery.

Demand for detection devices ranging from hand-held units to instrumentation wired into the ship’s bridge has shown an “exponential” jump, said Alan Betts, sales manager at Sheffield, England-based International Mining & Marine. Delivery times have stretched to eight or nine weeks from two to three, he said.

Nippon Yusen KK, Japan’s largest shipping line by sales, hasn’t seen any major impact on schedules because of the exclusion zone, Jun Katayama, a spokesman, said by phone. The company is operating liquefied-natural gas, oil and dry-bulk shipping operations as normal, he said today

Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the nation’s third-largest shipping line, has no plans to operate ships in Fukushima and the rest of Tohoku region, said Makoto Arai, a spokesman. There are no major ports in that area, he said. Commodity-shipping operations are also unaffected, he said today.

Orient Overseas (International) Ltd., Hong Kong’s biggest container line, is continuing services to all Japanese ports except those shut because of damage from the tsunami, it said in an e-mailed reply to questions today. No radiation has been found on any of its cargos, it said.

The company has been affected by Hapag-Lloyd’s decision to skip calls because it has an agreement to use space on those services. Its own vessels are still serving Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya, it said.

Two, Three Hours

Hanjin Shipping Co., the operator of a container terminal in Tokyo, began inspecting cargo for radiation a few days after the quake, said Sonya Cho, a spokeswoman. No contamination has been found, she said. The inspections take two or three hours and are causing few disruptions to cargo movements, she said.

Seoul-based Hyundai Merchant Marine Co. is operating its usual services, Lee Jun Ki, a spokesman, said by phone. STX Pan Ocean Co., South Korea’s biggest bulk carrier, also is operating normally at Japanese ports, spokesman Lim Wang Joo said.

Source: Bloomberg



http://bestshippingnews.com/freight-new ... ay-easily/

20 microseverts (one chest xray) divided by 3.5 microseverts per hour = one chest xray every 5.714285 hours

24 hours in a day X 365 days in a year = 8760 hours in a year

8760 divided by 5.714285 = 1533 chest xrays per year

1533 divided by 12 = 127.75 chest xrays per month

127.75 divided by 4 = 31.9375 chest xrays per week

31.9375 divided by 7 = 4.5625 chest xrays per day

[eyeno]

Global Supply Lines at Risk as Shipping Lines Shun Japan






By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: March 25, 2011

HONG KONG — The economic disruptions from Japan’s crisis have cascaded into another, crucial link in the global supply chain: cargo shipping.


Fearing the potential impact on crews, cargo and vessels worth tens of millions of dollars, some of the world’s biggest container shipping lines have restricted or barred their ships from calling on ports in Tokyo Bay over concerns about radiation from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Meantime, ports in China are starting to require strict radiation checks on ships arriving from Japan. And in California on Friday, the first ship to reach the Port of Long Beach since Japan’s earthquake was boarded and scanned for radiation by Coast Guard and federal customs officials before being allowed to dock.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/busin ... c=buslnzzz

MORE AT LINK

[justdrew]

"HELEN CALDICOTT: … Up to a million people have already died from Chernobyl, and people will continue to die from cancer for virtually the rest of time. What we should know is that a millionth of a gram of plutonium, or less, can induce cancer, or will induce cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilos, or 500 pounds, of plutonium in it. You know, there’s enough plutonium in these reactors to kill everyone on earth.

Now, what George doesn’t understand… You don’t understand internal emitters. I was commissioned to write an article for the New England Journal of Medicine about the dangers of nuclear power. I spent a year researching it. You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative, George, because you’re highly intelligent and a very important commentator, that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days. …

As it leaks into the water over time, it will bioconcentrate in the food chains, in the breast milk, in the fetuses, that are thousands of times more radiosensitive than adults. One x-ray to the pregnant abdomen doubles the incidence of leukemia in the child. And over time, nuclear waste will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia and genetic disease, and random compulsory genetic engineering. And we’re not the only species with genes, of course. It’s plants and animals. So, this is an absolute catastrophe, the likes of which the world has never seen before. …

I’m a physician, highly trained. I was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. My specialty is cystic fibrosis, the most common genetic disease of childhood. …

[I]t’s imperative that people understand that internal emitters cause cancer, but the incubation time for cancer is any time from two to 60 years. "

[eyeno]

Radiation Exposure Debate Rages Inside EPA
Plan to Radically Hike Post-Accident Radiation in Food & Water Sparks Hot Dissent

WASHINGTON - April 5 - A plan awaiting approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that would dramatically increase permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil after "radiological incidents" is drawing vigorous objections from agency experts, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At issue is the acceptable level of public health risk following a radiation release, whether an accidental spill or a "dirty bomb" attack.

The radiation arm of EPA, called the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air (ORIA), has prepared an update of the 1992 "Protective Action Guides" (PAG) governing radiation protection decisions for both short-term and long-term cleanup standards. Other divisions within EPA contend the ORIA plan geometrically raises allowable exposure to the public. For example, as Charles Openchowski of EPA's Office of General Counsel wrote in a January 23, 2009 e-mail to ORIA:

"[T]his guidance would allow cleanup levels that exceed MCLs [Maximum Contamination Limits under the Safe Drinking Water Act] by a factor of 100, 1000, and in two instances 7 million and there is nothing to prevent those levels from being the final cleanup achieved (i.e., it's not confined to immediate response of emergency phase)."

Another EPA official, Stuart Walker of the Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation, explains what the proposed new radiation limits in drinking water would mean:

"It also appears that drinking water at the PAG concentrations...may lead to subchronic (acute) effects following exposures of a day or a week. In a population, one should see some express acute effects...that is vomiting, fever, etc."

