As I've previously noted, infants are much more vulnerable to radiation than adults. And see this.
However, radiation safety standards are set based on the assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s.
Now, a physician (Janette D. Sherman, M. D.) and epidemiologist (Joseph Mangano) have penned a short but horrifying essay asking whether a spike in infant deaths in the Northwest are due to Fukushima:
The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:
4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.
***
Data from Chernobyl, which exploded 25 years ago, clearly shows increased numbers of sick and weak newborns and increased numbers of deaths in the unborn and newborns, especially soon after the meltdown. These occurred in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union. Similar findings are also seen in wildlife living in areas with increased radioactive fallout levels.
(Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexeiy V. Yablokov, Vasily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko. Consulting Editor: Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger. New York Academy of Sciences, 2009.)Levels of radioisotopes were measured in children who had died in the Minsk area that had received Chernobyl fallout. The cardiac findings were the same as those seen in test animals that had been administered Cs-137. Bandashevsky, Y. I, Pathology of Incorporated Ionizing Radiation, Belarus Technical University, Minsk. 136 pp., 1999. For his pioneering work, Prof. Bandashevsky was arrested in 2001 and imprisoned for five years of an eight year sentence.
***
Why should we care if there may be is a link between Fukushima and the death of children? Because we need to measure the actual levels of isotopes in the environment and in the bodies of people exposed to determine if the fallout is killing our most vulnerable. The research is not technically difficult – the political and economic barriers may be greater. Bandshevsky and others did it and confirmed the connection. The information is available in the Chernobyl book. (Previously cited.)The biological findings of Chernobyl cannot be ignored: isotope incorporation will determine the future of all life on earth – animal, fish, bird, plant and human. It is crucial to know this information if we are to avoid further catastrophic damage.
You know the government changed the standards when they knew the radiation had hit the west coast, right?
ReplyDeleteOr did I miss you mentioning that?
Courage!
We're gonna need it.
This is an important concern, appreciate you bringing it out.
ReplyDeleteWhile levels of some fallout appeared minimal (with most of the media attention going to short-lived I-131 ... and many of the EPA's west coast counters 'temporarily' non-functional), the major concern is, of course, Cs-137 and the centuries it takes to decay to negligible danger. Equally important is that while external doses may be neglibible, inhaled or ingested long-lived alpha-emitters are a much greater danger.
I've seen NO official statements about Cesium ... then, or now ... here in the US or in Japan. The fallout already on the ground there, as well as the fallout still being produced, will continue to blow across the ocean ... for several lifetimes.
There seems to be some bad analysis (logical error) on the part of Sherman & Mangano. They note that:
ReplyDelete"4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)"
but they fail to note that the Tohoku earthquake occurred on March 11. Thus their study period is for three weeks prior to the Fukushima inundation. Furthermore, the explosions which lofted "hot" particles into the atmosphere occurred on March 12. According to the modeling
[ http://tinyurl.com/4z3h27p ]
done by Dr. Jeff Masters of the atmospheric release, the soonest that any materials could have traveled from Fukushima to the U.S. West Coast was approximately 5 days later, or March 17. Thus any infant in the U.S. could not have been exposed to any hot particle from Fukushima for more than 2 days out of the 28 days in the period in question.
Interestingly enough, if you change just a couple of cities so your looking at (Looking at: Berkeley, Fresno, Glendale, Long Beach, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Tacoma)
ReplyDeleteYou see a drop of about 30% in the Infant Mortality instead of a spike.
4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 49 deaths (avg. 12.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 86 deaths (avg.8.60 per week)
As with the birth defects in Iraq and eastern Europe--it probably isn't the radiation per se, but rather the heavy metal impact of uranium (as the main culprit).
ReplyDeleteUranium will replace calcium in bone structure and in nerve tissue, and can play a catastrophic role in birth defects. Calcium is involved in much of the hormonal signalling that goes on during fetal development. Uranium skews these signals.
One of the worst issues is that the young women living in this area are accumulating uranium in their bones--should they become mothers in the years (and decades) to come, they may pass that uranium on to their unborn children.