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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
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."
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.
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.
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.
As an exercise, why don't you try finding official statements that back up your opinion? It's worth noting that a number of these statements would be true, if they were uttered before the event happened. For example, within the first couple of days, a statement that there was no meltdown would be correct.
As an exercise, why don't you try finding official statements that back up your opinion?
As an exercise, why don't you try paying attention next time something like this happens? Those of us who were don't need a citation, because we saw it happen. Japan actually shut down blogs that were telling the truth about the incident "in the national interest". Not that this is special. How much are you hearing about the NJ residents locked up in prison right now for the crime of being in the way of a natural disaster?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.