by Richard Wilcox, Ph.D.
April 6, 2013
from
ActivistPost Website
Richard Wilcox
holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies
from a social
science, holistic perspective.
He teaches at a
number of universities in the Tokyo, Japan area.
His articles on
environmental topics including the Fukushima nuclear
disaster are archived at
http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com/ and are regularly
published at Activist Post and Rense.com.
His interviews with
Jeff Rense are available at the website http://www.rense.com.
Wilcox can be contacted at wilcoxrb99@mail.com |
“When we remember we are
all mad,
the mysteries disappear and
life stands explained.”
Mark Twain
“In America you have a right to be stupid.”
John Kerry, US Secretary of
State (1)
“I live in a contaminated world.”
Hiroaki Koide
“Control of the nuclear fission process is
the use of science and
technology for political power.”
S. G. Vombatkere (2)
Two years have passed since the
Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Although Chernobyl was probably the
worst nuclear accident in history, in the days just after the March
11, 2011 magnitude 9.03 earthquake and 40.5 meter high tidal wave
that smashed Japan, the Fukushima nuclear crisis nearly burst into
simultaneous multiple nuclear failures at several power stations in
northeastern Japan. (3)
Had the worst case outcome occurred, one
of the world’s largest cities, Tokyo, would have been rendered a
highly contaminated radiation zone and 35 million people would have
been forced to evacuate. The logistics of that scenario are hard to
imagine, yet the Japanese prime minister at the time, Naoto Kan,
seriously considered the possibility.
There is now the beginnings of a small but growing consensus of the
gravity of the Fukushima nuclear situation. What happened, what
could have happened, what need not have happened, and what is still
to come.
Caldicott
Versus The Nuclear Industry
Long time activist and medical doctor, Helen Caldicott,
recently assembled some of the world’s top experts to enlighten us
about the situation:
“The Medical and Ecological
Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident,” a two-day
conference is now posted online. (4)
Held at the New York Academy of
Medicine on March 11 - 12, 2013, the meeting was “a unique,
two-day symposium at which an international panel of leading
medical and biological scientists, nuclear engineers, and policy
experts” made presentations on the “bio-medical and ecological
consequences of the Fukushima disaster.”
The conference was “a project of The
Helen Caldicott Foundation” and was “co-sponsored by Physicians
for Social Responsibility.”
Noel Wauchope of the highly
recommended “nuclear-news.net” website (5) attended the
conference and has a background in science, is someone who knows the
nuclear issues, and has a special understanding of Australian
culture and politics.
Bear in mind that one of Australia’s
major economic sectors is the uranium mining business.
Wauchope has followed Caldicott’s career
and remarked that,
“she was quite famous and was a hero
in Australia in 1971. Caldicott became a household name because
she was the force for getting the Australian government to
successfully push for France to stop atmospheric nuclear
testing”. (6) (7)
Wauchope noted that because of superior
knowledge on nuclear issues Caldicott is often seen by the
Australian political establishment as a threat to their power.
Her outspokenness is dismissed as being
outside the perimeters of polite and acceptable discourse.
”This view is held even by much of
the environmental movement. Australia is such a conformist
country.
The anti-nuclear and environmental
people really bend over backwards to show themselves as correct,
academically well qualified, and professional - with the result
that much of what they write or say is unintelligible to the
ordinary person. Caldicott doesn't fit in.”
(Wauchope, personal
communication, 3/30/13).
Conference Contents
The nuclear awareness-raising conference included two speeches from
the moderators, twenty one presentations and lengthy question and
answer periods.
-
There were four Japanese
speakers, including former Prime Minister Naoto Kan
who spoke by video and explained the dire situation that
Japan coped with during the 3/11 catastrophe.
-
Kyoto university nuclear
engineer and specialist in radiation safety and control,
Hiroaki Koide, offered an authoritative analysis of the
failure of Japan’s nuclear technocracy, the process of the
nuclear meltdowns and their effects on the country.
Koide is pushing for total
abolition of nuclear power in Japan and stated that “even
the data from the Japanese government itself clearly show
that there would be no problem with electric power supply if
Japan were to abolish all of its nuclear power plants.”
-
Hisako Sakiyama
summarized the many effects of the nuclear disaster,
including the political fallout.