"This critical debate is taking place entirely behind closed doors because this plan is ‘guidance' and does not require public notice as a regulation would," stated PEER Counsel Christine Erickson. Today, PEER sent EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson a letter calling for a more open and broader examination of the proposed radiation guidance. "We all deserve to know why some in the agency want to legitimize exposing the public to radiation at levels vastly higher than what EPA officially considers dangerous."

The internal documents show that under the updated PAG a single glass of water could give a lifetime's permissible exposure. In addition, it would allow long-term cleanup limits thousands of times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These new limits would cause a cancer in as much as every fourth person exposed.

PEER obtained the internal e-mails after filing a lawsuit this past fall under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) but the EPA has yet to turn over thousands more communications. "EPA touts its new transparency but when it comes to matters of controversy the agency still puts up a wall," added Erickson, who filed the FOIA suit. "Besides the months of stonewalling, we are seeing them pull stunts such as ORIA giving us rebuttals to other EPA documents they have yet to release."



Examine the Office of General Counsel e-mail

Look at the Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation concerns

Read the PEER letter to Administrator Jackson

See tables detailing how many times more radiation the PAG would allow

View the PEER lawsuit and additional background on the issue



http://www.ucimc.org/content/radiation- ... inside-epa

FLASHBACK

This is why I posted the superbug story. Wondering if they were going to try to use it as an excuse if people start getting sick.

“Superbug” Spreads To 35 States; Kills 40% Of The People Who Come In Contact

Original La Times Story Dated March 24






And 23 astutely noted another article which denotes the fact that this superbug is not new.

Note the date of the article.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/590369
CDC, HICPAC Issue Guidelines to Treat Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in Acute Care Facilities

Quote:
March 30, 2009 — The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) released a new set of guidelines for infection control to identify undetected carriers of carbapenem-resistant or carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) in acute care inpatient facilities.

As an important challenge in healthcare settings, CRE has emerged as one of the most common gram-negative bacteria encountered by physicians worldwide. At present, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) is the species of CRE most commonly encountered in the United States. CRKP is resistant to nearly all antimicrobial agents among gram-negative bacteria; infections have been associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality, length of stay, and increased cost, especially in critically ill patients, according to a report published in the March 20 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

"The CDC issued this alert for hospitals to [pay] attention to another example of the emergence of resistance in bacteria that [we have been] seeing in increasing numbers on the East Coast in the last months to a year [that] appears [to be] migrating westward across the United States," Mark E. Rupp, MD, president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and medical director and healthcare epidemiology/infection control professor, Section of Infectious Diseases, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, told Medscape Infectious Diseases.

The Organism Can "Pop From 1 Strain to Another"

Dr. Rupp added, "The worrisome thing here is that the organism produces an enzyme that degrades a very powerful antibiotic and confers low-level carbapenem resistance, which removes this major antibiotic choice commonly used in treating these infections. The concern is that it's on a transferable genetic element and can pop from one strain to another — and potentially from one species to another — and [be transmitted] from person to person and patient to patient."

K pneumonia is a necrotizing process with a predilection for debilitated and immunocompromised people, such as patients with poorly controlled diabetes or chronic alcoholism, Dr. Rupp said. The CDC wants all patients who are colonized or infected with CRE placed on contact precautions. Acute care facilities are instructed to establish a protocol, in conjunction with Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines, to detect nonsusceptibility and carbapenemase production in Enterobacteriaceae, particularly Klebsiella spp. and Escherichia coli, and to immediately alert epidemiology and infection control staff members if production is identified.

On the basis of the 2006 HICPAC guidelines for management of multidrug-resistant organisms in healthcare settings, the CDC and HICPAC are again recommending an aggressive strategy in these cases, including treating all patients with CRE using contact precautions and implementing CLSI guidelines for detection of carbapenemase production. In areas where CRE are not currently prevalent, acute care facilities have been advised to initiate the following guidelines:

1. Review microbiology records for the preceding 6 to 12 months to determine whether CRE has been recovered at the facility.

2. If the review finds previously unrecognized CRE, perform a point prevalence culture survey in high-risk units to look for other cases of CRE.

3. Perform active surveillance cultures of patients with epidemiologic links to persons from whom CRE has been recovered.

The CDC recommended that in areas where CRE is endemic, facilities should consider additional strategies to reduce rates of CRE because these patients with unrecognized CRKP colonization serve as reservoirs for transmission during healthcare-associated outbreaks. CDC researchers said that CRE is routinely recovered at this time in the New York City metropolitan region and New Jersey in patients who are admitted to hospitals from the community. Carbapenemase production can be confirmed with the modified Hodge test.

Facilities Need to Be Aggressive in Hand-Care Hygiene

"Facilities need to take fairly aggressive measures in looking for patients who are colonized," said Dr. Rupp. "These organisms can be spread on equipment items or environmental surfaces, and the way to combat the spread of these organisms is good hand hygiene by healthcare workers and environmental disinfection — there's no good reason healthcare workers can't be nearly 100% compliant with hand-care hygiene, and there's no good reason hospitals can't do an adequate job in disinfecting the environment."

Dr. Rupp pointed out that the major problem that the CDC has picked up is that there are painfully few antimicrobial choices in treating these resistant pathogens, and there is as yet no new class of antibiotics with a unique mechanism of action on the horizon.

"So hospitals are being urged to be very proactive in looking for the sneaky little organisms," said Dr. Rupp.

