Do not underestimate the severity of the Fukushima nuclear crisis: interview

Excerpts from The Mainichi:

Before her retirement in 2000 from the University of Bremen in Germany, Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake had been an experimental physicist who some 30 years ago had analyzed data on nuclear bomb survivors and warned of the dangers of low-level and internal exposure to radiation. Since 2004, she has been the chair of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), a Belgium-based civic organization founded in 1997 independent of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), and various governments. In 2003 and 2010, the ECRR released recommendations on radiation risk assessment methods.

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Mainichi: Some people claim that the stress from worrying about radiation is a much bigger health hazard than radiation itself, while others express concern over the effect that extreme reactions can have on economic activity. What are your thoughts on that?


Schmitz-Feuerhake: The argument that panic is a bigger health hazard than radiation is one that's used all the time. The same argument was used in Germany after the Chernobyl accident, but it's one that lacks a scientific basis.

Isn't people's health, including that of unborn children, more important than economic activity? Of course, it's not good to panic without any information. We must measure radiation levels in our environment and food, and get a grasp on our individual levels of exposure. Based on that, we must try to learn what the information means.
Mainichi: How would you evaluate the way the Japanese government has handled the crisis?

Schmitz-Feuerhake: I praise the government for designating the area within a 20-kilometer radius from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant as a no-entry zone. That it set annual radiation levels of 20 millisieverts as a standard for evacuation is understandable for a government that was unprepared for a large-scale nuclear disaster. But it's being grossly irresponsible by reactivating nuclear reactors and trying to shift the public's attention towards "recovery."
With the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and past atmospheric nuclear tests, the total volume of radioactive material released was clear. In the case of the Fukushima crisis, however, we still don't know how much radioactive material has been released. Nuclear fuel that far exceeds the nuclear bombs in both quality and quantity remain in very vulnerable conditions, and it's unclear whether it will be possible to retrieve them safely in the future. While the amount of radioactive material being released may be far less than immediately after the disaster began, the reactors still continue to release these materials. The government needs to recognize the gravity of this situation.

It might help if other governments(Any Other Government) step up and say something..  Anything..  But we all know that won't happen, either.  Nobody has any suggestions, any directives, or any volunteers for cleanup, for that matter. The global non-reaction to this ongoing crisis remains the most stunning aspect of the last 17 months.  It's quiet;  Too quiet.  Deadly quiet, to be exact..

Radiation reading on weather forecast of Fukushima

Nice..  Fukushima Diary:

This tweet grabbed my attention.
In Fukushima, NTV reports radiation level on weather forecast like precipitation.
Look at this carefully. It’s weather forecast, but not precipitation. This is how Fukushima is at this moment.

I'm sure this is nothing.  If it was, wouldn't American media be reporting this too, as opposed to what Brad Pitt's dumbass mom says?

Fukushima One Year Later: 1. Still Ain't Over 2. Only Getting Worse..

The Dangerous Myths of Fukushima  Counterpunch.  Excerpts:


The myth that Fukushima radiation levels were too low to harm humans persists, a year after the meltdown. A March 2, 2012 New York Times article quoted Vanderbilt University professor John Boice: “there’s no opportunity for conducting epidemiological studies that have any chance for success – the doses are just too low.” Wolfgang Weiss of the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation also recently said doses observed in screening of Japanese people “are very low.”



Views like these are political, not scientific, virtually identical to what the nuclear industry cheerleaders claim.
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But just one year after Fukushima, the “no harm” mantra is now being crowded by evidence – evidence to the contrary.



First, estimates of releases have soared. The first reports issued by the Japanese government stated that emissions equaled 10% of 1986 Chernobyl emissions. A few weeks later, they doubled that estimate to 20%. By October 2011, an article in the journal Nature estimated Fukushima emissions to be more than double that of Chernobyl.
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Where did the radioactive particles and gases go? Officials from national meteorological agencies in countries like France and Austria followed the plume, and made colorful maps available on the Internet. Within six days of the meltdowns, the plume had reached the U.S., and within 18 days, it had circled the Northern Hemisphere.



