No immediate danger for overexposed Fukushima Daiichi workers?!

World Nuclear News has reported that three Tokyo Electric Power Company workers have been significantly overexposed to radioactivity since the nuclear catastrophe began on March 11th. This has happened, despite the Japanese federal government weakening worker protection standards from a maximum of 5 Rem per year of exposure, five-fold, to 25 Rem per year, due to the emergency conditions. By comparison, German nuclear power plant workers are only allowed to receive a maximum of 2 Rems per year. One Japanese worker was documented to have suffered nearly 68 Rems of exposure, 59 Rems of that internal; a second worker has been exposed to over 64 Rems, 54 Rems of that internal. Internal doses are more harmful than external doses, as the hazard lingers in the body for a prolonged period, rather than being momentary or instantaneous, and then finished. But World Nuclear News concludes, misleadingly, that "Examinations by NIRS [National Institute of Radiological Sciences] also confirmed that the two workers had no health problems as a result of their exposures." This harkens back to claims of "no immediate danger," oft repeated by the nuclear establishment during the Three Mile Island meltdown, as well as during the current Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. However, as Rosalie Bertell revealed in her mid-1980s book (photo at left), "no immediate danger" does not mean that latent health damage will not surface later.

"...we'll have to do it."

Fuji T.V. interviews parents, school administrators, and university professors in Fukushima City who are taking radiation monitoring and even radiological clean up operations into their own hands, as "There’s no point in expecting the local authority to do it. The national government won’t do it, either. So we’ll have to do it." The main focus of efforts is to protect the health of young children, not only while at school, but in every aspect of their daily lives.

Spokane Tribe members dying of cancer, uranium mine investigated

“ 'I watch them die, young and old,' Campbell [a grave digger for the tribe] said. 'I think it’s caused by the radiation.'

"The radiation is from the Northwest’s only open-pit uranium mines – an all-but- forgotten chapter of Washington’s Cold War history. Uranium ore was blasted out of the Spokane Reservation’s arid hillsides and sold to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The truckloads of radioactive material that rumbled daily through the reservation helped build the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

"With each new cancer diagnosis, people wonder: Is it from the radiation?

It’s a haunting question. Bob Brisbois, the tribe’s executive director, lost five members of his extended family to cancer in a single year." Spokane Spokesman Review

Lynn Ehrle promotes "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment"

Lynn Ehrle, of the International Science Oversight Board of the Organic Consumers Association, was the kickoff speaker at the International Roundtable on "Nuclear Threats to the Great Lakes and Transition to Clean Safe Energy" on May 14, 2011, in Dearborn, Michigan. He focused on the human health risks of exposure to so-called "low dose" ionizing radiation, such as what blanketed the entire Northern Hemisphere (including North America) in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. View a YouTube video recording of his presentation here. Ehrle announced the re-print of Dr. Alexey Yablokov's 2009 book, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, the cover of which is pictured at left. A PDF version of the book is also available from Beyond Nuclear: donations will be sent to Dr. Yablokov. The book distills thousands of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian scientific studies on the health and ecological impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, which began 25 years ago now on April 26, 1986. One of the book's findings: as many as 985,000 people may have died from their exposure to Chernobyl's radioactive fallout, just between the years 1986 to 2004. Copies of the hardcopy book can be ordered from Lynn Ehrle for $12 each (shipping and handling included). To enquire about ordering a hardcopy, email Lynn Ehrle at ehrlebird@organicconsumers.org. To enquire about ordering a PDF version, phone Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps at (301) 270-2209 extension 1. Just before the Fuksuhima nuclear catastrophe began, investigative journalist Karl Grossman -- a Beyond Nuclear board member, and host of "Enviro Close Up," recorded an interview with Dr. Janette Sherman, consulting editor for the book, entitled "Chernobyl: A Million Casualties."

Japan's nuclear power workers are "canaries in the coal mine" for residents downwind of Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe

A photograph shows a whole-body counter. (Photo courtesy of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency)The Mainichi Daily News of Japan has reported that significant contamination with internal radiation emitters -- more dangerous to human health than external emitters -- has been detected in Japan's nuclear power plant workers, especially those who have recently been in Fukushima Prefecture. Of the 4,956 nuclear workers across Japan confirmed by whole-body counters to have internal radioactive contamination, 4,766 of them had been in Fukushima Prefecture after the Daiichi nuclear catastrophe began to unfold. Some of these nuclear workers had not even been deployed to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, but merely resided near enough downwind and downstream that they had "apparently inhaled radioactive substances scattered by hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant." This alarming revelation has prompted impacted local governments to now consider subjecting infants and those who work outdoors to similar testing.