The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in Perspective by Dr. Helen Caldicott

What Lo has posted on this could NOT be better.  All that is missing to give you "the full flavor" is the related material about coverups, lies, distortions and how to deconstruct the people who do not want you to know the truth. - Virginia

Posted on May 14, 2011 by dandelionsalad

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/
by Dr. Helen Caldicott
Global Research
May 12, 2011

Image by SandoCap via Flickr

Dr. Helen Caldicott’s March 18th press conference in 
Montreal, sponsored by the Centre for Research 
non Globalization (CRG) 

Our thanks to Felton Davis for the transcription from the GRTV Video recording and for the annotations.

This press conference organized by Global Research was held in the context of Helen Caldicott’s public lecture to Montreal on March 18, 2011.

First I want to present this report, produced by the New York Academy of Sciences, a report on Chernobyl. It can be downloaded.(2) They translated 5,000 articles from Russian for the first time into English. It seems that nearly a million people have already died as a result of Chernobyl, despite what the WH0(3) says and the IAEA.(4) This is one of the most monstrous cover-ups in the history of medicine. Because everybody should know about this.

Then we extrapolate through to Japan. Japan is by orders of magnitude many times worse than Chernobyl. Never in my life did I think that six nuclear reactors would be at risk.(5) I knew that three GE engineers who helped design these Mark I GE reactors, resigned because they knew they were dangerous.(6)

So Japan built them on an earthquake fault. The reactors partially withstood the earthquake, but the external electricity supply was cut off, and the electricity supplies the cooling water, a million gallons a minute, to each of those six reactors. Without the cooling water, the water [level] falls, and the rods are so hot they melt, like at Three Mile Island, and at Chernobyl.

So the emergency diesel generators, which are as large as a house, got destroyed by the tsunami, so there is no way to keep the water circulating in the reactors.(7) Also, on the roofs of the reactors, not within the containment vessel, are cooling pools. Every year they remove about thirty tons of the most radioactive rods that you can possibly imagine.(8) Each one is twelve feet long and half an inch thick. It gives out so much radiation, that if you stand next to it for a couple of minutes, you’ll die. Not drop dead. Remember Litvinenko, the Russian, who got poisoned by polonium?(9) You’ll die like that, with your hair falling out, and bleeding with massive infection, like AIDS patients die.

And [the spent fuel rods] are thermally hot, so they have to be put in a big pool, and continually cooled. The pool has really no roof.

There have been three hydrogen explosions, blowing off the roof of the building, not the containment vessel of the core, but the roof. And exposing the cooling pool.(10) Two of the cooling pools are dry. They have no water in them. Meaning that the nuclear fuel rods are covered with a material called zirconium. When zirconium is exposed to air, it burns, it ignites. Two of the cooling pools at this moment are burning. In the cooling pools are many times, like 10 to 20 times more radiation than in each reactor core. In each reactor core is as much long-lived radiation as would be produced by a thousand Hiroshima-sized bombs. We are dealing with diabolical energy.

E=MC2 is the energy that blows up nuclear bombs. Einstein said nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water.(11) Because that is all nuclear power is used for, to boil water through the massive heat, turn it into steam, and turn a turbine which generates electricity.

Now when you fission uranium, 200 new elements are formed, all of which are much more poisonous to the body than the original uranium.(12) Although uranium is pretty poisonous. America used it in Fallujah, and in Baghdad. And in Fallujah, 80 per cent of the babies being born are grossly deformed.(13) They’re being born without brains, single eyes, no arms… The doctors have told the women to stop having babies. The incidence of childhood cancer has gone up about twelve times. This is genocide — it’s a nuclear war being conducted in Iraq. The uranium that they’re using lasts more than 4.5 billion years. So we’re contaminating the cradle of civilization. “The coalition of the willing!”

In the nuclear power plants, however, there is a huge amount of radiation: two hundred elements. Some last seconds, some last millions of years. Radioactive iodine lasts six weeks, causes thyroid cancer. That’s why people are saying, “Better take potassium iodide,” because that blocks the thyroid uptake of radioactive iodine, which later can cause thyroid cancer.

In Chernobyl, over 20,000 people have developed thyroid cancer.(14) They have their thyroids out, and they will die unless they take thyroid replacement every day, like a diabetic has to take insulin.

Strontium-90 will get out, it lasts for 600 years. It goes to the bone, where it causes bone cancer or leukemia. Cesium lasts for 600 years — it’s all over Europe. 40 per cent of Europe is still radioactive. Turkish food is extremely radioactive. Do not buy Turkish dried apricots, or Turkish hazelnuts. The Turks were so cross with the Russians, they sent all their radioactive tea over to Russia after Chernobyl.(15)

Forty per cent of Europe is still radioactive. Farms in Britain, their lambs are so full of cesium they can’t sell them. Don’t eat European food.

