Deadly Silence on Fukushima

Deadly Silence on Fukushima

"About Japan: the problem is that the reactor uses "dirty" fuel. It is a combination of plutonium and uranium (MOX).

I suspect that the old fuel rods have bean spread out due to the explosion and the surrounding area is contaminated with plutonium which means you can never return to this place again.

It is like a new Tchernobyl. Personally, I am not surprised that the authority has not informed people about this".

I have been following the Fukushima story very closely since the earthquake and devastating tsunami. I have asked scientists I know, nuclear physicists and others about where they find real information. I have also watched as the news has virtually disappeared. There is something extremely disturbing going on and having lived through the media blackout in France back in April and early May 1986, and speaking to doctors who are deeply concerned by the dramatic increase in cancers appearing at very young ages, it is obvious that information is being held back. We are still told not to eat mushrooms and truffles from parts of Europe, not wild boar and reindeer from Germany and Finland 25 years later.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vivian-norris-de-montaigu/deadly-silence-on-fukushi_b_859241.html



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Notes that there was a media blackout in France back in '86 and that doctors are seeing a
"dramatic increase" in cancers in the young. Still advisory on not eating certain foods
from various parts of Europe, Germany/Finland 25 years later.

Info on Chernoby deaths, cancers/illnesses is now available on line at

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment by Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko, and Alexey Nesterenko

Another Chernobyl report uncovers the links between WHO and nuclear industry -- www.independentwho.info/Documents/M_Fernex/ChernobylCatastrophe_Fernex_EN.pdf

This is a "best site" for updates by experts on nuke industry --
www.fairewinds.com/updates

and would recommend that Arnie Gundersen's comments and concerns -- and video -- be read!!

Also note that amazingly foreign media and freelance journalists continue to investigate --
"even going into the radiation exclusion zone" --
yet the government of Japan still bars them from official press conferences --

Import comments re Tepco, as well -- and plutonium. While denying that they even measure
plutonium levels or that there are detectors to scale it -- Secretary Edano announced
"plutonium was detected."

How the Agencies overseeing the nuke industry in our country are extremely tied into the nuke industry (Surprise! Surprise! Ya think?)

And then there is this:


An agreement between the WHO and the IAEA, May 28, 1959 at the 12th World Health Assembly, clause No. 12.40:

"whenever either organization proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organization has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement..."


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Often, Helen Caldicott is spot on. But since she slips up occasionally - she is branded as a "conspiracy nut." It is very true that most of what Monbiot is spouting off about has no basis in reality. The type of radioactivity that is released when the world experiences a Chernobyl, or a Fukushima, is NOT low level radiation. Within five days, everyone on the planet receives some amount of radioactivity – and the particle physics of radioactivity is such that we do not even have all the names of all the types of particles that are released when such plutonium-based radiation releases occur. (Some types of particles may occur only for a nano-second some three weeks or later, after the plutonium event.)

The smallest micron level part of radioactivity that gets inside a human being will be emitting its radioactivity for thirty years.


There are, of course, quite a few agencies that have gone on the record as having looked into the particulars of the April 26, 1986 disaster.

You have UNSCEAR’s assessments of the radiation effects, and they point to the fact that there were 30 people killed by radiation in the first few weeks after the disaster. And that another 100 people were injured by radiation in that period as well. (UNSCEAR stands for: United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.)

Initially, one hundred and fifteen thousand people were evacuated on account of the event. But in the end, closer to two hundred and twenty thousand people were forced from their homes in areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

Over the years, older people have moved back into these areas, wanting to be back where they feel most at home. Also, since they are older, they are not as fearful of a possibility that cancer might generate inside their bodies some twenty years down the road – at which point they might be dead from something else anyway.

Among the most notable of the tragic results of this accident were the serious social and psychological disruption in the lives of those affected. There were also large scale economic losses. It should not be overlooked that large areas of the three countries were contaminated with radioactive materials, and radionuclides from the Chernobyl release were measurable in all countries of the northern hemisphere. (Not just in the afore-mentioned Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.)

Some military, social and political analysts credit the profound dismay, combined with anger, sadness and a desire to deviate and to revolt against the system that brought about this nuclear disaster to be the major propelling force, along with the Afghan War, that had the Soviet people bring down their Communistic way of life. The event is also given credit for the toppling of the Berlin Wall.

Now back to the grim statistics – what statistics we glean from the records of the UNSCEAR report –
"Among the residents of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, there had been up to the year 2005 more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and more cases can be expected during the next decades. Notwithstanding the influence of enhanced screening regimes, many of those cancers were most likely caused by radiation exposures shortly after the accident. Apart from this increase, claims the authors of this United Nations study, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to the radiation exposure some two decades after the accident."

Many current day travelers to the old Soviet Union, and many who visit places in the Ukraine where the uprooted Ukrainians now live, distrust this report. They see first hand the numerous children who do not live to the age of fifteen, but die of cancer or a genetic condition, or a birth defect.

It is known that the accident at the Chernobyl reactor happened during an experimental test of the electrical control system as the reactor was being shut down for routine maintenance. The operators, in violation of safety regulations, had switched off important control systems and allowed the reactor, which had design flaws, to reach unstable, low-power conditions. A sudden power surge caused a steam explosion that ruptured the reactor vessel. This allowed further violent fuel-steam interactions that destroyed the reactor core and severely damaged the reactor building. Subsequently, an intense graphite fire burned for 10 days. Under those conditions, large releases of radioactive materials took place.

