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Masao Yoshida, Director of Fukushima Daichii Nuclear Plant, Has Died
Doofus writes "Masao Yoshida, director of the Daichii Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, has passed away. Colleagues and politicos in Japan praised his disobedience during the post-tsunami meltdown and credited him with preventing much more widespread and intense damage. From the article: 'On March 12, a day after the tsunami, Mr. Yoshida ignored an order from Tepco headquarters to stop pumping seawater into a reactor to try and cool it because of concerns that ocean water would corrode the equipment. Tepco initially said it would penalize Mr. Yoshida even though Sakae Muto, then a vice president at the utility, said it was a technically appropriate decision. Mr. Yoshida received no more than a verbal reprimand after then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan defended the plant chief, the Yomiuri newspaper reported. "I bow in respect for his leadership and decision-making," Kan said Tuesday in a message posted on his Twitter account.'"
In an emergency the on site staff should full control over what is going on.
Every case of cancer in Japan for the next 200 years is going to be blamed on Fukushima.
Still no deaths due to radiation. Nuclear power still remains the safest, most powerful energy source yet known, so long as the government isn't running the show (see Chernobyl).
If you want to make the preposterous claim that Yoshida's esophageal cancer was induced by the radiation released in the Fukushima incident, fine, go ahead, make a fool of yourself. His cancer went symptomatic mere months after the incident, which is a timeframe that makes it all but certain that the neoplastic changes leading to the malignant growth in his esophagus had been going on for years before that and that the timing is mere coincidence. Although there have been cases of fast-acting radiation-induced cancer, such cases are associated with massive doses of radiation leading to severe acute radiation poisoning, which, AFAIK, he hadn't experienced (from what I know, only two workers were treated for acute radiation poisoning, and he was not one of them), and the fast-acting cancer usually happens to be leukemia (and it takes at least year and two to develop anyway, not months), whereas other kinds of tumors (hint! Hint! Esophageal cancer!) take something like ten years to develop, at the minimum.
Ezekiel 23:20
What TFS doesn't mention was that he died of esophageal cancer. And he got it after nine months of being at the power plant after the accident.
TEPCO claims the cancer is not related to the accident. Of course they would.
Because it's not. Cancer takes a long time to show up (decades) unless it's leukemia, which isn't what he had. If the works are going to start dieing from cancer (which they very well might) it'll start happening around 2020
TEPCO claims the cancer is not related to the accident. Of course they would.
Yes, just like an evolutionary biologist knowledgeable in his field would claim that humans have evolved from other mammals, now extinct. You could say "of course he would" in that case, too.
Ezekiel 23:20
Medical facts are on their side. You simply cannot go from cancer free to death by esophageal cancer in this timeframe. That means he was already developing it before the tsunami.
Frankly, it probably wasn't. Odds are, he smoked like a chimney--lots of Japanese still do, you know. Esophageal cancer is also more likely with alcohol consumption--and drinking parties are another Japanese tradition--in those with alcohol flush reaction, which is a common genetic disposition in Japanese people.
And you claim they are related?
Let's see some evidence.
If Tepco claimed that his turning into a green-skinned, giant rampaging brute wasn't related to the accident, THAT might be suspect; but saying that terminal cancer nine months after exposure ISN'T.
How many years did he work at the plant?
WHOOPS!
TEPCO claims the cancer is not related to the accident. Of course they would.
Of course they would, because it's true:
Radiation can cause cancer in most parts of the body, in all animals, and at any age, although radiation-induced solid tumors usually take 10-15 years, and can take up to 40 years, to become clinically manifest, and radiation-induced leukemias typically require 2-10 years to appear.
If you had any idea how cancer worked that would have been obvious.
Have you ever thought about the possibility, that there are some people visiting slashdot, whose native language is NOT english? ...or am I feeding a troll again?
And take that a bit further. Have you ever thought about the possibility, that such people MAY NOT be speaking english perfectly?
In an emergency the on site staff should full control over what is going on.
u japanize?
also, it was reported that it probably isn't radiation from the accident, as the illness is the type that would have had to mature for years if it was from radiation.
that's not to say of course that there wasn't a covered up radioactive godzilla attack earlier!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Esophageal cancer isn't something that crops up in a mere nine months.
So he must have been in some carcinogenic environment a long time before Fuckyoushima. And that could not have been in any way related to his career of nuclear engineer. Besides, esophageal cancer is so common in old men of 58 years.
Excessive hyperbole begets sarcastic responses.
More to the point, acute radiation exposure is known to suppress immune system responses, including those that slow the growth of cancers. Fuckyoushima may not have been the origin of his cancer, but it probably accelerated the disease. Which, as you point out, is usually a long and lingering one, not a death this soon after initial diagnosis.
He kept saying Gojira...Gojira...Gojira.
There will be no shortage of tracking either, vs. trends expected in Kapan vs. reality, and w.r.t. the rest of the world.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You simply cannot go from cancer free to death by esophageal cancer in this timeframe.
Correct, natural esophageal cancer takes time. When induced by massive amounts of radiation? the rules likely change.
You're probably correct and this is merely a coincidence. However, since we have ample evidence of TEPCO lying through it's teeth all through this disaster, claiming that they would lie about his death isn't exactly a far fetched idea.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Furthermore, Japan loves to smoke. And this is one of the cancers that you can get from smoking.