But that’s nothing compared to what’s happening now. One of the most deadly [nuclear byproducts] is plutonium, named after Pluto, god of the underworld. One millionth of a gram, if you inhale it, would give you cancer. Hypothetically, one pound of plutonium if evenly distributed could give everyone on earth cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilograms of plutonium in it. You only need 2.5 kilograms to make an atomic bomb, because plutonium is what they make bombs with.

So any country that has a reactor, works with your uranium. You [Canada] are the biggest exporter of uranium in the world.(16) Canada sells two things: it sells wheat for life, and uranium for death. Plutonium is going to get out and spread all over the northern hemisphere. It’s already heading towards North America now.

Radioactive iodine, plus strontium, plus cesium, plus tritium, and I could go on and* on and on. When it rains, downs come fallout, and it concentrates in food. If it gets into the sea, the algae concentrate it, hundreds of times. And the crustaceans concentrate it, hundreds of times. And then the little fish, then the big fish, then us.(17)

Because we stand on the apex of the food chain. You can’t taste these radioactive food elements, you can’t see them, you can’t smell them. They’re silent. When you get them inside your body, you don’t suddenly drop dead of cancer, it takes five to sixty years to get your cancer, and when you feel a lump in your breast, it doesn’t say, “I was made by some strontium-90 in a piece of fish you ate twenty years ago.”

All radiation is damaging. It’s cumulative — each dose you get adds to your risk of getting cancer. The americium is more dangerous than plutonium — I could go on and on. Depends if it rains if you’re going to get it or not. If it rains and the radiation comes down, don’t grow food, and don’t eat the food, and I mean don’t eat it for 600 years.

Radioactive waste from nuclear power is going to be buried, I hear, next to Lake Ontario. It’s going to leak, last for millions of years, it’s going to get into the water, and into the food chains. Radioactive waste will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia, and genetic disease for the rest of time. This is the greatest public health hazard the world has ever witnessed, apart from the threat every day of nuclear war.

Einstein said “the splitting of the atom changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking” — very profound — “and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” We are arrogant, we have a lot of hubris, and I think the reptilian mid-brain of some men’s brains is pathological.(18)

We are in a situation where we have harnessed the energy of the sun. It is totally out of control. And there’s simply nothing we can do about it.

NOTES
[These notes are not part of Dr. Caldicott's presentation. They were added by Felton Davis]
1) Helen Caldicott is the founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and is the author of “The New Nuclear Danger” (The New Press, 2002).
2) “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe For the People and the Environment,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
http://www.nyas.org/publications/annals/Detail.aspx?cid=f3f3bd16-51ba-4d7b-a086-753f44b3bfc1
3) “Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident,” World Health Organization. http://www-ns.iaea.org/appraisals/chernobyl.asp
4) “Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident,” International Atomic Energy Agency. http://www-ns.iaea.org/appraisals/chernobyl.asp
5) For a general description of the complex, including cross-sections of the six reactors, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents
6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Three
Excerpt: On February 2, 1976, Gregory C. Minor, Richard B. Hubbard, and Dale G. Bridenbaugh “blew the whistle” on safety problems at nuclear power plants. The three engineers gained the attention of journalists and their disclosures about the threats of nuclear power had a significant impact. They timed their statements to coincide with their resignations from responsible positions in General Electric’s nuclear energy division, and later established themselves as consultants on the nuclear power industry for state governments, federal agencies, and overseas governments.
7) “Japanese Scramble to Avert Meltdowns as Nuclear Crisis Deepens After Quake,” New York Times, March 12, 2011, By HIROKO TABUCHI and MATTHEW L. WALD
8) The design manual for General Electric boiling water reactors was posted as a PDF document on the “What Really Happened” website, and can be downloaded at: http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/ge-manual-bwr6-reactor-design-and-operation
9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
Excerpt: Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB and KGB, who escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom. He wrote two books, “Blowing up Russia: Terror from within” and “Lubyanka Criminal Group”, where he accused the Russian secret services of staging Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts to bring Vladimir Putin to power. On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. He died three weeks later, becoming the first confirmed victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. According to doctors, “Litvinenko’s murder represents an ominous landmark: the beginning of an era of nuclear terrorism”. Litvinenko’s allegations about the misdeeds of the FSB and his public deathbed accusations that Russian president Vladimir Putin were behind his unusual malady resulted in worldwide media coverage.
10) “Greater Danger Lies in Spent Fuel Than in Reactors,” Keith Bradsher & Hiroko Tabuchi, NY Times, March 17, 2011
www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18spent.html
“Radiation Spread Seen; Frantic Repairs Go On,” David Sanger & William J. Broad, NY Times, March 17, 2011
www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18intel.html
“U.S. Sees Array of New Threats at Japan’s Nuclear Plant,” James Glanz & William J. Broad, NY Times, April 6, 2011
www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/world/asia/06nuclear.html
“Focus on preventing explosions at Japan nuke plant,” Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press, April 6, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110406/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake_654
11) http://wisequotes.org/nuclear-power-is-one-hell-of-a-way-to-boil-water
12) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_product
13) “US Accused of Using Poison Gases in Fallujah,” Democracy Now, Monday, November 29th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/29/u_s_accused_of_using_poison
“Evidence of Extensive War Crimes, Unprecedented in the annals of legal history,” Niloufer Bhagwat, Global Research, December 11, 2004
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BHA412A.html
“Depleted Uranium Weapons: Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan Are No Joke,” by Dave Lindorff, Global Research, October 20, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15744
“The consequences of a US war crime: Cancer rate in Fallujah worse than Hiroshima,” Tom Eley, World Socialist, July 23, 2010
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/fall-j23.shtml
“Research Links Rise in Fallujah Birth Defects and Cancers to US Assault,” Martin Chulov, The Guardian/UK, December 31, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/31
14) “Chernobyl’s Continuing Thyroid Impact,”By Mary Shomon, December 15, 2003
http://thyroid.about.com/cs/nuclearexposure/a/chernob.htm
15) “Authorities lied on impact of Chernobyl in Turkey,”Greenpeace Report
http://www.blackraiser.com/cherno.htm
16) WISE Report on the Worldwide Uranium Market http://www.wise-uranium.org/umkt.html
“Why is Uranium Important to Canada?” Canadian Nuclear Association,
http://www.cna.ca/english/pdf/nuclearfacts/04-NuclearFacts-uranium.pdf
17) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation
18) http://www.crystalinks.com/reptilianbrain.html
Copyright © Helen Caldicott, Global Research, 2011

