Has the Fukushima Meltdown caused 14,000 deaths here in America?
By skepticalscott
You need to know this. Just a few days after the Japanese Prime Minister declared the nuclear crisis at Fukushima is over – there’s shocking new evidence that the disaster may have led to the deaths of as many as 14,000 people…in the United States! According to a new peer-reviewed study published in the December edition of the International Journal of Health Services – researchers found that there were 14,000 excess deaths in America in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdown - and they believe these deaths can be traced back to radioactive fallout.
Most of the deaths were infants – under the age of one – and studies show that despite infant death DECREASING by more than 8% this year in the weeks leading UP to Fukushima – infant death in American INCREASED this year by nearly 2% in the weeks AFTER Fukushima. A similar phenomenon was studied at Chernobyl in 1986 – where more than 16,000 excess deaths were reported weeks after the meltdown. Numbers by the Center for Disease Control back up this study – finding that deaths in America’s biggest cities spiked 4-and-a-half percent from last year in the weeks after Fukushima.
Sadly – we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to how dangerous nuclear power is – yet we keep subsidizing reactors with our tax dollars.
This is insanity.
Comments
#2
Ron Paul ~ Frontrunner> http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/12/ron-paul-is-now-the-republican-frontrunner.html
#3
Berry, I especially like (from the link you provided);
Why is Mr. Paul so popular?
As I pointed out in September, Americans overwhelmingly want:
- The Federal Reserve to be reined in if not abolished
- The never-ending, open-ended, goalpost-moving wars to stop and the troops to be brought home
- Our liberties to be restored, and the martial law indefinite detention idiocy to be reversed
Paul has consistently championed these three American wishes for three decades. None of the other Republican (or Democratic) candidates are on the right side of history on any of these issues.
#4
By the way; I am not a Libertarian, nor a Republican, nor am I any longer a Democrat. What concerns me the most is Empire and the never ending wars, the Federal Reserve, and most of all, my civil liberties!
#5
Paul is a clown. He votes with republicans on every issue that hurts the regular Joes and enriches the richest. For that alone I have no use for him.
BTW Thom. Youre doing much better in the debates with conservaturds. Way to go.
#7
Medical Journal Article ~ Fukushima , 14,000 ~ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/medical-journal-article-14000-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-reactor-disaster-fallout-2011-12-19
#8
Ron Paul has the establishment in panic mode. So this means, all we have to do is pretend he doesn't exist, ignore him. "Gee He only wants to end the suffering from todays war's and bring back sound money, stay out of our wallets and nurture our freedoms we all believe in " O, and bring back law and order in the W.H "Just ignore Ron Paul is one way we can continue our direction we are headed in. I do not agree with everything Ron Paul has to say but we do need to address this industrial military complex. It just seems like we do not have a government any longer. Why? Because it seems that they are just giving eveything to this industry and our laws. All the other candidate act like children trying to sell you a used car. They just don't have a clue ...
#9
I spent a lot of time sitting-in at Lawrence Livermore Labs, teh SF City Hall and Golden Gate park in the 70s to END nuclear power after Three-Mile Island and Devil's Canyon. I really feel gyped on this one...
#10
You're gypped only if you quit.
#11
Nuclear power?
It's giving loaded 50 caliber machine guns to two year old children and saying "... now go play, be safe , and have fun!"
#12
Thom and friends -
Check stats on infant mortality rates along the US West Coast immediately following the Fukushima disaster. Word is that rates were / are much, much higher than 'normal'.
#13
Thank you. Although I am likely left of many on this site, one thing the libs seem to consistently do is screw up the science. Maddow, and Goodman are top offenders, and now I have to add Thom to the list by giving this study more credence than it likely deserves. What is the mechanism of death in these cases? Seems almost as superstitious as ascribing sudden infant death syndrme to black cats who steal the ebreath from babies in the dead of night. Now if the infants died a lingering death of even a few days, attended by the usual symptomology of radiation poisoning, you'd have a story. That the EPA seemingly fell down on the job is regrettable and sadly predictable these days but scarcely a smoking gun.
#14
I'm as anti-nuclear power as they come, and the disaster at Fukushima just strengthened my beliefs. But, as a scientist, I urge you to read the Scientific American editorial (linked above) for what I think is a well laid out criticism of the published study. Scientific literature is not meant to be read as "fact", but more like a scientific "argument". In the case of this study and paper, I think the facts that were used are woefully inadequate to prove the case they are making. It is possible that there is a slight statistical change in mortality, and that it might be linked to the nuclear disaster, but this study doesn't do anything to prove or disprove that theory. A better study could be designed to test the theory and should be!
