Japan's Apocalypse
Despite a disaster multiples worse than Chernobyl, major media reports all along downplayed it. Now they largely ignore it, moving on to more important things like celebrity features and baseball's opening day, besides pretending American-led Libya bombing is well-intended when, in fact, it's another brazen power grab - an imperial war of conquest, explained in numerous previous articles.
The horror of all wars aside, waged solely for wealth and power, never humanity, Japan deserves regular top billing, given its global implications and potential millions of lives affected. Ignoring it is scandalous, yet it's practically disappeared from television where most people get news, unaware only managed reports are aired omitting vital truths.
Over three weeks and counting, Japan's crisis keeps worsens. Radiation levels in Fukushima's underground tunnel water reached 10,000 times above normal and rising. In nearby seawater, they're 4,385 times too high. Heavy rainfall exacerbates the problem. Food, water, air and soil contamination is spreading.
On March 31, New York Times writer Henry Fountain headlined, "Cleanup Questions as Radiation Spreads," saying:
At issue is "how to clean up areas that have been heavily contaminated by radioactivity," stopping short of suggesting they're dead zones that may affect all northern Japan, an area comparable to Pennsylvania, potentially making it uninhabitable.
On March 31, the IAEA (the industry's global promoter) "said a soil sample from Iitate, a village of 7,000 about 25 miles northwest of the plant, showed very high concentrations of cesium-137," a harmful gamma ray-producing isotope, contaminating air, water and soil for decades.
Levels found are "double" those in Chernobyl's dead zone, raising concerns about extending Japan's evacuation, not done so far. Moreover, they're rising daily and will continue for months, perhaps years, creating permanent contamination combined with uranium, plutonium, and other hazardous toxins.
On April 1, Al Jazeera headlined, "Japan nuclear evacuation will be 'long term,' " saying:
"Residents of evacuated areas....have been warned that they may not be able to return to their homes for months," if ever, given increasing hazardous contamination levels. Cleanup will take decades and fall far short of making areas toxin-free.
Experts call conditions "unchartered territory," wondering what, if anything can be done. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle. The imponderables are huge, and potential implications staggering.
On March 25, Helen Caldicott highlighted "a medical problem of vast dimensions," saying "the situation has grown increasingly grave." A week later, it's worse with no end of crisis in sight, Caldicott calling nuclear power's harm "the greatest public health hazard the world will ever see."
On March 31, physicist Michio Kaku said "three (Fukushima) raging meltdowns" plus one or more (melting) spent fuel ponds opened to the air are ongoing, adding:
"This is huge," involving "uncontrolled radiation releases into the environment," including plutonium, the most toxic substance known. "A speck of plutonium, a millionth of a gram, can cause cancer if ingested." Moreover, if the plant site is abandoned, "we could be in free fall." Before it ends, Kaku believes it may far exceed Chernobyl. Perhaps it already has, though no one's admitting it or knows for sure.
Every Radiation Dose Is an Overdose
Experts like Harvey Wasserman agree. On March 27, he headlined, " 'Safe' Radiation is a Lethal TMI Lie," saying:
-- No amount of radiation is safe; they're harmful, cumulative, permanent and unforgiving;
-- It's why pregnant women aren't x-rayed;
-- "Any detectable fallout can kill;"
-- Fukushima's "serious danger" requires everyone to "prepare for the worst;"
-- "Fukusima is deadly to Americans;"
-- Minimally, "it threatens countless embryos and fetuses in utero, the infants, the elderly, the unborn who will come to future mothers now being exposed;"
-- There's "no defense against even the tiniest radioactive assault;"
-- "Science has never found such a 'safe' threshold, and never will;"
-- "All doses, 'insignificant' or otherwise, can harm the human organism;"
-- Three Mile Island (TMI) victims experienced "cancer, leukemia, birth defects, stillbirths, sterility, malformations, open lesions, hair loss, a metallic taste and much more....;"
-- Pennsylvania's Department of Agriculture also documented the farm and wild animal death and mutation rate;
-- TMI was minor compared to Fukushima; its radiation is "pouring into the air and water;" operators reported levels "a million times normal, then retracted the estimate to a 'mere' 100,000;"
-- Most frightening is what's unrevealed; coverup after TMI and Chernobyl was scandalous;
-- All North America and Europe are affected, especially by rain, increasing soil and water contamination;
-- "Fukushima's worst may be yet to come," by far the worst ever environmental and human disaster;
-- "The response of the Obama Administration has been beyond derelict," claiming Americans face no threat; he lied and now remains silent;
-- " 'Impossible' accidents continue to happen, one after the other, each of them successively worse."