see
Press conference on Fukushima with Helen Caldicott
Helen Caldicott vs George Monbiot: “Prescription for Survival”
Obama’s March Madness by Ralph Nader + Nader Questions Government Honesty When It Comes To Japan’s Nuclear Crisis
The Nuclear Nightmare Continues – Helen Caldicott interviewed by Alex Smith
Nuclear Nightmare by Ralph Nader + Caldicott: UN lies about nuclear threat
Japan 3.11.11 Earthquake Tsunami Disaster
http://vodpod.com/dandelionsalad/tag/japan+3.11.11+earthquake+tsunami+disaster
http://vodpod.com/dandelionsalad/tag/chernobyl

U.S. health-care system unprepared for major nuclear emergency, officials say

By Sheri Fink, Thursday, April 7, 12:40 PM

U.S. officials say the nation’s health system is ill-prepared to cope with a catastrophic release of radiation, despite years of focus on the possibility of a terrorist “dirty bomb” or an improvised nuclear device attack.

A blunt assessment circulating among American officials says, “Current capabilities can only handle a few radiation injuries at any one time.” That assessment, prepared by the Department of Homeland Security in 2010 and stamped “for official use only,’’ says “there is no strategy for notifying the public in real time of recommendations on shelter or evacuation priorities.”

The Homeland Security report, plus several other reports and interviews with almost two dozen experts inside and outside the government, reveal other gaps that might increase the risks posed by a nuclear accident or terrorist attack.

One example: The U.S. Strategic National Stockpile stopped purchasing the best-known agent to counter radioactive iodine-induced thyroid cancer in young people, potassium iodide, about two years ago and designated the limited remaining quantities “excess,” according to information provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ProPublica. Despite this, the CDC Web site still lists potassium iodide as one of only four drugs in the stockpile specifically for use in radiation emergencies.

The drug is most effective when administered before or within hours of exposure. The decision to stop stockpiling it was made, in part, because distribution could take too long in a fast-moving emergency, one official involved in the discussions said. The interagency group that governs the stockpile decided that “other preparedness measures were more suitable to mitigate potential exposures to radioactive iodine that would result from a release at a nuclear reactor,” a CDC spokesperson said in an e-mail to ProPublica.

Japan’s ongoing nuclear crisis might prompt officials to revisit that conclusion. With radiation levels higher than expected outside the evacuation zones in some areas, the Japanese government recently asked the United States for potassium iodide. The federal government agreed to send some of its dwindling stockpile of the liquid version used in children or adults, which is due to reach its expiration date within about a year. The government is “finalizing the paperwork,” according to an official with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Another example: Although hospitals near nuclear power plants often drill for radiological emergencies, few hospitals outside of that area practice such drills. Most medical personnel are untrained and unfamiliar with the level of risk posed by radiation, whether it is released from a nuclear power plant, a “dirty” bomb laced with radioactive material or the explosion of an improvised nuclear weapon.

Many states don’t have a basic radiation emergency plan for communicating with the public or responding to the health risks. Even something as fundamental as the importance of sheltering inside sturdy buildings to avoid exposure to radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion — which experts say could determine whether huge numbers of people live or die — hasn’t been communicated to the public.

