Subcontractor Tells Fukushima Workers To Hide Radiation Exposure

First time accepted submitter fredprado writes "Apparently at least one subcontractor hired to clean up the Fukushima site has been urging their workers to put their radiation detectors lined under lead shieldings. A diagram can be seen here. The authorities decided not to prosecute him, even after one employee presenting them recordings of him trying to talk the said employee into it."

Comments

seems fine to me

[Anonymous Coward]

makes sense; those things are probably expensive and, I gather, are sensitive to radiation. Don't want to risk damaging them.

Re:seems fine to me

[msauve]

By similar logic, people should drive at night with their headlights off. If they can't be seen, it makes it harder for other drivers to hit them.

Re:seems fine to me

[phantomfive]

By similar logic, people should drive at night with their headlights off. If they can't be seen, it makes it harder for other drivers to hit them.

Right. I think you're catching on. An extra advantage is, when your lights are on, the light going out pushes your car backwards. That's alright if you want it, but if you turn off your lights, you can literally save gas. And gas is our most valuable natural resource.

Don't panic

[arcite]

Three eyed fish are delicious.

one good result:

[circletimessquare]

the Japanese people will no longer blindly trust their government

Re:one good result:

[circletimessquare]

it's ok to think the government would do a poor job at providing for our health

but it's insane to think corporations would do a better job

therefore, you choose government

for example, those europeans with universal healthcare live longer than americans, and pay less for their healthcare

because the american model is not about our health, it is about maximizing profit

Re:one good result:

[lessthan]

Because I have better things to be doing. (Like posting on Slashdot.) The problem with self-reliance is that it requires you to be an expert at everything you do. Not just proficient, but an expert. If the healthcare company includes a screw-you clause and you miss it, then you are screwed. Think of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The insurance companies sold many people hurricane insurance. A lot of people lost their houses to the storm surge, which the insurance claimed was "flood damage" and, if you didn't have flood insurance, you were out of luck.

Re:one good result:

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, insurances can be tricky and sometimes companies find loopholes to screw you, but, on the other hand, governments are incapable of providing a service with similar or better quality in high population countries. The only countries where public health care really works are countries where the population is relatively small.

This is manifestly false. As GP noted, all first world countries with public healthcare show better bang for the buck in that department than does US with its privatized healthcare model. This is regardless of whether they are countries of 3 million or 80 million.

Health effects in children

[symbolset]

Thyroid cysts or nodules are being found in 36% of 38,000 Fukushima children. A 2001 study in Nagasaki found an incidence of 0%. Thyroid is associated with iodine, as the substance is essential to its function. Iodine-131 was a considerable component of the contaminants released in the incident.

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[jfengel]

And how are they supposed to do that? Individual workers calling their Senators up on the phone, each one of them telling the Senator something slightly different from the last one? Senators don't take phone calls from workers. They take phone calls from executives.

Actually, they don't take phone calls from either. They take phone calls from lobbyists, people with whom they have a relationship and who have worked with them before. Corporate management has plenty of money to hire them. Individual workers don't.

They can, however, get together and pool their money to hire a lobbyist. We should make up a name for such a unified group of people.

Doesn't work.

[rsilvergun]

Really. It doesn't. Globalism Breaks Capitalism. Period. It's that simple. You are completing on the global stage. Your employer is not. You can't win. You can't keep up. They will import desperate workers from impoverished countries. You will compete with them for food and shelter. Automation makes you disposable and obsolete. You can't work elsewhere, because there are very few jobs (automation) and there are lots of people to do those jobs (globalism).

Free market Capitalism is fundamentally broken. Adam Smith wasn't a futurist. He had no vision. Ayn Rand was just a little woman afraid of a nasty dictator. Get over your fear, and learn to face facts. Adam couldn't, Ayn couldn't. Can you?

Re:Doesn't work.

[rrohbeck]

Many people have recognized this.
And many intellectuals have come to recognize Karl Marx as what he was: A great economist.

Re:Doesn't work.

[geoskd]

No where in all that did I see any hint of a better idea.

The root of our economic problem (as you hinted at, but stopped short of actually saying), is that our economy depends on balance. That balance is the level of production and the level of consumption being about equal. When Production becomes too great, companies cut back. When consumption becomes too great, shortages drive up costs and cause a bubble (which will burst). The basic trouble is that technology constantly drives increases in production, and decreases in overall consumption. (Greater production at lower cost, pushes wealth to the top, but the consumers have less money to buy things, so consumption actually is reduced. There are only two forces on earth that combat this trend, and restore balance to the economy, and one or both will result. The first is taxes. The best known way to get the wealth back from the top, and restore the consumption power it has, is to return it to the bottom by the way of social programs (health care, disability, welfare). The second way is revolution. With not enough taxes on the wealthy to counteract the concentrating effects of innovation, the concentration of wealth at the top unbalances the economy, causing rapid economic swings, volatile prices, and unemployment. If the process continues unchecked, the only logical result is revolution, and it is invariable, and inevitable.

-=Geoskd

Re:Doesn't work.

