In the wake of the deadly tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 and severely damaged a nuclear reactor, Japanese officials say the levels of radiation are safe for everyone outside the reactor area itself. But as radioactive water from the plant nears the West Coast of North America — the water is expected to hit in 2014 — can we be sure it’s safe?
The nuclear reactor continues to leak radioactive water due to poor management, while Japanese subcontractors at the plant have admitted they intentionally under-reported radiation and that dozens of farms around Fukushima that were initially deemed safe by the government actually had unsafe levels of radioactive cesium
.
Fukushima locals also claim they’re seeing cancer at higher rates and the Japanese government is covering up the scale of the problem.
So what do independent estimates say? The first measures come from the U.S. government. The FDA has stepped up its monitoring of radiation in seafood due to the Fukushima incident.
‘We are actively watching for information that could implicate U.S. food and are always ready to take further action.’
– FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman
“Since the time FDA began its targeted testing of Japanese imports following the Fukushima incident, FDA has only found one sample of food — a ginger powder — that contained detectable levels of cesium, but those levels were far below FDA’s [safety levels] and posed no public health concern,” FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman told FoxNews.com.
“We are actively watching for information that could implicate U.S. food and are always ready to take further action,” she said.
Meanwhile, the EPA keeps track of radiation within U.S. borders and presents the data online in nearly real time through RadNet, a nationwide system of monitors.
“RadNet sample analyses and monitoring results of precipitation, drinking water, and milk provide baseline data on background levels of radiation,” the EPA said in a statement to FoxNews.com.
The agency does not monitor radiation levels at sea, however, and in a statement pointed to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which relies on Japanese government data.
Independent estimates confirm that radiated particles at sea are relatively low. One measurement comes from researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
“I stood on a ship two miles from the Fukushima reactors in June 2011 and as recently as May 2013, and it was safe to be there (I carry radiation detectors with me),” Ken Buesseler a Senior Scientist at the WHOI, has reported. He also tested radioactivity in the water.
“Although radioactive isotopes in the samples and on the ship were measurable back in our lab, it was low enough to be safe to handle samples without any precautions,” he has said.
In Japan, more than 100 volunteer-run radioactivity testing sites have also started up, which would likely notice a sharp uptick in radioactivity.
Doug Dasher, who studies radioecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said it remains possible that there will be minor effects for people on the U.S. West Coast, despite the low test results.
“No acute effects resulting in mortality or damage to organs … would be expected,” he told FoxNews.com. But he added that more subtle effects might occur.
“Longer term chronic effects, cancer or genetic effects… odds are statistically low, if the concentrations in the models remain within the projections, [but] cannot be said to be zero.”
Additional leakage from Fukushima could increase the odds, he said.
“The estimates [of radiation] vary substantially and do not, at least so far, account for the continued leakage from the Fukushima site to the marine environment,” he said.
Scientists also warn that if an another earthquake or other natural disaster occurs while the Fukushima nuclear plant is still being decommissioned, that could have catastrophic consequences. To help the decommissioning happen smoothly, the U.S. government has supported the cleanup by sending 34 experts and over 17,000 pounds of equipment to Japan.
In the end, some experts say, Japanese near the Fukushima reactor have reason to worry — a World Health Organization report found that the likelihood of a Japanese infant living near Fukushima getting thyroid cancer over her lifetime is expected to increase from the standard 0.75 percent to 1.25 percent — but Americans do not.
“There should be no concern among Americans, of any age or location,” Gilbert Ross, executive director of the American Council on Science and Health, told FoxNews.com.
“If you want to list health concerns that Americans should worry about, start with the real killers — drunk driving and smoking,” Ross said.
“If you went down a list of things people really should worry about, you would never even get to a concern about radiation leakage from Fukushima.”
Ghung on Sat, 30th Nov 2013 5:24 pm
““There should be no concern among Americans, of any age or location,” Gilbert Ross, executive director of the American Council on Science and Health, told FoxNews.com.”
Uh,, I’m not in the habit of shooting messengers, but Dr. Ross “had served time in a federal prison camp and had his medical license revoked for Medicare fraud.” [Wikipedia: American Council on Science and Health]…. since reinstated(?!).
I think I’ll seek clarity on this issue from other sources.