What will it take to stop this monster? Because of enormous industry profits, perhaps it will take ending human life to convince skeptics.
Candidate v. President Obama
In 2008, candidate Obama was skeptical about nuclear power, telling NBC Meet the Press host Tim Russert on January 15, 2008:
Unless a "safe way to produce (and store) nuclear energy (is found), then absolutely we shouldn't build more plants."
At a January 13, 2008 town hall meeting, he said:
"Nuclear is bad because we don't know how to store it. And it poses security hazards."
On December 30, 2007, he said:
"....(N)uclear energy is not optimal so I am not a nuclear energy proponent....I am much more interested in solar and wind and bio-diesel (to produce) clean energy and (new) jobs....I have not ruled out nuclear (but) only so far is it is clean and safe."
Earlier he said:
-- "Nuclear power is not working for us right now;"
-- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is "a moribund agency that needs to be revamped, and it's become captive of the industries that it regulates and I think that's a problem."
He also called storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain "a bad idea." Nuclear power "has a host of problems that have not been solved," and "I don't think there's anything that we inevitably dislike about nuclear power. We just dislike the fact that it might blow up....and irradiate us....and kill us. That's the problem."
Even candidate Obama was less than candid. On July 4, 2007, CounterPunch co-editor Jeff St. Clair and contributor Joshua Frank called him "another automaton of the atomic lobby" in their article headlined, "Barack Obama's Nuclear Ambitions," saying:
During the 1990s, "the atom lobby....had a stranglehold on the Clinton administration and now they seem to have the same suffocating grip around (Obama's) neck, (the Democrat's) brightest star...."
It showed (and still does) in generous industry contributions. As of late March 2007, he "accepted $159,800 from executives and employees of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power plant operator." They previously funded his 2004 Senate campaign, contributing $74,350.
In return, he helped kill an amendment to stop large industry loan guarantees "for power-plant operators to develop new energy projects the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will also risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default."
In 2005, Nuclear News praised him for "keeping an open mind" on nuclear power. In other words, for supporting it despite the unforgiving hazards. "The atom lobby must certainly be pleased." Why else would they help elect him president.
A previous article explained Obama's longstanding industry ties, including with Chicago-based Exelon. Its web site says it operates 17 reactors at 10 stations in Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, providing 20% of US nuclear capacity.
In addition, Obama's former top political aide, David Axelrod, once lobbied for Exelon, and Rahm Emanuel, his former White House chief of staff (now Chicago's mayor-elect), profited handsomely as an investment banker, arranging mergers that created the company.
In his proposed budget, Obama includes $36 billion in industry loan guarantees for new facilities - free money. He's committed to jump-start new construction, halted since Three Mile Island in 1979. Already takers are lining up, 20 or more applications pending before the NRC.
In fact, he and Energy Secretary Steven Chu downplay Fukushima, ignoring industry hazards, including 23 US nuclear plants at 16 locations using the same failed GE-designed Mark 1 containment vessels. Earlier, the NRC called them susceptible to explosions and failure because of cost-cutting design features.
Its 1985 study warned that failure within the first few hours after a core meltdown was very likely. Its top safety official at the time said it had a 90% probability of failing if an accident caused overheating and melting. When reactor cooling is compromised, the containment vessel is the last line of defense. However, GE's design is hazardous and unsafe.
Today, Obama supports the NRC, the same agency Karl Grossman calls "an unabashed promoter of nuclear power," the one candidate Obama called "moribund, (a) captive of the industries it regulates." The one with a perfect record - never having denied applicants new plant licenses. The one now dangerously extending operating lives of aging, poorly maintained plants with deplorable safety records to 80 years, assuring multiple likelihoods of trouble.
It now says no new regulation or oversight is needed. No moratorium on new construction or old plants will be instituted, and, in fact, Vermont's trouble-plagued Yankee plant (using the same type Fukushima reactor) got a 20-year extension instead of being shut down.
That in spite of recent reports highlighting serious industry "near misses," safety violations, failures to reveal legally-required information regarding defective equipment, electrical supply system inadequacies, and other examples of industry mismanagement and criminality, risking an American Fukushima disaster.
