Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2340

@lillymunster Yes, I do that too. ^^ The COMARE Report is damming. But the critical review of it is also strong. So...what I suspect is that the COMARE Report can be taken out of context to support the side that believes NPPs are causing childhood leukemias. I'm trying to remain neutral here. It doesn't do any good to support a study that falls flat on its face later for not being a good study. All studies have their faults of course. It's the WEIGHT of evidence that supports a hypothesis, right? So, the point is, the COMARE Report has some problems...according to the Invited Editorial ("A German storm..."). I also wonder where Chernobyl fallout effects might come in (1986, after all; and this report covers 1980-2003). Not sure. The report and its critical review need to be balanced and considered before you take one side or the other, is what I am recommending. Up to you.
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 3:48:29 PM

@lillymunster check the email
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 3:54:31 PM

@Cryptococcus I wasn't sure what the COMARE study was saying without going back and reading the entire study. There seems to be some of the same back and forth on the German studies too.
by lillymunster 9/13/2011 3:56:11 PM

have you all read about tepco's blacked-out report ?
by Edano 9/13/2011 3:59:22 PM

@Edano yes, is there new news?
by lillymunster 9/13/2011 4:13:39 PM

@lillymunster , I would recommend to cite both studies with the conclusion that they deliver discrepant results which may be based on differences in data collection, selection and analyses. Since, both sides agreed that at least the occurrence of childhood leukemia in the vicinity of one npp in Germany (Kruemmel) suggested an incidence/distance trend, more studies on the potential relationship between childhood leukemia and distance around npps ought to be carried out in other countries with a focus on plant-specific effects.
by Peter Melzer 9/13/2011 4:13:59 PM

@lillymunster It has been extremely difficult to "prove" cancer linked to any cause. Even smoking. But now we assume smoking can lead to lung cancer only because it's so common for dedicated smokers to get lung & breast cancer and emphysema. I did see a report recently (somewhere!) that it may be possible to link a person's cancer to a specific NPP cesium release (or something like that). So there's hope they will find definitive cause and effect. This study seems to assume vicinity as a close link. Yet kids don't stay in one vicinity. All it takes is swimming in the plume of another state's NPP tritium release, yes? And we know that radionuclides go EVERYWHERE. So the underlying assumption seems to be chronic exposure. But why not acute exposure? Sigh. At least they are looking. This report brings up more questions than answers in some ways. But that's good. Basically, the COMARE Report says: we don't have clear cause and effect, but we recommend contining monitoring both the health of the population as well as the release of radioactive discharges from nuclear sources (including hospitals and universities, I hope!). The final story "There is no evidence to support the view that there is an increased risk of childhood leukemia and other cancers in the vicinity of NPPs in Great Britain" is not really a fair statement when used BY ITSELF. The real point is, there's not enough evidence YET. But there IS enough reasonable suspicion, based on what we know radionuclides can do to living organisms. Duh!
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 4:16:27 PM

thx Peter. I agree.
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 4:18:01 PM

@edano, this was tepco's dumbest move as far as I am confirmed. Now everybody assumes that tepco's has got something to hide. The parliamentary committee should subpoena all files. As a matter of fact, the Feds in this country would raid their corporate offices where tepco overhere.
by Peter Melzer 9/13/2011 4:19:33 PM

by Edano via Www3.nhk.or.jp 9/13/2011 4:27:43 PM

@Peter Melzer If things had gone as they have there, here in the US I think they would have finally gotten the dept of Justice involved. More keeps coming out about underhanded deeds by the executives and now this. What still really bothers me is that TEPCO wanted to abandon the plant as it was melting down. What makes a company have any social obligation to the people where they do business? Had TEPCO actually abandoned the plant it would have been SDF, Tokyo Fire Dept. and the US Army nuclear team left to try to deal with it. Now I wonder if that is why they flew the US team to Japan and had them on standby...
by lillymunster 9/13/2011 4:28:13 PM

@Cryptococcus , we had this confusion before with this epidemiologist leading the Fukushima children health study. The correct way of stating the result would have been, "we were unable to find a statistically significant association between...", which is quite different from, "there is no evidence." Perhaps, you could state,"our study provides no evidence for..." In sum, the negative result of a statistical analysis never rules out that the result may change when more specific information is added. In addition, we must understand that a statistically significant association does say anything about cause. The Germans were clear on that in stating that they did not have a clue what caused the trend. They could not say whether the disease was related to absorbed dose of ionizing radiation. Regardless, the German findings remain noteworthy and should inform further study.
by Peter Melzer 9/13/2011 4:30:42 PM

@lillymunster , I agree. This piece of history sounds absolutely insane to me, and I hope that one day the Japanese people will find out who at tepco was involved in the decisions and hold them responsible.
by Peter Melzer 9/13/2011 4:35:36 PM

@Peter You have put it much more succinctly than me. Yes! @lillymunster If you post the COMARE Report on the website, I totally support Peter's wording below be added. The word "evidence" in scientific writing is really confusing to the public.
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 4:35:39 PM

