Global Research - Study: 14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout

Global Research, December 20, 2011

PRNewswire-USNewswire

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28299

Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services.   This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.

International Journal of Health Services, Volume 42, Number 1, Pages 47–64, 2012 (based at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health)  [Global Research Editor's Note: IJHS is a prestigious peer reviewed journal.] 

Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.  The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one.  The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.

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Dr. Joseph J. Mangano and Dr. Janette Sherman - An Unexpected Mortality Increase in the US Follows Arrival of Radioactive Plume from Fukushima, Is there a Correlation?

By Dr. Joseph J. Mangano and Dr. Janette Sherman

Global Research, December 20, 2011

International Journal of Health Services, Volume 42, Number 1,

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28301

The multiple nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima plants beginning on March 11, 2011, are releasing large amounts of airborne radioactivity that has spread throughout Japan and to other nations; thus, studies of contamination and health hazards are merited. In the United States, Fukushima fallout arrived just six days after the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdowns. Some samples of radioactivity in precipitation, air, water, and milk, taken by the U.S. government, showed levels hundreds of times above normal; however, the small number of samples prohibits any credible analysis of temporal trends and spatial comparisons.

U.S. health officials report weekly deaths by age in 122 cities, about 25 to 35 percent of the national total. Deaths rose 4.46 percent from 2010 to 2011 in the 14 weeks after the arrival of Japanese fallout, compared with a 2.34 percent increase in the prior 14 weeks. The number of infant deaths after Fukushima rose 1.80 percent, compared with a previous 8.37 percent decrease. Projecting these figures for the entire United States yields 13,983 total deaths and 822 infant deaths in excess of the expected.

These preliminary data need to be followed up, especially in the light of similar preliminary U.S. mortality findings for the four months after Chernobyl fallout arrived in 1986, which approximated final figures. We recently reported on an unusual rise in infant deaths in the northwestern United States for the 10-week period following the arrival of the airborne radioactive plume from the meltdowns at the Fukushima plants in northern Japan. This result suggested that radiation from Japan may have harmed Americans, thus meriting more research.

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enenews.com - “Very, Very Serious”: Unit No. 4 leaning, in danger of falling — Gov’t confirms stabilization efforts underway (PHOTO & VIDEO)

Published: May 10th, 2011 

http://enenews.com/very-very-serious-reactor-no-4-leaning-in-danger-of-falling-govt-confirms-stabilization-efforts-underway-video

Nuclear collapse looms? Fukushima No. 4 reactor ‘leaning’, RT, May 10, 2011:

Al-Jazeera-English - 'Facile': Greenpeace Penetrates French Nuclear Plant

Published on Monday, December 5, 2011 by Al-Jazeera-English

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2011/12/201112514312118302.html

Activists hang banner on reactor building in what they say was operation to expose weaknesses in national security.

Greenpeace activists secretly entered a French nuclear site before dawn and draped a banner reading "Coucou" and "Facile", (meaning "Hey" and "Easy") on its reactor containment building, to expose the vulnerability of atomic sites in the country.

Activists hung a banner reading 'Coucou' (Hey) and 'Facile' (Easy) on the reactor containment building. (AFP) Police, whom the environmental activist group immediately told of the publicity stunt, took several hours to round up nine intruders who had broken into the power plant in Nogent-sur-Seine, about 95km southeast of Paris, on Monday.

Greenpeace said the break-in aimed to show that an ongoing review of safety measures, ordered by French authorities after a tsunami ravaged Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant earlier this year, was focused too narrowly on possible natural disasters, and not human factors.

"With this nonviolent action, Greenpeace has shown how vulnerable French nuclear plants are," said Sophia Majnoni d'Intignano, a Greenpeace activist.

Activists who tried to enter three other French nuclear sites, in a co-ordinated action on the same day, were prevented from doing so, but Greenpeace said other invaders were still holed up inside other, unspecified, nuclear sites.

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NRDC - Limerick Nuclear Plant’s Re-Licensing Application Circumvents Safety Analysis Requirements

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

November 28, 2011

NRDC Files Petitions to Intervene in the Limerick Nuclear Plant Operating License Renewal Application, Citing Obsolete Accident Mitigation Study

WASHINGTON - November 28 - Exelon Generation, the owner of the Limerick nuclear power plant outside of Philadelphia, is seeking federal re-licensing of its plant without updating a 1980s-era accident mitigation study, due to an inappropriate exemption received from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), according to petitions filed last week by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The tragedy in Japan has resulted in a hard look at the safety of nuclear plants worldwide and is providing critical new information that can help prevent future disasters. We need to learn from that failure, not ignore it,” said Christopher Paine, director of the nuclear program at NRDC. “The Limerick nuclear power plant’s safety analysis for mitigating unlikely but severe accidents is decades out-of-date. Re-licensing it now without a fresh analysis of potential safety upgrades would be a reckless decision, especially given that the current operating licenses for these twin units don’t expire until 2024 and 2029. There is ample time to take a fresh look at safety improvements.”

