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Fukushima's Fallout of Fear
gbrumfiel writes "Experts believe that the many thousands who fled from the Fukushima nuclear disaster received very low doses of radiation. But that doesn't mean there won't be health consequences. Nature magazine traveled to Fukushima prefecture and found evidence of an enormous mental strain from the accident. Levels of anxiety and PTSD-like symptoms are high among evacuees. Researchers fear that, in the long run, the mental problems could lead to depression and substance abuse among those who lost their homes. In other words, even if no one develops cancer as a direct result of radiation, the health effects could still be very real."
If officials would reliably issue accurate statements there would be much less reason to stress out.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
.. Are they saying that fear mongering will kill more people than the radiation from actual nuclear disaster? Wow.
So that means, on the death toll scale:
1. The actual Tsunami
2. Traffic accidents from people trying to flee
3. Stress related deaths
4. Radiation related deaths
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Because people have been told "You must freak out! Think of the health risks!", and promptly did freak out... they are now likely to have negative impacts on their health because they freaked out.
Got it.
Experts believe that the many thousands who fled from the Fukushima nuclear disaster received very low doses of radiation. But that doesn't mean there won't be health consequences.
Yeah I think having your friends, family, and coworkers drown might stress them a wee bit, even if americans think nothing happened there but a minor nuclear power incident.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Losing your home, let alone all your possessions, is a horrific thing to go through, no matter what the process of loss is: nuclear accident, hurricane, bankruptcy. I believe it is a more devastating loss than the one you have when you reach a certain age and the truth of your own mortality comes into full focus. Losing everything the day your own light goes out forever, there is a sense of loss in the anticipation, but there is no "you" to miss anything afterwards. Losing all your "stuff" on the other hand is the hurt that just keeps hurting.
We do have data. Natural radiation levels vary considerably with location. It is of course difficult to separate effects since lots of other things also vary with location, but there is so much data available that studies should be pretty good
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/
"A very big report came out last month with very little fanfare. It concluded what we in nuclear science have been saying for decades – radiation doses less than about 10 rem (0.1 Sv) are no big deal. The linear no-threshold dose hypothesis (LNT) does not apply to doses less than 10 rem (0.1 Sv), which is the region encompassing background levels around the world, and is the region of most importance to nuclear energy, most medical procedures and most areas affected by accidents like Fukushima."
Effects not of nuclear power, but of panicky "abundance of caution" overreactions by authorities and news media to _any_ perceived threat.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
FFS enough with the nuclear-accidents-are-cool-and-safe propaganda on slashdot.
On the one hand we are expected to believe there are nuclear terrorists with a few grams of cesium-137 pose a deadly threat to our largest cities
On the other hand we are expected to believe a nuclear accident where 180TONS of nuclear fuel in three reactors completely melted down, releasing over 5-30kg (15-85TBq) of cesium-137 directly into the atmosphere, 10 times as much other volatile isotopes, (in addition to even greater ongoing releases into the ocean) will have no significant health effects at a population level.
Read the works of the late Alice Stewart at Oxford University or Ernest Sternglass. All the other pro-nuclear academics are corrupted gits.
There is no evidence that low doses of radiation are linked to any type of cancer. None. Period. Not only is there no evidence, but it would be mathematically impossible to prove if it were the case. Why? Because 1/3 people die of some type of cancer regardless. There is no way to separate people that die of cancer caused by any number of possible environmental or genetic factors to people exposed to tiny amounts of radiation from man-made sources.
is there some sort of accident that could reverse this depression? like perhaps an explosion at a giant nitrous oxide factory?
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Please do me a favor. Don't go to the Grand Central Station with a geiger counter. Also stay away from Capitol Hill i D.C. and any other granite or marble building.
Also bananas could be scary to look at, and flying to the east coast would also be a no-go.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interact/facts.html
I wouldn't have you ramp up that nuclear fear too high, or you might be a part of statistics.
Radiation is all around us, and the scientist are not even sure it is a bad thing.
It seems to me that one explanation that many thousands received a low doses of radiation is BECAUSE they fled, not in spite of it which is what the summary seems to imply. And being told there is nothing to see here while a nuclear plant is actually going through a meltdown, then suddely told you must evacuate, well that seems like a category for stress. It's not like they could see if they are in danger or not, and they have no way of measuring how much danger they face (from possible exposure), so yeah, that's going to screw with your head.
