That is how I feel today. I'm drowning in it.
WHO forecasts no significant increase in cancer
patients in Fukushima November
25, 2012 By YURI OIWA/ http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201211250051
[Excerpted] Cases of cancer caused by radiation
from the Fukushima nuclear accident will not increase significantly, although
the risk facing infants near the plant has risen, a draft report by the World
Health Organization said.
The WHO’s draft report, obtained by
The Asahi Shimbun, also said the health risks for people living outside
Fukushima Prefecture were negligible, regardless of age.
Majia here: I am going to say outright that this is a DELIBERATE LIE.
In 2011, former senior policy advisor to the
U.S. Secretary of Energy, Robert Alvarez, argued that fully 600 square
kilometers were “technically uninhabitable” because of cesium-137 contamination.
“Japan
Admits 3 Nuclear Meltdowns, More Radiation Leaked into Sea; U.S. Nuclear Waste
Poses Deadly Risks,” Democracy Now (2010,
June 3): http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/10/as_japan_nuclear_crisis_worsens_citizen.
Majia here: And Japan's practice of burning radioactive waste is making the problem bigger.
The WHO assertion of "no health effects" comes on the heels of a report from a UN representative on the Right to Health who claims that not enough testing is being done outside of Fukushima:
UN
envoy: Japan should do more for nuclear victims By Mari Yamaguchi Nov 26, 2012 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20121126/as-japan-nuclear/?utm_hp_ref=homepage&ir=homepage
[Excerpted] TOKYO — A United Nations rights investigator
said Monday that Japan hasn't done enough to protect the health of residents
and workers affected by the Fukushima nuclear accident.
Anand Grover, U.N. special
rapporteur on the right to health, said the government has adopted overly
optimistic views of radiation risks and has conducted only limited health
checks after the partial meltdowns at several reactors at the Fukushima
Dai-ichi nuclear power plant caused by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Several investigations, including
one conducted by a parliament-appointed panel, have criticized the government
for alleged cover-ups and delays in disclosing key radiation information,
causing evacuees to be unnecessarily exposed to radiation. That has also caused
deep-rooted public distrust of the government and nuclear industry.
Although he welcomed ongoing health
checks of affected residents, Grover said they were too narrow in scope because
they are only intended to cover Fukushima's 2 million people, and that only
children are being given thyroid tests, even though the impact of radiation
went far beyond Fukushima's borders.
He said the health survey should cover
"all radiation-affected zones" stretching across much of the
northeastern half of the main Japanese island of Honshu. So far, only
one-quarter of Fukushima's population has been covered.... [end excerpt]
Majia here: I really don't even know where to start. I've written an entire book debunking the idea that there will be no health effects from Fukushima. I cannot paste the entire book here but I wish I could because the data on the low level effects of radiation on human health are very clear.
Here are some references on health effects from Fukushima radiation, focusing on children:
Joseph Mangano and J. Sherman, J. (2012). An
Unexpected Mortality Increase in the United States Following Arrival of the
Radioactive Plume from Fukushima: Is There a Correlation? International
Journal of Health Services, 42(1): 47-62.
For a critical discussion of Japanese children’s
exposure to radiation see Kodama Tatsuhiko “Radiation Effects on Health:
Protect the Children of Fukushima,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 9(32),
no 4 (2011): http://japanfocus.org/-Kodama-Tatsuhiko/3587
“Radiation Detected in Fukushima Children’s Urine,” NHK (2011, June 30): http://www3nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_35.html.
“45% of Kids in Fukushima Survey Had Thyroid
Exposure to Radiation,” Mainichi (2011,
July 5): http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110705p2g00m0dm079000c.html).
“Nuclear Commission Erases Children's Exposure
Data,” NHK (2011, August 11): http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/11_14.html
Julian Ryall. Nearly 36pc of Fukushima children
diagnosed with abnormal thyroid growths. The Telegraph ( 2012, July 19), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/9410702/Nearly-36pc-of-Fukushima-children-diagnosed-with-abnormal-thyroid-growths.html
Here is what the Bear report had to say about nuclear fallout in 1956 about the safety of radiation fallout as summarized here:
1. Radiations cause mutations. Mutations
affect those hereditary traits which a person passes on to his children and
subsequent generations.