According to nuclear technician Tom Saporito:
"The administration, including the president of the United States, is recklessly endangering the population by promoting the construction of nuclear plants and by not taking affirmative action to deal with known safety problems."
In fact, shutting the industry down is crucial, especially as Grossman, a longtime industry expert, says:
"Safe, clean, renewable energy technologies fully implemented can provide all the power we need - and energy that we can live with" safely, unlike the hazardous nuclear roulette played each day these ticking time bombs operate.
As president, however, Obama fronts for Wall Street, war profiteers, Big Oil, Big Pharma, other corporate favorites, and his nuclear industry friends, risking a major disaster to assure generous 2012 campaign contributions for another four years to complete wrecking America and other nations globally. That's his "change we can believe in" plan, not the one sold to constituents.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/
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Thank you Stephen
By Street, Paul at Apr 04, 2011 16:01 PM
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Re: Thank you Stephen
By Birch, Bruce at Apr 04, 2011 21:38 PM
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Re: Re: Thank you Stephen
By Birch, Bruce at Apr 04, 2011 22:11 PM
Thank you, Stephen, and thanks also to Helen Caldicott, who I think made George look a little silly on Democracy Now the other day.
George Monbiot's stance is undermining the efforts of a lot of people who know that renewable energy technology is already a viable option, its development only prevented by the fossil fuel industry. There's empirical evidence for this. Look what's happening in Germany, for example,which already gets a significant percentage of its power from diversified, decentralized, small-scale renewable sources, including solar, wind and bio-gas. And that's with only half the country on board. When you go there, it's like being in a parallel universe. They're already doing what most of the rest of the world apparently views as wildly impractical.
When someone associated with 'progressive' ideas becomes an apologist for the essentially amoral, profit-motivated entities currently controlling government policy around the world, the effect is to co-opt a percentage of the 'progressive' cohort, and to weaken the position of those who are sticking to their guns. This, as Paul Street tried to warn everyone, has been the effect of Obama's rise to power.
One thing is for certain - the nuclear lobby loves George Monbiot, their appreciative comments are all over the web.
According to George's main source (UNSCEAR), only 43 people died as a result of Chernobyl. But what about, for example the Belarus National Academy of Sciences, who estimate that 270,000 people in the region around the accident site will develop cancer as a result of Chernobyl radiation and that 93,000 of those cases are likely to be fatal?
Or another report by the Center for Independent Environmental Assessment of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which found a dramatic increase in mortality since 1990—60,000 deaths in Russia and an estimated 140,000 deaths in Ukraine and Belarus—probably due to Chernobyl radiation.
I'm not aware of these studies having been discredited.
And what about the fact that, after the accident, Soviet authorities resettled more than 350,000 people outside the worst areas, including all 50,000 people from nearby Pripyat, but millions of people continue to live in contaminated areas?
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Re: Thank you Stephen
By Brussel, Morton k. at Apr 04, 2011 22:52 PM
But I must disagree. I have worked with nuclear radiation and nuclear reactors and have followed developments of these issues for years. So far, there has only been alarmist hysteria (tautology for a purpose) about the disasters at the Fukushina complex. There have so far been no fatalities due to radiation that I know of yet due to the disaster. There may be some in the future, but that remains to be seen. Workers at the complex may have received dangerous doses of radiation, but that is what happens in "ordinary" disastrous events (such as fires, or 9/11). The disaster is mainly economic so far and bad for the nuclear industry, but pales relative to the earthquake and tsunami devastation. There have been no other established health problems for the population, even as the Japanese government is being prudent, s they should be, in clearing an area around the reactor complex of its population.
As for the risks of radiation for future and present generations: The risk seems to be minimal, as it was for the Three Mile Island meltdown, despite claims by radiation ignoramouses like Wassserman and Calicott. The high levels of radiation quoted by Lendman are local and disperse rapidly into low levels (into the ocean, for example) which have not been shown to be dangerous to human health. As you know, we are all subjected to low levels of nuclear radiation, some more than others, and evolution evidently has allowed us to live with that. Many experts believe that low levels of radiation may in fact be beneficial, just as many medications are, even if large doses can be harmful or lethal. This has been argued by the experts, and there is disagreement. Look up the word "hormesis".
This seems to be a heyday for environmentalists who are antithetic to nuclear power, for reasons which are too often hallucinatory.
