Update On The Worldwide Nuclear Fallout Situation

[lapis]

This was written by someone who used to be a U.S. Marine Corps instructor in Nuclear - Biological - Chemical Warfare Defense and Survival (abbreviated as NBCD.) He received a Meritorious Field Promotion by Major General Robert Haebel in Okinawa for excellence in NBCD training, and helped create the first pocket guide for troops dealing with NBCD threats in the early 1980's. He has been studying nuclear, biological and chemical toxins for 30 years, both from the standard scientific model and from the perspectives of energetic therapies & alternative medicine.

His site is very woo, but what I like about the report below is his instructions on how to detect propaganda coming from the nuclear power industry. I've noticed some comments on Zero Hedge that seem to be well-veiled scripts from nuclear power shills, although this one (http://www.zerohedge.com/article/low-level-radioactivity-found-us-milk#comment-1119475)from JohnG on the post about radioactive milk is worth noting:

Never underestimate calculated misinformation. TPTB know that a vast percentage of citizens are idiots. The government educated them, and knows exactly how to manipulate indoctrinated belief systems.

Please feel free to point out any inaccuracies in this information, as I'm still learning and it's quite a steep learning curve (much like economics, which I still haven't mastered yet!) :boohoo

http://vesica.org/main/holistic-health/articles/1160-update-on-the-worldwide-nuclear-fallout-situation

by Robert J. Gilbert, Ph.D.

This article contains the following sections:

1. General Update (including Sites with Radiation Monitoring Info for North America)
2. Recommended News Sources: Websites, Television, and Radio
3. The Truth about “Low-Level” and “Safe Doses” of Radiation
4. Most Mainstream Media follow the Nuclear Industry’s “Script” and are not conducting Independent Reporting
5. Fukushima may be a Portent of Things to Come in North America (with a list of the Top Ten ‘At Risk’ Nuclear Plants in the U.S.)

1. GENERAL UPDATE

On March 30 2011, the BBC World News reported that radioactive iodine fallout from the Fukushima Japan nuclear disaster had now been definitely identified across the entire globe, having spread Eastward on winds from Japan and now having made it all the way around the world again back to Asia.

The situation in Fukushima continues to deteriorate. The most recent revelation being that extensive Plutonium spread has occurred, and that there may be a possible meltdown in one reactor. The Japanese government and the utility company running the Fukushima nuclear plant (TEPCO) continue to stonewall on providing information to the public, often issuing contradictory statements or simply appearing to be baffled themselves by the situation.

The official story is that Fukushima is a Level 5 nuclear disaster, which puts it on a scale with Three Mile Island. However with the revelation of plutonium discovered spread throughout the site, many independent nuclear analysts are now saying the accident is either a Level 6.5 or a Level 7 nuclear disaster (by way of comparison the world’s worst nuclear accident to date, Chernobyl, was a Level 7.)

The Fallout concentration is very low in most areas outside of Japan (but extremely dangerous in Japan.) Extreme measures are not needed currently in North America. However be aware that official statements that there is “no risk” from low level nuclear fallout is not true. There is no “safe dose” of highly radioactive particles breathed into the lungs or ingested with food.

From my experience as a Marine Corps Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Instructor, and my subsequent twelve years of studying government policies in earning my Doctorate in International Studies, I can tell you that it is standard policy for many governments not to inform their citizens about potential radiation hazards unless forced to by the media. This is done in the name of “preventing panic” and “assuring governability” of the population. For many governments, it is simply standard policy to tell the public “there is no risk to human health” from even the most severe nuclear fallout situations (as we are still seeing pursued by the Japanese government, despite mounting evidence of high level radiation outside the “exclusion zone” around the Fukushima plant).
It is up to independent citizens and organizations to stay informed.

Also be aware that even severe nuclear fallout, far beyond current levels, is not necessarily fatal, if you know the correct methods of detoxification. Now is the time to learn these methods, not just for the immediate situation but for those which are likely to come in the future.

RESOURCES TO KEEP INFORMED ABOUT ACTUAL RADIATION COUNTS IN YOUR AREA

CTBTO: The most advanced nuclear monitoring system in the world is connected to the U.N. and run by the Vienna-based CTBTO, which monitors nuclear particles around the globe -- primarily for detecting testing of nuclear weapons, but it also works for accurate testing of fallout from nuclear plant accidents. Unfortunately, the policy of this organization is NOT to share any information directly with the public, but only with UN member states (who do not share the information with their citizens.)

However there are sometimes leaks from this organization which make it into the media, as happened several days after the Fukushima accident when an anonymous diplomat revealed that their testing proved that radioactive iodine fallout had been detected on the U.S. mainland.