Recently the White House and other federal officials concerned about deficiencies in public readiness met with experts to explore what might be done to make nuclear events more survivable. “The bottom line is that the citizenry are not prepared at all,” said Michael McDonald, president of Global Health Initiatives, who participated in White House and congressional briefings.

The Department of Homeland Security report acknowledges that officials are poorly prepared to communicate with the public and that the current organization of medical care “does not support the anticipated magnitude of the requirements” following an attack with an improvised nuclear device. It says the United States has “limited” treatment options for radiation exposure and notes that staff and materials aren’t in place to carry out mass evacuations after a large-scale release of radiation. “The requirements to monitor, track, and decontaminate large numbers of people have not been identified,” the report said.

Underlying the preparedness problems is the need for additional research. It isn’t known, for example, how a nuclear blast and electromagnetic pulse would affect modern communications infrastructure, or to what extent modern buildings can protect people from nuclear blast, heat and radiation effects.

A report prepared last year by the Council on State and Territorial Epidemiologists was equally pessimistic about U.S. readiness. Based on surveys of public health officials in 38 states, it concluded that “in almost every measure of public health capacity and capability, the public health system remains poorly prepared to adequately respond to a major radiation emergency incident.” Forty-five percent of the states surveyed had no radiation plan at all for areas outside federally mandated nuclear power plant emergency zones. Almost 85 percent of the officials said their states couldn’t properly respond to a radiation incident because of inadequate planning, resources, staffing and partnerships.

More troubling was the fact that the situation hadn’t improved since a similar survey was taken in 2003. “Most of those comparisons appear to indicate either the same poor level of preparedness and planning or a decline in capacity,” the report said.

The nation’s investment in emergency preparedness seems likely to decrease rather than increase, experts say, because of massive federal and state deficits.

President Obama’s proposed budget would cut funding for a federal hospital preparedness program by about 10 percent. The release of proposed federal regulations that would require hospitals to meet emergency management standards has been delayed.

“If the public isn’t demanding that we be better prepared, the politicians won’t put the money in for us to be better prepared and the regulators” won’t require it, said Arthur Cooper, a professor of surgery at Columbia University and director of trauma and pediatric surgical services at Harlem Hospital Center. “It all begins with the public knowing this is a problem that’s got to be solved and it’s worth spending some money and effort to try to be prepared in a real way.”

Hospital preparedness

In the days after nuclear fuel at Japan’s Fukushima power plant began to overheat, the greatest threat to one hospital within 50 miles of the plant wasn’t radiation, but fear. Many staff members had fled, and government emergency workers hadn’t delivered food and medicine needed for the 120 patients. Masaru Nakayama, director of Kashima Hospital in Iwaki, Japan, said it took time to convince people that the area around the hospital was in fact safe.

Yet in national surveys, U.S. hospital workers have expressed fears similar to those of Nakayama’s staff, saying they would be less willing to report to work for a radiological or nuclear incident than for other types of emergencies. They also said they feel unprepared for the work they would be required to do, even though the risk of radiation exposure from treating contaminated patients outside the danger zone is considered negligible when workers are properly trained and wear protective equipment.

“The level of education for disasters across the board in American hospitals is really pretty terrible,” Cooper said. “People don’t have a good sense of how to focus on any disaster, let alone a radiation disaster. Radiation adds a level of complexity that most folks aren’t prepared to face.”

Cooper said hospital drills have improved in recent years, “but they occur far too seldom and they end far too quickly and they’re far too superficial to really prepare a hospital for a major disaster.”

“Shutting down part of the hospital’s work for a period of time to conduct a full-scale exercise, that’s daunting for a hospital,” he said. “Trying to ‘do the right thing’ and provide employees with in-depth disaster education across the board is not something they’re going to do unless it becomes a major regulatory mandate.”

William Fales, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Michigan State University and a regional medical director in southwest Michigan, said he has yet to see a hospital outside of a nuclear reactor’s emergency planning zone conduct a drill for a nuclear or radiological emergency.

In the courses Fales teaches for medical professionals, he has seen firsthand what little baseline knowledge many of them have. In one exercise they are treating mock bombing victims when they are suddenly told that the explosive was a dirty bomb packed with radioactive material. Typically they drop everything, run the patients outside and decontaminate them. But that reflects a lack of knowledge of a basic principle — that medical workers should treat a patient’s life-threatening traumatic injuries from a bomb blast before worrying about radiological decontamination.

“It’s amazing,” Fales said. “It’s a knee-jerk reaction because they hear the word ‘radiation.’ ... Imagine what would happen if, God forbid, we had a real terrorist bombing and a rumor started on TV that it was a dirty bomb. How many potentially salvageable trauma patients would be compromised by that reaction?”

Health workers made a different mistake at a recent radiation emergency conference sponsored by the CDC. When a workshop leader in a white decontamination suit asked nurses to practice cutting the garments off a mock contamination patient, one volunteer slid the scissors quickly from ankle to torso. That could send radioactive debris flying, the leader warned. The more careful approach took about two minutes—a long time if hundreds are awaiting assistance.