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Re: Re: Thank you Stephen
By Small, Brian at Apr 05, 2011 12:08 PM
"I'm sure you'll be surprised to find that it takes minutes to debunk Coulter's scientific declarations on radiation. That "pro-radiation" Times science piece (11/27/01), for instance, does cite research finding that low-dose radiation can have beneficial effects-- only to note that it has been generally dismissed by scientists as flawed: ...And that Taiwan study demonstrating that radioactive cobalt-60 built into an Taiwan apartment building protected the inhabitants from cancer? It contained a "major flaw" in that it failed to control for age--where a subsequent study that did control for age found an increased incidence of cancer associated to the apartment building. "
http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/03/18/ann-coulter-on-oreilly-radiation-is-good-for-you/
"... members of the 50 Cent Party, so-called because one Chinese government agency pays 5 mao (half a yuan) for every post its tame commenters write(3). Teams of these sock-puppets are hired by party leaders to drown out critical voices and derail intelligent debates..."
http://www.monbiot.com/2010/12/13/reclaim-the-cyber-commons/
"...Any exposure raises cancer risk
The National Council on Radiation Protection says, “… every increment of radiation exposure produces an incremen tal increase in the risk of cancer.” The Environmental Protection Agency says, “… any exposure to radiation poses some risk, i.e. there is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk.” The Department of Energy says about “low levels of radiation” that “… the major effect is a very slight increase in cancer risk.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, “any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer ... any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.” The National Academy of Sciences, in its “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII,” says, “... it is unlikely that a threshold exists for the induction of cancers ....”
http://www.zcommunications.org/spewing-from-meltdowns-by-john-laforge
I guess 'the father of the nuclear navy' Admiral Hyman Rickover is 'alarmist' too.
".. Admiral Hyman Rickover, the “father” of the U.S. nuclear navy and manager of construction of the first commercial nuclear plant in the U.S., in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in the end concluded that the world must “outlaw nuclear reactors.”
Rickover, in a farewell address, told a committee of Congress in 1982: “I’ll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth: that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn’t have any life—fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet and probably in the entire system reduced and made it possible for some for some form of life to begin.”
“Now,” Rickover went on, “when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible…Every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has life, in some cases for billions of years, and I think there the human race is going to wreck itself, and it’s far more important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.” http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman12152008.html
Justing Podur explained how strange cancer research is in the comments of a recent article I can only access through his killingtrain blog right now. Potential cures can be tested on animals then tried on humans, but research into causes using animals is not supposed to be applied to humans... He also wrote that Helen Caldicot may seem 'alarmist' but nuclear power is alarming.
"... a big problem with nuclear power is the long-term effects, which create cancers for decades. I recently read Devra Davis's "The Secret History of the War on Cancer", which deals with the environmental causes of cancer and the way that prevention and causation of cancer are downplayed compared to treatment, all in the interests of the pharmaceutical (and other polluting) industry. I also read an essay in an interesting little book called "Against Health" that argued that the nuclear bomb normalized the idea that you might just die of radiation, but it would be in the national interest (the essay, by Joseph Masco, author of "The Nuclear Borderlands", actually made more subtle arguments and interesting than this). So, on the question of no one having received a lethal dose, that's not really how radiation-induced cancer works.
Second, there is a fallacy here that runs throughout all the pro-nuclear arguments. The probability of something really awful happening is usually pretty low. It requires a bunch of things to go wrong at the same time - like an earthquake and a tsunami, say. But if you repeat a low-probability experiment enough times, the chances of the event occurring go up pretty fast. Most mathematical models of stock markets and derivatives markets fail to predict crises because they don't take this into account (mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and popular philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb discuss these issues). The fact that Fukushima didn't go as badly as it could have (and we still don't know how badly it did go) is not evidence that the technology is reliable. .." http://www.killingtrain.com/node/787
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Re: Re: Re: Thank you Stephen
By Small, Brian at Apr 05, 2011 12:14 PM
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Thank you Stephen
By Small, Brian at Apr 05, 2011 21:07 PM
" Although you might suppose that the nuclear industry’s outstanding characteristic would be its expertise, since it’s loaded with junior Einsteins who grasp the math and physics required to master the most awesomely sophisticated technology humans have ever created, think again. Based on the record, its most outstanding characteristic is a fundamental dishonesty. I learned that the hard way as a grassroots activist organizing opposition to ascheme hatched by a consortium of nuclear utilities to park thousands of tons of highly radioactive fuel rods, like the ones now burning at Fukushima, in my Utah backyard.