This radioactive material went across Europe and Scandinavia. Italy received among the highest doses.

Meanwhile, the Belarus national academy of sciences estimates 93,000 deaths so far and 270,000 cancers, and the Ukrainian national commission for radiation protection calculates 500,000 deaths so far. These numbers far surpass the UNSCEAR reporting of some four thousand deaths.

The mismatches in figures arise because there have been no
comprehensive, co-ordinated studies of the health consequences of this accident. This is in contrast to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where official research showed that the main rise in most types of cancer and non-cancer diseases only became apparent years after the atomic bombs fell.

Critics of the UNSCEAR report also point to the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency has compromised the research and findings as collected by the United Nations. For instance, WHO guidelines, utilized quite often by UNSCEAR, were requiring the peer review of evidence and collected data and this has made it hard for many deaths and illnesses to even be considered as part of the complete record.

The UN’s World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency claim that only 56 people have died as a direct result of the radiation released at Chernobyl and that about 4,000 will die from it eventually.

Much continued controversy rages over the agendas of the IAEA, which has promoted civil nuclear power over the past 30 years, and the WHO. The UN accepts only peer-reviewed scientific studies written in certain journals in English, a rule said to exclude dozens of other studies.

People inside agencies who are paid to be overly optimistic about radiation's effects seem very willing to spout off nonsense. Eleven years ago, an IAEA spokesman said he was confident the WHO figures were correct. And Michael Repacholi, director of the UN Chernobyl forum until 2006, has claimed that even 4,000 eventual deaths could be too high. The main negative health impacts of ­Chernobyl were not caused by the ­radiation but by the fear of it, he claimed.

“However, it is important to consider the remarks of Linda Walker, of the UK Chernobyl Children’s Project, which funds Belarus and Ukraine orphanages and holidays for affected children, as she called for a determined effort to learn about the effects of the disaster. ‘Parents are giving birth to babies with disabilities or genetic disorders … but, as far as we know, no research is being conducted.. “

I said this to those who think radiactivity is so safe we should brush out teeth with it: As someone who knew Dr Gofman personally, who has hung out with many fine scientists at both the Argonne Labs, the old Bell Labs in Lisle/Naperville, Illinois, and who has kept up with new discoveries in research (just this past week, another new and unexplained particle seems to have been detected at the facility in Illinois) I think you might be eager to hear my comments rather than stay inside the world of your blinders.

BTW, Dr Gofman was considered to be one of the “fathers” of plutonium, as he discovered plutonium 132 and 133, and also uranium 132 and 133.

good reading

To check it out.

I suspect that the old fuel isn't even IN the shape of rods any longer, b/c many if not most have likely lost their zirconium cladding, and at least two of the stricken reactors, and very probably three, no longer have an intact or sufficiently intact spent fuel pool attached to the reactors' upper walls, that were previously containing tens of tons of them.

The spent fuel is likely spread out onto the reactors floors, but also is throughout/mingled within the debris in mounds and layers of tens of tons of spilled and exposed spent fuel pellets.

I still think of the people of Japan every day. (And yes, all of us "over here" who will also be dealing with the pain of this crisis for a long time to come.)

that is just the way it is in our country now. They don't want us to worry, panic, etc. so they report very little.

Myself, I go to some of the following websites (including Helen Caldicott, as mentioned upthread):

I search on the internet and what I find is not heartening at all. Ignorance is bliss?

I still like this guy for a "man on the street" thing:
http://www.youtube.com/user/playbacklapompe

Helen Caldicott, M.D. knows a lot about the health risks:
http://www.helencaldicott.com/

http://www.topix.com/jp/fukushima

and then just go to various sites based on Google searches. It's sad.

so people will forget about it. This crisis has not been contained.

But it's not news :banghead:

We news gleaners just have to keep posting stuff. :shrug:

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105080124.html

Sunday, May 8, 2011

SHUT DOWN BEING CONSIDERED FOR Fukushima Plant No. 2

Loss of public confidence in nuclear energy may lead to decommissioning of sister plant.
The government is thinking of decommissioning the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant in deference to those who have taken the brunt of the ongoing nuclear crisis, a government source said Saturday.

Fukushima No. 2, which is situated on the Pacific coast about 10 km south of its crippled sister facility, Fukushima No. 1, successfully completed a cold shutdown after being hit by the March 11 quake and tsunami, which temporarily disabled its cooling systems.

(snip)
While the final decision rests with the utility, the government has decided to take full account of the feelings of local Fukushima residents, who were forced to evacuate en masse as radiation began leaking from the No. 1 complex, the source said.

The decision on whether to restart the No. 2 plant will be put off until the No. 1 power plant is stabilized, according to the source. Tepco said last month it would take at least six to nine months to stabilize the damaged No. 1 complex.

The Nuclear Power stuff is soooo boring.
Lets do something FUN!

I imagine that would still be there.

Posted on that here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4801416&mesg_id=4802846

Say nothing. That's how it goes now. We have to dig now... sadly, our "news" agencies work for a different "boss."

There is an entire utility industry holding its collective breath right now... investors have already sunk billions into development and that isn't taken lightly.

As with most things, keep your eyes on the money.