To the Editor, New York Times:
Re “Taming Radiation Fears” (Op-Ed, Oct. 22):
David Ropeik, a specialist on risk perception and risk communication, plays down the mass of scientific and medical literature that amply demonstrates that ionizing radiation is a potent carcinogen and that no dose is low enough not to induce cancer.
Large areas of the world are becoming contaminated by long-lived nuclear elements secondary to catastrophic meltdowns: 40 percent of Europe from Chernobyl, and much of Japan.
A New York Academy of Sciences report from 2009 titled “Chernobyl” estimates that nearly a million have already died from this catastrophe. In Japan, 10 million people reside in highly contaminated locations.
Children are 10 to 20 times more radiosensitive than adults, and fetuses thousands of times more so; women are more sensitive than men.
Radiation of the reproductive organs induces genetic mutations in the sperm and eggs, increasing the incidence of genetic diseases like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, hemochromatosis and thousands of others over future generations. Recessive mutations take up to 20 generations to be expressed.
HELEN CALDICOTT
Bermagui, Australia, Oct. 23, 2013
I thank you for all you have done and are doing..I’m not a Scientist but I have done loads of Research and I try and share it with people, but people are a very strange creature, as they think I’m half nuts when I inform them about Jim Stone’s Article on Fukushima >What Really happened and how serious it has all become..I inform people about GEOENGINEERING of Weather Warfare plus HAARP, and .They say I do not believe any of that stuff, so I ignore them and say to myself, how stupid can they be..
They do not even believe what I tell them about GMO’s in our food supply..
I honestly believe the Dolphins on the British Colombia west coast are actually asking for our help..along with Killer Whales..
In my opinion any body that endorse Nuclear Power Plants is either very ignorant or is a Psychopath..
I have no proof, only what I read and I believe like David Icke saids there is another species on planet Earth and they are hidden in the Vatican and are running this world…
I’m referring to the Black Pope and He is said to be the most powerful man on Earth and
I believe they are behind all Evil acts against humanity, like what is taking place..
SORRY FOR GETTING CARRIED AWAY BUT ALL THESE MONSTROUS ACTS OF EVIL
ARE THE WORK OF PEOPLE WHO MAY BE INTELLIGENT BUT ARE INSANE!!!!!!’
IF you have received my questions before why can you not answer them. Others are asking the same questions, and they ask me.
We value the information you have shared.
What is the scientific basis for the claim “Recessive mutations take up to 20 generations to be expressed” and the link between receiving minor doses of radiation? It would surely be impossible to prove that any mutations 20 generations hence where the direct result of such exposure to unnatural causes of radiation. The possible causes for such mutations would be myriad.
Additionally your point only supports David Ropeik thesis; there is nothing to be excessively worried about in the case of ourselves, children or grandchildren, (or great grandchildren, or great great grandchildren… it becomes essentially regressive!).
I saw your video on Three Mile Island in the early 1980’s and have never forgotten it. Following this, a friend and I insigated the N. Devon Nuclear Information Group. This continued for years.
I am now horrified that the Conservative government, under David cameron, (Tony Blair the disgraced and former Labour leader) plans to meet the scarcity of energy and global warming with nuclear power, (not to mention ‘fracking).
Cameron declares it ‘safe’ ie global warming, ie pollution. For a supposedly intelligent man, I was shocked.
I shall express my disbelief where I am able. I thought that the lessons of Chernobyl and Japan had sunk in. Apparently not, in GB.
Thank you for your commentary, though I notice that the New York Times does not want to post it. It seems few on the planet particularly the west coast of the U.S. will hear it.
I consider you a Saint! ALL of the human beings and nations on Earth should drop all of their other plans and IMMEDIATELY attend to Fukushima, on an unlimited budget, cooperatively;
and then (IF we survive) pull all subsidies from the “nuclear industry” and simultaneously outfit all societies with safe, renewable, non or minimally polluting means of harvesting energy from solar, wind, water and geothermal sources! Besides outfitting all roofs with PV panels, the hundreds of thousands of miles of abandoned rail lines in the U.S. and abroad could be strung with them, utilizing a pre-existent “grid” to most existent cities, and powering even trains along them, someday, if their tracks were ever replaced! !!!THINK BIG!!! !!!ALWAYS THINK BIG!!!
It amazes me how many people choose not to believe the truth about what has happened and what is happening as a result of the ongoing nightmare that is Fukushima! I’ve tried informing people I work with, friends, and family and no one seems to care or want to know the truth! They would rather keep their heads burried in the sand or minimize the true extent of irrevocable damage that’s already occurred. I’m labeled a conspiracy theorist and am accused of exaggerating the truth. It is appalling and I give up trying to educate others about what the future has in store for us all. This nightmare is a global killer and will eventually kill everything on this planet…none will survive! A tragedy of humanity which had received no attention from the U.S., this catastrophe cannot be undone.
Kevin McCracken
Please thank Helen for truth-telling. Prayers seem to be all that can help us humans now. The Geenie is out and kills all life. Forgive those who are profiting from this extinction caused by the banksters?
Dr. Caldicott,
I’ve seen you on tv and admired your work for around twenty-thirty
years – since your description of explaining the nuclear issue to our
actor/president Reagan.
It seems obvious to me that there is no way around the continuing
proliferation of the evil element Plutonium. Once made it cannot be
unmade, as far as I know, and it has a half-life of 220,000 years.
Certainly the spent fuel from all of the nuclear power plants (an
activity surely fatal to the ecosphere) is a huge enough problem.
They talk about hundreds to a thousand years for that relatively
short-lived radioactivity problem to abate. But Plutonium will, for
all practical purposes, still have its current toxicity ten thousand
years from now. I can not see any possibility that this planet can
avoid a major extinction event within the next fifty years, just from
the horrible blunder of proliferation of radioactive material.