2. Practically all radiation induced
mutations which have effects large enough to be detected are harmful. A small
but not negligible part of this harm would appear in the first generation of
the offspring of the person who received the radiation. Most of the harm,
however, would remain unnoticed, for a shorter or longer time, in the genetic
constitution of the successive generations of offspring. But the harm would
persist, and some of it would be expressed in each generation.…
3. Any radiation dose, however small, can
induce some mutations. There is no minimum radiation does, that is, which must
be exceeded before any harmful mutations occur.
4. Like radiation-induced mutations,
nearly all spontaneous mutations with detectable effects are harmful. Hence
these mutations tend to eliminate themselves from the population through the
handicaps of the tragedies which occur because the persons bearing these
mutations are not ideally fitted to survive.
We all carry a
supply of these spontaneous mutant genes. The size of this supply represents a
balance between tendency of mutant genes to eliminate themselves, and the
tendency of new mutants to be constantly produced through natural causes
5. Additional radiation (that is,
radiation over and above the irreducible minimum due to natural causes)
produces additional mutations (over and above the spontaneous mutations)
The probable
number of additional induced mutations occurs in an individual over a period of
time is by and large proportional to the total dose of extra radiation
received, over that period, by the reproductive organs where the germ cells are
formed and stored. To the best of our present knowledge, if we increase the
radiation by X%, the gene mutations caused by radiation will also be increased
by X%.
The total dose of
radiation is what counts, this statement being based on the fact that the
genetic damage done by radiation is cumulative….
6. From the above five statements a very
important conclusion results. It has sometimes been thought that there may be a
rate (say, so much per week) at which a person can receive radiation with
reasonable safety as regards certain types of direct damage to his own person.
But the concept of a safe rate of radiation simply does not make sense if one
is concerned with genetic damage to future generations. What counts, from the
point of view of genetic damage, is not the rate; it is the total accumulated
dose to the reproductive cells of the individual from the beginning of his life
up to the time the child is conceived.
“What is
genetically important to a child is the total radiation dose that child’s
parents have received from their conception to the conception of the child…”
… “There are at
least three different aspects which must be considered. The first aspect places
emphasis on the risk to the direct offspring and later descendants of those
persons who, from occupation hazard or otherwise, receive a radiation dose
substantially greater than the average received by the population as a whole.
The second aspect
refers to the effect of the average dose on the population as a whole.
The third aspect
refers in still broader terms to the possibility that increased and prolonged
radiation mist so raise the death rate and so lower the birth rate the
population, considered as a whole, would decline and eventually perish. We are
at present extremely uncertain as to the level of this fatal threshold for a
human population.
Majia here: And here is a summary on the health effects for children exposed to radiation
Children Exposed to Ionizing Radiation
Recent research on
nuclear plants and childhood leukemia suggest that ongoing plant releases may
cause cancer in children residing in close proximity to the plant. A study by
the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (French Institute
of Health and Medical Research, or INSERM) documented a leukemia rate twice as
high among children under the age of fifteen living within a five kilometer
radius of France's nineteen nuclear power plants as compared to the rate found
in the child population living twenty kilometers or more away from the plant.[vi]
The French study reinforced previous findings on excess risk for leukemia in
young children living in close proximity to German nuclear power plants.[vii]
In a commentary, “Childhood Cancer near Nuclear Power Stations,” published in Environmental Health Perspectives, Ian
Fairlie observed: “Doses from environmental emissions from nuclear reactors to
embryos and fetuses in pregnant women near nuclear power stations may be larger
than suspected. Hematopoietic tissues appear to be considerably more radiosensitive
in embryos/fetuses than in newborn babies.”[viii]
Exposure to
tritium may be the primary agent culpable for cancer and leukemia. Water that
cools reactor cores and spent fuel pools becomes extensively contaminated with
tritium.[ix] Tritium
is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a 12.32 half-life. Tritium emits beta
particles (high speed electrons) as it decays. It is very difficult to contain
and is therefore nearly continuously emitted from nuclear power plants. It
binds with oxygen and ends up in precipitation and water supplies, where it can
be inhaled or ingested. It can also be absorbed through the skin. Harrison and
Day describe the biological effects of tritium in their article “Radiation
Doses and Risks from Internal Emitters”
low energy beta
emissions from tritium (3H) decay have been shown to have RBE (ratio of the
absorbed dose) values of up to between 2 and 3 (compared to gammay rays), for in
vitro end-points including cell
killing, mutation and induction of chromosomal aberrations.[x]
Evidence of tritium contamination
can be found in Clyde Stagner’s Hidden
Tritium, which examines tritium emissions from spent fuel pool evaporations
at the Palo Verde Nuclear power plant located near Phoenix. His calculations of
evaporation rates and accumulation of tritium in precipitation, based on EPA
data and analysis of evaporation rates conducted by Arizona State University,
document risks posed by the beta emitter to populations throughout the Phoenix
area. Stagner illustrated the risks graphically in an analysis of tritium
concentrations in public swimming pools in Phoenix. Accordingly, "Swimming
2 hours a day during a six month swimming season results in a dose of . .
