The nuclear disaster that took place at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant last March has sparked a lot of well deserved inquiries about the possible exposure in the US from the radioactive fallout. As the situation continues to unfold, and news reports have all but ceased, it is difficult to get accurate information about radiation exposure. Certainly in this instance, no news is not necessarily good news. All along officials have painted the health risks as isolated to the immediate area around Fukushima, yet a growing body of evidence indicates there may be more of an impact worldwide than we think, especially for North America.

In fact, the current proposal by the EPA to change the PAG’s (Protective Action Guides) to raise the acceptable levels of radiation in our food, the environment, and humans in the event of a “nuclear emergency” is enough to cause speculation. Before we go into how much radiation the US has actually been exposed to, let’s look at what officials and the media have not been telling us.

Fukushima Continues to Worsen by the Day

Regardless of what officials are, or are not reporting, the Fukushima crisis continues to worsen. What we do know at this point is that not only did 3 of the reactors melt down, but they have melted through. A “melt through” occurs when radioactive fuel burns through the outer containment vessels of the reactors into the ground and water. The findings of the report were revealed by the Yomiuri newspaper, which described a “melt-through” as being “far worse than a core meltdown” and “the worst possibility in a nuclear accident.”

Dr MV Ramana, a physicist with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University who specializes in issues of nuclear safety, told Al Jazeera he expects the plant reactors and fuel cores to be cooled enough for a shutdown within two years. “But it is going to take a very long time before the fuel can be removed from the reactor,” he added. “Dealing with the cracking and compromised structure and dealing with radiation in the area will take several years, there’s no question about that.”

Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president told Al Jazeera, “Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind.” He gives a grim assessment of solving this crisis. “Units 1 through 3 have nuclear waste on the floor, the melted core has plutonium in it, and that has to be removed from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years,” he said. “Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn’t exist. Nobody knows how to pick up the molten core from the floor, there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor.”

As the situation continues to grow worse, at least three explosions at the site have weakened critical structures there. Massive leakages may have softened the earth and undermined some of the buildings’ foundations. Since there is no understanding of how to clean or remove the nuclear waste, further explosions, or aftershocks, or another earthquake like the one that occurred on June 23 could bring on structural collapses with catastrophic fallout.

With no end in sight as far as cooling the reactors is concerned, officials and the media have provided us a great disservice by minimizing the significance of the fallout from the meltdown and melt-through of these reactors. There is still fissioning, and the cumulative amount of spent fuel released into the atmosphere from the Daiichi complex is debatable at best. Many nuclear experts claim that readings from officials have been drastically underestimated.

What’s more, the time frame for the “Chernobyl Option” seems to have passed. It appears that bombing the facility with boron, sand, water and cement as was done with Chernobyl, is not going to happen. There are no official plans to bury this thing for good. In their usual manner, and often conflicting with non-invested 3rd party opinions, TEPCO’s latest estimate was 9 months before this situation could be under control. So what does this mean for Japan and the rest of the world?

Is Complacency Leading Us Down a Deceptive Path?

The current complacency displayed by officials in Japan, here in the US and around the world has led global citizens to believe there is really nothing to worry about. To downplay and minimize a situation that may be the worst nuclear disaster in history is a blatant disregard for human life and environmental health with disastrous consequences to play out in the years to come.

Earlier in May Japan released an aerial map showing high levels of radioactive contamination spreading over an area nearly 4 times greater than was originally admitted. A nuclear waste advisor to the Japanese government reported that about 966 square kilometres near the power station - an area roughly 17 times the size of Manhattan - is now likely uninhabitable. Yet people residing in these areas were not immediately evacuated, and whether or not the entire area is completely evacuated now, remains to be determined.

To release this kind of information to the media, downplay its severity, then fail to take immediate action is an extreme case of denial that bestows a false sense of security not only to Japanese citizens, but to the entire world. Why aren’t these people being evacuated? Why is the Japanese government not instructing its citizens on how to protect themselves? And why hasn’t this thing been shut down?

What Does this Mean for the US and the Rest of the Northern Hemisphere?

Whether it’s 9 months or 2 years before officials can bring the Fukushima Daiichi plant under control, the ongoing fallout most certainly will have devastating consequences as the world’s oceans are concerned, and time will tell just how destructive this massive disaster will be on the entire world as radiation continues to be swept up by the jet stream and circulated throughout the northern hemisphere. This is especially disconcerting for the US and all of North America since the jet stream generally flows from the west to the east.