In many parts of the evacuated zone, the "contamination" is so small and insignificant that health experts have stated that people could safely return home. However, the government of Japan, instead of trying to educate people about the true risks (or lack thereof) decided they were going to keep the area empty until it could all be "cleaned up" at enormous expense.
So, the public is left with the impression that the government must know it's too dangerous to return, so it must be, right? So, they are depressed that a nuclear accident evicted them from their family home (which may have belonged to the family for generations - in Japan, a home staying in the family for very long periods of time is not uncommon) and they won't be able to return in their lifetime.
The government should just let people return to the very low contamination areas, which ARE SAFE for human habitation, educate them about the risks, and let them get on with their lives.
The article comes close to saying the evacuation was a mistake. It looks like far more deaths and suffering will come from the evacuation that the low doses of radiation.
Given that, I wonder how the total financial meltdown courtesy of Golden Sacks and co. complete with people losing their homes, income, and healthcare compares to every reactor in the U.S. suffering a Fukushima style meltdown all at once.
I don't think there is a low dose minimum. Sure we have background radiation. So this plus whatever folks received from the leakage from the Fukushima plants is considered low? What BS. [...] But looking at the basic physics and the effects of radioactive molecules on nearby cells, we can with a certain amount of certainty say that radiation in any amount will have not so good effects on the human body.
If you follow that line of reasoning then you are left with a choice between declaring large parts of the world uninhabitable due to background radiation (and banning air travel), or treating natural and artificial exposure differently even when both are elective.
Japan, as it happens, has a relatively low natural background level under normal circumstances. Doubling it sounds pretty bad but is actually no worse than the average for the USA. Cornwall in England is about five times higher: should we evacuate, or is it OK because it is natural?
There is a strip of land that was downwind of the reactors at the time of the accident with levels that few if any places on Earth would match from natural sources. Avoiding long-term exposure at those levels is sensible; panicking about a fractional increase over the background level is not.
1) Acute radiation sickness is something that is very well understood in terms of necessary doses.
2) No-one disputes that ionizing radiation is harmful and increases the risk of developing cancer.
3) Background radiation is a perfectly reasonable comparison and there is certainly no reason to believe in some kind of crazy non-linear relation. It doesn't mean we're completely ignorant, just that it's impossible to separate statistical differences from background noise and fluctuations.
BTW I looked up Helen Caldicott and it appears she is an anti-nuclear advocate with no major scientific publications to her name. Not wanting to discredit the woman, but I couldn't find any noteworthy contribution on her part to the biological effects of radiation.
From the IEEE spectrum's article Chernobyl's Stressful After-Effects
Also see the book Toxic Turmoil (one review here)for more discussion of the role of stress in disasters.
We should note the Chernobyl's radiation release was an order of magnitude greater than Fukashima's .
People lost their homes, loved ones, possessions and jobs. Why anyone would think the power plant issue/evacuation is the main source of their depression is beyond comprehension.
We do have some idea of low-dose radiation effect based on empirical study. One of the best sources is the BEIR series (BEIR VII). The problem is even at medium levels of exposure, such as first-gen radiation workers and various accidents in the nuclear industry, the background cancer incidence rate is very noisy, and the statistical error bars are enormous for the data we have, even with studies involing tens of thousands of people, and estimates range more than +/-(100%) in the 90% confidence interval.
The best data we have is for leukemia - and that is only because radiation (background and otherwise) seems to account for roughly 50% of cases, much, much more than for other cancers (10% usually).
Here's a summary of what we know and don't know:
1) For low level radiation (100 mSv), it is very plausible that radiation exposure contributes to cancer, but we have not been able to measure an significant difference from 0.
2) There is a good 13 country large scale study that does show significance from zero, but only by using Canadian Chalk River data from the late 1950's/early 1960's, which skews the entire result. Chalk River gew out of Canada's 'Manhattan project' for nuclear power and nuclear medicine, and was very secretive in these years, and has a couple of major meltdowns prior to this data being collected - so it is thought that doses are under-reported. The results from this study can probably be taken as an upper bound - and state essentially that you can multiply your cancer risk by one plus your dose in Sieverts to get an estimate for cancer risk after exposure and your risk of early death by ~(1 + .40*(dose in Sv)), where a factor of 1 means no change.