How much radiation entered the U.S. environment? A July 2011 journal article by officials at Pacific Northwest National Lab in eastern Washington State measured airborne radioactive Xenon-133 up to 40,000 times greater than normal in the weeks following the fallout. Xenon-133 is a gas that travels rapidly and does not enter the body, but signals that other, more dangerous types of radioactive chemicals will follow.
A February 2012 journal article by the U.S. Geological Survey looked at radioactive Iodine-131 that entered soil from rainfall, and found levels hundreds of times above normal in places like Portland OR, Fresno CA, and Denver CO. The same places also had the highest levels of Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 in the U.S. While elevated radiation levels were found in all parts of the country, it appears that the West Coast and Rocky Mountain states received the greatest amounts of Fukushima fallout.


L.A. Times: Speculation that “supercritical fission event” occurred at Fukushima reactor irradiating plutonium, says nuclear expert — Explosion so massive investigators found fuel rod fragments a mile away  ENews.  Excerpts:


Robert Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser in the U.S. Energy Department
"They were irradiating plutonium in Unit 3, which experienced the biggest explosion"



The explosion was so massive that investigators found fuel rod fragments a mile away, leading to speculation that a supercritical fission event may have also occurred.


Much remains unknown one year after the disaster.


Authorities can't say exactly where breaches occurred in the reactor vessels and spent fuel pools that caused contaminated water to flood the plant's lower levels.


The last two excerpts within the article might be misinformation..  The commentors in the following section seem to think so!  Plutonium 241 release at 1/10,000 of Chernobyl?  Uh-huh..  Uh-huh.. 


"Planetary Genocide": Fukushima One Year Later : The Poisoning of Planet Earth  Global Research via Before It's News.  Excerpts:


Early on, even essential radioactive monitoring was shut down. In May 2011, the prestigious Norsk Institute’s online site was blocked from the US. They had been monitoring on a daily basis the worldwide radioactive contamination to which we were all –and continue to be– exposed. Conveniently, any early radiation monitoring in the US was inconsistent, with numerous sites supposedly not working for one or another reason. Then the so-called “acceptable” radiation levels in food were raised in the US and EU:

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So, what is not monitored, or where the radiation rates are manipulated, then no one –government officials and corporations– can ever be held accountable, nor can increased death rates, diabetes, stillbirths, birth defects ever be attributed to this catastrophic planetary event.



When have we ever been told the truth about our life-long systemic radiation poisoning? For decades, we have been uninformed experimental laboratory rats since before the Manhattan Project. There never were any ethical or precautionary considerations. Greed and secret agendas trumped everything else.


With various half-lives –some eons-long– of numerous radioactive components, the human race and every other living creature on our planet is on its way to extinction, due to the known sterilization effects of radiation. Here is a short list of the half-life of five of the radioactive isotopes that are and will continue to poison all of our children, and us, ad infinitum, in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink and in which we bathe:
Cesium 137: 30 years
Plutonium 239: 24,000 years
Strontium 90: 29 years [mimics calcium in the body]
Uranium 235: 700-million years
Iodine 131: 8 days [absorbed into the thyroid and gives heavy radiation dose. Also goes into the soil, passed onto us through cow’s milk.]
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Any reasonable safety precautions or realistic evacuations never took place at Fukushima or elsewhere. In addition, a collection of 40-years worth of 600,000 spent fuel rods posed an immediate HazMat threat that never went away. The water poured over them evaporated into radioactive steam to go directly into our planet’s atmosphere and the tons of sea water sprayed on the entire nuclear conflagration were criminally dumped into the Pacific Ocean. Again, because it was not monitored, we will never know how many millions of tons of radioactive water were dumped into the Pacific Ocean. The entire web of ocean life then was irreversibly contaminated with radioactive nuclear waste and detritus, as the ocean currents carried this nightmare to the west coast shores of North America (California, Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver).
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While hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions?) will develop various radiation-related illnesses (cancers and diabetes, as well as radiation-induced miscarriages, stillbirths and birth deformities) over the next decades, the coffers of the medical profession, pharmaceutical companies, and nuclear industry will be bursting with profits. The 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl continues its deathly impact –and that was only one reactor.(2) Fukushima had six reactors.