“Dangerous levels of radioactive iodine and cesium have already contaminated the sea, the soil, groundwater, and the air. Plutonium was detected for the first time outside the stricken plant, and Strontium-90, known as a bone seeker because it can cause bone cancer and Leukemia, has now been found as far away as 60 kilometers (37+ miles) from the facility,” said reporter Mark Willacy of the Australian Broadcast Corporation in a recent Lateline interview (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/cont…). And with large scale radioactive isotopes still leaking into the air, underground aquifers, soil, and the ocean, somehow we’re supposed to believe that this is not going to have a major impact worldwide.

In the US, physician Janette Sherman MD and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published an essay shedding light on a 35% spike in infant mortality in northwest cities that occurred after the Fukushima meltdown, and may well be the result of fallout from the stricken nuclear plant.
The eight cities included in the report are San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, and Boise, and the time frame of the report included the ten weeks immediately following the disaster.

By the end of March state agencies in several states including, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington reported that radiation was detected in the atmosphere, drinking water, and soil. In response, the Federal regulatory agencies and their media subsidiaries were quick to assure us that there really was no reason for concern. Virtually every report given by the media about the Fukushima fallout suggested or implicitly stated the radiation levels were  “harmless” or “miniscule” and there really was no need for alarm. Really?

Sufficient evidence exists that radiation levels were much higher than reported, and that is really only the tip of the iceberg. What about the Radioiodine-131 in rainwater sample near San Francisco at 18,100% above federal drinking water standards, or the radiation detected in drinking water in 13 US cities and Cesium-137 in Vermont milk?

To help generalize this situation, it may be helpful to understand what happened with Chernobyl, and then compare it to what is happening with Fukushima. The perspective will most certainly make you look at the current situation much differently. Here is a computer simulation by researchers at Kyushu University, that shows calculated dispersal of radioactive dust from the Fukushima plant beginning at 9 p.m. on March 14, spreading across North America and reaching Europe.

Fukushima May Possibly Be 20 Times Worse than Chernobyl

In early April, Japan raised the crisis level at Fukushima from a level 5 event to a level 7 event on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, the same level as Chernobyl. The primary purpose of the INES Scale is to facilitate communication and understanding between the technical community, the media and the public on the safety significance of events. The aim is to keep the public, as well as nuclear authorities, accurately informed on the occurrence and potential consequences of reported events.

This new ranking to a level 7 signified that Fukushima was now considered a “major accident” that included widespread effects on the environment and human health. So widespread in fact, that it has become blatantly obvious officials are lying, withholding information, and downplaying a major catastrophe. To lead the public to believe that Fukushima incident is not exponentially worse than Chernobyl is to deliberately use systems of measurement that ignore the math, twist the data, and minimize catastrophic consequences to keep the public in the dark.

Chernobyl contained 190 Tons of fuel at the time of the crisis and involved only one reactor, and only 57.6 Tons of Chernobyl’s spent fuel went into the atmosphere. In dramatic contrast, the Daiichi complex in Fukushima contained approximately 1,760 Tons of fresh and used fuel, six reactors were involved, three of them melted through, and at least one spent fuel pool in the fourth reactor may have been entirely exposed to air and caught fire. It is tilting and may be sinking, with potentially devastating consequences.

Here’s the clencher. Fukushima’s Daichii facility has 3 nuclear reactors exposed and 4 fuel cores exposed. According to Gundersen, “There is most likely the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively.” Chernobyl had 1 core exposed, thus making this situation potentially 20 times worse than Chernobyl. “The data I’m seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man’s-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometers being found 60 to 70 kilometers away from the reactor. You can’t clean all this up. We still have radioactive wild boar in Germany, 30 years after Chernobyl.”

With all of this, and for unthinkable reasons the Japanese government has no immediate plans to seal this thing off. The units are still emitting radioactive gases and an enormous amount of radioactive liquid. Experts believe it will be at least a year before it stops boiling, and until it stops boiling, it’s going to be spewing radioactive steam and liquids. Considering that Fukushima sits right on the ocean, that Reactor 4 appears to be in grave danger, and the country just experienced another earthquake, how can this scenario NOT be worse than Chernobyl? Is it possibly because there is no science to deal with this, that no one has ever imagined a situation to this magnitude?

Chernobyl - Responsible for Nearly 1,000,000 Deaths

The book, “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,” published by the New York Academy of Sciences was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus. Drawing upon extensive data, the authors estimate the number of deaths worldwide due to Chernobyl fallout from 1986 through 2004 was 985,000, a number that has since increased. By contrast, WHO and the IAEA estimated 9,000 deaths and some 200,000 people sickened in 2005.