Here’s what I took away from that experience: the nuclear industry is a snake-oil culture of habitual misrepresentation, pervasive wishful thinking, deep denial, and occasional outright deception. For more than 50 years, it has habitually lied about risks and costs while covering up every violation and failure it could. Whether or not its proponents and spokespeople are dishonest or merely deluded can be debated, but the outcome -- dangerous misinformation and the meltdown of honest civic discourse -- remains the same, as we once again see at Fukushima...." http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175371/tomgram%3A_chip_ward%2C_the_nuclear_myth_melts_down/#more
"..When America walked away from breeders and reprocessing in the 70’s, too many workers involved in reprocessing the fuel had become sick. Unfortunately for the proponents of nuclear power, the technical problems involved in “recycling” nuclear fuel are too complex, too expensive, and too dangerous. Energy Solutions boasts it is the leader in a new quest to successfully reprocess nuclear waste. Given the thoroughly disappointing and wishful history of reprocessing so far, this is a bit like being on the cutting edge of alchemy during the Middle Ages. Or maybe there is just money to be made selling wishful thinking to those who are desperate for a solution and in denial about the unlikelihood of ever realizing one. Energy Solutions or energy delusions?
When President Carter, a former nuclear submarine commander, ruled out reprocessing for America, he sited the danger that the by-products of reprocessing could be used to fashion nuclear warheads. ..." http://healutah.org/what/energypolicy/nuclearpower/chipward
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: Re: Thank you Stephen
By Ward, Roderick at Apr 07, 2011 00:43 AM
For what it is worth, my impression of the Monbiot - Caldicott debate was that Caldicott self-destructed, losing all credibility with me, at any rate. I find it hard to believe that people here cannot recognize that, but I know that smart, honest people often don't see eye to eye on hot-button issues.
Maybe someone on here can clear something up for me. I notice a lot of people, here and elsewhere on the web, citing a study said to have been put out by the Belarus National Academy of Sciences which estimates 93 000 deaths from Chernobyl. (Actually "predicts" would be a better word, since these deaths are supposed to be mostly happening in the future.) Is this the same as, or different from, the Greenpeace report, described here in what seems to be the initial press release? Contributors such as Mikhail Malko are associated with the Belarus National Academy of Sciences, but I don't see that the report was published by that body. Apparently, none of the 50 or so pieces reprinted in the Greenpeace report was peer-reviewed: Chernobyl Forum Scientific Secretary Mikhail Balanov, quoted in Der Spiegel: "If you want to get some serious conclusions from the data, it has to be in peer reviewed papers. Unfortunately none of the studies cited in the new report have been peer reviewed ... . It relies on bad science." And so on.
Of course, you will also easily find critics of the Chernobyl Forum.
But when I am trying to figure out what the best current science is on a subject, I would at a minimum look for something that is peer-reviewed. Otherwise, as a non-expert, there is a world of crap out there that I don't have time to wade through trying to assess. In fact, it would be a pretty good sign that I was a crank if I had the hubris to try, without first putting in a very serious effort to educate myself in the relevant disciplines.
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Re: : Re: Thank you Stephen
By Small, Brian at Apr 09, 2011 10:24 AM
How much of an effort does it take to understand stuff like this, do we really have to leave life and death decisions and social policy up to the experts? We should be able to critically read article by dedicated people and come up with a sensible, humane stance on an issue. I imagine we should read everything with the key word 'regulatory capture' and 'conflict of interest in mind' too.
John Laforge has been following radiations risks and seems to have the grass roots, citizen's eye position. Do you think the various organization he mentions here relying on 'cranks'
"..The National Council on Radiation Protection says, “… every increment of radiation exposure produces an incremen tal increase in the risk of cancer.” The Environmental Protection Agency says, “… any exposure to radiation poses some risk, i.e. there is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk.” The Department of Energy says about “low levels of radiation” that “… the major effect is a very slight increase in cancer risk.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, “any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer ... any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.” The National Academy of Sciences, in its “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII,” says, “... it is unlikely that a threshold exists for the induction of cancers ....”
Long story short, “One can no longer speak of a ‘safe’ dose level,” as Dr. Ian Fairlie and Dr. Marvin Resnikoff said in their report “No dose too low,” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists..."