#15
Nuclear power isn't the problem any more than blimps are. For blimps it as hydrogen that was the actual danger, replaced by safer Helium. For nuclear power it's the 40 year old Uranium technology, motivated by the cold war military's desire for its bomb-grade byproducts. As a result of bad choices in the 1970's we are decades behind in developing the RIGHT kind of nuclear power.
Thom's understanding of Thorium dangers (Sulfur) is decades out of date. There are several kinds of nuclear technologies under development using Thorium (one of the MOST abundant materials we have) which drastically reduce the "spent fuel" storage problems, eliminate the "melt down" danger, do not produce bomb materials, and require much smaller amounts of uranium.
The only things standing in the way are prevailing attitudes like Thom parrots from his solar sponsor, and the people (GE) who profit from the current way of doing things, with the oil and coal companies as its cheer leaders.
By the way, Thorium technology from an American company is building Thorium power facilities in India, while our first Thorium test facility in Oak Ridge Tennessee, mothballed in the 70's, is being dismantled at a cost of several million dollars, ignoring the cries of the medical community faced with dwindling supplies of critical materials for cancer treatment that Thorium development would provide at low cost in abundance.
Solar requires mountains of rare elements that don't exist in quantities necessary for large scale production. Wind and wave power are nice science fair experiments with severe limitations. Solar and wind are simply not scalable for large demands. Instead we should be shutting down 40 year old nuclear plants and developing the technology to retrofit them to run on Thorium.
YouTube search for "Thorium Energy" and plan to spend a few hours educating yourself in the realities of the only practical and logical alternative to oil, coal, uranium, natural gas, solar, geothermal, wave or wind. The analogy is like a lead-acid battery (uranium) vs a rechargeable (Thorium) battery.
#16
The flaw of nuclear power has always been- no plan for disposing of its even more toxic waste. Ideas so far have included sending it to space or shooting it into the earth's core. Where it all is now, up to this point, is anyone's guess, because it is known various rods of radioactive waste material have disappeared. Before long, each nation will accumulate enough radioactive waste to blow itself up in the event of an accident.
Even without tsunamis or earthquakes, and the fact that nuclear plants have been built on fault lines by geophysical engineers, we live in ever present danger of radioactive waste daily, which has been allowed to accumulate for decades without an attenuating solution .
Surely anyone who's been to Yale or Harvard knows this. Give us some answers! Hear! Hear!
#17
Nuclear power = nulear waste = modern man end.
May take a millineum or more but there's no where to store the waste and given mankind's proclivity for papering over cracks in concrete, it's just a matter of time.
#18
" Nuclear power is suicide ! All suicide plants should be shut down around the world. Thorium is just as bad !!! This radioactive current junk is just floating all around our atmosphere. Perhaps this is what is heating up our planet ? This stuff is very hot... Its a expansion of high voltage electricity that our bodies can not take.
#19
I think of these institutions as "Nuclear PROFIT Plants." They were designed to operated for forty years. Most of the plants today are older than forty years. I would say those plants are all unsafe. The worse problem is the one that keeps being kicked down the road. Nuclear Profit Plants produces millions of pounds of waste material annually. Scientists have not discovered a safe and secure way to handle the waste. The toxic and very dangerous waste just keeps accumulating, most of it on the site of the operating plant. These are disasters merely waiting for a moment to ignite them. The problems with nuclear profit plants are endless. Interestingly, we also use nuclear power plants to operate submarines and aircraft carriers. The difference is that the operators live on the ship. They do not cut corners on board a ship without the operators risking their own life.
#20
Um, cough, cough, That's not entirely accurate! While thorium mitigates some of the nuclear safety issues, thorium by itself (IIRC) cannot sustain a nuclear chain reaction. Fissionable U235 or U238 must be mixed with the thorium fuel in order to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. So now we are right back to where we started - what do we do with the waste???
A better solution is to accept there is no solution to our dilemma of the infinite economic growth paradigm on a finite world. We must discard our infatuation with suburbia requiring a personal auto, large houses, and an ever growing population in exchange for a living arrangement much like pre automobile era and a reduction in the planets population to about 1 billion. Otherwise the consequences of our actions will force this change upon us in ways, frankly, I'd or my children and grand children rather not have to endure!