For example, secondary school
textbooks for Japanese public school students that were
published after the 3/11 incident only mentioned the nuclear
disaster in the introduction to the books and gave no
details in the body of the texts.
They ignored how the reactors
melted down and where radiation was spread. Sakiyama’s
presentation laid bare the propaganda and lies the
government relied on to persuade the nation that they were
in no danger from radiation.
-
Akio Matsumura is a well
known international diplomat and known for exposing the
ongoing dangers at the Fukushima nuclear disaster site.
He raised the issue of national
security from a political perspective and described how
radioactive accidents threaten international security. The
world’s governments are now taking a very dangerous tack by
burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the atomic
dangers.
Fukushima
Disaster Made In America
-
Retired nuclear engineer,
Arnie Gundersen, noted that Fukushima was a disaster
“made in America” due to the shoddily designed type of
reactors that were sold to Japan.
He posited that a “prompt
moderated criticality” and a “detonation” occurred at
reactor No. 3.
Reactor No. 3, as you may recall, is the one
that blew sky-high with the famous picture of the demon-like
face emerging from the mushroom cloud of smoke. Most
scientists believe that all of the explosions were “hydrogen
explosions,” which is somehow perceived as more benign.
Yet Gundersen shows with
irrefutable forensic evidence that No. 3 became so hot in
the days after the explosion that it released cesium in
amounts far beyond what Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco)
and the Japanese government have so far acknowledged.
During the Q&A period Gundersen noted that Tepco would be
able to stop the leakage of radioactive water into the
Pacific Ocean, but to do so would have to build a zeolite-filled
trench around the site of the reactors and that ground water
would have to be sucked out from under the plant before it
became contaminated.
While a technically viable
option, Tepco has stated that it is too expensive and
therefore admits that ocean contamination will continue
indefinitely.
The Power Of
Prevention
-
David Lockbaum of the
Union of Concerned Scientists made a strong case that the
disaster could have been easily prevented had Tepco taken
any number of fairly simple and straightforward steps. In
other words, greed, stinginess and stupidity caused the
accident.
However, Lockbaum does not take
into account the fact that reactor No. 1 was shown to be
damaged by the earthquake far ahead of the tsunami.
-
Steven Starr of the
Physicians for Social Responsibility discussed cesium
contamination and noted that,
“less than two grams of
cesium 137, a piece smaller than an American dime, if
made into micro particles and evenly distributed as a
radioactive gas and distributed over one square mile
will turn that square mile into an uninhabitable
radioactive exclusion zone.”
Cesium 134 and 137 are two of
the main elements released by the accident and scattered
across Japan and into the ocean.
Don’t Eat The
Worms
-
Tim Mousseau offered
irrefutable and conclusive data proving the effects of the
radioactive linear low-dose on wildlife at Chernobyl.
In other words, the greater the
dose, the greater the evidence of harm. His team continues
to investigate the effects in Fukushima on wildlife and have
found disturbingly similar results including birth defects,
genetic mutations and tumors.
If it can happen to bugs and
birds, it can happen to humans.
-
Renowned oceanographer Ken
Buesseler spoke about the effects of Fukushima
radiation, from the initial blasts, to the continuing liquid
leakage from the damaged Fukushima site.
Although much of the radiation
has now sunk to the ocean floor, there is a wall of
radiation that is washing its way via ocean currents toward
the US Pacific coast.
The flux and flow of radiation
in the ocean is a complex process, much of which is still
uncharted and therefore not yet clearly understood.
Population
Risk
-
David Brenner of Columbia
University - while representing the apologist, establishment
view on radiation risk models - did acknowledge that 500 out
of one million people exposed to radiation in Fukushima
could get cancer.
While individual risk due to
radiation exposure may be relatively small, the risk to
population is disturbingly high.
Brenner called the Hiroshima
A-bomb studies the “gold standard” for understanding
radiation epidemiology, but as we will see below, Dr. Steve
Wing rips the Hiroshima study apart as a highly flawed model
for understanding radiation effects.
-
Russian scientist Alexey
Yablokov presented an overwhelming case for the
devastating health effects from the Chernobyl accident.
Yablokov’s critique obliterates
the official version of events as championed by United
Nations agencies as “based on methodologically invalid”
assumptions. In science, bad assumptions which use invalid
data create bad results. The Yablokov book is the most
inclusive collection of data to date and posits over a
million cancer incidences due to the radioactive fallout.