To generalize the big picture, the Japanese government doesn’t appear to be willing or able, as if their hands are “tied”, to stop a level 7 nuclear event, one that includes “widespread” effects on the environment and human health. They have oscillated back and forth between denial and admitting the bare essentials, and other governments, including the US, have turned their cheek to this entire situation. If Fukushima is in fact, potentially 20 times worse than Cherynobyl this is a serious problem, because without adequate and honest information the Japanese, American, and global public are severely limited in understanding the seriousness of the situation and most importantly, how to protect themselves.

Plutonium, or “Pluto”, God of the Underworld…No Kidding!

Probably the most troubling factor that sets Fukushima worlds apart from Chernobyl is that the Daichii facility’s Reactor 3 used MOX fuel (mixed oxide fuel) which contains plutonium. This fuel is 2,000,000 times more radioactive and toxic than the Uranium-235 rods used in Chernobyl. It releases far higher doses of gamma and neutron radiation than Uranium. Dr. Helen Caldicott, a nuclear disarmament activist for over 38 years stated in a press release shortly after the March 11 incident the grim realities of radioactive plutonium. “One millionth of a gram if inhaled will give you cancer. Hypothetically, one pound of evenly distributed plutonium could give every single person on earth cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilograms of plutonium…you only need to 2.5 kilograms of plutonium to make a bomb…If plutonium is spread into the air and sea, the ramifications may be wide spread death of vegetation and animals.”

Dr. Kathleen Sullivan, a disarmament educator and activist who has been engaged in the nuclear industry for over 20 years, told Al Jazeera that radioactive Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, which means it is carcinogenic and mutagenic for up to 250,000 years, or 12,000 human generations.  A radioactive half-life means that in this case, in 24,000 years, half of the ionizing radiation will have decayed, then in another 24,000 years half of that radiation will decay, etc. “That’s not really understandable or explainable in a conventional sense of knowing,” Sullivan said, “We have to apply our moral imagination to 12,000 generations to even begin to understand what we are doing in this moment.” “This is permanent and irreversible,” she added.

Fukushima Nuclear Disaster- You Won’t Hear This on the Main Stream News.

EPA and EU Agree to Raise Radiation Levels in the Environment and Food

As mentioned earlier the EPA intends to raise the acceptable levels of radiation in the event of a nuclear emergency by amending the PAGs, the policies and guidelines that enforce the EPA’s response to such disaster. This information has not been made public, and the amendment is very likely to happen since no congressional approval is necessary.

“This critical debate is taking place entirely behind closed doors because this plan is ‘guidance’ and does not require public notice as a regulation would,” stated PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) Counsel Christine Erickson. PEER sent EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson a letter calling for a more open and broader examination of the proposed radiation guidance. “We all deserve to know why some in the agency want to legitimize exposing the public to radiation at levels vastly higher than what EPA officially considers dangerous.”

According to PEER, “The internal documents show that under the amended PAG a single glass of water could give a lifetime’s permissible exposure. In addition, it would allow long-term cleanup limits thousands of times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These new limits would cause cancer in as much as every fourth person exposed.”

At the same time (without coincidence) the EU has implemented EU Ordinance 297/2011, which raises the maximum levels of radiation for food. Apparently the new EU changes only apply to food imported from Japan, and the justification behind this is that in the event of a nuclear emergency the traditional levels of acceptable radiation should be ignored so as not to cause a food shortage.

Does this make any sense? On one hand we have officials telling us that the radiation emitted (and currently still being emitted) from Fukushima is harmless, yet secret backroom negotiations are taking place to raise the permissible levels of radiation. This of course, like much of the underhanded policies that dance around the dangers of nuclear energy, is a slight-of-hand, rather deceitful tactic to perpetuate the most dangerous and costly industry in the world.

Rather than admitting the truth, informing the public and taking measures to help citizens protect themselves, it appears more “feasible” to somehow justify and reinforce increasing levels of radiation pertaining to the air, water, food and our bodies as somehow magically “safe”.

There Are No “Safe” Levels of Radiation

Regardless of what the EPA deems as “safe”, one thing is certain, there are no “safe” levels of radiation. For many years there has been a concerted effort between large scale corporations directly involved with the nuclear power industry and the agencies that regulate its safety to conceal this information, and it appears to continue as officials across the world minimize the danger in regards to the Fukushima fallout; especially since their present claims contradict the previous science conducted by their own agencies. All Levels of Radiation Cause Cancer.