[Peachtree Pam]

Canada suspends mobile radiation measurements around Vancouver, BC “until further notice” as radioactive cloud looms (VIDEO)

http://enenews.com/canada-suspends-mobi ... her-notice

[seemslikeadream]

THE LOW LEVEL RADIATION CAMPAIGN

We research the health effects of ionising radiation
We demand a re-evaluation of the risks of radioactive pollution


Friday 1st April 2011
417,000 cancers forecast for Fukushima 200 km contamination zone by 2061
Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), Professor Chris Busby, has released calculations of the cancer incidence to be expected in fallout areas of Japan. Using data from the International Atomic Energy Agency and official Japanese web sites he has used two methods to estimate the numbers of cancer cases. He compares these results with estimates derived from ICRP modelling.

The "Tondel" Method is based on a conservative study by Martin Tondel in northern Sweden. This examined cancer incidence during 10 years after Chernobyl. It differentiated the varying levels of land contamination and found that the disease increased by 11% for each 100 kiloBecquerels of fallout per square metre of land surface. Professor Busby has applied this factor to the zone up to 100 km from the reactors, where IAEA has reported, on average, 600kBq per sq.m radioactivity. In the 3.3 million population of this 100 km zone a 66% increase over and above the pre-accident rate is predicted in 10 years. This implies 103,329 extra cancers due to the Fukushima exposures between 2012 and 2021.
Applying the "Tondel" method to the ring between 100 km and 200 km from Fukushima, population 7.8 million but lower concentrations of fallout, 120,894 extra cancers are to be expected by 2021.
Assuming permanent residence and no evacuation the total predicted yield according to the "Tondel" method is 224,223 in ten years.

The second method is derived from weighting factors advised by the ECRR on the basis of the different ways in which different radionuclides behave in biological systems. This predicts 191,986 extra cancers in the 0 - 100km circle and 224,623 in the outer ring. Probably half of these will be expressed in the first ten years and the remainder between 10 and 50 years.
Assuming permanent residence and no evacuation the total predicted yield according to the second method will be 416,619 of which 208,310 will appear in the first ten years. There is thus good agreement between the two methods.

The ICRP method predicts 6158 additional cancers in 50 years which, among the 2½ million cancer cases expected normally in that population over half a century, would be invisible and deniable.

The report with all methods, assumptions and data as a pdf.

Professor Chris Busby on Russia Today
Professor Busby deconstructs media favourites Wade Allison, George Monbiot and other "experts". See this acknowledgement about Dr. Wakeford.

Thursday 31st March Beta monitoring on USA western seaboard
We have not been able to access Radnet April 2nd to update this graph

This data from Radnet, captured 31 March at 11.30 UTC updates the previous day's late posting. The daily trend of rising beta radiation during the day, with a reduction at night has continued. We speculate that this may be due to onshore winds during the daytime, and offshore winds at night. Email us if you know something we don't. The peak values have clearly increased over the last four days.
Wednesday 30th March
BBC recklessly endangers life
The BBC has ridiculed people for taking Iodine tablets as a precaution against radioactive pollution from Fukushima. On Monday 28th March Material World - a regular Radio 4 science programme - featured Professor Robin Grimes, Director of the Centre of Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College, London. He ridiculed Californians for taking stable Iodine (the stable Iodine fills up the thyroid gland so it can't absorb Iodine 131). He added that it was not necessary even for people in Tokyo:-

I believe people in California are buying Iodine tablets and things like that which is completely, completely crazy. However there will be people close to the [Fukushima] plant who should be taking that [Iodine] as a precaution and they are being told to do so; that's being dealt with in a sensible manner but [for] people in - say - as far away as Tokyo that would not be necessary at this point in time - not even close.
Mindful that after Chernobyl increased thyroid cancer was observed in Britain as well as Russia, LLRC's current advice is that people in Japan definitely ought to be taking stable Iodine; California is borderline, while in the UK it's probably unnecessary at present. However, as the UK Health Protection Agency agrees, there are no risks associated with Iodine tablets so long as the dose is not grossly exceeded. There is no argument against taking them as a precaution. Grimes' remarks can only be seen either as ignorant or as just one more attempt to play down the hazard of nuclear power.
US Attorney Stuart Smith of environmental and personal injury specialists Smith Stag told LLRC
Grimes' advice would, if followed, increase risks with possibly fatal conseqences, especially for children. People would be justified in prosecuting him, his employers and the BBC for recklessly endangering life.
Stuart Smith's law firm is a pioneer in the field of Technologically Enhanced Radioactive Materials and oilfield waste litigation.
The criminal offence of Reckless Endangerment
The UK has no law of reckless endangerment but in USA and Scotland among other countries it is a criminal offence to put lives at risk through an action or by failing to act.

LLRC Secretary Richard Bramhall said:

BBC producers seem to have forgotten that they are required to balance the expression of opinions on controversial issues. On radiation and health the BBC is institutionally unbalanced, routinely allowing "experts" like Professor Grimes to claim that only 50 deaths are attributable to Chernobyl without reference to the countervailing evidence. The "Horizon" documentary "Nuclear Nightmares" in 2006 was an outstanding example. My complaint eventually led the BBC Trust to rule "Nuclear Nightmares" was biased. I hope the threat of a class action in California or Japan will concentrate minds a bit.
The Material World broadcast is the first item on this listen again link, which is scheduled to be on the BBC web site until Friday.
LLRC supports the Nuclear Information and Resource Service Grassroots Platform for Nuclear Safety and Security. It calls for the radiation risk model of the European Committee on Radiation Risk to replace the International Commission on Radiological Protection - as LLRC has long recommended.
Sign up online or email nirsnet@nirs.org

Friday 25th March
An open letter to George Monbiot: When nuclear apologists speak the language of dose they speak the language of deceit. If you speak it too, you become one of the liars you say you despise.