Knowing when a patient has been contaminated versus exposed to radiation is an important distinction that is acquired with simple training. “If you put a chicken in a microwave and cook it, it comes out a rubbery chicken, but it doesn’t come out contaminated,” Fales said. “It’s been irradiated, but it’s not radioactive.”

Fales said few participants in his training courses think about doing a quick survey with a radiation detector to verify the existence of contamination. At many hospitals, most workers don’t even know where the Geiger-Müller counter is kept.

Facing a worst-case emergency

The American Medical Association devoted the March issue of its journal, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, to the No. 1 scenario on the federal government’s list of 15 planning scenarios for emergency preparedness: a nuclear explosion equivalent to the force of a 10-kiloton trinitrotoluene (TNT) blast on a major population center.

Using Washington as an example, one study estimated that 180,000 hospital beds could be needed after such a detonation and that 61,000 of those patients could require intensive care. But Washington typically has only about 1,000 vacant beds — and there are only about 9,400 vacant intensive care unit beds in the entire United States.

After a nuclear blast, hospitals probably would fill with trauma patients. Later, others would arrive with acute radiation syndrome, which can take days to manifest and affects multiple organ systems. Without supportive care, about 50 percent of people exposed to 3.5 Gray, a measure of radiation dose, would die. Proper care would almost double the exposure level at which 50 percent would survive, but only a small fraction of American medical professionals have training and expertise in treating radiation injury.

Given that not enough beds would be available, hospitals and first responders would have to choose which patients to save. Authors of the journal articles recommend basing those decisions in part on how much radiation exposure patients have received and treating only those with a reasonable chance of surviving. “It’s very hard to turn someone away who needs medical care who comes to your hospital,” Cooper said. “I don’t think any American hospital is prepared to do this kind of triage.”

The staff would be hampered by a shortage of the laboratory equipment needed to help evaluate so many patients, a lack of approved devices to rapidly quantify the level of radiation exposure and a lack of approved medicines to counter the cellular effects of radiation. About $200 million in federal funding has been invested since 2008 to develop diagnostics and treatments, but HHS officials say most are still years away from approval.

Even getting the protective measures that do exist, including potassium iodide, where they are needed is a challenge. Michigan has developed a round-the-clock dispatch system with ready-to-go medical packs designed for a range of emergencies and stored at 16 sites around the state. Four of those sites stock radiological countermeasures.

“We think we’re one of the few states that’s really designed a statewide system that can deliver these countermeasures,” Fales said. In the case of one particularly expensive drug provided by the federal government, “my sense is in a lot of states it’s sitting in a warehouse in the state capital, hopefully secure and warm. On a Saturday night if something goes boom in a location on another side of the state, how long will it take to get it to where it’s needed?”

Improving future response

One of the top priorities in preparing for a major nuclear disaster is readying ordinary citizens for the role they will have to play. “The common misperception is any nuclear blast means everybody’s vaporized,” McDonald said. “That’s just wrong.”

But experts say the government has done little to educate the public about its responsibilities.

When police and fire departments have run nuclear exercises in conjunction with federal authorities, “they haven’t included the public,” McDonald said. “They’ve basically treated it like a classified event.”

The motivation might be to safeguard the public from fear and panic, McDonald said, but “it does almost no good for the federal government to be talking about this with the top officers and not have the public understand what to do.” Although government Web sites including ready.gov and cdc.gov contain useful preparedness information, there is no single Web site the public can turn to for up-to-the-minute public health information in disasters.

One of the crucial things the public must know is when to evacuate and when to shelter underground or in a heavily constructed building. Yet making decisions on sheltering and evacuation and communicating those decisions to the public is precisely what the Homeland Security report found government agencies aren’t inadequately prepared to do.

Sheltering in place could make a major difference in how many people live or die, because the danger of fallout decreases rapidly as radioactive elements decay and debris is dispersed. The dose rate drops 90 percent every seven hours.

“You can’t wait until the event to put out this information,” said James James, director of the American Medical Association’s Center for Public Health Preparedness and Disaster Response.

Many experts predict that without more education, people probably would flee as many are doing in Tokyo and as many Americans did after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979. An estimated 144,000 people — many times more than the number advised to do so — needlessly left the area because of fear and inadequate information.

“Such an exodus would extend panic and devastation far beyond the locus of the event, draining food, water, medicines, gasoline and other resources from surrounding communities and potentially causing gridlock that would severely compromise many elements of the official disaster response,” according to a modeling study published by University of Chicago researcher Michael Meit and colleagues in the same issue of the journal.

Not knowing what to do would be especially harmful to those who are least likely to be able get out of harm’s way: children and the elderly, people with disabilities, and patients with chronic illnesses requiring regular treatment. The federal government enacted a number of reforms after elderly and disabled people died after Hurricane Katrina. But those reforms aren’t necessarily reflected in critical front-line emergency plans. A federal court in California recently found the city of Los Angeles violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws for failing to consider the needs of the disabled in its emergency response plans.

