Governments Worldwide Raise Acceptable Radiation Levels Based Upon Politics … Not Science
Instead of Protecting People, Governments Cover Up by Raising “Safe” Radiation Levels
American and Canadian authorities have virtually stopped monitoring airborne radiation.
Neither American nor Canadian authorities are testing fish for radioactivity.
Does that mean that we don’t have to worry about radiation from Fukushima?
It is a little hard to know, given that what is deemed a “safe level” of radiation is determined by politics … rather than science. For example, current safety standards are based on the ridiculous assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s – and that radioactive particles ingested into the body cause no more damage than radiation hitting the outside of the body.
And one of the main advisors to the Japanese government on Fukushima announced:
If you smile, the radiation will not affect you.
In the real world, however, even low doses of radiation can cause cancer. Moreover, small particles of radiation – called “internal emitters” – which get inside the body are much more dangerous than general exposures to radiation. See this and this. And radiation affects small children much more than full-grown adults.
Indeed, instead of doing much to try to protect their citizens from Fukushima, Japan, the U.S. and the EU all just raised the radiation levels they deem “safe”.
Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says that high-level friends in the State Department told him that Hillary Clinton signed a pact with her counterpart in Japan agreeing that the U.S. will continue buying seafood from Japan, despite that food not being tested for radioactive materials.
And the Department of Energy is trying to replace the scientifically accepted model of the dangers of low dose radiation based on voodoo science. Specifically, DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley Labs used a mutant line of human cells in a petri dish which was able to repair damage from low doses of radiation, and extrapolated to the unsupported conclusion that everyone is immune to low doses of radiation:
In reality, not only is there overwhelming evidence that low doses of radiation can cause cancer, but there is some evidence that low doses can – in certain circumstances cause more damage than higher doses.
As I pointed out in April:
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reported that one of the best-known scientists of the 20th century – Dr. John Gofman – also believed that chronic low level radiation is more dangerous than acute exposure to high doses. Gofman was a doctor of nuclear and physical chemistry and a medical doctor who worked on the Manhattan Project, co-discovered uranium-232 and -233 and other radioactive isotopes and proved their fissionability, helped discover how to extract plutonium, led the team that discovered and characterized lipoproteins in the causation of heart disease, served as a Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California Berkeley, served as Associate Director of the Livermore National Laboratory, was asked by the Atomic Energy Commission to undertake a series of long range studies on potential dangers that might arise from the “peaceful uses of the atom”, and wrote four scholarly books on radiation health effects.


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January 26th, 2012 at 3:28 am
I used to be an advocate of nuclear power, but now I understand the long term risks and costs better and don’t think humans are mature, honest, or wise enough to use nuclear power. It is certainly true that coal and oil have killed more humans than nuclear power, but it is also true that few places in the world are destroyed for eons by coal contamination (except perhaps Centralia, but even that is only like to last a few hundred years).
The reality is that politicians, business leaders, and most other normal people don’t care about everyone else. Or they believe that short term solutions with difficult to quantify repercussions are better than medium or long term sacrifices. Let’s use nukes because in a hundred years aliens will teach us how to safely eat radioactive waste! Let’s run up huge debts because in twenty years the economy will grow enough to pay back those debts! Etc.
Oh, and it’s all Apple’s fault!
January 26th, 2012 at 8:41 am
[...] nuclear plumes crossing the Pacific and other such horseshit after Fukushima? Well, here’s some truly worrying news (or, possibly, over-reaction) about the real dangers: Indeed, instead of doing much to try to [...]
January 26th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Please, please keep posting regarding the tragedy and disaster at Fukushima. I read the blog, trade the markets and wish I were a better man/father/husband. None of that is going to matter. This event has and will continue to have repercussions far beyond our current comprehension. We are allowing the nation with an outstanding debt approaching one quadrillion yen to clean up this disaster themselves? Where is the US? Where is the International Atomic Energy Agency? Please keep this news to the forefront, Barry. We have a lot to lose.
Thanks.