Thursday 24th March
Two half-hour videos on the health effects of major accidents
Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 each released significant amounts of radioactivity. In each case the official view is that there was no observable impact on health. In each case there is a contrary view backed up by hard data. The first of these videos highlights the publication of a book on Chernobyl that we have already reviewed on this site. One of the book's contributing editors, Dr Janette Sherman, speaking to interviewer Karl Grossman on 5th March, said that a new nuclear disaster was bound to happen soon. She also highlights the scandalous agreement that gives the pro-nuclear International Atomic Energy Agency the power to veto any radiation research by the World Health Organisation.
Three Mile Island Revisited dates from 1991 and features citizen epidemiology of a high order, showing massive health impact that the US authorities deny.

Wednesday 23rd March
Fukushima 70 kilometre contamination levels twice as high as Chernobyl Permanent Control Zone.
Honshu should be evacuated. The IAEA website yesterday revealed beta-gamma contamination measurements taken between 35 and 68 km from Fukushima. The results ranged from 0.08 to 0.9 MegaBecquerels per square metre (MBq/m2). The Chernobyl Permanent Control Zone was contaminated up to 0.55 MBq/m2. The highest level of contamination classified after Chernobyl was greater than 1.48 MBq/m2. The data for Chernobyl were for Caesium and the same is probably true for the Fukushima data. All official agencies are conspicuously silent about the alpha-emitters Plutonium and Uranium. We remain deeply concerned about this lack of information.
Yesterday the US Environmental Protection Agency said a sampling filter in Hawaii had detected minuscule levels of an isotope that is also consistent with the Japanese nuclear incident. The filter was being sent for further analysis.
How the fallout was distributed

The animation is a continuous loop showing the plume from Reactor 3 (MOX fuel) at hourly intervals from midnight 14 March to 3 a.m. 15th March. Fukushima is in the middle of the picture. To the right is the Pacific, left is inland. Tokyo is south-west of the wrecked reactors, under the plume in the final frames shown here.

Unidentified contaminant in Hawaii
Yesterday the US Environmental Protection Agency said a sampling filter in Hawaii had detected an isotope consistent with the Japanese nuclear incident. The filter was being sent for further analysis.

Cancer in Sweden following Chernobyl is a stark warning for Japan
A cautious but careful study [ref] in northern Sweden polluted by Caesium and Uranium fuel particles showed cancer increased by 11% in the ten years following the accident. The level of fallout in that part of Sweden was 0.1 kBq MBq/m2. If we assume that cancer increases linearly with the level of fallout, the areas of Japan affected at 0.9 MBq/m2 may experience increases of 90%. We recommend that the public within 150km should leave the area immediately.

Other recommendations

Monitoring must be extended to all areas of Japan. Alpha-emitting radionuclides must be included and the data published.
It is inevitable that the sea is seriously contaminated and will distribute the radioactivity to coastal dwellers for hundreds of kilometres through seafood and by inhalation of radionuclides resuspended by wave action and blown inland.
Other nations must conduct thorough monitoring.
The invalid ICRP risk model must be abandoned for estimating the effects of internal radioactivity. The model of the European Committee on Radiation Risk must be used.
Monday 21st March 2011

The emerging issue is official attempts to play down the radiological impact of this disaster. There appears to be no monitoring of alpha emitting radionuclides. Japanese nuclear regulators yesterday published this press release about dust sampling on site (20/03/2011). It refers only to gamma emitters, which are easy to detect and hard to deny.
The animation shows the plume from the fire at Reactor 4 at 3 hourly intervals, 15-16 March. Fukushima is in the middle of the picture. To the right is the Pacific, left is inland, where restrictions have been applied to some foodstuffs.

In the USA radiation has reportedly been detected, but the consistent official response is reassuring. However, Environmental Protection Agency monitoring data has vanished from the web. In Canada there remains no official public statement about the risk to Canadians of inhaling the contaminants. Official advice about At what dose might health effects occur? is bland and misleading. The real answer is that no dose is safe, and Plutonium and Uranium are very dangerous if inhaled or ingested, even though assessed "doses" might be very low. At present we have no way of knowing whether these elements are reaching the west coast of the Americas.

Sunday 20th March
European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) advises on estimating the health impact Two years ago the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) admitted that its risk estimates cannot be applied to accidents. To fill this regulatory vacuum, the European Committee on Radiation Risk formulated its recommendations specifically with a view to the health impact of accidents and other scenarios where radiation becomes dispersed into the environment. ECRR, unlike ICRP, takes account of all relevant epidemiology, new science, scientific uncertainties and knowledge gaps. The ECRR Recommendations are therefore substantially different from ICRP's. ECRR has issued a statement which applies the Committee's risk model to fragmentary radiation dose data the Japanese government has released and comments from Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano. ECRR statement html, ECRR statement PDF
More information on the scientific invalidity of ICRP advice

UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office disinformation about Geiger Counters - a clarification on monitoring for radioactive pollution
One of our correspondents tells us the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office claims Geiger Counters can measure alpha radiation. We aren't sure why they venture into this topic, but they are under pressure to give scientifically reliable advice to British citizens in Japan and we suspect they are thrashing about for anything that might undermine confidence in what we say here. The alpha radiation issue is important and the FCO is guilty of misdirection. If people think Geiger Counters can detect Plutonium and Uranium they may well believe that low readings indicate these alpha emitters are not present. It's not that simple. Read more here