Eric Toner, a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Biosecurity in Baltimore, said the key to protecting as many people as possible during an emergency is offering them frank communication about what is known and unknown.

“Nature abhors a vacuum. If credible officials aren’t out there constantly, that void will get filled with people who don’t know what they’re talking about or have different agendas.”

Still, there is no guarantee the public will act on information once they get it. Several years ago Michigan, like many other states, sent vouchers for potassium iodide to people living within a 10-mile radius of a nuclear power plant. The goal was to give them the medication free of charge from local pharmacies, so they wouldn’t risk their lives searching for the drug in an emergency, when they should be sheltering in place or evacuating.

But only about 6 percent of the residents picked up their allotted supply, said Fales, the Michigan regional medical director, a rate that’s similar to some other states. “So much for pre-event planning,” he concluded.

The experts are dead wrong on potassium iodide for radiation

The experts are dead wrong on potassium iodide for radiation


With the tragedy in Japan raising fears of radioactive contamination, there’s been a massive run on potassium iodide. The experts are telling everyone that this combination will protect them from nuclear fallout. They’re wrong!
Potassium iodide is a good product. The potassium is supposed to protect you from the radioactive cesium. And the iodide protects against radioactive iodine. However, there are a couple problems with it.


First, there’s not nearly enough potassium in this combination to protect you against the radioactive cesium. In the body, cesium acts like potassium. So having enough potassium in your body is supposed to prevent your body from absorbing the cesium. But most people are so deficient in potassium, that the small amount in potassium iodide won’t protect you. You need to take a separate potassium supplement to protect yourself.



Second, you have to protect a lot more than your thyroid from radiation. Yes, the iodide in potassium iodide will protect your thyroid. However, it won’t be as efficient at protecting your breasts and other organs. Here’s why:

Iodide is a form of iodine. Iodine is essential for your thyroid and several other tissues and organs. Your thyroid needs it most. So, your body has a heavy concentration there. If you’re deficient, as most Americans are, your thyroid will pick up any iodine your body ingests. This includes radioactive iodine, which can poison your thyroid.

On the other hand, if your thyroid is sufficient (full) of iodine, it will ignore any other iodine passing by — including radioactive iodine. Iodide and iodine serve slightly different roles in your body. They each protect different organs in different ways. So in the event of nuclear fallout, it’s vital you protect your body with both nutrients. Potassium iodide doesn’t provide iodine.

There are two products that provide ample amounts of both iodide and iodine. I’ve written a lot about Iodoral in past issues (available on my website). I think most people should take one capsule daily, just for general nutritional purposes. I do. After a few weeks, your thyroid should be sufficient in iodine and iodide, making your organs more resistant to radioactive iodine.

A good alternative is Lugol’s solution, which is the liquid form of Iodoral. Two drops of this iodine/iodide product is equivalent to one Iodoral. If you know there’s a significant risk of radioactive iodine exposure, you can double or triple the dose in the short run. Regardless of whether radiation from Japan’s nuclear facilities comes this way or not, these are great products to take on a regular basis. Both are readily available on the Internet.

Finally, potassium iodide can’t protect you against the radioactive heavy metals. Normally, chelation is the ideal way to deal with heavy metals. But there’s a problem. Uranium atoms may be too large for conventional chelators to grab. So I recommend a totally natural supplement from decaying organic matter instead. It’s my favorite for super heavy metals. This includes uranium, which is the heaviest naturally occurring metal. The product is Metal Magnet, which contains humic/fulvic acids. These are complex large organic molecules containing lots of carboxylic acid chemical groups. These attract metals like a giant catcher’s mitt. All metals will fit in. And it is especially good at capturing toxic metals (see Second Opinion from June and July 2006). You can find Metal Magnet on the Internet.

Strontium 90, a radioactive mineral, is a more difficult issue. It is chemically similar to calcium and can wind up in your bones. Since EDTA can chelate calcium, it would make sense that it would also grab strontium. And studies suggest it does. For strontium 90, consider both oral and rectal EDTA, which may offer limited protection. If you are exposed to radiation, I’d go directly to intravenous EDTA under the care of a trained chelation doctor.

I also recommend taking Chlorella regularly (take 15 tablets daily). It is an excellent metal detoxifier and all around superfood.

When Chernobyl melted down, researchers found that brown seaweed greatly reduced radiation poisoning. There are two products that offer brown seaweed, also known as alginate. The first is Modifilan (available on the Internet). The other is Pectasol Chelation Complex. Both products are rich in alginates.