A good article questioning this policy of secrecy can be found in the website of the scientific journal NATURE:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2011/03exclusive_governments_withhold.html

EPA: the EPA has the only publicly available U.S. Government data on radiation monitoring across the entire country. It’s general report tends to state only that there are normal fluctuations of background radiation, even when other sources verify radioactive fallout (such as the sensitive monitors near nuclear plants.)
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/data-updates.html

More exact data from the EPA monitoring system is available online for those with a bit of technical background to understand it, which may be more helpful in identifying fallout:
https://cdxnode64.epa.gov/radnet-public/showMap.do

RADIATION NETWORK: Radiation Network is the only independent publicly available radiation monitoring network in the country. It is made up of citizens across the country reporting the readings on geiger counters in their area. This is a good resource to cross-check official government and nuclear industry statements about radioactive fallout levels. The main map on the site shows the location of nuclear plants in the U.S. and Canada (most of which are concentrated in Ontario) and current radiation levels at specific locations where they have members.
Note: Anyone owning the nuclear radiation meters such as those we carry at the Vesica Institute (the Radalert and the Inspector) can join their network and help provide data from their meters.
http://radiationnetwork.com/

REPORT VERIFYING THAT RADIOACTIVE IODINE 131 HAS FALLEN ACROSS NORTH AMERICA AND REACHED THE EAST COAST: Progress Energy report for North Carolina, March 25 2011.
http://www.wect.com/Global/story.asp?S=14328600

2. RECOMMENDED NEWS SOURCES

The independent watchdogNuclear Information and Resource Servicehas the best regularly updated information about the Fukushima disaster:
http://www.nirs.org/fukushima/crisis.htm

It also has an excellent general site with vital, up-to-date info about nuclear issues in North America:
http://www.nirs.org/

The Low Level Radiation Campaignoffers good updates on the Fukushima situation, with helpful resources to understand why official claims of the safety of “low-level’ nuclear fallout is a sham. Also has good information on the distortions in recent documentaries and news accounts claiming that the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents were not really as bad as people think they were. On their home page there is a link to two important videos debunking this claim, and a recent book from original Russian sources documenting how much worse the Chernobyl disaster was (and continues to be with ongoing health effects) than claimed by the revisionist history now offered by the nuclear industry:http://www.llrc.org/

European Committee on Radiation Riskhas an excellent website with valuable information and downloads, such as a free downloadable copy of the bookChernobyl: 20 Years Onwhich is a comprehensive rebuttal of recent documentaries claiming that the health toll of Chernobyl was much less than the public thinks. It also has an important transcript of a debate in which a spokesperson for the ICRP (regulatory body which sets radiation limits and policies) admits that the model it uses (and promotes in the media to support predictions of no health effects from fallout) is highly inaccurate and its recommendations cannot be applied to post-accident situations (although the public is told they do.)http://www.euradcom.org/

The Union of Concerned Scientistshas excellent information about North American nuclear issues. Despite the extremely strong scientific accreditation of those in this organization, you will rarely ever hear an interview with them in the mainstream media due to the media’s preference for government/nuclear industry spokespeople.
http://www.ucsusa.org/

We have found thatBBC Newsis the mainstream outlet with the best reporting on the nuclear crisis in Japan (not that it has much competition.) Although it carries the same misleading official statements broadcast by other mainstream media, it is much more willing to expose problems and ask hard questions of some guests, in addition to interviewing independent nuclear experts to give a counterpoint to the government/industry spin on the news.

Some Public Radio stations carry BBC radio news at particular times of day, and most Cable/Satellite television companies carry the BBC television evening news. However at any time you can stream its video and audio world news from links at its website:www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/
I like to listen to BBC while working in my kitchen; I have an iPod with an app called ‘Oo Tunes’ which is set to stream BBC world news radio, and my iPod is plugged into a small portable speaker dock.

INDEPENDENT INFORMATION SOURCES: Better coverage in the U.S. is found in independent news outlets rather than corporate owned outlets. For example, DEMOCRACY NOW has had some good reporting, including two interviews with Philip White of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo:
http://fukushima.greenaction-japan.org/2011/03/19/recommended-resources-democracy-now/

3. THE TRUTH ABOUT “LOW-LEVEL” AND “SAFE DOSES” OF RADIATION

“The rays of high-energy radiation are like little bullets that shoot through the body... If any of the special molecules [that control the process by which the cell divides] happen to be damaged by a single little bullet of radiation from a single radioactive atom, it may... cause the cell to divide much more rapidly than the other cells... Then the human being may die from cancer—perhaps leukemia, bone cancer, some other kind of cancer—caused by the single radioactive atom that produced the single little bullet of radiation.”-Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling
Radioactive particles from the Fukushima disaster continue to fall on North America and around the world.