Reports from CRIIRAD in France show that they have the data on contaminated food. It's in French. Neither CRIIRAD nor LLRC has the time to translate. Among other data, levels of Iodine 131 in milk are 3 to 5 times above normal. Here's the CRIIRAD report

Friday 18th March
Fallout reaches USA This Associated Press report quotes an anonymous diplomat with a conscience admitting that data usually kept secret shows the fallout has arrived in southern California.
We repeat our advice that the fallout is extremely likely to contain Plutonium and Uranium from the spent fuel rods and possibly from the reactors themselves. Monitoring with Geiger Counters is incapable of detecting these elements yet they pose serious long-term health risks if ingested inhaled or absorbed through intact skin or skin lesions (wounds). The authorities are silent on these matters. In the long term they will neglect their presence in the environment. We recommend that you should collect samples if you are interested in providing hard data to help determine where the fallout has gone. Here's how to do the sampling. This is important if we want researchers to be able to establish the truth of whether the fallout causes genetic disorders like cancer. At this stage in history it's Citizen Science because experience shows the authorities will always deny the possibility.

Advice on taking iodine.

Professor Chris Busby talks about the radiation risks on radio in USA and more here (LLRC hasn't had time to view this yet. Let us know what you think.)

On Wednesday 16th we said
Do-It-Yourself monitoring to protect your health - updated to answer Foreign and Commonwealth Office nonsense.

Current gamma monitoring in Tokyo

Fuel rod fires: Fallout in Honshu mapped here
Modelled on the US Air Resources Laboratory's system, this map animation shows dispersion of the plume from the fuel rod fires in Fukushima Reactor 4 yesterday 15th March. Frames are 3-hourly, starting soon after midnight to just before 2 pm UTC. On the new page, scroll down to see successive frames.
TV reports indicate rain in the Sendai region today. This may account for the striated plume patterns.

We advise that Honshu should immediately be evacuated to the maximum possible extent. Reassurances about radiation exposures issued by the Japanese government can not be believed; they are based on the ICRP invalid risk model which ICRP itself has admitted cannot be applied in accident situations. The basic concept of radiation dose is generally recognised to be invalid for many types of internal exposure relevant to the present emergency. In addition to gamma-emitting isotopes of Caesium and Iodine, there is an extremely high probability that Plutonium and isotopes of Uranium are being released. The use of water in contact with the reactor cores entails the release of Tritium. Carbon 14 is also likely to be present. None of these alpha- and beta-emitters will be included in gamma readings, leading to severe underestimates of the potential genetic damage once they are ingested, inhaled or absorbed into human tissue. The present emergency is therefore exactly similar to the Chernobyl disaster which has had a huge impact on human health.(More on Chernobyl) The French risk agency was right to classify the accident at severity level 6.
And a further disagreement, between LLRC's Professor Chris Busby and Professor Ian Fells a well-known supporter of nuclear energy.

14th March: Reactor 3 plume approached Tokyo
Modelled on the US Air Resources Laboratory's system, this map shows the plume's upwind end approached Tokyo between 20.00 and 21.00 hours Universal Time on 14th March, contrary to official assurances that the pollution is being dispersed at sea.
Monday 14th March: We said The violence of the explosion in Reactor No. 3 gives us reason to doubt official statements that the containment vessel is intact. We note that the US navy, having detected radioactivity on its ships 100 miles offshore, is retreating. Unless and until there is good evidence that Reactor 3 is intact it is prudent to assume that some of its fuel is now airborne, as was the case at Chernobyl in 1986. Chernobyl fallout was wind-borne all round the world, causing detectable and significant health detriment in many countries.

As in earlier statements, we warn that reassurances from all agencies about health risks from radioactive pollution are based on the invalid and discredited radiation risk model of the International Commission or Radiological Protection (ICRP), according to which the Chernobyl disaster can not have caused any observable health effects in the general population.
Immediate precautions for populations downwind of Fukushima are to stay indoors. Do not eat local produce; drink bottled water.
There is now an urgent need for independent monitoring of radiation exposures. See this page on monitoring.
13th March bulletin

The truth about Chernobyl. A massive publication from the New York Academy of Sciences giving the views and the findings of scientists and clinicians in the affected territories. It is a deeply subversive alternative to the lies of the World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency, who claim that the fallout has had no observable health impact.
Soundbite: between 1986 and 2005 a million deaths across Europe are attributable to genetic damage from fallout.

Radioactive contamination at Hinkley Point's new build site concealed by Environmental Impact Assessment.
Coverup revealed by new report from Green Audit
And, after the denials for EdF and knee-jerk rejection by the Environment Agency, this reply.

Augean plc, a waste disposal company, propose to dump vast amounts of radioactivity into a landfill in Northamptonshire, England. The local authority refused planning consent. Augean appealed. On this site see the expert testimony and LLRC's submission.
The facts behind the Sellafield autopsy research - a file we submitted to the Redfern inquiry in 2008. This is a detective story, a forensic dissection of one of the nuclear industry's cover-ups.
New Recommendations from European Committee on Radiation Risk:- "ECRR's new model is vindicated by real-life experience of cancer after the Chernobyl disaster". More information
Our observations on Mark Lynas' pro-nuclear rant in the New Statesman are here because the New Statesman's comments page rejected them.
British Nuclear Test Veterans and their quest for justice: has Ministry of Defence secrecy been defeated? See documented evidence of the MoD's lies and a Judge's Directions.
Important new report on Uranium from the European Committee on Radiation Risk. Link.
British jury finds Uranium guilty - Verdict based on failure of ICRP risk model
On September 10th a Coroner's jury in the West Midlands found that depleted Uranium caused the fatal cancer of a soldier - Lance Corporal Stuart Dyson - who served in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. Our report links to a PDF compilation of the expert witnesses' written statements.
Scientific absurdity at The Guardian
Simon Jenkins' ludicrous book review on Friday 8th January [1] had more factual errors than we can spare the time to address, but the Guardian's blitz on radiation risk over the weekend 8th - 11th January 2010 needs a little attention. More (including comments on letters from Prof Dillwyn Williams and Dr Ian Fairlie).