The terrible health effects on
infants and children in Russia and Europe have been heavily
documented and linked to the fallout.
The Rape of
Womanhood
-
Medical geneticist Wladimir
Wertelecki exposed the propaganda of the World Health
Organization, which has pre-prepared talking points for
nuclear disasters wherever they may crop up.
For example, the famous phrase
“no immediate health risk” is used no matter how dire the
nuclear releases, without any investigation whatsoever, as
soon as an accident occurs, in order to assuage public
fears.
Wertelecki’s epidemiological
studies on Chernobyl fallout the contradicted the WHO’s
findings and proved the genetic effects on children and
women, and early mortality rates in not only Ukraine,
Belarus and Russia, but in many European countries as well.
-
Radiation biologist Ian
Fairlie noted that 3,000 people in Japan could die from
cancer due to Fukushima.
Fairlie attacked the WHO
radiation risk science as highly flawed yet takes a
conservative view of mortality rates. He admitted his
calculations do not include internal consumption of isotopes
in food and water. Fairlie showed a map based on official
data comparing the area and radiation density from Chernobyl
fallout with Fukushima.
While the area and intensity of
the Fukushima map was vastly smaller than Chernobyl it did
not include radiation that went into the ocean.
An expansive map would have
shown both disasters to be more similar in size.
Question
Authority!
-
Public health expert Steve
Wing puts the Fukushima health dangers into the context
of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters and does an
outstanding job of explaining the complexities of radiation
biology to the lay person.
Wing deconstructed the Hiroshima
atomic bomb studies as being overly optimistic in terms of
detrimental health effects from radiation due to exclusion
of data. Wing emphasized that science, ethics and policy
must be considered in context and that the pronouncements of
scientific experts should always be scrutinized.
The “lack of critical thinking”
and “a failure to question authority” by the public has led
to the dismal state of modern science.
-
Joe Mangano, also
discussing radiation dangers, showed how infant mortality on
the west coast of the USA rose just after the Fukushima
disaster.
Mangano emphasizes a vigorous
approach to research science that weds critical thinking to
civic action in order to safeguard the public.
Mangano echoed Wing by warning
that,
“the greatest challenge to
the research community [is] - corruption - the
corruption of the scientific method.”
Humanity at
The Height of Folly
-
On the technical matter of
nuclear spent fuel and the issue of how waste is temporarily
stored at power plants, Robert Alvarez showed how the
Fukushima spent fuel pools continue to pose a terrifying
threat to public safety in the event of another large
earthquake.
The massive quantities of
radiation stored in those pools could be released by a
radiological fire and result in catastrophic consequences.
Fuel pools in the US and Japan
are prone to the same dangerous and short sighted plant
designs where the fuel rods are crammed together in order to
save space and money.
Conspiracy To
Intentionally Poison Humanity
-
Cindy Folkers spoke on
behalf of the group Beyond Nuclear.
Folkers emphasized the lack of
regulations for radiation in our food supply and recommends
we allow no more than 5
becquerels per kilogram in
food, but even at that level we cannot consider it safe.
Amazingly, the United States allows 1200 becquerels per
kilogram in food as a safety starting point, and can even
allow higher levels in food.
Cesium accumulates in the human
body at a rate faster than it is expelled, therefore even
consuming a few becquerels per day can up to hundred or
thousands over time. In fact, Folkers uncovered a deliberate
conspiracy on the part of the government and nuclear
industry to intentionally poison the public with radioactive
food with the goal of making “contaminated food acceptable.”
Folkers noted that points of
concern include: cesium biomagnifies in the environment;
historic and continuing releases of cesium insure all humans
have been exposed to it; studies show damage to children at
very low doses from cesium; lack of publicly available
information on cesium levels in food.
-
Mary Olson showed how
data on effects of radiation exclude the effects on women,
children and girls. The effects of radiation on young girls
are proportionally more dangerous than on older men, for
example. And yet this information is systematically ignored
by the radiation industry.
Waste A Lot
Want Not
-
Kevin Kamps who is one of
the anti-nuclear movements most knowledgeable and articulate
voices explained the history of nuclear power and compared
accidents that have occurred in the US and Japan and how
they seem to occur with uncanny regularity.