[CONTINUED BELOW]

[lapis]

Fallout levels of radiation are quite low in North America, compared to the normal background count of radiation. However what you have to understand about radiation -- and what is rarely ever addressed in the media -- is that the primary danger from fallout is taking it directly into the body, through ingestion or inhalation. For human health, inhalation or ingestion is an entirely different situation than exposure to radiation without taking radioactive fallout particles into the body.

The nuclear industry and mainstream media almost always make the same false analogies about fallout radiation levels being equal to (or less than) background radiation sources, such as radiation from under the Earth (decay of natural uranium deposits underground) or from regular air travel (cosmic radiation.) This is terribly misleading, since the health effects from free radioactive particles in fallout being breathed in or eaten in food is extremely more dangerous than external, sequestered radioactive emitters like underground granite. Despite the complete lack of comparability for human health between background radiation and inhaled/ingested radioactive fallout, the “big lie” of implying the two are completely identical biologically is repeated without question or comment by virtually every major news organization.

A level of fallout that would barely register on a geiger counter (and in some cases not register at all, except in the most expensive advanced detectors) could still cause cancer if the radioactive particles are ingested or inhaled. There is no ‘safe dose’ of inhaled or ingested radioactive materials: their effect varies from person to person, what will kill one person will not kill another (this is the source of the standard toxicology concept of “LD50”; LD50 is Lethal Dose 50, meaning the specific dose of a toxin that will kill 50% of those exposed to it while the other 50% survive.) If you are one of the people who inhale or ingest these fallout particles, even at levels the government and nuclear industry say are of ‘absolutely no concern’, it is important to learn specific detoxification methods to get these substances out of the body as soon as possible.

For a more complete explanation of why the idea of “safe dose” and the harmlessness of “low-level” radiation asserted by the nuclear industry and media is highly misleading, see:http://www.nirs.org/fukushima/radcombined.htm(See Q & A number 5 at the bottom of the page.)

http://www.llrc.org/

4. MOST MAINSTREAM MEDIA FOLLOW THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY’S “SCRIPT” AND ARE NOT CONDUCTING INDEPENDENT REPORTING

Mainstream media sources in the United States rely almost entirely on government and industry spokespersons for the information they give the public about nuclear fallout health hazards. These spokespersons not only routinely understate the health risk, regardless of the reality (which they justify in their internal memos as “preventing panic”), they also use special public-relations crafted “scripts” which they often provide to media outlets; reporters then read this script on the air as if it were their own research. There is virtually no investigative reporting in this area remaining in the U.S. mainstream media (partially due to the consolidation of these media by just a few mega-corporations; for example, nuclear power plant contractor General Electric owns NBC.)

Even NPR, often thought to be ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’, has in reality had its news programs such as “All Things Considered” follow to the letter the nuclear industry script, with virtually no independent reporting or interview of independent nuclear experts whatsoever.

(By the way, the same program has had abysmal reporting on other serious recent issues as well, including the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill, and the right to refuse vaccinations for oneself or one’s children. In the latter case, the show interviewed only pro-vaccine spokespersons, ridiculed and demonized anyone questioning the safety of any government sponsored vaccines, and suggested it should be made illegal for anyone not to receive mandatory vaccinations.)

Just one quick example of the difference in reporting:

On the day that the BBC had as its headline news that the power company which runs the Fukushima plant (TEPCO) had been exposed as faking its safety reports there for decades, and that the radioactive iodine levels in fallout from the plant was far more serious than earlier announced, NPR’s “All Things Considered” started its report instead with the statement “Good News from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan.” The “Good News” spin on the information was that the fallout from the plant was mainly radioactive iodine, which has a relatively short half-life so it may not be a problem a few months from now, so everything is basically fine. They didn’t mention the criminal forgery of safety reports that BBC reported, the seriousness and lethality of radioactive iodine poisoning, the lingering problems which will still remain from radioactive Cesium, Plutonium etc. in the fallout -- or for that matter any information which contradicted the straight nuclear industry script they were reading on air.

Look out for tip-offs that the nuclear industry script is being read virtually verbatim by the new reporter. Here is one example: Instead of giving actual readings of radioactivity, analogies are made which make radiation levels sound as innocuous as possible. In the beginning of a crisis, such as when the accident in Japan started, the script uses analogies that the radiation fallout is less than the exposure in certain high background radiation cities: a favorite comparison often used is that the fallout “is less than background radiation in places like Denver.” Plane flights are another popular analogy.

When the radiation gets worse, get ready for medical analogies: the script says that the radiation “is less than the you would receive on a CAT scan.” When the problem gets REALLY bad, the script says that the radiation “is only at the level of radiation fallout during the 1950’s U.S. and Russian nuclear bomb blasts.” Note that this last statement was read on air on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on March 29 2011, after the discovery of radioactive plutonium spread around the Fukushima plant (before this it had been claimed there was no proof of Uranium or Plutonium contamination, and in fact had been specifically denied by many pro-nuclear commentators.)