3) Therefore, as 1 Sv is an upper estimate on your dose if you were to move to the boundary of the Fukushima-Daiichi plant today and live the rest of your life there, the effect of this on your health is likely less than a lifetime of smoking (which increases risk of early death by ~40%). I would advise neither.
4) Using data from Chernobyl and lifespan data analysis on those impacted, as well as various other studies, the best estimate for increased of cancer risk is about (1 + 0.30*(dose in Sv)). If this dose is accumulated over time (like exposure to a power-plant accident), it is common to assume the impact can be divided by either 1.5 or 2 (and in any rate between 1 and 3). It has long been thought and supported by evidence that this should be taken as an upper bound for low doses. In all studies done so far, this risk factor is almost certainly below 2, and almost certainly above 0. At low levels and over long periods, whether the risk factor is 0.01, 0.1, or 0.3, or even 1.0, or how linear or nonlinear the risk is, is anyone's guess. As such, living on the doorstep of Fukushima's plant for the remainder of your life is probably not quite as bad for you as living near a major highway or a major street in an industrial city (~10%-20% increase in early mortality). Still: bad idea, especially as these risks multiply together. If the area near the plant had not been evacuated, there would have been a very noticible Leukemia crisis there over the next half century.
5) Some studies show a negative impact of radiation on cancer at low doses, but this is always within error of being either 0 or even as high as the 13 country study. Not just small studies show this: in the second largest meta-study done on low-level radiation, the best estimate for non-leukemia cancers was negative.
6) Leukemia effects are better understood. It does not seem to follow a linear model, but if it did its effects are roughly a factor of 2 per Sievert. That is, if you are exposed to a one time dose of 1 Sv, your risk of developing Leukemia would triple.
7) There is one industry where high lifetime doses are considered an occupational norm: space travel. Many astronauts expect to received upwards of a 1 Sv (and beyond) lifetime dose, and a single ISS visit could land you with a dose simila
They stated that it was damaged but unbroken.
Then damaged but not leaking.
Then leaking but not melting down.
Then only one meltdown.
Then two, but no fallout was leaking out of the containment pool.
Then it was.
"I run screaming from a TV when I see just the Fox logo."
I wish some of my coworkers were like that. Just hold up an LCD screen with that on it and they leave immediately.
Kind of like a glyph or warding.
Leukemia effects are better understood. It does not seem to follow a linear model, but if it did its effects are roughly a factor of 2 per Sievert. That is, if you are exposed to a one time dose of 1 Sv, your risk of developing Leukemia would triple.
Can you explain this maths for those of us who didn't learn in college that 2=3?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
First, there is not enough information about long term low level radiation exposure to know the long term risks. The one other similar example, Chernobyl, is not a good case study. Critical information was (and perhaps still is) being withheld by the authorities. Meaningful exposure profiles are not available. In addition, the population exposed has been so negatively effected by the fall of the Soviet Union that it is difficult to determine what is caused by radiation and what is caused deteriorating environmental conditions. Having a dysfunctional health care system makes it even worse.
Second, there are more potential negative health effects then just cancer. There is some indication that increased radiation exposure leads to higher levels of cardiovascular disease. There are many potential unknown health problems
The radiation is not a uniform low level background. It is characterized by "hot spots" that are significantly more dangerous. Water caries hot material into places like roadside ditches, which is why Chernobyl visitors are told to stay on hard road surfaces and not walk off the road. This is really a problem for children, since that is the kind of thing they are prone to do. Ingesting the higher radiation material would be particularly hazardous for them.
Stress causes negative health effects. For example, being laid off with long term unemployment causes increased illness. Many peoples lives have been profoundly changed for the worse, including dislocation and job loss. This is only made worse by the radiation problem, which adds a huge amount of uncertainty.
The government and the nuclear industry has been lying to the Japanese public for decades about the risks associated with nuclear power plants. They have no credibility, so when they say that the situation is under control no one believes them. More stress.
Compensation for victims has been extremely inadequate and plagued by bureaucratic delay. Tepco is effectively bankrupt, so they and the government have strong incentives to spend as little money as possible. Also paying compensation highlights their failure, which means loosing face. This is not solely a problem in Japan; just look at the British Petroleum lying advertisements minimizing the environmental impact of the Macondo well disaster.