He also raised many disturbing
economic and logistical problems regarding the storage of
nuclear waste which can remain dangerous for a million
years.
Even short term storage of waste is proving too
costly and difficult.
Wake Up Call
-
David Freeman is a
veteran analyst of the energy industry and was chairman of
the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1970s.
The TVA grew out of the Great
Depression and is famous for electricity generation and
economic development in the southeast of the US. Freeman
noted that the nuclear industry started out as a blatant
pretext for the development of hydrogen bombs, and in the
early years was never taken seriously as a method for
reliable power generation.
Only in the 1960s was the first
civilian power plant started, but nuclear power has never
been cost efficient in comparison to other traditional
sources of energy. The “cost overrun” has been and always
will be the name of the game for the nuclear industry.
As long as private companies can
line their pockets with taxpayer subsidies, and externalize
the costs of dealing with “nuclear trash” onto future
generations, the scam will only continue. Freeman described
with frankness to the audience of about 200 people that the
anti-nuclear movement is presently dead in the water and
having no effect on changing attitudes in mainstream
culture.
He noted that if the anti-nuke
activists cannot even get the mainstream environmental
movement to take nuclear dangers to health and ecology
seriously, how on Earth can it expect to reach the average
person?
He encouraged nuclear activists
to speak in plain language in order to make more people
aware of the grave threats we face from the cult of
nuclearists.
-
Herb Abrams rounded out
the presentations with further information about the history
and science of radiation risk assessment models and the
biases in the establishment models.
The Toxic Soup We
Swim In
-
The conference moderator,
Donald Louria MD, made an observation about a holistic
approach to assessing the bioaccumulation of assaults on
human health. It is not only radiation hazards that must be
calculated separately, but in conjunction with other threats
on our immune system.
Louria suggested that poverty,
malnutrition and mutagenic pollutants must also be
considered in relation to dangers from radiation.
In addition, we can add,
-
synthetic chemicals used by
industry that contaminate the environment and exist in
everyday products
-
chemical additives in
processed foods (8)
-
genetically modified foods
that can harm and even program the DNA of living
organisms (9)
-
aerosols from atmospheric
geoengineering spraying (i.e.,
chemtrails) (10)
-
man-made sources of
electromagnetic radiation (e.g.,
cell phones, wireless
technology) (11)
All presentations from the symposium are
available as video and by clicking on the participant’s name you can
go directly to their presentation. Bullet points of key information
can also be downloaded for study.
The entire conference can be viewed
here.
Wauchope of “nuclear-news.net” mentioned to me that in the future
she hopes other conferences will explore,
-
nuclear weapons
-
the secrecy, censorship and lies
of the nuclear industry
-
nuclear related politics and
economics
-
environmental and climate
effects
-
the effects on indigenous
people’s cultures from the uranium mining industry that
occurs in Australia, Canada and the United States
The Caldicott conference is a first step
toward opening the dungeon door to the dark and unspeakably evil
secrets of the nuclear industry, and putting the stake in the heart
of the radioactive vampire that is sucking life out of the planet.
References
1. Gerald Celente - Trends
In The News - "Air Strikes For Peace!" - (3/25/13)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xezfOrhg9EE
2. Nuclear Power: The Politics of Power and Control
http://www.dianuke.org/nuclear-power-the-politics-of-power-and-control/
3. Fukushima Nuclear Situation 'Deteriorating'
http://rense.com/general95/fuknucl.html
4. The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima
Nuclear Accident
http://www.totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=hcf#
5. Nuclear-news
http://nuclear-news.net/
6. Helen Calicott biography
http://ifyoulovethisplanet.org/dl/caldicott_bio.pdf
7. Helen’s War: Portrait of a Dissident (2004)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h7qiAy5LeM
8. Peter Montague, The Environmental Causes of Cancer
http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/11/04/why-we-can-t-prevent-cancer/
9. Rense & Jeffrey Smith - New Monsanto Attack - Total DNA
Control
1/2 -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq8vERo2Qjk
2/2 -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY1hnumfIOI
10. Chemtrails
http://educate-yourself.org/ct/
11. Cell Phone Carriers & the FCC: Cozy & Colluding - An
Industry Insider Speaks Out
http://microwavenews.com/news-center/cell-phone-carriers-fcc-cozy
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