#21
Nuclear power and the nuclear testing done in our country in the 50s and 60s are clearly part of our cancer epidemic. Nuclear power is highly profitable, uninsurable (Price-Anderson act lets the industry off the hook in the event of a serious accident) and we still don't have a solution to the waste, except to leave our children and generations to come the danger.
Solar and wind are not a pipe dream anymore. Ask those involved in the industry how much it has grown in the last 10 years, and how competive they are with dirty technologies like coal and nuclear.
#22
3Mile was a none event that was controlled becuz of pump failure. We do not have 3 headed Holsteins walking around as nothing harmed the environment. You apparently enjoy all the carbon emissions from the coal plants that should be replaced by clean, none polluting nuclear plants. France gets 80% of their power from nuclear plants. They are laughing at the Germans who have this dream of shutting down some of their plants. Their solution is to buy power from Frances nuclear power supplied grid. Do go out hug your tree hard untill the leaves fall off.
#23
Great, we've come up with the solution for nuycleear waste. We can ship it to radster63's home, and let his children have the safety that comes from the totally safe material being stored in totally safe containers....
#24
Have any of you actually read the so-called "peer-reviewed" paper? Did you, Thom?
I am decidedly anti-nuc power for many clear reasons but as a scientist with 35 years experience in medical radiation research, be careful of assiging too much validity to the referenced paper. It does not pass muster statistically and it makes very little sense scientifically. Effects of I-131 or Sr-90 on the population, especially lethal ones, would NOT be instantaneous with arrival of the airborne plume, there would be a long latency period. The paper in question is an opinion piece and that is putting it politely.
There are many clear reasons to oppose nuc power, not the least of which is the insane economic model. At least at this point, this paper does not add to the discussion it only obfuscates.
#25
Better studies are most definitely underway. Only they can't be banged out in a weekend using preposterous titles and published in junk journals. Press coverage of this junk science only hurts the cause but it does satisfy the apparent desire of these authors desire to get attention and generate donations.
#26
this so called peer reviewed report has not withstood scrutiny. the authors have cherry picked the data to prove cause and effect.but all they have accomplished is to ruin their credibility. So instead of jumping on the anti nuclear bandwagon and instantly damning nuclear energy maybe you would be better served to do a little research first.
#27
Sadly, we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to how dangerous nuclear power is – yet we keep subsidizing reactors with our tax dollars. YES that is the case BUT, we have over 100 nuclear plants built in the 50's that have tons of stored depleted rods with no permanent place to store them. Those rods must be safely stored for 10,000 years until the radiation is depleted. That was the thing that made Japan melt down so horrible was the number of depleted rods just sitting in a water bath and no way to keep them cool. All current nuclear plants use pumps and require large quanitites of water to cool the rods. The three major nuclear accidents was caused by pump failure, Japan, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
Before you write off nuclear would it not be better to put research effort into utilizing that energy left in those rods. You and get C02 emission free energy while burning out that remaining energy. Take a look at what Terra power is doing and will be using waste nuclear . http://tinyurl.com/49ohg2c. The other option is Nuscale another small nuclear units http://tiny.cc/awu9s. Both do not rely on pumps.
In addition to the 100+ aging nuclear plants, we have aging coal plants that provide a large % of our electrical power in the US. They MUST be replaced with C02 emission free energy sources or face the worst of climate change impacts. Solar and wind are not energy intensive enough to do it. Only one large wind farm exists can equal the energy produced by a nuclear plan and that wind farm covers 30 square miles and the wind doesn't blow all the time.. The largest solar power unit produces enough energy for only 6,000 homes. The world wide damage and deaths caused by climate change extreme weather events this year alone has already surpassed the numbers of deaths listed in this column.
#28
The 1/2 dozen or so self-admitted Liberterians that I know love the smoking dope part. Thom might very well be onto something here.
#29
I heard/read somewhere about 2 weeks ago that wind power is becoming a huge industry in Texas of all places. That says a whole lot. It's an oil state, but not as stupid as it's leaders want us to believe it is.
#30
Thom, mass seal death happened this fall in NH - there was a similar mass death of seals this fall along the NH and MA coasts. It was determined that the seals had bird flu. Based upon conversations with some of the scientists involved in the study, I don't believe they ever tested the seals for BP oil spill effects or radiation though the seals had lesions etc. Here's a link to a recent story about it - 162 seals were found dead on the beaches of NH and MA between approx September and October!
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111220/NEWS0103/1112...
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