Speaking of bankruptcy, the nationwide economic impact of the tsunami would be bad enough, but the added burden of the Fukushima disaster makes a horrible situation even worse.
Finally, the disaster isn't over yet, it's ongoing. The damaged reactor units are not really secured. Because of the high radiation levels the most dangerous parts of the facilities have not been inspected so the amount of damage is unknown. The next earthquake could unleash radiation orders of magnitude worse that what already happened. The cores require ongoing cooling, and the equipment involved keeps having outages. An earthquake could lead to cooling loss and a full meltdown with atmospheric release of extremely radioactive core material. The spent fuel pools are also vulnerable to this kind of failure, and they are in damaged containment buildings, not reactor vessels. This is another reason for keeping residents away from the site. Safe evacuation might even not be possible in this situation.
Radiation levels in the ocean near the plant has not declined as much as expected. This is almost certainly due to continuing leakage of radioactive water from inside the damaged units.
So the negative health situation of Fukushima victims is caused by real world problems that induce stress and anxiety. Dismissing these issues is both factually wrong and ethically revolting. As is often the case, Slashdot participants are on the wrong side because they exhibit willing blindness to serious problems associated with real world technology.
Why is Snark Required?
I'm an xkcd fan, but this chart is just really, really bad science and abysmal health physics. It pervasively confuses the crucial difference between one-time external exposure ("radiation"), and ongoing internal exposure from ingestion of bioaccumulating radioactive isotopes (such as iodine-131, strontium-90, cesium-137). They're completely different exposure mechanisms and you simply can't compare them directly - except to say that eating or breathing in a radioactive particle is orders of magnitude worse than standing next to that particle and absorbing the radiation through the skin. Inverse square law for the win (or lose, in the human's case).
http://www.orcbs.msu.edu/radiation/programs_guidelines/radmanual/16rm_exposure.htm
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Are you really implying that low-grade radiation from bananas is the same as inhaling hot particles from a power station that blew up?
That is EXACTLY what gordona (121157) stated (not implied, but out right stated as fact)
BlackThorne_DK pointed out there is a difference between bananas and a nuclear plant.
Then here you are, calling BlackThorne_DK a moron for stating that fact.
I have to call into question why you are on one hand claiming those levels of radiation are different, while at the same time calling someone else a moron for stating the same thing, implying those levels of radiation are the same.
What exactly are you trying to imply here? Why are you saying both cases are true, when in fact each is the exact opposite of each other? What kind of game are you playing?
They are the only country in the world to have nuclear weapons used against them. It only stands to reason they would freak out about radiation.
But you know that's just the obvious answer. Really, they are waiting for Godzilla to show up and level Tokyo.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
In other words, even if no one develops cancer as a direct result of radiation, the health effects could still be very real
ACTUALLY the article is arguing that the health-effects could be all in peoples mind.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Are you really implying that low-grade radiation from bananas is the same as inhaling hot particles from a power station that blew up?
Obviously not, since you aren't inhaling the banana!
I was in Japan shortly after the Tsunami, and most people seemed to understand that the radiation would have no impact on their lives for anyone in Tokyo or south of Tokyo, compared to the mild panic say on the west coast of North America. The authorities seemed to have communicated somewhat effectively the risks, at least for those not in the immediate area, and people were far more focused on getting support to tsunami victims than concerned about radiation. As such, the damage due to panic was relatively localized.
I'd hate to see something similar happen in the US - with the culture of fear, panic, and entitlement, people would go nuts and the damage across the entire country could well be hundreds of times larger than any radiation release could cause. This is why the prospect of a dirty bomb is such a scary terrorist scenario - it wouldn't cause much damage itself but people would tear each other apart, avoid anyone exposed due to fear, and permanantly cordon off a large section of urban landscape. Even though if this were to happen it is likely to be home grown, the army will likely go to war with the first country that blinks, and politics will get even more insane. Scary stuff - though completely preventable and self-imposed.
BlackThorne_DK said that bananas are scary, clearly trying to imply that gordona was hyping up the fear. Gordona was correct in saying that continued exposure to low-dose radiation is a bad thing, which is what BlackThorne_DK was moronically mocking.
My question is, what are YOU playing here? You appear to have missed the point of both of the parent posts above mine. You weird sicko.
Step 1: Run like headless chickens promising a fiery death through radiation burns to anyone living within 1000 miles of Fukushima.