Another fantastic product I’ve used for years is Advanced Detox Formula. I use this formulation to help cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy. The formula greatly reduces the amount of radiation your body absorbs. It also protects you with its sulfur-bearing detoxification nutrients, which also help regenerate glutathione. Be sure to take it along with supplemental vitamin C (2-8 grams daily) and vitamin E (1,200 IU daily) when exposed to radiation. My favorite vitamin E is Unique E, Carlson’s E, and Delta-Fraction Tocotrienols (take one softgel, twice a day). You can order King Chlorella, Pectasol Chelation Complex, Advanced Detox Formula, and Delta-Fraction Tocotrienols from Advanced Bionutritionals.
Finally, there are certain foods that can protect you. Start by eating as many Living Foods as possible. Remember, plant chemicals protect plants from solar radiation. They can help protect you as well.
For general radiation exposure, whether nuclear, or even medical gamma ray exposure, you might be surprised to know that miso can protect you. I read years ago of a hospital right under ground zero in Japan, which survived the bombing. (Directly under the explosion, it was spared the destruction of the blast, which went out more than down.) The doctor walked out of the hospital, saw the total destruction, walked back in and told everyone to eat miso. Those who did were spared radiation sickness. Many studies have confirmed the protective effects of fermented soy!

With nuclear radiation, potassium iodide can help. But, as you can see, it’s not nearly enough.


Yours for better health and medical freedom,

Robert J. Rowen, MD

Ref: Hiroshima J Med Sci., 2001 Dec;50(4):83-6; Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, volume 18, number 4, 612-616, DOI: 10.1007/BF01055029.



radiation level, jet stream and the US, Potassium, danger and effect of meltdown: Bruce Beach

  1. Stay Cool (Bruce Beach)

--__--__--

Message: 1
From: "Bruce Beach" <language@webpal.org>
To: <arktwo@mail.pairowoodies.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2011 01:19:05 -0400
Subject: [Arktwo] Stay Cool

I will address in this email 4 subjects.

1. The radiation levels in Japan
2. Jet Streams and radiation danger in the US.
3. Potassium Iodide and radiation protection
4. The Danger and effect of Meltdown

---------
1. The radiation levels in Japan

I have a direct watch on the situation in Japan.
Minute to minute reporting on the scene as it happens.

There has been a substantial increase
in the radiation
on some of the disaster sites.

Substantial for the location
but still insignificant
as far as the US is concerned.

Before -
reported levels were in the microsievert level
and now -
they are being reported in the millisievert level.
Millisievert levels are a thousand times higher
than microsievert levels.

Still
10 millisieverts = 1R (only)

Uh-oh.
I have just now lost my feed.
This is the first time today -
that this has happened.

The news was so important -
that the Prime Minister himself
came on to make the announcement -
and now it has been interrupted.

I don't know the significance of this.
Perhaps it will resume
before I finish typing.

Anyway - at one Japanese nuclear location
at one particular spot
readings of 10R (I did the conversion)
were reported.

This would be VERY serious
if you were experiencing that -
but you are here -
and that is there.

In point of fact -
the area surrounding that site
has been evacuated for 20 kilometers -
and for the area from 20 kilometers to 30 kilometers away
the people are being told to stay indoors.

Now further - regarding the significance of 10R.
A healthy adult male
could stay in the presence of that source
for 20 hours -
without experiencing noticeable effect.

Ahhh - my feed is back.

But again -
that is there -
and not here.

In fact if you were there -
you would have to be RIGHT there.

Most likely (almost certainly) if you were a distance
of a quarter mile from the location
that is 10R -
the radiation would then be less than 1R.

The effect of radiation reduces with distance.
Think of it as a light bulb.
If you are right next to a light bulb
you can read by it.
But if it is dark and you move a distance away from it
you soon don't get enough light to read.

If you are right next to a radiation source -
you can be 'burned' by it -
but the further away from it that you move -
the less 'burn' you will get from it.

This is all by analogy.
We don't usually use these exact words
in explaining radiation exposure.

--------
I am still irritated by the nebulous reporting
of the media.

Such as the radiation has doubled!
So what - if it was insignificantly low?

The New York Times
reported that sailors on a ship
that went nearby -
got as much radiation in two days -
as they would normally get in a month.

This means NOTHING!

The background cosmic radiation
that we all get in a month
is insignificant -
and the fact they got that much in two days -
means NOTHING!

In fact -
there are places in the US
where the radiation is more than ten times
NATURALLY higher -
than the sailors experienced.

Yet New York Times went on and on
about the decontamination procedures
that the sailors went through -
and so did the rest of the media.

It makes it out like it is something -
but it is NOTHING!

Likewise - pictures are shown of technicians
in frightening radiation suits
testing small children with radiation probes.

What nonsense!
The technicians don't need any protection -
even if the radiation level in the child's thyroid
(where they measure on the side of the neck)
has been raised by the Iodine 131 isotope.

Scare! Scare! Scare!
Drama! Drama! Drama!

Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!
Wait until you have a nuclear war -
and then you will have SOMETHING!
Try getting KI then.
Hah!

--------------
2. Jet Streams and radiation danger in the US.

