March 18, 2013

The Moral Outrage of Nuclear Power
The Truth About Radiation
[link to www.counterpunch.org]

[snip]

I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, and I’m going to have to point out some widespread – let’s say – untruths going around concerning the health impacts of radiation poisoning from the Fukushima meltdowns. Yes, that’s “meltdowns,” plural. It’s actually quite a bit more catastrophic than your mainstream media will tell you, and your government officials, of course, have only ever had one message on the subject: ‘It’s reaaaaaaally not so bad, so don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.’ They were saying this on day one, before they knew how bad it was. They were saying it ever since, even as the numbers skyrocketed up into uncharted territory. How can they get away with blatantly lying to the public, you might ask? That is a complex question, and requires a complex answer.

Ask yourself this, next time you come upon a “don’t worry be happy” take on a nuclear meltdown in the media: are any doctors, the people directly treating the children who live in the radioactive contamination zones, ever included in their reporting?

Short answer is no. They are not. Are these doctors far too busy and/or isolated to be interviewed? Is that the reason for their absence across the mainstream news-tainment complex?

A typical radiation news report includes an IAEA spokesman, a government official, and a factoid from the latest study that has come out, all of which bolsters the idea that nuclear meltdowns aren’t so bad. One might assume that the IAEA, or International Atomic Energy Agency, is some kind of skeptical party, a watchdog perhaps. This is false. The IAEA was created by the UN Security Council, and its five permanent nuclear powers, to “…[assist] its Member States, in the context of social and economic goals, in planning for and using nuclear science and technology for various peaceful purposes, including the generation of electricity…” In other words, the purpose of the IAEA is to promote the nuclear power industry on behalf of the most powerful nuclear states on the planet.

What you will be told by your televised talking heads is that there is such a thing as “background radiation” and that any and all radiation problems you may encounter are of no more concern to you than eating a banana or flying in a plane at high altitude. Are you really going to fall for that one? They type this stuff with a straight face.

The US Academy of Sciences studied the effects of low-level ionizing radiation in a massive report called BEIR-VII: Health Risks From Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation (2006). Well, the very first paragraph tells us, “A comprehensive review of available biological and biophysical data supports a “linear-no-threshold” (LNT) risk model—that the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”

So think about that. How then can the news media and government officials proclaim that doses are so small that they are “safe” and of no concern? Their own best available scientific data tells us that there is no “safe” dose at all, and that all radiation is bad and to be avoided. Radiation is the most potent carcinogen in existence, and it also negatively impacts vital body organs in numerous other ways.

Horrific birth defects are the norm in the radiation zones, and these, such as those seen in the two films cited above, will shock the viewer to his/her very core. This is not an academic discussion nor a scientific debate.

This is a moral outrage. Nuclear power has poisoned millions.