Most Important Video of the Year? Asahi TV: “Unbelievable” — If Unit 4 pool gets a crack from quake and leaks, it would be end for Tokyo -Expert — Doesn’t have to be large tremor, already shaken many times  You don't really need to watch the video or even read the excerpts from ENews.  Just re-read the previous three sentences.


All of Western US and most of East Coast, Midwest, Canada covered with airborne particles at various altitudes on March 20, Fukushima plume model shows — Based solely on Reactor No. 1 explosion (PHOTO)




Look at the plume simulations for March 20th.  March 22nd was the first day I can remember a Metallic taste to the air.  I was jogging, and in SW Missouri, it was drizzling.  I knew, just knew my imagination was getting the best of me.  Again, I second guessed my intuition.  I guess it really doesn't matter now, does it?  The damage continues to be done, and it continues to be Too Late.  Happy Anniversary, everyone!

Despite The Ongoing Efforts To Cover Up The Scope Of The Disasters, New Videos Prove That All Is Not Well At Fukushima … Or The BP Oil Spill Site

Brought to you by the Liberal Media.  Ahh, Boink!  There IS NO Liberal Media!  From Washington's Blog.

As they are changing web addresses, the videos might not come up with the link.  Just in case, here they are. 

Two catastrophes, both with Global Implications, occurring simultaneously, both essentially unhindered by anyone, putting the entire planet in peril:  What's Newsworthy in that? 

Yup.  This is totally "Universe B."  No doubt.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Scientists want to dig up Shakespeare to find out if he smoked weed  From Raw Story.  Excerpts:


Recently uncovered evidence suggests that William Shakespeare used marijuana, and now a team of paleontologists want to dig him up to prove it.
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Pipes uncovered in the garden of Shakespeare's home in 2001 showed evidence of cannabis and cocaine.


"There were very low concentrations of cannabis, but the signature was there," according to Inspector Tommy van der Merwe, who tested the pipes at South Africa's Forensic Science Laboratory.


The evidence of cocaine was also very strong.


"The pipes we tested still had dirt in them which preserved the residues inside the stem and bowl," Van der Merwe said. "The readings we got were the same as if it had tested a modern-day crack pipe."
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Sonnet 76 of Shakespeare's poems contains a reference to the "noted weed."


New York Passes Gay Marriage  Gawker.  Excerpts:


The New York State Senate just passed a bill legalizing gay marriage, 33-29. It now heads to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's desk for his promised signature. The bystanders in Albany are going nuts. Go celebrate!




4,000 Minot homes to be swamped by day's end


Officials expected more than 4,000 homes to be swamped, many up to their rooftops, by late Friday as the Souris River surged past its 1881 flood record, rising so quickly that its progress could be seen inching up the side of homes.


Just the beginning of this drama, as the water continues to rise..


What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima?  The Indypendent.


While the U.S. media has been occupied with Anthony Weiner, the Republican presidential candidates and Bristol Palin’s memoir, coverage of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has practially fallen off the map. Poor mainstream media coverage of Japan’s now months-long struggle to gain control over the Fukushima disaster has deprived Americans of crucial information about the risks of nuclear power following natural disasters. After a few weeks of covering the early aftermath of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. media moved on, leaving behind the crisis at Fukushima which continues to unfold. U.S. politicians, like Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, have made disappointing and misleading statements about the relative safety of nuclear power and have vowed to stick by our nuclear program, while other countries, like Germany and Italy, have taken serious steps to address the obvious risks of nuclear power — risks that the Fukushima disaster made painfully evident, at least to the rest of the world.'

Type 2 diabetes in newly diagnosed 'can be reversed'  BBC via Before It's News.  Excerpts:

An extreme eight-week diet of 600 calories a day can reverse Type 2 diabetes in people newly diagnosed with the disease, says a Diabetologia study.

Newcastle University researchers found the low-calorie diet reduced fat levels in the pancreas and liver, which helped insulin production return to normal.
Seven out of 11 people studied were free of diabetes three months later, say findings published in the journal.
More research is needed to see whether the reversal is permanent, say experts.Type 2 diabetes affects 2.5m people in the UK. It develops when not enough insulin is produced in the body or the insulin that is made by the body doesn't work properly.