Low Level Radiation Campaign
the mission

For 50 years the nuclear establishment has claimed its discharges are pretty harmless. They admit that there's no safe dose, so that even the smallest amounts of radiation can cause genetic damage leading to cancer, leukaemia or birth defects, but according to the official view not even the Chernobyl disaster has caused any visible effects. Officially, it caused the deaths of a few highly irradiated firemen and up to 2000 additional thyroid cancers, which are mostly treatable. And that's it, they say.

We have a different story to tell.
The nuclear age is also the cancer age. The first visible population effect was the increase in childhood leukaemia which began during World War One and rose in line with radium production for decades. The Cold War orgy of nuclear bomb tests, which spread man-made radioactivity all round the globe, was accompanied by a change in infant mortality rates which accounted for the deaths of tens of thousands of children. Variations in the amounts of radioactive fallout were reflected in subsequent cancer rates and we are now living through a cancer epidemic.
Cancer and leukaemia clusters have been found in association with nuclear sites and with places where radioactive discharges are deposited in, for example, mud banks and estuaries.
The effects of Chernobyl, especially those reported from Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia, are a holocaust.

Officials deny that any of this can be attributed to radioactivity but, as we explain on this site, the denials have no scientific basis. This is because

the underlying scientific model is based on external irradiation
risk is quantified in terms of dose
dose is now acknowledged to be meaningless for many types of radioactivity when they are inside the body (see these quotes from various authorities.
This is the biggest and longest running health scandal of all time. The Low Level Radiation Campaign has been working to uncover it since 1992, taking the lid off cover-ups, lies, data withheld, data revised, gross errors by cancer authorities, bad science, bowdlerised reports, bullying in committees, legal threats and dissenting scientists being libelled and barred from conferences.
As (we believe) a direct result, the authorities can no longer deny the truth and we are now witnessing a slow-motion paradigm shift.
The many topics we cover are listed on our old index page, which is still on the site while it undergoes a tidy up.
The Navigation bar on the left provides quick links to the same topics.
Each link from that page or the Navigation bar on the left takes you to a page which introduces the topic and then links to further pages.

Waking Up to a Nuclear Nightmare
Monday 4 April 2011
by: Barbara Rose Johnston, Truthout

Bravo Test over Enewetak, Marshall Islands, Operation Castle, March 1, 1954. Designed specifically to generate the largest possible cloud of fallout, the Bravo test was the first detonation of a hydrogen bomb dropped from an airplane. (Click for complete caption.) (Photo: US Atomic Energy Commission / Department of Energy)

A shorter version of this article appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on March 18, 2011.

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As Japan's nuclear disaster continues to unfold, a growing number of its citizens and residents are beginning their transition, becoming the newest members of the world's radiogenic community. Like the hibakusha, downwinders, uranium miners, atomic vets and the many who live in towns and cities that hosted the nuclear enterprise, they find their lives profoundly altered by a hazardous, invisible threat, where the fear of nuclear contamination and the personal health and intergenerational effects from exposure colors all aspects of social, cultural, economic and psychological well-being.

Some radiogenic communities are the end result of a geographic location: living downwind from or adjacent to uranium mines and mills, nuclear power plants and waste dumps, nuclear weapons tests, battlefields or military training grounds. Others are formed by occupational exposure as a soldier, scientist, miner, plant operator or other worker. Such lives are characterized by degenerative health conditions resulting from their exposure, pain and suffering associated with miscarriages and the birth of congenitally deformed children, the difficulties of raising physically disabled children and caring for increasingly feeble elderly, the fear of and anxiety over additional exposures, the fear of and anxiety over intergenerational and other unknown effects of radiation and the psychosocial humiliation, marginalization and stigmatization that is common to nuclear victimized communities.

Life in a nuclear nightmare often revolves around a series of stressful and difficult questions: Radiation is invisible, how do you know when you are in danger? How long will this danger persist? How can you reduce the hazard to yourself and your family? What level of exposure is safe? How do you get access to vital information in time to prevent or minimize exposure? What are the potential risks of acute and chronic exposures? What are the related consequential damages of exposure? Whose information do you trust? How do you rebuild a healthy way of life in the aftermath of nuclear disaster?

Finding answers to such questions is hugely difficult in the chaos and context of an ongoing disaster. It is all the more difficult when government and industry maintain control over information, operations and the scientific exploration of nuclear disasters.

We have, for example, the ability to forecast and display meteorological conditions. Yet, other than ultraviolet radiation (UV) predictions, there is no public access to forecasts for radioactive atmospheric conditions. Radiologic atmospheric data is collected by the United Nations Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), a Vienna-based body that monitors radionuclide, seismic, hydroacoustic and infrasound evidence across the globe as a means to implement the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. For decades now, findings have been reported to member nations and have played a role in the development of an early-warning tsunami system. Why is there no early warning system for radioactive deposition? Why, as fallout hits the West Coast, is public knowledge on local radiological conditions limited to Geiger-counter reporting of independent citizens?

