I post a lot links about the repercussions of the disaster there in March of 2011. One of the reasons that I post so many of these links is that I want people to understand just how profound the effects are of such a major nuclear accident on a society. I have been following the various problems and efforts to control them since the accident and I decided that today I would return to Fukushima to discuss how they are trying to deal with the leakage of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.

          TEPCO has just begun dumping ground water into the Pacific Ocean that has been routed around the melted reactors cores at Fukushima. The water is not completely free from radioactive contamination but TEPCO claims that it does not represent a threat to humans or life in the ocean. Critics of the way that the repercussion of the Fukushima disaster are being handled are debating that claim.

         The Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) of Japan was created after the Fukushima disaster to act as an government oversight agency for nuclear affairs. The NRA has just authorized the “construction of a network of pipes, pumps and compressors designed to freeze the ground and create a mile-long ice wall to block the path of water flowing between surrounding mountains and the Pacific Ocean.” This technique has been used to dig tunnels near water but has never been attempted on this scale.

         The ice wall will be constructed around the four reactors at Fukushima that sustained damage. The cores of reactors for Units 1,2 and 3 have melted down into the Earth. The building housing the Unit 4 reactor and spent fuel pool was heavily damaged when Unit 3 exploded. The ice wall will be almost a mile long and will penetrate one hundred feet into the ground. Holes will be drilled and pipes will be inserted into the holes. Coolant as cold as minus forty degrees Celcius or forty degrees below zero Fahrenheit will be pumped into the holes and will freeze the soil around the hole. The intention is to form a water tight rectangle around the four damaged reactors.  

       If the plan works, the water that is flowing underground from the mountains behind the Fukushima power plant will be diverted around the ice wall and flow into the ocean without being contaminated. In addition, heavily contaminated water which is inside the rectangle will be trapped and unable to flow into the ocean. Construction of the ice wall is expected to be completed by March of 2015. A new ground water drainage system is being created around the damaged reactors as a backup for the ice wall. Critics are not convinced that the ice wall will be as effective as TEPCO claims. Considering the incompetence and dishonesty displayed by TEPCO in the past, the critics may well be right.

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A former Japan official says that the Earth is in peril from Fukushima reactors if current situation continues. enenews.com

Replacements for two outgoing commissioners of the Nuclear Regulation Authority suggest the Abe administration will find it easier to gain approval for restarts of the nation’s nuclear reactors. ajw.asashi.com

The future of three Exelon nuclear power plants is in question after they failed to secure a capacity payment that would have supported their operation in a difficult power market. world-nuclear-news.org

Unnamed security violations at the Zion nuclear plant in Illinois are likely to result in a civil penalty of $17,500 for a subsidiary of EnergySolutions. nuclearstreet.com

          My past two blog posts have been about uniformed people being exposed to dangerous doses of radiation by the United States government. Today, I am going to continue on the subject of the impact of radioactive pollution on health. Autism diagnoses have been increasing recent years. There are a variety of possible environmental factors that might be contributing to the increase in autism.

         Autism is known to have a significant genetic aspect. Research has been unable to identify specific genes that increase risk for autism. The problem seems to be that people with autism have a greater number of mutations in the number of copies of some genes but there are a lot of different genes affected in different individuals. Micro-deletions or missing pieces of the genes related to synapses, mitochondria and oxytocin production appear to be involved.

         Environmental factors can directly damage DNA. Environmental factors can also alter the manner in which some genes are expressed. In addition, environmental factors could cause genetic damage and altered gene expression which indirectly weaken an individual’s ability to withstand other types of damage which might directly contribute to autism. The ability to withstand oxidative stress can contribute to autism by altering the genes that produce and regulate the production of anti-oxidants. This could increase susceptibility to damage by complex chemical pesticides and herbicides, heavy metals such as lead and mercury and radioisotopes of elements such as iodine, cesium, and strontium. One of the most powerful anti-oxidants is glutathione. Glutathione levels are found to be lower in autistic individuals.

