Fukushima Radiation Alarms Doctors

By Dahr Jamail
Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant.

"How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives.

"The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant.

There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation.

Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.

According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs" and the amount of uranium released "is equivalent to 20" Hiroshima bombs.

Kodama, along with other scientists, is concerned about the ongoing crisis resulting from the Fukushima situation, as well as what he believes to be inadequate government reaction, and believes the government needs to begin a large-scale response in order to begin decontaminating affected areas.

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Radiation Detected in Massachusetts Rainwater as Fukushima Crisis Worsens

By Mike Adams

The Fukushima crisis continues to worsen by the day, with nuclear experts around the world finally realizing and admitting we've all been lied to. "I think maybe the situation is much more serious than we were led to believe," said Najmedin Meshkati of the University of Southern California, in a Reuters report (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011...). That same article revealed that recent radiation readings at Fukushima show "contamination 100,000 times normal in water at reactor No. 2 and 1,850 times normal in the nearby sea."

Massachusetts rainwater has also been found to be contaminated with low levels of radiation from Fukushima, indicating just how widespread the radioactive fallout has become. It's not just the West Coast of North America that's vulnerable, in other words: even the East Coast could receive dangerous levels of fallout if Fukushima suffers a larger release of radioactive material into the air.

Rolling blackouts are now continuing throughout Japan due to the drop in power production from Fukushima diminishing Japan's electricity generating capacity (http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/20..). The only reason Japan isn't experiencing widespread power blackouts right now is because so many factories were damaged or swept away from the tsunami itself. Once a serious rebuilding effort gets underway, Japan is going to find itself critically short of electrical power.

 

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