Stilgar on Sat, 30th Nov 2013 6:22 pm
We’re suppose to trust the FDA, the same Govt. department that approved use of ‘Aspartame’ in our food supply, which is still in use today as an artificial sweetener, which causes extreme allergic reactions in many people (like myself & my wife)? I don’t think so.
Bob Inget on Sat, 30th Nov 2013 7:31 pm
I think it’s fairly shocking for FOX to blame smoking as a health risk.Let’s count this as genuine progress.
SilentRunning on Sat, 30th Nov 2013 7:40 pm
I too am shocked to see reasonably accurate voices coming from Fox News.
It is correct that Americans are far, far more likely to suffer from health effects due to excessive salt in their food than they are to suffer from barely detectable levels of Cs-137 coming from seawater and seafood in the Pacific – after having been diluted by a factor of numerous billions of times.
If there actually were health effects noticeable in California, then the effects would glaringly obvious in Japan. People should be dropping in the streets from acute radiation poisoning.
Kenz300 on Sat, 30th Nov 2013 7:44 pm
Faux noise —- where facts go to die……….
Cam on Sat, 30th Nov 2013 10:08 pm
From Wikipedia:
The ACSH is known as an “industry-friendly” group.[18] In 1982, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a watchdog and consumer advocacy group, known to spar with ACSH, published an extensive report on ACSH’s practices that stated, “ACSH appears to be a consumer fraud; as a scientific group, ACSH seems to arrive at conclusions before conducting studies. Through voodoo or alchemy, bodies of scientific knowledge are transmogrified into industry-oriented position statements.”[19] CSPI director Michael F. Jacobson said of ACSH, ‘”This organization promotes confusion among consumers about what is safe and what isn’t… ACSH is using a slick scientific veneer to obscure and deny truths that virtually everyone else agrees with.”[20]
So Much for ACSH!
Manuel Lopez on Sat, 30th Nov 2013 10:38 pm
Dilution of radioactivity in the ocean doesn’t have to be in the billionths. Indeed there are rivers flowing within the oceans: The North Pacific Current (NPC) for example. The Kuroshio current is part of it, and goes from JAPAN TO CANADA & USA. Radioactivity could move fairly undiluted from Japan to the States and Canada via NPC
DC on Sat, 30th Nov 2013 11:59 pm
I didnt know the were ‘safe’ levels of cesium for your ginger. In my (admittedly) non-expert opinion, the safe level for cesium in my ginger would be, zero cesium, none, zip, nada.
BillT on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 1:18 am
Radioactivity is an accumulative killer. And slow in most cases. It first affects the newborn and then works it’s way up the ladder. It may take 20 years for the cancers to begin to be obvious, but it will be too late by then.
DC has the right idea. If radiation in small doses is safe, why all the precautions by all medical personnel to cover you with lead blankets, and they leave the room, when they give you an x-ray? After all, it is a ‘safe’ dose.
Fukushima will be spewing radioactivity into the ocean and air for years, maybe centuries. At what point is it ‘dangerous’? After 1,000 die? 5,000? 50,000?
Remember, DDT was safe also, according to the government, until it killed enough people to become obvious to the public. Then it was banned.
Maybe a good gift this Christmas would be a handheld Geiger counter? Is your tuna safe? Alaskan salmon? King crabs?
DC on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 4:33 am
My gov’t, in compliance with US dictates, has ceased ALL monitoring of radiation. Air, fish, land, nothing. The Harper regime has forbidden any public testing on the west coast.
SilentRunning on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 5:09 am
DC> I didnt know the were ‘safe’ levels of cesium for your ginger. In my (admittedly) non-expert opinion, the safe level for cesium in my ginger would be, zero cesium, none, zip, nada.
Of course there are safe levels of radioactive Cs-137 in your food.
I have news: Pretty much everything you have ever eaten is slightly radioactive. For example, just tonight I ate a radioactive potato. It had atoms of radioactive carbon-14. It also had atoms of radioactive potassium-40. This was true 500 years ago, well before any atomic technology. Radioactivity has been a normal part of our environment since the beginning of time.
So YES, there is such a thing as a safe level of radioactivity in our environment.
SilentRunning on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 5:28 am
BillT>DC has the right idea. If radiation in small doses is safe, why all the precautions by all medical personnel to cover you with lead blankets, and they leave the room, when they give you an x-ray? After all, it is a ‘safe’ dose.
