Writing a blog is an interesting experience. You have a general subject area and an intended audience. Some writers express themselves very academically while others can get hysterical. Some writers are careful to stick to well established facts while others indulge in wild speculation and fantasy. I personally try to start with the facts and to keep my emotional reactions to a minimum. However, I have to admit that I have been getting angry lately at some of the stories I have been reading while researching for this blog.
I have devoted numerous blog posts to the Fukushima accident because it happened recently and it is very instructive to study all the different things that led up to the accident and all the repercussions that spread out from the moment of the accident like ripples cause by dropping a rock in a pool of water. There have been political, social, psychological, environmental, economic, legal, and many other impacts in Japan and, to some degree, the world. One of the most troubling impacts is the effect that radiation released from the accident has had and will have on human health.
In Japan, there have been many different reports of various health effects of the accident ranging from direct radiation exposure of the workers all the way to psychosomatic complains of people living in the area. Until recently, there has been little talk about health effects in other countries. In order to estimate the possible impact on the health of U.S. citizens, for example, it is necessary to monitor the fallout in a particular area. The United States Environmental Protection Agency is tasked with that responsibility. In the case of Fukushima, it failed badly.
This is a quote from the Global Security Newswire website about what happened here in the U.S. following Fukushima.
“WASHINGTON – An internal audit has confirmed observers’ concerns that many of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation monitors were out of service at the height of the 2011 Fukushima power plant meltdown in Japan, a finding one critic said raises “serious questions” about the federal government’s ability to respond to nuclear emergencies and to alert the public of their consequences (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2011).
The April 19 , 2012 report by the EPA Inspector General’s Office also casts further doubt on the agency’s already controversial claims that radiation from Fukushima did not pose any public health threat on U.S. soil, said Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California (Santa Cruz) and president of Committee to Bridge the Gap.”
In addition, the EPA stopped extra testing for Fukushima radiation within a few months of the disaster.
Here is a quote from a recent article on the MSN website:
“According to the report (from the Radiation and Public Health Project), kids who were between 1 and 16 weeks old (in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon or Washington) when the reactors blew have a 28 percent greater chance of having congenital hyperthyroidism, which can stunt body and brain development, than kids born in those states one year earlier. And sadly, they say congenital hypothyroidism might be just the beginning of potential health impacts to come.”
I live in the Pacific Northwest and understood that radiation from Fukushima was reaching my area but the U.S. Government assured everyone that there was no public health risk. This has been proven to be false. We are just beginning to find out about the health effects of Fukushima in the U.S. I have to admit that I got really angry when I read the article about the children yesterday. The EPA and the U.S. Government have failed the people of this country and newborn children are suffering because of it. This is intolerable! There have been articles lately about how many lives nuclear power saved because we did not build fossil fuel plants instead. I am afraid that these reports are over optimistic about the safety of nuclear power. The United States is building new nuclear reactors and touting the benefits and safety of nuclear power. This is a serious mistake!