The NRDC petitions contend that Exelon’s license renewal application is deficient because it relies on outdated and insufficient safety and risk information and fails to fully consider the alternatives to re-licensing Limerick as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

All U.S. nuclear plants are required to conduct a critical safety review known as a Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives, or “SAMA,” analysis to determine potentially cost-beneficial operational safety upgrades at nuclear plants. The last analysis for Limerick, completed in 1989, relied upon population data from 1980 and therefore didn’t take into account evacuation planning and the health risk from radiation exposure for up to 1.4 million additional people now living downwind in the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Newark metropolitan area.

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Mizuho Aoki - Cesium Fallout From Fukushima Plant Widespread

Published on Thursday, November 17, 2011 by the Japan Times

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111117x2.html

by Mizuho Aoki

Radioactive cesium from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant may have reached as far as Hokkaido, Shikoku and the Chugoku region in the west, according to a recent simulation by an international research team.

Large areas of eastern and northeastern Japan were likely contaminated by the plant, with concentrations of cesium-137 exceeding 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of soil in some places, says the study, which was posted Monday on the website of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers for the U.S.-based organization said the study, which was based on partial data readings, is the first to estimate potential cesium contamination across the country. But they also played down the incident's impact on the three distant regions.

"The levels are not something that should raise concerns over agricultural production or human health," Ryugo Hayano, chairman of the physics department at the University of Tokyo, said in an email interview with The Japan Times.

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Danielle Demetriou - Signs of Possible Nuclear Fission at Fukushima Plant

Published on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 by The Telegraph/UK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8863967/Japan-signs-of-possible-nuclear-fission-at-Fukushima-plant.html

Signs of a possible nuclear fission have been detected at Japan's damaged Fukushima power plant raising fears of further radiation leaks.

by Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo

The radioactive gas xenon, which is often the byproduct of unexpected nuclear fission, was detected at the Fukushima Daiichi plant during tests.

Officials were today injecting boric acid as an emergency precautionary measure to stem any accidental chain reactions which could result in further radiation leakages.

Hiroyuki Imari, a spokesman with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the quantity of gas detection was "very small" and did not indicate a major problem, with the reactor's temperature, pressure and radiation levels remaining stable.

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Terradaily.com - Nuclear pollution of sea from Fukushima was world's biggest

by Staff Writers
Paris (AFP) Oct 27, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Nuclear_pollution_of_sea_from_Fukushima_was_worlds_biggest_999.html

France's nuclear monitor said on Thursday that the amount of caesium 137 that leaked into the Pacific from the Fukushima disaster was the greatest single nuclear contamination of the sea ever seen.

But, confirming previous assessments, it said caesium levels had been hugely diluted by ocean currents and, except for near-shore species, posed no discernible threat.

From March 21 to mid-July, 27.1 peta becquerels of caesium 137 entered the sea, the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said.

One peta becquerel is a million billion bequerels, or 10 to the power of 15

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Lucas Whitefield - Fukushima: Towards the Formation of a Radioactive Graveyard in the Pacific Ocean?

Japanese Officials & Experts Late Decision to Expand Testing Around Fukushima Daiichi By Lucas Whitefield Hixson
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27220
No one wants to think about the massive aqueous deposition of radioactive materials into the Pacific Ocean, that much is now clear. By September estimates of released contamination had risen to over  3,500 terabecquerels of cesium-137 released into the sea directly from the plant between March 11 and the end of May. Another 10,000 terabecquerels of cesium fell into the ocean after escaping from the reactors in the form of steam. Initially reports had quieted concerns by stating that the materials would be diluted so vastly that the radioactivity would not be able to accumulate, and would not affect the environment.  The experts claimed they would track the deposition and floating radioactive debris field making its way on a trans-Pacific trip to the United States. Apparently, the experts in Japan didn't get the message.  The Japanese regularly tested the seawater only for 'popular' Iodine and Cesium isotopes instead of all known fission-produced radioactive materials, for the first 3 months after the disaster.  By March 31st, radioactive contamination concentration was 4,385 times the legal limit, up from 3,355 times on Tuesday, according to Kyodo. In response, the government had pledged to increase radiation monitoring on land and by sea and to consider increasing the evacuation zone — however time has shown little action would follow these vows.

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"Evan Osnos" - JAPAN: THE NUCLEAR VILLAGE

Dispatches by Evan Osnos.

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Posted by Evan Osnos

How close was the Fukushima meltdown to becoming a far larger disaster? Closer than most people know. And, yet, the details of the aftermath may surprise you. In the magazine this week, I reconstruct what happened and why—and examine just how close Japan came to the worst-case scenario. (“The Fallout” is available to subscribers. Here are the options, print and digital.)

Travelling back and forth to Fukushima this year, I encountered humbling examples of perseverance and sacrifice. I also came to understand how a nuclear accident creeps up on a place that never imagined it was vulnerable. Before this, I had never thought much about nuclear power. I will have a hard time forgetting about it now. The lessons of Fukushima are not what I thought when I started, and I’ll be writing more about that here this week.

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