Because you are right that dosages accumulate, and if an X-ray tech exposed themselves to dozens of individual dosages per day, it would add up to a level that would cause serious problems including cancers.
>Fukushima will be spewing radioactivity into the ocean and air for years, maybe centuries. At what point is it ‘dangerous’? After 1,000 die? 5,000? 50,000?
It will be and is dangerous in those places where the radiation dosage from Fukushima rises to levels well above normal background radiation.
>Maybe a good gift this Christmas would be a handheld Geiger counter? Is your tuna safe? Alaskan salmon? King crabs?
Knock yourself out. Buy a Geiger counter. Get a sophisticated gamma ray spectrometer. Read up on nuclear physics. You’ll discover that there is background radioactivity all around you.
If you are really concerned about this, never visit high altitude places like Denver CO. There the background radiation level is more than twice as high as at sea level, due to radiation from outer space. Never, ever travel in a plane that flies 30,000 feet or more – because the radiation levels there are *even higher*.
SilentRunning on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 5:38 am
DC> My gov’t, in compliance with US dictates, has ceased ALL monitoring of radiation. Air, fish, land, nothing. The Harper regime has forbidden any public testing on the west coast.
Most likely they have stopped monitoring because there isn’t anything new to report.
I welcome ANY report from a qualified scientist that shows that radiation levels in the Pacific ocean OR fish have exceeded safe levels. I have seen numerous CLAIMS that there is this enormous “WAVE” of radiation coming to the west coast of North America – but what has been singularly lacking is ANY report of measurements that show where all this dangerous radiation is NOW. It can’t be hiding. WHERE is it? Give us the readings – lattiude, longitude, depths & times, with breakdowns of atomic species and amounts.
WHERE IS THE DATA?
I don’t want the fear and the hype – I want to see the data!!
DC on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 12:01 pm
Nice bit of deflection there SR. Of course there is *natural* background radiation all around us. We know this. Its not the ‘natural’ background radiation that worries people. Its all the UN-natural radiation our species is throwing out there with reckless abandon.
But I think you knew that. But keep up the snark. You may have a promising future as a nuclear apologist. And both the US and Canadian govts forbid testing because the last thing they want in the public domain, is all that data you (claim) you want.
But your right, there is no *official* data. Or if there is, its been declared a state secret.
But others thankfully, do not share your denialist worldview.
http://www.qciobserver.com/Article.aspx?Id=4908
http://www.straight.com/news/federal-government-not-testing-west-coast-salmon-fukushima-radiation
Gov’t attitude is protect the nuclear industry at all costs. Everyone is expendable when it comes to that goal. The attitude? If we don’t test for it, then its not there.
You are clearly comfortable with that, but not everyone is.
george on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 2:19 pm
the us govt BS factory provides me with a never ending source of astonishment
Ghung on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 3:17 pm
Of course all life on earth is exposed to, and adapted to a lifetime of background radiation of different types. Then, again, the devil is in the cumulative dose. Increasing the dosage rate means reaching the total acceptable lifetime exposure to the point where things start to go wrong earlier than they otherwise would have. Where’s the problem with that? We already live longer, and consume much more, than our ancestors did. As long as we keep adding lifetime-limiting substances to our environment, our over-population problems will solve themselves, eh? Anyway, I’m not confused about why our healthcare costs keep going up.
It’s a bit like the idea that the atmosphere is already full of CO2 from volcanoes, decomposing organic matter, etc.. What harm can adding a bit (or a lot) more do?
Question: How much should we worry about the plutonium loaded MOX in unit 4 storage if things go wrong(er) with the ‘cleanup’ attempts. Few have mentioned that plutonium makes caesium look like a barium enema.
Live (less) long and prosper.
SilentRunning on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 3:41 pm
DC> And both the US and Canadian govts forbid testing because the last thing they want in the public domain, is all that data you (claim) you want
I haven’t seen anything that says that the governments of Canada & US have *forbid* testing, only that they have *stopped* testing.
I am willing to accept the testing done by any qualified scientist about the radiation levels in the Pacific. If there is this ENORMOUS wave of high level radiation coming toward us, it should be evident in the data. WHERE IS THE DATA? Greenpeace could send out a scientist with some modestly priced equipment and get definitive data. WHERE IS THE DATA?