. 1.927 millirem. Swimming 2 hours a day annually results in a dose of 3.908
millirem."[xi] This
dose exceeds the As Low as Reasonably Achievable dose of 3 millirem.[xii] In
2011 the EPA discontinued its monitoring of tritium in Phoenix despite evidence
of steadily growing accumulation of the isotope in the local environment across
time. Tritium has been linked to chromosomal breaks, brain tumors, ovarian
tumors, decreased brain weight in offspring, and mental retardation in animal
studies.[xiii]
Tritium has also been found to bioaccumulate in marine species and may very
well bioaccumulate in land based life as well.[xiv]
Another area of
investigation of the biological effects of radiation on children concerns
medical imaging. Studies on medical imaging show children are very vulnerable
to the radiation used in the imaging. A study published in The Lancet in 2012 found that CT scans cause a small but significant
increased risk for leukemia and brain cancer.[xv]
Two to three scans of the head for children under three tripled the risk for
brain cancer as compared to the general population while five to ten scans
tripled the risk for leukemia. A study of adults found that “For every 10 mSv of low-dose ionizing
radiation, there was a 3% increase in the risk of age- and sex-adjusted cancer
over a mean follow-up period of five years (hazard ratio 1.003
per millisievert, 95% confidence interval 1.002–1.004).[xvi]
Finally, recent
research has documented that even background levels of radiation can cause
cancer in children. One study addressing background gamma radiation found a
twelve percent increase in childhood leukemia for every millisievert of natural
gamma-radiation does to bone marrow.[xvii]
This study demonstrates that low dose gamma radiation can cause produce genetic
changes significant enough to cause leukemia. One area of DNA particularly
vulnerable to background radiation is mitochondrial DNA. An innovative study
examined how naturally occurring high background radiation produced mitochondrial
DNA mutations that were transmitted across generations:
The observation
that radiation accelerates point mutations at all is unexpected, at first
glance, because radiation was, until recently, thought to generate primarily
DNA lesions (1). A potential explanation is provided by our additional
observation that these radiation-associated point mutations are also
evolutionary hot spots, indicating that the radiation indirectly increases the
cell's normal (evolutionary) mutation mechanism (5).[xviii]
This study found that mitochondrial
DNA was particularly vulnerable to mutations and suggested it therefore served
as an evolutionary “hot spot.” However, most mutations are not beneficial and
the rapid (from an evolutionary framework) cumulative mitochondrial damage to
the people studied here may cause reproductive health problems. Mitochondrial
damage transmitted across generations could eventually result in a level of
inherited damage capable of compromising this vital cell function. Children are
thus vulnerable not only because their DNA appears more vulnerable but also
because they have inherited all the germ-line genetic damage from previous
generations.
Taken together
these studies demonstrate that common forms of exposure to ionizing radiation
can cause cancer and leukemia and that genetic damage can be transmitted across
generations. Moreover, they demonstrate that children are particularly
susceptible to detrimental effects. The studies are significant because they
suggest that current estimates for dose-risks may under-estimate actual risks.
[i] Cited
in Ford, The Nuclear Barons, 315.