And, as the world once again receives a crash course on nuclear reactors, spent fuel rods, meltdown and fallout, why is there no clear consensus on what this means with regard to local and global human health?

Information on radiation health effects, while increasingly accessible, largely reflects the flaws and biases embedded in classified cold war-era research that served government and industry interests. Findings that contradicted the official narrative were typically censored, and scientists suffered reprisal and blacklisting. Anthropologist Earle Reynolds, for example, whose Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission research demonstrated that Japanese children exposed to the radioisotopes in fallout were smaller than their counterparts, with lowered resistance to disease and a greater susceptibility to cancer, especially leukemia, found his 1953 report censored, as it represented the evidence that supported a global ban on nuclear weapons tests. Reviewing this and other history, the 1994 Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experiments in the United States concluded that the radiation health literature of the cold war years was a heavily sanitized and scripted version meant to reassure and pacify public protests while achieving military and economic agendas.

Decades of such control reinforced, again and again, the core message: Humans have evolved in a world where radiation from the sun and naturally occurring elements was present, and radiation at some levels is natural and beneficial. Any adverse heath effect of radiation exposure is the occasional and accidental result of high levels of exposure. Any resulting adverse heath effect from radiation exposure is limited to the individual, not his or her offspring. Nuclear power operations are safe, and their periodic low-level releases represent no threat to human health. This narrative, in one form or another, has been present in government and industry press releases and media reports in these past weeks.

Example: In the initial hours after the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese government and Tokyo Electrical Power Company issued statements reporting minor damage at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. In the days that followed, government and industry officials reported the "venting of hydrogen gas," but claimed that there was "no threat to health." This reassurance of health safety was echoed when hydrogen gas explosions occurred at the power plant. In fact, the hydrogen released is tritiated water vapor, a low-level emitter absorbed through the skin, by breathing and by drinking contaminated water. Tritium decays by beta emission and has a radioactive half-life of about 12.3 years. As it undergoes radioactive decay, tritium emits a very low-energy beta particle and transforms to stable, nonradioactive helium. Once tritium enters the body, it disperses quickly, is uniformly distributed and is excreted through the urine within a month or so after ingestion. It produces a low-level exposure and may result in toxic effects to the kidney. As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer.

Why no mention of tritium in the government or industry statements? Relatively speaking, the health effects of a low-level emitter like tritium are minor when compared to the other radiogenic and toxic hazards in this nuclear catastrophe. Such omission is a standard industry practice, designed to reassure the public that the normal operating procedures of a nuclear power plant represent no significant threat to human health.

There are other sources of conclusive data that allow a very different interpretation of the health hazards posed by this nuclear disaster: cold war classification and the incestuous nature of government, military and industry agendas made it difficult to challenge the assumptions that underlie this "trust us" narrative. For example, the assumption that radiogenic health effects must be demonstrated through direct causality (one isotope, one outcome) meant science on cumulative and synergistic effects was not pursued. Discounting or ignoring the toxic nature of varied radioisotopes meant health risks were assessed and regulations promulgated on the basis of acute exposures and outcomes (radiation poisoning and deadly cancer).

The declassification of the United States' human radiation experiment records in the mid-1990's, release of similar USSR records in the years following the break-up of the Soviet Union, reassessment of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission records, and new research conducted by Japanese scientists, translation and publication of long-term research on Chernobyl workers and other survivors, and the efforts to understand and repair the damages from nuclear weapons testing and related fallout in the Marshall Islands all generate a body of knowledge that stands in sharp contradiction to the assumptions that sustain trust in nuclear power and the ability to prevent, manage, contain, control or remediate any disaster.

From this record of studied and lived experience, what do we know? We know fallout and the movement of radionuclides through marine and terrestrial environments makes its way into the food chain and the human body. We know that bioaccumulation of radioisotopes amplifies the relatively small "trace amounts" in the environment, and, when ingested, generates larger exposures and significant adverse health outcomes. We know that ingestion of even the smallest particle of a long-lived isotope can result in degenerative health and deadly cancers. We know that acute exposures are further complicated when followed by chronic exposure, as such assaults have a cumulative and synergistic effect on health and well-being. We know that chronic exposure to low-level radiation does more than increase the risk of developing cancers; such exposure threatens the immune system, results in changes in fertility, increased rates of birth defect, increased rates of cancers, physical and mental retardation, metabolic disorders and premature aging. We know that the toxicity of contaminants in fallout, as well as the radioactivity, represent significant public health risks. And we know that the effects of such exposures extend across the generations.

Consider, for example Alexy V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko and Alexy V. Nesterenko's 2009 summation of Chernobyl experiences published by the New York Academy of Sciences. Health effects not only include widespread occurrence of thyroid disease and cancers (for every case of Chernobyl-induced thyroid cancer, there are about 1,000 other cases of thyroid gland pathology, resulting in the multiple endocrine illness of millions of people), post-Chernobyl studies confirm increased morbidity, impairment and disability; oncological disease; accelerated aging; and increased nonmalignant disease (blood, lymph, cardiovascular, metabolic, endocrine, immune, respirator, urogenital, bone and muscle, nervous system, ocular, digestive and skin). These health effects are not simply limited to the generation of people exposed to fallout. Given the long-lived nature of radioisotopes and mutagenic change resulting from exposure, the intergenerational impacts from Chernobyl are profound.