Boy, or boy, or boy.
So much I hear about that.
Beautiful graphics.
Interactive sites.
Video and satellite updates.
Just a flood information.

Overwhelming and all irrelevant.
It just isn't going up into the air like that.
This is not a nuclear explosion.

Even the hydrogen explosions
(and that has nothing to do
with the likes of a hydrogen bomb)
are not taking the stuff up that high.

It is all little and local.
Even for the Japanese -
thirty miles out.
Certainly not coming across the Pacific.

Even the amounts that they are dealing with there -
are still peace time standards -
and all the thing we have been talking about
for years -
are wartime standards -
which is a thousand -
multi-thousand -
more radiation.

But -
the hysteria continues.
It is worse than
"The Martians are coming -
the Martians are coming."
or
"The Boogie Man is about to get you."

Suck it up folks.
This is not a threat.

----------
3. Potassium Iodide (KI) and radiation protection

Okay - maybe some good will come out of  this -
and people will stock up on KI.

But you aren't going to need it now -
for this.

And there is a great amount of misunderstanding
about what KI does for you.

It simply protects you from one isotope.
Iodine 131.

That gets into particles in water and milk -
and if you consume it -
it can get into your thyroid.

After (during) a nuclear event -
THAT YOU ARE EXPOSED TO -
(not here - for what is going on
in some parts of Japan)
you need to take one dose of KI per day -
during when it is going on
and for thirty days after it ends -
and after that -
the radiation in the fallout is non-effective
because of the half-life of Iodine-131.

How KI works
is that it saturates your thyroid -
which will therefore not take up anymore iodine -
of any isotope -
and so anymore iodine in your system
is just expelled in the urine.

BUT -
there are lots of other kinds of radiation out there -
and in a nuclear war -
(or other catastrophic event)
there are only three defenses.

a. Shielding
(get in a shelter that will stop it).
If it is serious -
indoors and duct tape is not going to do it.

b. Distance
(move away from it)
In Japan they are recommending 30 miles.
In reality a mile is fine -
so long as it is in the right direction -
which means upwind -
rather than downwind -
but who knows which way the wind is going to blow.

And then if you are getting it from fallout -
the wind can blow it to you
most anywhere.

But - in this case -
not clear across the Pacific.
There is too little -
and it is too far.

c. Time
Radiation decays over time.
Some over a long time -
but most very quickly.

It takes time for radiation to be blown
from Japan to the US.
During that time -
it will become practically nothing.

---------
4. The Danger and effect of Meltdown

Yep - they have a problem.
There.
Not here.

China Syndrome -
Chernobyl -
Plutonium Disaster -

I have heard it all.

Number one - the generators are not going to blow up
like a nuclear weapon.

Number two -
while yes - the Japanese have a very serious problem -
it isn't coming here -
in great quantity -
no matter how badly it melts down.

Number three -
as I explained in the previous newsletter
the amount of Plutonium that this event will increase
the 'Plutonium burden' we all - already carry
is not that great.

Everyone breathing on this planet -
has absorbed some minute amounts of Plutonium already -
from the in atmospheric testing
that the US has done.

More and more of the stuff is being generated
all the time -
especially by the nuclear power plants -
and yes, that is a very immoral issue -
regarding the waste -
that we are imposing on future generations -
but the Japan thing -
is not changing the equation for you.

------------
So -
bottom line -
stay cool.

There are serious problems elsewhere -
that are going to affect you
much more than the Japan nuclear disasters.

The Tsunami itself created Japan's biggest problem.
On top of that -
the loss of nuclear power
has created a SERIOUS energy problem for them -
which they will try to rectify by buying oil -
and THAT is going to affect YOU.

The whole scene has diverted people's attention
from SERIOUS things that are happening -
in the world of
economics
international relations
monetary markets.

At the moment my minute to minute news in Japan
is showing their stock market off 12%.
That will also probably have an effect on Europe -
before the Markets open in the US tomorrow.

A great amount of military activity is going on -
as the US
the United Arab Emirates
and Saudi Arabia
get ready to intervene in Bahrain -
which certainly affects Iran -
and most people are not even aware of it.

Heads up!
Look at Oil---> Economy
Middle East---> Revolutions

More Bigger Better(???) earthquakes are coming.

Hold on to you hats.
This ride has just begun.

Don't sweat the small stuff.
Meltdowns, Jet Streams, KI, -
Hah!

You aint seen nothin yet.

But -
stay cool.
Get collected.
Enjoy the trip.
Armageddon - Earth Changes -
New World Cycles -
are something that do not happen -
even every millennium.

You are very privileged to get to see one.

Perhaps you feel like the guest of honor -
at the old western necktie party who said -
"If it weren't for the honor of it -
I would rather be somewhere else."

But -
you are on this planet -
and there is no getting off it - (for you)
alive.

Stay cool.
There are hotter places to go.


Peace and love,
Bruce
DawnSayer@webpal.org