Fukushima and the Battle for Truth
Large sectors of the Japanese population are accumulating significant levels of internal contamination
by Paul Zimmerman
Fukushima’s nuclear disaster is a nightmare. Ghostly releases of radioactivity haunt the Japanese countryside. Lives, once safe, are now beset by an ineffable scourge promising vile illness and death.
Large sectors of the population are accumulating significant levels of internal contamination, setting the stage for a public health tragedy.
A subtle increase in the number of miscarriages and fetal deaths will be the first manifestation that something is amiss. An elevated incidence of birth defects will begin in the Fall and continue into the indefinite future. Thyroid diseases, cardiac diseases and elevated rates of infant and childhood leukemia will follow. Over the next decade and beyond, cancer rates will soar.
Chernobyl was the harbinger of this heartbreaking scenario. It taught mankind the inescapable biological truths that emerge within populations internally contaminated by heightened levels of fission products. And yet, government and industry schemers attack these truths as unfounded scare-mongering. With cold indifference, they deny that Chernobyl was a mass casualty event. They turn a blind eye to a huge body of research and deviously proclaim that no evidence exists that more than a handful of people suffered harm from the Ukrainian disaster. They publish propaganda, draped in the guise of science, that dismisses the hazard of low levels of internal contamination. Believing their subterfuge to have been successful and intoxicated by their hubris, they are already positioning themselves to stage-manage the public’s perception of Fukushima.
Japan’s government, its Nuclear Safety Commission, and the Tokyo Electric Power Company have already demonstrated that they will do everything in their power to keep citizens ignorant of what is taking place. The emerging health crisis is scheduled to be erased. Following a time-tested blueprint worked out by prior radiation releases around the world, data relevant to assessing the medical impact of the accident will not be gathered. Radiation doses to the population will be woefully underestimated. The hazards associated with low levels of internal contamination will be obliterated from all discussions of risk. Academic journals that support the nuclear agenda will be flooded with bogus studies demonstrating that no health detriment was suffered by the population. The heightened incidence of childhood leukemia will be attributed to some as yet unidentified virus unleashed by population mixing following the evacuations caused by the tsunami. (This theory is currently in vogue to deny that the heightened incidence of leukemia among children under five years of age living nearby to nuclear reactors is radiation induced.) The birth defects will be summarily dismissed as impossible because the risk models upheld by the International Commission on Radiological Protection don’t predict them. The possibility that the models are fraudulently constructed escapes consideration. (See a Betrayal of Mankind by the Radiation Protection Agencies, available as a free download Here .)
How is TRUTH to gain ascendancy when blocked by this institutionalized matrix of deceit? What agency can possibly take the lead to accurately document the full scope of the disaster, identify its victims and those at risk, and publish trustworthy public health information? Who is going to take responsibility to protect the children? To wait for the government to come to the rescue is naive. The history of radiation accidents testifies that governments routinely betray their citizens in deference to their nuclear weapons program and the nuclear industry. No, only one alternative is open to the people of Japan. They must become proactive. They must seize the initiative and wrest control from government and industry of the “perception” of the catastrophe….
Protesters blockade nuclear power station
Telegraph/UK
More than 200 people are blockading a nuclear power station in protest at plans to build new reactors at the site.
Members of several anti-nuclear groups who are part of the Stop New Nuclear alliance say they are barring access to Hinkley Point power station in Somerset in protest against EDF Energy’s plans to renew the site with two new reactors.
The new reactors at Hinkley would be the first of eight new nuclear power stations to be built in the UK.
Stop New Nuclear spokesman Andreas Speck said: ”This is the start of a new movement. We intend this day to be a celebration of resistance against the Government and EDF Energy’s plans to spearhead the construction of eight new nuclear power plants around the UK.
‘This is blockade shows that people who understand the true dangers of nuclear power are prepared to use civil disobedience to get their voice heard.
”The Government has hoodwinked the public into believing that we need nuclear power to keep the lights on. But this is totally untrue.”…
Skeptics challenge San Onofre nuclear-plant crisis planners
Five-hour meeting about lessons learned from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear-plant emergency is occasionally interrupted by critics who don’t believe the speakers’ claims that a similar event is unlikely here and that local plans are adequate.
By FRED SWEGLES / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
After more than five hours of testimony at a meeting Tuesday night in San Clemente about lessons for the San Onofre nuclear power plant from Japan’s nuclear-plant meltdown in March, a few things were clear:
• Federal regulators believe a similar sequence of events is unlikely here but are recommending that U.S. nuclear power plants reevaluate and, if necessary, upgrade their ability to withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, prolonged power failures and other emergency scenarios.
Article Tab: san-family-clemente-plant
Doug Beacom of San Diego, carrying a girl he described as a family member, holds up a sign against a backdrop of other signs at Tuesday night’s San Clemente meeting on lessons learned from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear-plant emergency.
Fred Swegles, The Orange County Register
• Southern California Edison believes its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station 2½ miles south of San Clemente is much better designed to withstand a crippling earthquake and tsunami than the Fukushima plant that was devastated in March by Japan’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. But Edison, in response to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission initiatives, already is reevaluating the protections built into San Onofre.
• The Interjurisdictional Planning Committee, a group including Edison and several government agencies that would take charge if a San Onofre emergency ever triggers a regional evacuation, believes it’s possible to evacuate a 10-mile radius around San Onofre with coordinated plans in place.
• Many of the 200 or so people who attended Tuesday night’s meeting didn’t buy any of that.
“We have to live with the possibility that we may be the next Fukushima with hot radioactive particles contaminating our families and homes, our ocean, our crops, our schools and playgrounds, our water supply and whatever else the plume encounters as it drifts across the entire country,” said Gary Headrick, leader of the environmental group San Clemente Green.
=======
To help keep EON’s work going, please check out all the support options on our Donation Page or you can also send a check made out to EON to EON, POB 1047, Bolinas, CA
Or…just:
EON on the Radio – Where Democracy Meets the DNA
