Unsafe at Any Dose (NYT)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01caldicott.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto

By HELEN CALDICOTT
Published: April 30, 2011

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.

Many advocates of nuclear power would deny this. During the 25th anniversary last week of the Chernobyl disaster, some commentators asserted that few people died in the aftermath, and that there have been relatively few genetic abnormalities in survivors’ offspring. It’s an easy leap from there to arguments about the safety of nuclear energy compared to alternatives like coal, and optimistic predictions about the health of the people living near Fukushima.

But this is dangerously ill informed and short-sighted; if anyone knows better, it’s doctors like me. There’s great debate about the number of fatalities following Chernobyl; the International Atomic Energy Agency has predicted that there will be only about 4,000 deaths from cancer, but a 2009 report published by the New York Academy of Sciences says that almost one million people have already perished from cancer and other diseases. The high doses of radiation caused so many miscarriages that we will never know the number of genetically damaged fetuses that did not come to term. (And both Belarus and Ukraine have group homes full of deformed children.) MORE AT LINK

Is that in that cluster of cancer and other diseases, you can't single out any one case or person and definitively say, "This was caused by Chernobyl." So, in a brilliant strategy pioneered by the lead and tobacco industries, nobody can hold the good people at TEPCO responsible for any individual death, so they get to keep going and going. You and your family may not. Bummer for you.

no one is held responsible. The sick have to fight for their rights but mostly fade away. The fate of many thousands of "Liquidators" from Chernobyl is not known.

She makes the point that it is not only cancers which result from radiation, but also genetic mutations causing 2,600 different kinds of diseases, such as cystic fibrosis.

(More from link)
"As we know from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it takes years to get cancer. Leukemia takes only 5 to 10 years to emerge, but solid cancers take 15 to 60. Furthermore, most radiation-induced mutations are recessive; it can take many generations for two recessive genes to combine to form a child with a particular disease, like my specialty, cystic fibrosis. We can’t possibly imagine how many cancers and other diseases will be caused in the far future by the radioactive isotopes emitted by Chernobyl and Fukushima.

"Doctors understand these dangers. We work hard to try to save the life of a child dying of leukemia. We work hard to try to save the life of a woman dying of metastatic breast cancer. And yet the medical dictum says that for incurable diseases, the only recourse is prevention. There’s no group better prepared than doctors to stand up to the physicists of the nuclear industry.

"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."

.. it's hard to get the message through to those who revere science over health and culture.

The Northern cultures of Scandinavia have been extremely damaged by the radiation of Chernobyl and now
the 1,000 year old culture of the Fukashima area will never be the same, it's know for the Samurai culture.

Miso soup
Spirulina, chlorella and the algaes (kelp, etc.)
Brassica vegetables and high beta carotene vegetables
Beans and lentils
Potassium, calcium and mineral rich foods
High nucleotide content foods to assist in cellular repair ncluding spirulina, chlorella, algae, yeast, sardines, liver, anchovies and mackerel
Cod liver oil and olive oil
Avoid sugars and sweets and wheat
A good multivitamin/multimineral supplement

http://indiglit.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/how-to-neutralize-the-harmful-effects-of-radiation-or-radioactive-exposure/

I think that we can avoid eating questionable food by buying things from South and Central America - bananas, pineapples, blueberries, coffee. Also, it's often possible to get hot house grown lettuce, herbs, tomatoes locally.

I'm into avoidance, especially after reading how a little bit can be damaging.

slowed down their attacks on anti-nuke posts and posters considerably.

Maybe DU is a microcosm, and a lot more people are getting the point that nuclear energy really is a bad idea.

Hopefully, we can now move forward with safe alternative energy systems and leave nuclear energy behind forever.

apparently. I'm tired of arguing with them. Their time is over and wind is viable. We still have to work on Obama and Dr. Chu however..

... and the NYT won't let me read anything else till May. I used up my last two stories on "inside the Correspondents Dinner" types of stuff.

Especially by the deniers