@you , of course I meant "concerned" instead of "confirmed" in my tepco comment. I am so bad at this! ;)
by Peter Melzer 9/13/2011 4:38:12 PM

@Cryptococcus I will put something together on this, I agree with Peter's caveats on it. It is hard for people who have no experience reading papers to always get the language used.
by lillymunster 9/13/2011 4:42:24 PM

@Cryptococcus @lillymunster would it be possible for you to put a short article together re the redactions on tepco docs? I think it would make a good tweet if we can snap it into a tweet size headline with link to qualify it
by elainekirk 9/13/2011 5:12:11 PM

@elainekirk hmm I'm not even sure what TEPCO did qualifies as redaction. See en.wikipedia.org Blacking out information (and if I saw that jpg correctly, mostly everything) is more like slapping the face of your boss. I have to think about this a bit.
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 6:41:41 PM

Ah! it's sanitizing. ^^ en.wikipedia.org
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 6:47:35 PM

@Cryptococcus yup looks like it
by elainekirk via Home-education.biz 9/13/2011 6:56:27 PM

"Redacted" and "sanitized" are the same thing apparently. "only two lines of the document -- one reading "firefighting" and the other "inert gases" -- remained visible." mdn.mainichi.jp
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 6:57:18 PM

maybe this helps:
"The committee had asked TEPCO to submit its procedural manuals for accidents by the end of last week.

The company turned in manuals that had been heavily redacted. Then, on Monday, it presented 3 pages, including a cover sheet, containing an index of actions to be taken in serious accidents.

But most of the index was blacked out and TEPCO collected the papers immediately after the meeting.

The company explained that its manuals contain restricted information covered by intellectual property rights. It said the information cannot be made public because nuclear materials must be safeguarded." www3.nhk.or.jp
by Edano 9/13/2011 6:59:02 PM

@Edano they have safeguarded them by disbursing them all over Japan and the Pacific ocean. :-)
by lillymunster 9/13/2011 7:00:08 PM

@elainekirk icon ^^ @Edano yes the Mainichi article reports same thing.
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:00:32 PM

they give 3 senseless reasons for blacking out.
by Edano 9/13/2011 7:00:42 PM

lol lilly
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:00:42 PM

THAT is the point that I was looking for
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:00:56 PM

The angle, you see.
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:01:03 PM

..... unless they really enrich uranium in fuku.
by Edano 9/13/2011 7:01:11 PM

@Edano now we are getting there
by elainekirk 9/13/2011 7:01:31 PM

How best to present the Emperor with no Clothes
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:01:33 PM

Well, it gets back to the rights of children, doesn't it? The right to live in a safe environment and the rights of parents to provide their children with a healthy life. So who is responsible? Overall, I wonder if the United Nations Rights of Children outweighs the rights of a corporation.
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:04:29 PM

Governments should ensure that children survive and develop healthily. (article 6) www.unicef.org
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:06:11 PM

The U.N. declaration of human rights is maybe stronger. www.un.org
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:07:24 PM

@Edano this isn't the first time people have brought up concerns that they are hiding something or something doesn't add up with documents or TEPCO's behavior about various reactors vs. what they say publicly. Not sure what equipment would prove they were doing something sketchy?
by lillymunster 9/13/2011 7:08:26 PM

Could a comparison of safety manuals from other countries uncover what they have blacked out?
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:09:26 PM

Do we have a date when those accident manuals would have been written?
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:11:09 PM

What would TEPCO have used as a model or guide to write their manuals. I'm assuming this is steps they should take to insure safety. Or am I incorrect?
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:12:31 PM

by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:14:22 PM

Or maybe they are hiding what they did NOT include. They may not have updated their accident manuals. Another thought: wouldn't the The House of Representatives Special Committee on Promotion of Science and Technology and Innovation have these manuals to begin with? Wouldn
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:16:40 PM

oops...hit the send by mistake... Wouldn't Japanese university departments of nuclear engineering have these manuals?
by Cryptococcus 9/13/2011 7:17:16 PM

The only institutions in the States that would be permitted to black subpoenaed information out are the intelligence services who could claim they must protect information sensitive to national security. If tepco claimed this, such claim would make their secrets even more questionable. And, no, other manuals would not help much, because the manuals contain reactor-specific parameters. For example, the rapidity with which one can cool the reactor down depends on what steel they used for the rpv and how much radiation embrittlement and other aging the rpv incurred.
by Peter 9/13/2011 7:18:32 PM

@Cryptococcus , you ask very valid questions. Actually, copies with the up-to-date manuals should reside with NISA.
by Peter 9/13/2011 7:20:25 PM

@Peter good point, wouldn't a safety manual since it is unique to the plant have to be approved by the safety agency?
by lillymunster 9/13/2011 7:21:21 PM

@Crypto, I worry this may be another area where NISA/METI let operators regulate themselves. TEPCO didn't have blueprints of the reactors because their sets were in the offices during the tsunami. There wasn't an extra set in the emergency operations building. There wasn't a set at the corporate offices. They had to get them from a sub-contractor.
by lillymunster 9/13/2011 7:23:34 PM