       People with autism are more likely to have DNA mutations that either cause autism directly or weaken the system so autism can be more easily caused by other factors. Many environmental factors are being investigated including possible dangers of strong electromagnetic radiation in our wired world. The possible role of radioisotopes in autism has not gotten much attention until recently. Radioisotopes in the atmosphere, food and water have been increasing for decades as a result of nuclear testing, uranium mining, nuclear accidents, nuclear waste and the normal operation of nuclear reactors. While the possible role of ionizing radiation on the occurrence of autism has not been studied, it is well known that ionizing radiation can cause a wide variety of health problems through DNA damage. In the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, various neurological problems were connected to continued exposure of people in the area to low levels of radiation. Many birth defects have been reported including interference with nervous system development. Retardation has also been identified in children who were exposed in utero between eight weeks and twenty five weeks. Studies of autism have indicated that significant brain damage probably occured in the womb and early infancy.

         Radioisotopes can be inhaled, consumed with water or consumed with food. Tritium which is heavy water with radioactive hydrogen can penetrate human skin. In the human body, radioactive iodine is treated as stable iodine, radioactive cesium is treated as if it were potassium and radioactive strontium is treated as if it were calcium. Both radioactive cesium and strontium can pass through the blood-brain barrier and be absorbed by brain cells, causing damage.

        At present, there is no research that proves that radioisotopes are a cause of autism. However, there is enough circumstantial evidence that radioisotopes could be a contributing factor to autism to warrant dedicating research to a possible connection.

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Visiting Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina signed a joint statement with counterpart Shinzo Abe on Monday in Tokyo to seal Japan’s pledge to extend up to ¥600 billion in economic assistance to the country over the next four to five years. japantimes.cop.jp

The Akita governor suddenly had nosebleed during a press conference in Japan. fukushima-diary.com

Eighteen months after being shut down to avoid new taxes, the owners of Spain’s Garoña nuclear power plant have applied to government to bring the plant back into operation on a longer operating licence. world-nuclear-news.org

The future of three Exelon nuclear power plants is in question after they failed to secure a capacity payment would have that supported their operation in a difficult power market. world-nuclear-news.org

          In my last blog post on Memorial Day, I talked about how U.S. troops had been deliberately and repeatedly exposed to radiation in bomb tests and clean up in Japan after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many times they have become ill and been denied swift and adequate medical aid. Today, I am going to widen the focus beyond people serving in the U.S. military to civilians who have been deliberately exposed to radiation, often without their knowledge.

          Millions of people were exposed to radioactive fallout from more than two hundred atmospheric and underground tests that spread radioactive particles around the northern hemisphere. Thousands of people living in small towns downwind from nuclear tests in Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico experienced some of the worst exposure along with their animals, food and other farm products. One document of the Atomic Energy Commission callously referred to some of the people downwind of the Nevada Test Site as “a low use segment of the population.”

        Some “downwinders” told by the Public Health Service that hair loss and burned skin with occured because they were “neurotic.” Some women were told that they had “housewife syndrome,” whatever that is. It was the practice at the Nevada Test Site to wait for the wind to blow towards Utah before conducting atomic tests. They wanted to avoid having fallout blow towards Los Vegas or Los Angles.

         During the Cold War, doctors and scientists connected to the U.S. government spread the propaganda that a little radiation was not dangerous to health. Actually, it was already known that radioactive fallout could increase risk of cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders, immune system disease, reproductive abnormalities, sterility, birth defects, and genetic mutations which could be passed on from generation to generation. Because it can take many years for cancers and other health problems to appear, it is not possible to accurately count the number of U.S. citizens who have been harmed by radiation from fallout.

           Because of fear of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, thousands of people in the United States were the unknowing victims of more than four thousand secret and classified radiation experiments. These experiments were carried out by the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Defense, The Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Public Health Service, the National Institute of Health, the Veterans Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

          Between 1944 and 1974 a number of secret experiments were conducted. Eighteen Americans were injected with plutonium, most of whom were terminally ill. In the 1940s, eight hundred women were given radioactive iron to see how it affected their fetuses. Forty nine retarded and institutionalized teenagers were fed radioactive iron and calcium in their cereal between 1946 and 1954. One hundred Alaskan villagers were given radioactive iodine during the 1960s. Six newborn Black babies were injected with radioactive iodine. The testicles of over a hundred prisoners were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to cause cancer up to the 1970s. Two hundred cancer patients were exposed to high levels of radiation from cesium and cobalt up until 1974. Psychiatric patients in San Francisco were given radioactive materials. In 1995, the Department of Energy admitted that four hundred and thirty radiation experiments had been conducted on over sixteen thousand people, many of whom were not informed as to the danger.

