Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2200

@RBeaner I will spell it out for you - Yamashita is shutting the door for these people - he is telling the world their fears are irrational and harmful to their children - he is failing to address their concerns - he is failing to fulfill his purpose and represent the needs of these people and he is totally cloaking the fears these people have that their unborn children are at risk of being born with disabilities .
The people have their own champions, they have their own networks, they have their communities (splintered but surviving)
Yamashita should not be given credence - he doesn't speak for them - he doesn't act for them - he doesnt belong in their lives

by elainekirk 8/21/2011 7:03:23 PM

@LM I would think that large numbers of nuke ... I agree that this would be true. Generally you understand the hazards YOU work with, more than the hazards of others. We are surrounded by chemicals and other hazards that are around us every day, generally by CHOICE. The people have not chosen to be around this hazard (radiation) and I feel for them. But to blow the hazard out of proportion does a double disservice to them.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:03:53 PM

A voice like Yamashita's is the last thing Japan needs now or anytime.
by Will 8/21/2011 7:05:22 PM

So we take the fraction of a percent radiation cancers, and the fraction of a percent cell-phone cancers, and x-ray cancers, and x-country flight cancers, and pesticide cancers, and food additive cancers, and when they all add up, look at our society. Phrasing it in the context of all other cancers doesn't remove these deaths from the mix.

The question, inelegantly phrased as a Tokyo ballot referendum is: Our addiction to nuclear will now cost us possibly 125,000 deaths, possibly more, possibly your children's. Are these odds acceptable to you?"
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:05:36 PM

@RBeaner Ok. So you agree he is of no help. Let's have him immediately removed from his position and replaced by a scientist, otherwise we will wait 5-10 years to get only a handful of useless non-conclusive biased articles.
by tomo-kun 8/21/2011 7:06:34 PM

(sorry, not to be overly inflammatory, just inflammatory. ;) 125,000 cancers...not deaths.
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:07:05 PM

@RBeaner I think we should err on the side of extreme caution as radiation at any level is known to be of concern. We are all exposed on a daily basis to background levels but no one can say that 4 full meltdowns won't negatively affect health. People within at least 50 miles should've been evacuated and told there's no going back. Just my 2 cents.
by LM 8/21/2011 7:07:32 PM

@RBeaner BTW, I'm not completely anti-nuke, assuming there were ANY strategy to realistically deal with the wastes, but I am COMPLETELY against for-profit-corporate-nuclear, and always will be.
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:09:11 PM

@tomo-kun I didn't say HE was of no help. It sounds like he has a reasonable plan for assessing and treating all the people in japan exposed to rad. His plan sounds (to me) well thought out and reasonable. He didn't set the GOJ limits and HE didn't direct the innitial response to the accident.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:09:19 PM

@RBeaner Would you consider it safe to live 20 miles downwind from a quadruple nuclear meltdown with loss of containment?
by LM 8/21/2011 7:10:31 PM

@LM Have you ever witnessed the evacuation of 500,000 people? How many people will die or become deseased due to the move and being separated from their roots?
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:11:21 PM

Corporations, by definition, have no soul, and these days very little conscience. I don't want safety to come down to the dollars it takes to be safe, versus the profits that removes.
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:11:30 PM

@RBeaner No..but living with the fear that you are a ticking time bomb is probably worse for the immune system.
by LM 8/21/2011 7:12:34 PM

I will throw my $.02 in on this... While reading up on Hanford and the aftermath there one thing became very clear. Time is of the essence. The people in Japan simply can not wait to go back decades later and see who was right or to seek compensation. Reconstructing exposures is a vague process. The people at Hanford were screwed over. They were not told they were exposed and decades later there was a half hearted effort to reconstruct their exposures and maybe give them compensation.

People like Yamashita and indulgences into philosophical conversations about exposure do them a huge disservice. They need unbiased exposure readings on everyone in the region right now, not six months from now and surely not decades from now. There is plenty of proof of the bad effect of radiation even at rates lower than 100 mSv.
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:13:22 PM

@LM Would you consider it safe to live 20 miles downwind ... I would get on down the road, but I have no significant roots here, where I am now. My understanding is that is significantly different from fuku or belorussia.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:13:46 PM

Forcing people to wait, deal with Yamashita, denied help and treated like lab rats is directly making things worse.
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:13:56 PM

@RBeaner You're comment about evacuation is the perfect argument why we shouldn't be building nuke plants at all!
by LM 8/21/2011 7:14:10 PM

@RBeaner Wouldn't it have been better to be honest from the start and make that a personal choice, instead of downplaying the risk at every turn, then offering this "Oh maybe we should have been tracking it... could you please go back and remember what you ate on March 16th" nonsense.
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:15:11 PM

@LM put a nuke plant out in the sticks, fewer people are exposed but there are people exposed. The flip side is almost always ruining agriculture in the process.
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:15:21 PM

@LM argument why we shouldn't be building nuke... I don't have a problem with not running Nukes, I'm talking about a society already facing the effects of a nuke accident.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:15:56 PM

@RadioGuy that is the exact study model they used at Hanford decades later. They should be scanning people now instead of relying on just the survey
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:16:18 PM

@RBeaner If you are not able to defend his statements, why do you defend him so much? His plan is to convince people to stay there and check if the number of cancers increases. Do you think this is the best thing to do?
by tomo-kun 8/21/2011 7:16:47 PM

I called Japan home for nearly 2 decades. My wife is Japanese. Both my children have Japanese citizenship. Japan changed irrevocably for us on March 11th. There is no undoing it. Whatever the experts say, too many people's peace of mind has gone for good. It is as if our country had been attacked from within. We simply cannot comrehend what has happened. And we do worry about our children; maybe that is paranoid but how can you know? Individuals like Yamashita make us despair.
by Will 8/21/2011 7:18:19 PM