Jonathan Schell seems to have a reasonable approach, why not wait a while before forcing certain areas to bear the risks of nuclear power. "The problem is not that another backup generator is needed, or that the safety rules aren’t tight enough, or that the pit for the nuclear waste is in the wrong geological location, or that controls on proliferation are lax. It is that a stumbling, imperfect, probably imperfectable creature like ourselves is unfit to wield the stellar fire released by the split or fused atom. When nature strikes, why should humankind compound the trouble? The earth is provided with enough primordial forces of destruction without our help in introducing more. We should leave those to Mother Nature... Some have suggested that in light of the new developments we should abandon nuclear power. I have a different proposal, perhaps more in keeping with the peculiar nature of the peril. Let us pause and study the matter. For how long? Plutonium, a component of nuclear waste, has a half-life of 24,000 years, meaning that half of it is transformed into other elements through radioactive decay. This suggests a time-scale. We will not be precipitous if we study the matter for only half of that half-life, 12,000 years. In the interval, we can make a search for safe new energy sources, among other useful endeavors. Then perhaps we’ll be wise enough to make good use of the split atom..."
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: Re: Thank you Stephen
By Ward, Roderick at Apr 07, 2011 00:43 AM
For what it is worth, my impression of the Monbiot - Caldicott debate was that Caldicott self-destructed, losing all credibility with me, at any rate. I find it hard to believe that people here cannot recognize that, but I know that smart, honest people often don't see eye to eye on hot-button issues.
Maybe someone on here can clear something up for me. I notice a lot of people, here and elsewhere on the web, citing a study said to have been put out by the Belarus National Academy of Sciences which estimates 93 000 deaths from Chernobyl. (Actually "predicts" would be a better word, since these deaths are supposed to be mostly happening in the future.) Is this the same as, or different from, the Greenpeace report, described here in what seems to be the initial press release? Contributors such as Mikhail Malko are associated with the Belarus National Academy of Sciences, but I don't see that the report was published by that body. Apparently, none of the 50 or so pieces reprinted in the Greenpeace report was peer-reviewed: Chernobyl Forum Scientific Secretary Mikhail Balanov, quoted in Der Spiegel: "If you want to get some serious conclusions from the data, it has to be in peer reviewed papers. Unfortunately none of the studies cited in the new report have been peer reviewed ... . It relies on bad science." And so on.
Of course, you will also easily find critics of the Chernobyl Forum.
But when I am trying to figure out what the best current science is on a subject, I would at a minimum look for something that is peer-reviewed. Otherwise, as a non-expert, there is a world of crap out there that I don't have time to wade through trying to assess. In fact, it would be a pretty good sign that I was a crank if I had the hubris to try, without first putting in a very serious effort to educate myself in the relevant disciplines.
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Re: : Re: Thank you Stephen
By Small, Brian at Apr 08, 2011 23:04 PM
Why don't you go back and take another look at Three Mile Island while putting serious efforts into educating yourself.
"On the 20th Anniversary of Chernobyl WHO and the IAEA published the Chernobyl Forum Report, mentioning only 350 sources, mainly from the English literature while in reality there are more than 30,000 publications and up to 170,000 sources that address the consequences of Chernobyl....
“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,” and continues: The IAEA and the WHO “recognize that they may find it necessary to apply certain limitations for the safeguarding of confidential information furnished to them. They therefore agree that nothing in this agreement shall be construed as requiring either of them to furnish such information as would, in the judgment of the other party possessing the information to interfere wit the orderly conduct of its operation.”
...
three scientists, Alexey Yablokov from Russia, and Vasily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko from Belarus undertook the task to collect, abstract and translate some 5000 articles reported by multiple scientists, who observed first-hand the effects from the fallout. These had been published largely in Slavic languages and not previously available in translation. The result was Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009.
...
WHO, supported by governments worldwide could have been pro-active and led the way to provide readily accessible information, but did not. These omissions resulted in several effects: limited monitoring of fallout levels, delays in getting stable potassium iodide to people, lack of care for many, and delay in prevention of contamination of the food supply.
....
The most detailed estimate of additional deaths was done in Russia by comparing rates in six highly contaminated territories with overall Russian averages and with those of six lesser-contaminated areas, maintaining similar geographical and socioeconomic parameters. There were over 7 million people in each area, providing for robust analysis. Thus data from multiple scientists estimate the overall mortality from the Chernobyl catastrophe, for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004, to be 985,000, a hundred times more than the WHO/IAEA estimate.
...."
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