[sjames]

It's worth noting that Smith strongly advocated market regulation. He warned that inadequate or incompetent regulation of the market would lead to exactly the sorts of problems we're having now. He further warned against anything like corporate personhood as that would remove moral thinking from economic decisions.

The so-called proponents of Smith's Capitalism are VERY selective about which parts they implement and 100% of his warnings have fallen on deaf ears. They are just as bad as the fundamentalist Jihadists who like to skip over all the bits about not killing 'people of the book'.

Re:Doesn't work.

[mwvdlee]

No. On the contrary. You need a government to tell COMPANIES what they can and cannot do.

Governments are supposed to represent the citizens, therefore they should do whatever best helps their citizens.

If that means companies have to comply to all kinds of rules and regulations then I see no problem in that. Companies wouldn't mind either, because they are not living things. Managers and shareholders might not like it, but they're citizens like everybody else, and their well-being is no less of more important than that of anybody else.

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[ohnocitizen]

Unions can curb criminal behavior on the part of corporations. Of course, unions being organized power, are also susceptible to being abused as well. Arguing against having any watchmen at all is a bit silly, but we need to also consider who watches the watchmen.

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[geoskd]

Unions can curb criminal behavior on the part of corporations. Of course, unions being organized power, are also susceptible to being abused as well. Arguing against having any watchmen at all is a bit silly, but we need to also consider who watches the watchmen.

The answer is not more levels of middlemen, who contribute nothing but another avenue for corruption. The answer, as suggested by others here, is support for workers rights codified by law. The fact that our current democratic process has been thoroughly subverted by the top 1% doesn't mean that adding more corrupt bureaucrats to the process is a good idea, much less the right solution.

-=Geoskd

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[artor3]

This is why we need more unions and more workers rights.

and they should be able to use contractors and subcontractors to get out being liable.

Actually, in the US, this kind of ridiculously dangerous behavior would be covered by OSHA laws.

OSHA laws which only exist thanks to unions.

Moral Credibility

[cryfreedomlove]

In order to safely operate today's generation of nuclear fission reactors, you need the operators and regulators to be transparent and competent. The folks running this Fukushima travesty are neither transparent nor competent.

Therefore I am forced to conclude that the human race in 2012 does not have the moral credibility to be trusted to operate nuclear fission reactors.

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[Yvanhoe]

You are talking about America. In most countries, what Americans call "lobbying" is called "corruption" ans is illegal.

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[riverat1]

By that logic corporations should also be illegal.

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[AmiMoJo]

In the UK we have Health and Safety guys to enforce that kind of thing. It is their job to protect workers and nothing else. Their authority overrules other managers in most cases.

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[Teancum]

I'm not saying it's a perfect system, far from it. But it's not even close to the "legalized bribe" that most people who don't work in Washington imagine it is.

Having been a candidate for public office before, I will say it is hard to turn down campaign donations from groups that offer enough money to finance your campaign. And I've had offers from groups that I most certainly didn't agree with for money I could have desperately used in order to finance my campaign.

While the laws have changed somewhat since this practice was happening, there was in the past an option for federal office holders (Senate & U.S. House) to be able to pocket excess campaign donations after they were defeated in an election or went into retirement. This still is the case for some state and municipal office seekers (and certainly was in my case when running for municipal office). I had to report all of the donations of course and file formal reports on all of the income and expenses (which typically break even if you are being serious about a campaign), but if a "generous donation" was to fall in your lap, it certainly could end up being something very much like a legalized bribe.

I do agree though with the fact that lobbyists do much more than handing out huge piles of money. They do tend to be experts on the topics they advocate about and can be very useful in terms of being able to understand what a particular constituency group or industry group thinks about a particular piece of legislation. As long as you understand the bias that the bring to the table, they can also be useful for obtaining information about that particular topic they are advocating for as well.

Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker

[Forty Two Tenfold]

America is also the name of the country

Yeah, if Sarah Palin taught you geography.

Re:That Poster...

[ChumpusRex2003]

The lead is likely very effective at reducing recorded exposure - probably cutting it by 75-90%. Most of the radiation in a typical fission product incident is beta radiation, which will be substantially attenuated by 1 mm of lead (the beta particles won't get through, but probably 1-2% of their energy may get through as bremmstrahlung X-rays). Gamma rays, will also be attenuated but only by a few % (high energy direct photons won't be significantly affected, but photons scattered from concrete, etc. will be of much lower energy, so will tend to be heavily attenuated).

There are plenty of radiation suits that offer 0.1 or 0.2 mm lead equivalent protection (they don't usually contain lead for environmental reasons, bismuth is usually used instead). These are quite useful for protection against beta energy, even if they do nothing for gamma. However, the sheer weight of even a 0.2 mm lead suit makes it only barely practical (though I understand the US military have bought a lot of them).

However, lead boots are a sensible precaution - most of the radiation in a Fukushima type incident is in the form of water soluble or suspended particles, which pool on the floor in puddles. Severe radiation injury to the feet from beta emitters is possible - 1mm lead equivalent rubber boots are tolerable to wear, and would offer substantial protection to the feet.