All of the above analogies, of course, ignore the critical difference between sequestered external radiation sources and radioactive fallout directly inhaled or ingested, as discussed in Section Three of this article.

5. FUKUSHIMA MAY BE A PORTENT OF THINGS TO COME IN NORTH AMERICA

According to documents obtained by Public Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act, GE-designed nuclear reactors around the world have a design flaw that make it virtually certain (90 percent) that in the event of a meltdown, radiation would be released directly into the environment and into surrounding communities, leaving the public without any protection. The NRC acknowledges that the reactor containment structure in GE-built nuclear power plants does not work, but they licensed the reactors anyway. (Also, a dozen or more GE-designed boiling water reactors in the United States and abroad have evidence of cracking in the reactor core shroud — a metal cylinder surrounding the reactor’s radioactive fuel rods.)
Fromhttp://www.corpwatch.org/section.php?id=16

At some point, the Fukushima disaster will fade from the headlines, the nuclear industry and government spokespeople will say it wasn’t so bad, and most people will forget it happened. This would be a major mistake: Fukushima wasn’t the first, it wasn’t the worst, and it surely is not the last. As you can see from the above quote, and much more information we don’t have time to cover here, chances of nuclear problems in North America are extremely high.

Take this as a wake-up call, and learn now about what to do to safeguard yourself and others from radioactive fallout and related hazards. If and when a nuclear accident happens in your area and you are right downwind from its fallout, you won’t have time to try to figure it out then.

By the way, the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) announced just this month (March 2011) that the two nuclear plants in California, the San Onofre plant and Diablo Canyon plant, are in the riskiest quake zones in the country:
http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/03/24/congresswoman-wants-diablo-canyon-relicensing-put-/

In Newsweek’s March 28 2011 issue on page 4, there is a list of the most vulnerable Nuclear Plants in the U.S. The list’s ranking was derived from a study of their performance records, potential for natural disasters, and closeness of major population centers:

TOP 10 U.S. NUCLEAR-POWER SITES AT RISK

1. Indian Point in Buchanan, N.Y. (just 24 miles north of New York City)

2. San Onofre in San Clemente, CA (San Diego County, near two fault lines: the Oceanside fault and the Newport-Inglewood/Rose Canyon fault )

3. Limerick in Limerick, PA

4. Dresden in Morris, IL

5. Diablo Canyon in Avila Beach, CA (midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, it is situated near two fault lines, the Hosgri fault and the Shoreline fault)

6. Salem in Hancocks Bridge, N.J.

7. Watts Bar in Spring City, TN

8. Peach Bottom in Delta, PA

9. Virgil C. Summer in Jenkinsville, S.C.

10. Sequoyah in Soddy-Daisy, TN

[lapis]

While I'm here, I may as well post another link for an interesting page re. nuclear power:

http://www.idealist.ws/
"Watchdogging Radiation Dangers and Coverups"

[MarchHare]

Go to this link for very informative updates from Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen. Highly recommended.

http://www.fairewinds.com/multimedia

[madscientist]

Never underestimate calculated misinformation. TPTB know that a vast percentage of citizens are idiots. The government educated them, and knows exactly how to manipulate indoctrinated belief systems.


Anyone who believes the "there is no danger" garbage is, indeed, one of these "idiots."




[b]However be aware that official statements that there is “no risk” from low level nuclear fallout is not true. There is no “safe dose” of highly radioactive particles breathed into the lungs or ingested with food.


He is absolutely correct. The only "safe dose" of fission products is ZERO.




RADIATION NETWORK: Radiation Network is the only independent publicly available radiation monitoring network in the country.


Not the only one. There is one run by Black Cat Systems, makers of radiation detection hardware, there is another being established by International Medcom (another manufacturer of radiation detection hardware, including the noted RadAlert), and there are many of us monitoring with our own equipment. A few of us don't trust any organized effort, as such data can be tainted.

http://www.blackcatsystems.com/RadMap/map.html (numerous Black Cat users across the country)

http://geigercounter.com/ (Medcom's site, describing the "Terrestrial and Atmospheric Radiation Awareness [TARA] Network"; two sites are online now)




The Union of Concerned Scientistshas excellent information about North American nuclear issues. Despite the extremely strong scientific accreditation of those in this organization, you will rarely ever hear an interview with them in the mainstream media due to the media’s preference for government/nuclear industry spokespeople.
http://www.ucsusa.org/


The current, deliberate mishandling of the crisis and associated misinformation campaign is primarily a desperate one of not letting the renaissance of nuclear power slip through corporate hands. It was 25 years since Chernobyl, the public was becoming numb to nuclear power's dangers, and numerous new nuclear plants were being planned for the United States. Then BAM! - Fukushima - and all that threatened to go down the drain. Is going down the drain.