[ii] E.J. Sternglass. "Cancer: Relation of Prenatal Radiation to Development
of the Disease in Childhood", Science, 7 June 1963: Vol. 140. no.
3571, pp. 1102 - 1104.
[iii] Walker, p. 37
[iv] Walker, p. 37.
[v] Walker, p. 39.
[vi] Claire
Sermage-Faure, D. Laurier, S. Goujon-Bellec, M. Chartier, A. Guyot-Goubin, J.
Rudant, D. Hemon and J. Clavel. 2012. Childhood leukemia around French nuclear
power plants – the Geocap study, 2002 – 2007,” International Journal of Cancer 131,
E769–E780 (2012): http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.27425/pdf.
[vii] Kaatsch P, Spix C, Schulze-Rath R, Schmiedel S,
Blettner M. Leukaemia in young children living in the vicinity of German
nuclear power plants. Int J Cancer 2008;122:721–6.
Kaatsch P, Spix C, Jung I, Blettner M. Childhood leukemia in the vicinity
of nuclear power plants in Germany. Dtsch Arztebl Int 2008; 105: 725–32.
Spix C, Schmiedel S, Kaatsch P, Schulze-Rath R, Blettner M.
Case-control study on childhood cancer in the vicinity of nuclear power plants
in Germany 1980–2003. Eur J Cancer 2008; 44: 275–84.
Kinlen L. A German storm affecting Britain: childhood leukaemia
and nuclear power plants. J Radiol Prot 2011;31: 279–84.
[viii]
Ian Fairlie. Commentary: Childhood Cancer near Nuclear Power Stations. Environmental
Health Perspectives, 8:43 (2009), http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/43.
[ix] Helen Caldicott Nuclear Power is
Not the Answer. New York: The New Press, 2006. P. 13.
[x] Harrison, J., & Day, P. Radiation
Doses and Risks from Internal Emitters. Journal of Radiological Protection, 28
(2008), 37-159. p. 144.
[xi] Clyde Stagner personal
correspondence. Stagner provided me the data and analysis he sent to the EPA
expressing concerns about the excess exposure to tritium in Phoenix
precipitation and bodies of water, including swimming pools.
[xii] ALARA stands for As Low as Reasonably
Achievable and is a regulatory requirement. See http://www.ncsu.edu/ehs/radiation/forms/alara.pdf
for background.
[xiii] Caldicott, p. 57.
[xiv] Benedict C.
Jaeschke and
Clare Bradshaw. Bioaccumulation of tritiated water in phytoplankton and trophic
transfer of organically bound tritium to the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis. Journal
of environmental Radioactivity, 115, January 2013, Pages 28–33
[xv] Mark
S Pearce, Jane A Salotti, Mark P Little, Kieran McHugh, Choonsik Lee, Kwang Pyo
Kim, Nicola L Howe, Cecile M Ronckers, Preetha Rajaraman,
Sir Alan W Craft,
Louise Parker, Amy Berrington de González. Radiation exposure from CT scans in
childhood and subsequent risk of eukaemia and brain tumours: a retrospective cohort
study. The Lancet.
June 7, 2012DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60815-0, http://press.thelancet.com/ctscanrad.pdf/.
[xvi] Mark J. Eisenberg, Jonathan Afilalo,
Patrick R. Lawler, Michal Abrahamowicz, Hugues Richard, and Louise Pilote. Cancer risk related to low-dose ionizing
radiation from cardiac imaging in patients after acute myocardial infarction.
Canadian Medial Association Journal 183.4 2011, 430-436.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050947/pdf/1830430.pdf
[xvii]
Natural
gamma rays linked to childhood leukaemia. University of Oxford (2012, June 12) http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2012/120612.html.
[xviii]
Lucy
Forster, Peter Forster, Sabine Lutz-Bonengel Horst Willkomm, Bernd Brinkmann
Natural radioactivity and human mitochondrial DNA mutations PNAS
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/21/13950.long.
http://tekknorg.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/world-health-organisation-ignores-radiation-victims/
ReplyDeleteWell, the Great Culling has probably already begun, so what's a few million, more or less?
ReplyDelete