There are many lessons to be learned, both from the human health outcomes of exposure and from the wide array of strategies that people are developing as they come to understand and adjust to the environmental hazards and health risks associated with life in a radiogenic community. There are proactive strategies that can be taken to reduce risk, to grow healthy and safe food, to enhance individual, family and community health as illustrated in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) Nuclear Claims Tribunal's (a United States funded and initiated tribunal) awards to repair and compensate Bikini, Enewetak, Utrik and Rongelap atoll communities. Years of research and testimony on fallout damages and varied ways in which such damages might be repaired led to RMI Nuclear Claims Tribunal awards meant to decontaminate soils, reduce the presence of radioisotopes in the food chain, educate and train a new generation of Marshallese radiation health experts, provide holistic health care and other measures that seek to rebuild a sustainable and healthy way of life. Such actions however, have not materialized as the United States government under the Bush administration rejected the Nuclear Claims Tribunal findings, in 2010 the Supreme Court rejected the right of the Marshallese to plead their case and the Congress has yet to take action on a request to fully fund the tribunal and thus address the ulcerating injuries incurred by this former US territory.

The ideal of governance as embodied in the world's constitutions is that the state serves as the institutional mechanism that secures the fundamental rights of its citizens to life and livelihood. Japan's nuclear disaster, like other catastrophic events (Katrina, Chernobyl), illustrates how far we have moved from that ideal. Every stage in the evolution of this nuclear nightmare has involved struggles to control the content and flow of information to preempt society-wide panic (and the related loss of trust in government), to reduce liability and to protect nuclear and other industry agendas. Such decisions have profound public health consequences.

There are many lessons to be learned here, not the least of which is how to respond, adjust and adapt to the environmental hazards and health risks associated with life in this nuclear world. As the world's nations reassess nuclear power operations and refine their energy development plans, now more than ever, we need to utilize all data to inform our decisions, especially the experiences of the world's radiogenic communities.

-----------

Full Caption: Bravo Test over Enewetak, Marshall Islands, Operation Castle, March 1, 1954. Designed specifically to generate the largest possible cloud of fallout, the Bravo test was the first detonation of a hydrogen bomb dropped from an airplane. With a radioactive cloud that plumed over 7,000 square miles, this detonation of the US's largest nuclear weapon resulted in near-lethal exposures to 23 Japanese tuna fishermen pursuing their catch outside of the "danger" zone, to 28 US Navy weathermen monitoring radiologic conditions on Rongerik and to the entire Marshallese population living on Rongleap and Ailinginae Atolls. Fallout went global, with radioactive debris reportedly reaching the Americas by day five. At the time, the US admitted to the United Nations that dangerous levels of fallout in a 100-mile radius area, and in 1955 Commissoner Willard Libby claimed evidence from AEC research demonstrated fallout would not likely be dangerous. In fact, as evidenced by a declassified document released in 1999, fallout from this test blanketed the entire Marshall Islands with dangerous levels of contamination - 22 populated atolls in an area the size of Mexico - contaminants that remain present in the food chain and the human body to this day. (Photo: US Atomic Energy Commission / Department of Energy)

[Peachtree Pam]

Canada suspends mobile radiation measurements around Vancouver, BC “until further notice” as radioactive cloud looms (VIDEO)

http://enenews.com/canada-suspends-mobi ... her-notice

Comments by woman trying to get some answers about this:

#
Cheryl
April 4, 2011 at 11:36 am · Reply

I have just placed a phone call to Natural Resources Canada, and they are supposed to ‘call me back’. I asked why Canadians now have to depend on data from Norway and not from their own country.
613-947-4113 – Nuclear Energy Dept, NRCan
613-995-0947 – National Resources Canada
613-996-4697 – Chairman, Nuclear Energy Dept., Mr. David McCauley

These offices are all in Ottawa.
#
Cheryl
April 4, 2011 at 11:39 am · Reply

Natural Resources Canada phoned me back to give me the name of somebody else:

David McCormick, 613-992-8766

I will call and see if I get his voicemail.
#
Cheryl
April 4, 2011 at 11:44 am · Reply

I left a message on Mr. McCormick’s voicemail. I told him I was lining up radio talk shows across Canada, and that I intend over the next couple of days to voice my concern ‘far and wide’ over Canada’s shutting down its radiation monitoring and keeping the public ignorant of vital information.
#
Maurice
April 4, 2011 at 12:10 pm · Reply

Good work Cheryl! The sooner people fully realize the extent to which big government and big business can’t be trusted the better it will be for the next generation we are supposed to be safegaurding for. We, the people need to be informed, independant and self reliant as individuals, families and communities.

[Nordic]

This is a testament to either

a) The triumph of corporate propaganda

b) The limitless stupidity of the American people.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/04/m ... safe-poll/

Most Americans say U.S. nuclear plants safe: poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fifty-eight percent of Americans think U.S. nuclear power plants are safe, while the public remains split over the need for more plants followingJapan's nuclear crisis, a Gallup poll showed on Monday.

The March 25-27 survey of 1,027 U.S. adults found public confidence in nuclear safety relatively unchanged since 2009, when a Gallup poll said 56 percent of Americans believed U.S. plants were safe.

In the new poll, 58 percent said U.S. nuclear power plants are safe, 36 percent said not safe and 6 percent had no opinion.

The survey showed a slight uptick in concern that the dangers of nuclear power are too great to justify construction of more nuclear plants in the United States.

Forty-eight percent of respondents said the dangers are too great, compared with 46 percent who believe more U.S. nuclear plants are necessary.

A Gallup poll conducted in early 2001 found 49 percent in favor of nuclear expansion and 46 percent against it.

President Barack Obama on March 17 requested a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear power facilities, maintaining his support for nuclear energy while seeking to apply lessons from the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant stricken by an earthquake and tsunami.

Nuclear energy supplies about 20 percent of U.S. electricity.