@Lilly (clapping) I agree. Unfortunately...nuclear accidents negatively effect people regardless of location-whether from food contamination, air, or water.
by LM 8/21/2011 7:18:31 PM

@RadioGuy Wouldn't it have been better to be honest from the start ......Yes, but the GOJ and TEPCO had a slow or insignificant innitial response effort. Now we have to recover data after the fact. Yamashita says he will recover exposure data, monitor people, especially kids thyroids and treat them at the first signs of disease. The only issue I see is the early reports that private/personal physicians would be excluded and would boot you out of the program.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:19:08 PM

@lillymunster It is too late to effectively sc an people. The I131 in the thyroid (of most) is gone and the actual external radiation exposure (at low doses) leaves no telltale indications. It would obviously be much better if we had actual monitoring and radiation data from day 1.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:21:43 PM

@lillymunster Hanford exposure was different. It was a USA nuclear weapons secret. Seems ridiculus now, but at the time "our leadership" considered all nuke weapons stuff secret, so there was no release of info, just releases of radiation. Totally different scenario now.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:23:55 PM

Yamashita's background is studying the deep details of cancer genetics. He doesn't deal with people, public health or society in any manner. He is a researcher, having morals, social skills or much of a clue about humanity is not required to research genetics all day long.
The problem is a purely academic genetic research project has for some reason been confused with public health. Yamashita has no clue about public health and is not an MD. He has no business being in charge of this because this project is being situated as the front line public health project and it is no such thing. They need medical doctors and public health experts in charge of a public health project that determines current dose, past & current exposure, sets a treatment or follow up plan for each person and logs this into public health records. Yamashita needs to go back to his lab.
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:24:28 PM

@RBeaner Perhaps his only failure is on being so casually insensitive. I agree that going back and retrieving data missed by the principals' deplorably inadequate response is a good cause. The fact that it has to be done that way at all is an indictment of all involved. But really... "SMILE? Stop yer whining ya crybabies?"
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:24:39 PM

@RadioGuy He is not equipped to deal with this situation, it is not his experience area at all. Genetic research is far removed from public health and medical care.
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:26:52 PM

@lillymunster Mind-boggling political tone-deafness on GoJ's part all along.
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:27:11 PM

@RadioGuy Stress and anxiety IS a huge killer. Not to minimize the rad problem, but UNSCHEER?? said psycological effects were huge after Chernobyl.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:27:46 PM

@RadioGuy I want to know who appointed him to this and who set up the program framework. They made a huge mistake, I think either they assumed "radiation expert" mean the same thing all around and hired him or he was hired because he is friendly to the nuclear industry and will play down public concern because he has sociopathic tendencies or is utterly clueless.
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:28:59 PM

@lillymunster I have a sister-in-law into genetic research, and talking with those around her, that's a valid assessment of that particular type. Not all, but he's one they should never have put on a public stage.
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:29:16 PM

@lillymunster He ran an excellent study of thyroid cancer after chernobyl. I would say the guy is more of a bureaucrat than even a researcher, but this is a massive undertaking, and is going to require alot of bureaucrats and managers.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:29:34 PM

@RBeaner I'm a believer (within reason) in the power of positive thought, and the negative power of negative thought, but I am not going to be out there with just my smile on in the nuclear rain. ;)
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:32:45 PM

@lillymunster Read this article from der spiegal, and I'm telling you the questions are well answered. He states that people need to assess their own risk below 100 mSv because there is no evidence of a specific risk. He actually avoided citing other common risks and comparing them to radiation, the way most nuclear enthusiasts will do. He stated FACTS only. Then he let them stand. Not a PR guy for sure. www.spiegel.de
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:33:43 PM

@RBeaner you need to research more about this guy's background. His study on chernobyl is academic and looking at it from a genetic researcher's point of view. Good study or not he is completely unsuited for a project that is a PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY project and deals with the need for medical care as a possible aspect either now or in people's future. He isn't a bureaurcrat. He is a researcher. Two different skills sets. This guy has no clue what he is doing, he has no business running the front line public health effort. I really don't care what data he might get out of this, that is not a priority. The priority is finding people's current dose to determine who needs intervention now or watching for later and determine who needs to move due to their dose plus readings in their area. It is inexcusable to make the population lab rats and ignore the public health disaster that is going on.
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:34:20 PM

@RBeaner Call me when you do more than read a news article or two. Some of us put the time into figuring out this guy's past and skill set.
by lillymunster 8/21/2011 7:35:01 PM

@RBeaner for an expert on thyroid he keeps very quiet about the exposure of children - quite suprised that he didnt speak out in the early days and insist all children were given safe iodine as he continua;;y asserts in his papers that all people must be given it....ah I forget he was trying not to cause fear and panic........
by elainekirk 8/21/2011 7:35:08 PM

@lillymunster "e must not only track those problems, but also treat them. Otherwise people will feel they are just guinea pigs in our research. " How can you treat (or pre-treat)without tracking. I will have to go back and dig up the guys chernobyl thyroid paper, I thought it was very good. The only bad thing I have seen on this guy were some poorly worded or poorly translated or taken out of context statements about (don't worry, smile, be happy).
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:39:11 PM

"He states that people need to assess their own risk below 100 mSv because there is no evidence of a specific risk." And yet, he then quotes a 1 in 100 risk.
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:39:27 PM

(at the top end)
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:39:58 PM

(of the 20-100 mSv range)
by RadioGuy 8/21/2011 7:40:39 PM

@RadioGuy He ackowlegdes the possibility of a 1 in 100 increase risk of cancer at a 100 mSv exposure. He states that the risks below 100 mSv have not been quantified because they recede into background risks of life.
by RBeaner 8/21/2011 7:41:49 PM