DC> But your right, there is no *official* data. Or if there is, its been declared a state secret.
So you’re claiming that if Greenpeace, or a private researcher tried to do the testing they would be arrested?
>http://www.qciobserver.com/Article.aspx?Id=4908
Wow. 1.1 bequels per liter. That might sound like a lot. Until you realize that a typical natural radiation load for the human body is over 5500 becquerels already. Just from naturally occurring C14 and K40. The potato I ate yesterday was probably 15-20 becquerels of K40. The other thing is, date of the article you cited was in 2011. That radiation (from Iodine-131) has already decayed away.
>http://www.straight.com/news/federal-government-not-testing-west-coast-salmon-fukushima-radiation
I’d like to see MORE testing, and MORE UNDERSTANDING of what the tests really mean. You running around citing a study showing 1.1 Bq/liter of rainwater as something alarming shows that you don’t understand radiation levels. It’s like being terrified of a 1.5V AAA battery because you heard that electricity can kill you.
surf on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 10:03 pm
“DC> But your right, there is no *official* data. Or if there is, its been declared a state secret.”
The data is readily available if you look. But most people don’t look:
http://radiationnetwork.com/USA.jpg
Currently radiation levels on thw west cost are about the same as levels on the east cost which are fare lower than the levels in Denver colorado. Most of the radiation in Denver is from cosmic radiation originating in space. The higher you go the higher the radiation levels. However studies are showing the high altitude cities have lower cancer rates than cities at see level.:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057635/
To date fuckushima radiation levels outise of japan have always been measured at or well below natural background levels.
Based on the above sites and others I have looked at fuckushima radiation will be a non event in north america. That agrees with the artical above.
BillT on Mon, 2nd Dec 2013 12:56 am
SA appears to be an investor in nuclear energy sources. Sunlight is safe, until it isn’t. But then, the body knows when it has had too much either by becoming sick or, at the least, pealing skin and skin cancer. Radiation has no such warning signs until it is too late. I would prefer to err on the safe side and avoid any radiation not necessary.
Yes, it is everywhere, but our bodies have evolved to handle that. It is the tens of thousands of UN-natural sources that are the problem. They coulds ALL be spewing radiation and we would not be told. The elite want a few billion of us ‘eaters’ to die and they don’t care how as long as it is profitable for them.
shortonoil on Mon, 2nd Dec 2013 12:57 am
Ingested, 1 milli-curie is considered to be a fatal dose for a human. It has been estimated that there are 360 million curies at Fukushima, which will eventually drain into the Pacific. Radiation is not diluted in biological systems; it moves up the food chain. These are radionuclides with half lifes of a few years, to millions of years.
BillT on Mon, 2nd Dec 2013 12:57 am
BTW: http://www.netc.com/
SilentRunning on Mon, 2nd Dec 2013 2:46 am
BillT wrote
>SA appears to be an investor in nuclear energy sources.
I think you meant to refer to me with your comment. Just so you know – only a tiny part of my measly 401K package is invested in companies that are involved in nuclear energy.
Actually – I *am* on the anti-nuclear side, believe it or not. I also have a physics background. I am on the side of The Truth.
In the near future – when the often hyped “Radiation Wave” fails to arrive and kill off the West Coast of the USA – the public at large will come to believe that anyone opposed to nuclear energy can be safely ignored. THAT is the real problem with crying wolf and making grossly exaggerated claims.
THE problem with nukes in the future era is that hundreds of today’s aging reactors will not be shut down and decommissioned as they need to be. We still have the extreme problem of long term storage of the high level nuke waste. My concern is that in the future energy and resource constrained world we wont have the means to deal with these problems – and that we will end up with dozens or hundreds of Fukushimas. Now you are talking a very, very serious problem.
SilentRunning on Mon, 2nd Dec 2013 3:08 am
BillT wrote:
>BTW: http://www.netc.com/
Um – that site seems to exist to sell subscriptions to radiation monitoring and very cheap Geiger counters.
If you’re interested in getting accurate readings, the equipment involved STARTS at 100 times as much as the toy instrumentation netc.com sells. But then, it will tell you not only that you have gamma ray emissions, but also will give you a *spectra* those gamma rays so that you can distinguish various radioisotopes.