          In Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, it says that that the government shall provide for the “general welfare.” It is obvious that those who carried out the experiments above were not concerned with the welfare of those they experimented upon. Although the radiation experiments were supposedly stopped decades ago, I can’t help but wonder what sort of secret unethical experiments are being carried out today in United States in the name of national security.

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The Nuclear Regulation Authority has decided to allow TEPCO to begin building an underground ice wall at the wrecked Fukushima Unit 1 nuclear power plant in June as planned, despite safety concerns about the move. japantimes.co.jp

Japanese children planted rice by hand only 37 miles from Fukushima. fukushima-diary.com

The Nigerien government and Areva have signed a new partnership that provides Niger with higher sovereign royalty payments from mining operations led by the French state-controlled firm. world-nuclear-news.org

Federal regulators are suggesting that instead of frozen fish, a New York nuclear power plant use dead local fish or fish dummies to figurout how the plant affects endangered sturgeon in the Hudson River. usatoday.com

          I don’t do anything special on Memorial Day but I do take time to reflect on the men and women who serve in our military. I don’t always agree with the foreign policy decisions of our government when it comes to sending troops into harm’s way but I do respect the courage and dedication of our troops. I know that sometimes it is deemed necessary for larger strategic goals to sacrifice soldiers but I would hope that our military at least equips our troops for the battles they face and that they are honest about the threats present in combat situations. I blog about nuclear affairs so today’s post is  going to be about nuclear issues and our troops.

          During early testing of atomic bombs, a fourteen kiloton nuclear device was dropped from a plane over a testing ground. Troops stationed in trenches were close enough to be hit with the shockwave from the blast. Following the detonation, the troops climbed out of their trenches at walked around in the area of the blast. These troops were not issued protective gear and were just wearing normal uniforms.

          Following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, American troops were sent into those destroyed cities without proper safety equipment to protect them from the radiation and without being adequately briefed with respect to radiation hazards.

         In 1957, soldiers at the Yucca Flats test site in Nevada were issued gas masks and told to face away from the detonation of an atomic bomb twenty miles away. One soldier reported that the flash of light from the blast was so intense that he could literally see though his own arm and through the head of a soldier near him.

         It has been reported that between 1943 and 1967, over a million U.S. troops and lesser numbers of troops from other nations were exposed to radiation from military tests and the cleanup of Japanese cities that were bombed. Sometimes they were less than a thousand yards away from ground zero. Often these soldiers were told not to discuss any health issues that might have been connected to radiation exposure with anyone including their doctors.

        Thousands of sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier were sent to Fukushima to help in the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns that occured in March of 2011. They were not told how dangerous the situation was or how much radiation they were going to be exposed to. Now many are ill and are suing the U.S. Government while being told that their health problems couldn’t possibly have been caused by radiation from Fukushima.

        Radiation exposure can cause immediate problems depending on the dosage but low doses can cause damage that is hard to detect until years or decades later when cancers forms. Since the 1960s veterans who have health problems that might have been connected to their exposure to radiation have fought to receive treatment from the Veterans Administration. Repeatedly such individuals were assured that they could not have become ill because of radiation exposure. This has been proven not to be true but veterans with radiation related health issues are still fighting for treatment.

       It is ironic and tragic that the scandal at the Veterans Administration hit the national headlines near Memorial Day. On Memorial Day, it is not just those who died in service to our country who should be honored but also those who served and are still living burdened by the injuries they received while serving. Every soldier deserves to be equipped for and informed about the dangers he or she will face. And every soldier deserves to have timely medical treatment for any injury received while on duty, even if it takes decades for the injury to become known.

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