Nations like species eventfually run theirf course to the culmination of their alloltted times as the plhrase ‘..times of the gentiles/nations’ implies. . When such allotted times are marred by overwhelming reckless abuses and miscarriages there are always unavidaable consequences to be faced ior providentially surmniounted.
God bless you for being so brave to inform the world about what is really going on. I live near San Diego and am very concerned about the kind of exposure we have and continue to be exposed to from across the Pacific. I have am 8 year old daughter and am concerned for her health. I have a cousin in Tampa, FL who keeps telling me to sell my house and move out there. It’s difficult to make a decision like this when I see not data or reports to justify selling my house and literally moving our lives away from danger. I have been listening to many reports on your site and believe these dangers are being down played and for my daughter’s safety, as well as mine, I am ready to do what I have to do. Please reply ASAP and again thank you for stepping up to warn us.
11/22/2
The persistent disregarding of decades of very advanced tacit offers to assist with countering ineviktable adverse outcomes, has resulted in an apparent worsening state of extremity. Dr Caldicotts courageous equally timely yet more direct clear appraisals, appeals and warnings also have been dangerously disregarded during more recent decades.
The dangers are not solely localized but global, as recent meteorologic, climate and environmental trends attest. EVERY place on the planet continues largely vulnerable and endangered, since radation spreads very very rapidly.
Hi Trish, I live in Santa Rosa CA and I am considering vacating also. The implications are overwhelming. It is apparent that the levels of radiation and the impact on the entire pacific ocean is so large that is why they have a secrecy law now. By the time it becomes obvious to everyone, the panic will settle in. It is difficult to imagine the evacuation of people from the coast and Hawaii. Where is everyone going to go? Florida has it’s issues also. Austin TX ? Please send me an e mail supersparkster@gmail.com Thanx
I am wondering the same as you – where to re-locate. But I posed the question more widely, to ask “what lat and long”. Did you decide where you thought you should relocate to?? If there was one continent and spot that was the most conducive to life – where is it?
I’d appreciate hearing whether you came up with an answer to your question. Crystal
I was initially made aware of enenews.com through a colleague of mine at the Ithaca City School District in New York State in early October. At first, I wrote-off a lot of what I was reading about Fukushima as overstated scaremongering but as it became clear, I was overwhelmed by the horrifying truth. The implications of a vastly polluted Pacific Ocean, as well as the prospect of a fission reaction at Unit 4 made me fear for the future of my children. What horrors will they be forced to contend with? David Ropeik’s article downplaying the risk of radiation exposure gave me a momentary but false sense of relief from these concerns. If I had not kept searching for news from Fukushima, I may have just told myself that the stress reaction I was having was worse for my family than any exposure to radiation itself. It is unfortunate that Ropeik’s article came out amidst a dearth of media coverage on the subject of Fukushima. We have been kept in the dark and his article serves only to further anesthetize the American public. I am grateful to have subsequently found interviews with Dr. Helen Caldicott, Arne Gunderson and Paul Gunter which made me realize that we are all imminently endangered. We must all wake up now and face the truth but I admit that I feel powerless to effect any change.
So well said Gail. I am posting all kinds of petitions and information through facebook trying to get the news out in the public. I too feel helpless but at least getting the public more informed may, just may, prompt the world to get over there and not take no for an answer to their offers of help.
November 7th 2013
Florida, Puerto Rico (not to be confused with Florida, USA)
Dear Dra. Helen Caldicott
Blessings of Peace and Health be onto you and your love ones!
I admire your work and knowledge about the need to stop Nuclear Power, and the use of nuclear military force and build up!
I see our world coming down to the reality of destruction unequal to anything that humans have encounter in the last 10,000 years or more. Possibly there will never be destruction equal to what is coming in the future of our planet; because of the higher intellect of the future generations after ours! I pray They will be a different “animal!!!!!!!!!!!
What is coming has to be and is not to stop man from using nuclear energy which by the way its only good use is for research. And possibly for humans to use when man sets off in the physical discovery of our cosmos for nuclear interplanetary propulsion. And of course nuclear bombs can also be used positively for diverting or destroying dangerous comets and asteroids which would create havoc if earth was to be impacted by them!
But the reason I am writing you is to inform you of a God given message! And is that mankind is altering the mass of this planet by the burning of fossil fuels. It causes our earth movements to be altered. And this will destroy eventually our whole planet!
This burning of fossil fuels does not only alter earth’s rotation around the Sun. It also reduces our magnetic shield, causing increased air and ocean currents! Earthquakes due to the emptiness left behind in our earth by the extraction of oil, and other changes which if continued will destroy this whole planet.
Now to Fukushima as horrible as it is, it will get much worse I am afraid. And the result will be pestilence, war, and famine of billion of humans. Our world will change in the next few months and years to an unrecognizable habitat. But I am one to believe and pray that out of this destruction our planet will be saved.
The horrific situation coming will probably stop my “heart” and I will go rest with my “fore fathers”! I am tough as nails on the outside, but I have a “heavy cross” to bear and it will only get unbearable in the near future seeing our world devastated!
But I will die with a smile on my face about a vision in my mind; of future generations which will live hopefully in a far better World, with Creation having been saved with destruction in our Time!
Yours truly, Pedro J. Alfonso
P.S. Move your family and yourself to South America
Sorry are you seriously suggesting that the Earth’s Mass has changed because of the burning of fossil fuels, whilst paradoxically suggesting that this material is contained within the atmosphere?
Is there an elevated risk to the consumer of California’s latest Marijuana products that can be linked to the Fukushima disaster?