In 2005 The National Academy of Sciences concluded that the majority of scientific evidence shows that even very low doses of radiation pose a risk of cancer and other health problems, and it is unlikely that a threshold exists between safe exposure and harmful exposure. From this report it is clear that all levels of radiation, including “low” or “background” levels, are carcinogenic and create a very real potential for a host of adverse health effects.

However, this is not news. This fact has been known by scientists for decades. In 1972, Dr. Abram Petkau found that the free-radical effect from chronic low-level or background radiation exposure is one thousand times greater than from a single large exposure from an atomic blast. This free radical destructive activity, known as the Petkau Effect, can occur from even small amounts of radiation exposure as a result of consuming radioactive particles that have fallen on food and water, which is exactly what is happening in areas of the United States today as a result of Fukushima. These radioactive minerals are then incorporated into the body’s cellular structure, where they can harm cellular DNA, trigger the development of cancer, and cause other serious disease conditions, as well.

The Difference Between Internal and External Radiation Exposure

Possibly the most misunderstood fact about radiation exposure is the difference between internal and external exposure. The risk model developed by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), which radiation risk agencies in all nations currently use to regulate public exposures, has been shown to assess only external radiation exposure, with little or no assessment of the long term effects from internal exposure.

This was the conclusion of radiation scientists from across the world gathered at the ECRR’s 3rd International Conference held in May 2009 on the Island of Lesvos, Greece. The final statement from the conference urged national governments to abandon the ICRP model and, as a matter of urgency, to employ the 2003 model of the ECRR. This Declaration was signed by all the delegates (http://www.euradcom.org/2009/lesvosdeclaration.htm).

Dr. Helen Caldicott, commented to the New York Times not long after the Fukushima incident,  “Six weeks ago, when I first heard about the reactor damage at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, I knew the prognosis: If any of the containment vessels or fuel pools exploded, it would mean millions of new cases of cancer in the Northern Hemisphere… Still, physicists talk convincingly about ‘permissible doses’ of radiation. They consistently ignore internal emitters — radioactive elements from nuclear power plants or weapons tests that are ingested or inhaled into the body, giving very high doses to small volumes of cells. They focus instead on generally less harmful external radiation from sources outside the body, whether from isotopes emitted from nuclear power plants, medical X-rays, cosmic radiation or background radiation that is naturally present in our environment.

However, doctors know that there is no such thing as a safe dose of radiation, and that radiation is cumulative. The mutations caused in cells by this radiation are generally deleterious. We all carry several hundred genes for disease: cystic fibrosis, diabetes, phenylketonuria, muscular dystrophy. There are now more than 2,600 genetic diseases on record, any one of which may be caused by a radiation-induced mutation, and many of which we’re bound to see more of, because we are artificially increasing background levels of radiation.”

So What’s the Next Step? How Do We Deal with this Situation?

Many of you would most likely agree that we cannot rely on the government and its media subsidiaries for accurate and reliable information. We are only hearing general statements which are often over-simplistic, confusing, and often out of context. In fact, the US government has become so embedded with the military and civilian nuclear energy industrial complex, that we cannot expect officials to come clean with the American public in times of a radiation crisis. It’s just the way it is…

It will be from our own sleuthing that we will determine what is best for us. We urge you, if you have not already, to continue to pay attention to this situation.

Secondly, it is not a time to panic. Our world has been increasingly polluted with radioactive isotopes since the 1940′s, with over 2,000 nuclear detonations (over 1,000 in the US). This is not a new situation, Fukushima has just brought it to light. Furthermore, it has brought to question the safety of the nuclear industry, and we as citizens must call upon our elected officials to put our country’s nuclear industry under a microscope. We need to insist on the development of green energy sources, and demand from them that they put the health of our citizens and the health of our environment before policy and greed.

Last, but not least, never has there been a time more imperative than NOW to adopt a healthy lifestyle and eliminate disease-promoting factors. This is not a sugar-coated suggestion implying that you begin to dabble with what it means to live a healthy lifestyle, rather it is a strong, heartfelt suggestion that you plunge right in!

Michio Kushi, a leading nutrition teacher and philosopher, feels that the future survival of the human race is threatened not so much by radiation and environmental hazards as it is by poor health induced by poor eating habits. He says: “Radiation and pollution can accelerate the accumulation and spread of cancer, but only if the body is already in a weakened state. The reason that some people would be more susceptible to the effects of radiation, for instance, is that the overall condition of their blood and tissues is not healthy as a result of their longtime dietary habits.”

For more information about Nuclear Energy, its dangers and its alternatives visit these following sites:

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Nuclear Energy and Resource Service

Nuclear/Greenpeace

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