Step 2: Be somewhere else when scientific findings pour in, showing that the risk on the general population, save for some very specific cases (such as workers at the plant who heroically risked their health trying to fix things), pales by comparison with absolutely every other aspect of the catastrophe (starting with thousands of deaths, injuries and destroyed houses, for entirely non-nuclear reasons).
Step 3: Announce yourself vindicated when Step 1 results in a rash of PTSDs and other mental health issues.
Substance abuse? They surely don't know Japanese people. It's not USA.
I was about to post something similar, seeing noone seemed to notice the inconsistency...
It's somewhat like claiming to fear fire or to flee from fire was stupid because those who fled weren't burnt much after all...
Apples and oranges. The radiation you mention isn't much of a threat because it doesn't accumulate in your body and sit there for decades slowly cooking your DNA.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well the science actually differs from the article. Here is a list of some scientific studies on the effects of low energy emitters, particularly Triated water, with references, in case there is any doubt regarding low dose radiation's effect on living beings.
Tritium is biologically mutagenic *because* it's a low energy emitter. This characteristic makes readily absorbed by surrounding cells. The available evidence from studies conducted journal a list of effects. From those works;
Tritium can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through skin. Eating food containing 3H can be even more damaging than drinking 3H bound in water. Consequently, an estimated radiation dose based only on ingestion of tritiated water may underestimate the health effects if the person has also consumed food contaminated with tritium. (Komatsu)
Studies indicate that lower doses of tritium can cause more cell death (Dobson, 1976), mutations (Ito) and chromosome damage (Hori) per dose than higher tritium doses. Tritium can impart damage which is two or more times greater per dose than either x-rays or gamma rays.
(Straume) (Dobson, 1976) There is no evidence of a threshold for damage from 3H exposure; even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts. (Dobson, 1974) Organically bound tritium (tritium bound in animal or plant tissue) can stay in the body for 10 years or more.
It's often said "of all the elements in nuclear waste tritium is one of the more harmless ones" and while it's more benign than most other radioactive effluents it's toxicity should not be under-estimated.
Tritium can cause mutations, tumors and cell death. (Rytomaa) Tritiated water is associated with significantly decreased weight of brain and genital tract organs in mice (Torok) and can cause irreversible loss of female germ cells in both mice and monkeys even at low concentrations. (Dobson, 1979) (Laskey) Tritium from tritiated water can become incorporated into DNA, the molecular basis of heredity for living organisms. DNA is especially sensitive to radiation. (Hori) A cell's exposure to tritium bound in DNA can be even more toxic than its exposure to tritium in water. (Straume)(Carr)
First, as an isotope of hydrogen (the cell's most ubiquitous element), tritium can be incorporated into essentially all portions of the living machinery; and it is not innocuous -- deaths have occurred in industry from occupational overexposure. R. Lowry Dobson, MD, PhD. (1979)
References;
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
First off, you sound like and arrogant know-it-all prick.
Well even if he does he is right, the radionuclides he mentions analogue calcium and iodine and are absorbed into the body as micro-nutrients subject to bio-accumulation. One of my previous posts can refer you to some science if you are curious.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Seriously? You're going to start blaming Nuclear power for depression? REALLY? Sorry, but as if the anti-nuclear groups weren't already ridiculous, I think they've finally gone full retard.
Well perhaps you should take it up with The New York Academy of Sciences, they are but one of many organisations who have performed studies on the after effects of Chernobyl and found depression is a big one when you get displace from your entire life.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Great, another person who thinks bananas will radiate you to death. Try going back to high school, you missed some science classes.
You idiot, I never said that. I was merely mocking somebody who glibly equates bananas to hot particles or sustained exposure to low grade radiation.
In any event, it's clear that your version of science knowledge is limited to partially digesting nuclear industry propaganda and Japanese government "all clear" reports.
Remember, if you smile, the radiation can't affect you.
Is it possible in the USA to sue for damages due to the nocebo effect (I.e. the flip side of the placebo effect)? The harmful effects are very real.
If yes, then victims could sue sensational journalists. Lawyers who told women they must be sick because of breast implants could be sued by those women who actually suffered because of the nocebo effect. Purveyors of end of the world scenarios and global warming fear mongers could become defendants.
On the other hand, does the first amendment protect all speech no matter how harmful? It is not hard to imagine causing serious harm and even death by speech.