Nuclear apologists play shoot the messenger on radiation

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ChernobylTWENTY-FIVE years after Chernobyl, many billions of dollars are at stake if the Fukushima reactor meltdowns cause the so-called “atomic renaissance” to halt or even slow down. This is evident from the nuclear industry’s vociferous attacks on its critics.

We see this especially in Australia, where the industry is conducting a whatever-it-takes propaganda campaign to ensure that nothing stands in the way of vast profits to be made from continuing to export uranium; from the plan to establish a radioactive waste dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory; and from the industry’s desire to dot the continent with reactors. Continue reading →

How nuclear apologists mislead the world over radiation

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A girl is screened in Iitate, about 40km from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, where high levels of radiation have been detected. Photograph: Takumi Harada/APSoon after the Fukushima accident last month, I stated publicly that a nuclear event of this size and catastrophic potential could present a medical problemof very large dimensions.

Events have proven this observation to be true despite the nuclear industry’s campaign about the “minimal” health effects of so-called low-level radiation.

That billions of its dollars are at stake if the Fukushima event causes the “nuclear renaissance” to slow down appears to be evident from the industry’s attacks on its critics, even in the face of an unresolved and escalating disaster at the reactor complex at Fukushima. Continue reading →

A Medical Problem of Vast Dimensions

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Helen CaldicottAs I write this on 25 March from Ottawa, two weeks since the earthquake and tsunami and the calamity that has befallen the Fukushima Nuclear Plant No 1, the situation has grown increasingly grave.Despite the heroic efforts of the “Nuclear Samurai” – the TEPCO employees who have selflessly and heroically fought to stabilize the reactors and restore power – there are worrying signs that signal dangerous instability continues to reign.

Among them, the announcement today that one of the reactor cores may have suffered a break that could have released large amounts of radiation at the plant; the widening of the exclusion zone to 30 kilometers ; and the US government ban on certain milk and vegetables from that area from importation.

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Nuclear radiation ‘the greatest public health hazard’

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CNN: What is the health risk for people living near the Fukushima Daiichi plant?

Helen Caldicott: The risk cannot be determined with any accuracy yet, because it is not clear how much radiation has or is escaping. NPR reported last week that 17 workers have suffered what the Japanese government called “deposition of radioactive material” to their faces. And some plant workers have already been hospitalized for exposure to radiation, which means they received a huge dose of radiation.

Containment vessel may be leaking radioactive material

High levels of exposure can cause acute radiation sickness, a syndrome first recognized by the medical profession after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It can have terrible effects. In two weeks, victims’ hair begins to drop out. They develop hemorrhaging under the skin, severe nausea and diarrhea and may eventually die from bleeding or infection.

If a meltdown occurred at the plant, a large number of people could be exposed to high doses of radiation in this region, one of the most heavily populated in Japan. (After the March 11 earthquake, the Japanese government evacuated people living within a 20-kilometer radius to mitigate the possibility.)

Men exposed to such a dose would be rendered sterile, women would stop menstruating, and spontaneous abortions would likely occur. Babies could be born with microcephaly, with tiny heads and mental disabilities. Many people would develop acute shortness of breath from lung damage. In five years, there would be an epidemic of leukemia, and in 15 years, solid cancers would start appearing in many organs: lung, breast, thyroid, brain and bone.

Read the rest: Nuclear radiation ‘the greatest public health hazard’

Statement by Dr Caldicott

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“I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Baghavad Gita, on witnessing the first atomic bomb test, 1945

Helen CaldicottAs I write this – on the afternoon of March 16 in the United States – the situation at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant No. 1 is, tragically, looking increasingly grim. Radiation levels are increasing, mass evacuations in the area surrounding Fukushima are underway; and experts are speculating –with trepidation, but understandable caution – about how far the radiation will spread, both within Japan and to other parts of the planet.

My heart goes out to the people of Japan who are of course suffering under the double blow of the effects of the earthquake and tsunami, as well as the threat from the Fukushima reactors.

They are dealing stoically and with great dignity with conditions that are severely challenging. And I want to pay special tribute to the incredibly brave band of TEPCO workers who are fighting to bring the situation at the plant under control. Their efforts are heroic, their courage beyond measure.

The world is now paying – and will pay however severe Fukushima turns out to be – a grave price for the nuclear industry’s hubris and the arrogance and greed that fueled their drive to build more and more reactors.

What’s more, having bamboozled gullible politicians, the media, and much of the public into believing that it is a “clean and green” solution to the problem of global warming, the nuclear industry has operated facilities improperly, with little or no regard for safety regulations, and they have often done this with the connivance of government authorities.

Nuclear power is not the answer to global warming; it is not clean, it is not green; it is not safe; and it is not renewable. It is instead “a destroyer of worlds.” It is time the global community repudiated it – however economically painful in the short term that taking such a step would be. There is no other choice for the sake of future generations.