A little google-fu turned up this article which shows that he was most definitely a smoker:
He recalled in the interview often passing out cigarettes to workers in a heavily used smoking room beside the bunker during the disaster and once joked: “We don’t have the US army fire trucks we need but at least we have got smokes.” Fukushima boss Masao Yoshida breaks silence on disaster -- The Australian
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Of course they would. Because he got it from smoking. He was a heavy smoker, which is common for Japanese men.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Fuckyoushima may not have been the origin of his cancer, but it probably accelerated the disease.
If that is the case, it's much more likely that the suppression of his immunity system's ability to fight cancer was a result of psychological stress (which he was exposed to) associated with the incident and the government's meddling into his culpability, rather than a result of acute radiation poisoning (which he didn't experience anyway).
Ezekiel 23:20
But what he did was heroic. Especially in a society that empahsizes respect for superiors. In the US, we wouldn't think twice about second guessing a higher up if we thought there was an inherent risk but this is almost unheard of in the Asian culture. Anata ni keii, Yoshida-san.
Seppuku
More often than you do.
Far, Far more often than you could.
Besides, esophageal cancer is so common in old men of 58 years.
Yes, esophageal cancer is very common in old men of 58 years who smoke like chimneys.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Elselvier press...anyone got a login to read the full article? or $31.50
Even with a massive dose of radiation, he wouldn't get esophageal cancer in this timeframe. If anything, he would get leukemia
Odds are much better that it was related to smoking.
I hope the producers can get a new director. If they get one soon perhaps this can be in theaters next summer?
I hope they can sign Michael Bay, I want to see huge explosions.
Nuclear power still remains the safest, most powerful energy source yet known, so long as the government isn't running the show (see Chernobyl).
Are you seriously arguing that the public sector is inherently less responsible than the private sector, based on a single data-point?
Maybe you should look more into what caused the Fukushima disaster: It was a serious of bad design decisions for the active cooling system all made by General Electric and TEPCO, failure to report and explain design changes that made them even less safe, falsification of safety records, and failure to heed engineer warnings about flood risks from tsunamis.
Three Mile Island happened because of workers failing to obey safety regulations, bad design in relying on turbines still being active for cooling, and bad design of the indicator light for the stuck valve -- all failures in the private sector side of things.
Of course, those are only two points of a data. I'd be a hypocrite if I insisted with such a small sample set that this demonstrated that the private industry was less responsible. However, I think that's more than enough to say that the notion that nuclear power is safe unless the government comes in and screws things up is demonstrably false. Private industry is just as capable of screwing up nuclear power.
Also, in review of all of these disasters, there was nothing inherently economic about the nature of them -- all were human failures led by failure to follow established procedures, failures of engineering, and/or cost-cutting or blame-avoiding. These kind of failures are rife in both the private and public sectors. Blaming "teh gubbermint" is just intellectual laziness and/or the product of viewing the world through a partisan lens.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
"clean relatively safe nuclear power." I don't think I would consider "safe" any industry where an accident or malpractice could result in a place being uninhabitable for 10,000 - 100,000 years. It is immoral to saddle future generations with this burden, however slight you perceive the risk to be. Nuclear apologists need to wake up. Human error is always going to be a problem. Untill the world gets its act together and starts deploying more CANDU type reactors which by design cannot meltdown, I for one will still fight against nuclear power. You have an industry that deploys proven flawed designs from 40-60 years ago, and then runs the plants way longer than recommended lifetimes. The way the world currently does nuclear power, more accidents are inevitable. http://equipmentbds.blogspot.com/">please visit it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiru ... Inspired by her, Watanabe realizes that it is not too late for him and that he still can do something. He then dedicates his remaining time and energy to accomplish one worthwhile achievement before his life ends. Through his tireless and persistent efforts, he is able to overcome the stagnation of bureaucracy and turn a mosquito-infested cesspool into a children's playground. The last third of the film takes place during Watanabe's wake, as his former co-workers try to figure out what caused such a dramatic change in his behavior. ..."
"Ikiru (..., "To Live") is a 1952 Japanese film co-written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film examines the struggles of a minor Tokyo bureaucrat and his final quest for meaning. The film is inspired by the Leo Tolstoy short story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich".[1] It stars Takashi Shimura as Kanji Watanabe.
Thank you, Masao Yoshida, for making the Fukushima disaster less bad then it could have been, despite personal career risk. I hope you are on to better things.
Another person who prevented nuclear fallout of a possible WWIII:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
"Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (...) (30 January 1926 -- 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Navy officer. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo and thereby prevented a possible nuclear war.[1] Thomas Blanton (then director of the National Security Archive) said in 2002 that "a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world".[1]"
How close we often skate to the edge without realizing it...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
What TFS doesn't mention was that he died of esophageal cancer. And he got it after nine months of being at the power plant after the accident.
That would probably be because it isn't true.
He started smoking in his twenties, about thirty years ago.
Had he actually contracted cancer at the power plant due to radiation, he would still be alive today, and in fact still be alive well into his 80s.
So the very fact he is dead today shows how wrong you are.
Fine but I am getting the fuck out of here and it is on you.
"Daichii"? Really?
Maybe his cancer was caused by virii.
How is this news? Unless the radiation from the accident means we have to bury him at Yucca Mt. in a huge lead coffin. Then it's just a guy who died in Japan.
Keep walking, nothing to see here.