Tuesday, November 7, 2017

The Radiation That Counts


Not all radiation counts, or at least radiation doesn't count equally.

Radiation produced by North Korea counts a lot. It is the kind of radiation that causes malforations in babies:
Ryan Pickrell (2017, November 6). North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Test Site Appears Dangerously Contaminated. The National Interest. Available at Yahoo, https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-test-174400513.html accessed November 7, 2017. 

Julian Robinson (2017, November 7). Tests at North Korea's underground nuclear site have caused deformities in babies and turned the surrounding area into a wasteland. Daily Mail. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5057617/North-Korea-nuke-tests-caused-deformities-babies.html#ixzz4xl5o74g8accessed November 7, 2017.
The radiation produced by Hanford in the US and Fukushima in Japan doesn't count so much.  For example, the State of Washington's investigation of neural tube defects excluded radiation from Hanford as a potential causal or even contributing factor to the higher than average incidents of anencephaly in Yakima, Benton, and Franklin counties (45 cases between January 2010 and Septmber 2016):
John Wiesman & Kathy Lofy (2017, September). Washington State Department of Health Investigation, “Neural Tube Defect Investigation in Benton, Franklin and Yakima Counties, 2010-2016” September 2017 DOH Pub 210-092 Sep 2017 https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/Pubs/210-092-NTDReport.pdf

DOH staff did not see a way that radiation from Hanford could have exposed most or all of the women with anencephaly-affected pregnancies in the three-county area. Radiation leaks into soil or water at the Hanford site are mostly contained on the site. Leaks that do seep into the Columbia River are diluted and carried downstream. This water is carefully monitored to assure safety standards are met. It is unlikely that contamination from these leaks could get into the drinking water used by most of the women with affected pregnancies, because they lived throughout the three-county region. Furthermore, we did not identify any women with NTD-affected pregnancies who lived in residences served by public water systems that pull water directly from the Columbia River. P. 29

The first rationale given for lack of connection between Hanford and anencaphaly-affected pregnancies is presented without evidence. Radiation couldn't be the source because radiation is diluted and unlikely to get in water that is "carefully monitored." The second rationale makes more sense because it refers to lack of empirical evidence of specific defects in other communities that pull from Columbia River, but doesn't provide incident data, nor address incidents of other radiation-related diseases, such as thyroid disorders and/or autism rates.

Of course, its pretty much impossible to find online incidents of autism and thyroid disorders in children after 2010. Hopefully new data will be posted soon.

Regardless, the message is clear: radionuclides from friendlies' contaminating sites don't migrate and bioaccumulate in babies, at least not human babies.

The media don't ordinarily circulate memes of radioactive contamination of babies by "friendly" governments and corporations.

Of course, that is not to say that babies born with radiation-induced congenital defects don't exist in "friendly" locations, but their existence is usually unremarked by official authorities and hegemonic media networks.

Congenital defects in babies due to radiation happen only in places like North Korea and the former Soviet Union. Remember that.

[sarc]

6 comments:

  1. Good article about mass shootings, in counterpunch.
    https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/07/terrorism-white-mens-murderous-rage/

    I wonder if knowing, your world is a radioctive, polluted mess, contributes to disillusionment.

    The prepper groups, do not give a darn, about anything. They cheer, donald trumps, dismemberment of people and society.




    I think nuclear countries are already badly contaminated. Even huge countries like the USA and Russia. I feel like there are even radioactive plumes, in the aquifers, of the more rural areas of the continental united states and Russia proper(not all of Siberia or Alaska though).

    I lived through a huge tropical storm, and two successive hurricanes, in Texas , this year. Could have easily not made it. Saw what a societal breakdown, can begin to look like. No food on the shelves in supermarkets. No way in and out of towns for days. No gasoline at gas stations. They still have not picked up the huge piles, of flood-gutted home garbage in many neighborhoods of houston. The massive increase in homelessness, now plaguing houston. Imagine what Puerto Rico is like.

    The storms have gotten progressively worse over the past 10 years. Storms come in and dump rivers of water. Storms that are not tropical or hurricanes.

    There will be a meltdown, explosion or, fuel fire of one or more of the 40, coastal nuclear reactors, in the us soon. Probably next year. Who knows how many are damaged, from the increased storm activity of the last 20 years..

    The USA, is so contaminated with radionuclides and chemicals, there will be a noticeable difference in the amount of contamination, morbidity, and mortality. Like the Fukushima monkey study in Forbes and the ongoing increases of thyroid cancer in Japan. Most of it is covered up though..

    We will be able to see people getting actively sick and dying, from it. Half kilogram of cesium137, is enough to make new jersey uninhabitable.

    There will be several kilograms spread out all over the south and eastern united states. It will blow to the already horrendously-contaminated Midwest and west. There will be levels of strontium 90 and cesium 137, plutonium, above 300 bq/kg across the United States.

    The Ukraine, will be the same way when 1 or 2 of its plants, meltdown, explode, or both in the next year. Europe, turkey and Russia are as contaminated as the united states, from all of their reactor and nuclear weapon activity. From chernobyl. From places like mayak. From Lahague. From Sellafield. From places we do not know about. They will have greater than 300bq/kg of deadly radionuclides like cesium137, i 129 and i131, strontium 90, plutonium.

    The Ukraine has at least 10 reactors that could meltdown or blow. 1 or 2 of them will go in the next year. There are reactors in Japan that are in bad shape that have restarted. The reactors in Armenia are in particularly bad shape.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Mar
      I'm so sorry to hear that you've been living through these community-destroying storms. I cannot imagine how terrible it must be for people to have their homes ruined, their livelihoods disrupted, and their prospects for the future narrowed. Warmest Wishes,

      Delete
  2. If there was any doubt about it, there is no doubt now. Donald Trump and his ilk, will kill off the endangered species. They will turn what parts of the Earth and oceans, that are not contaminated into chemical cesspools and unihabitable radioactive-cesspools-wastelands.
    commitments... pic.twitter.com/xJ4jUpA8d8
    View photo ·
    Donald J. Trump Donald J. Trump
    @realDonaldTrump
    3h
    The U.S., under my administration, is completely rebuilding its military, and they're spending hundreds of billions of dollars to the newest and finest military equipment anywhere in the world, being built right now. I want peace through strength! pic.twitter.com/2YXkIvRIFi
    View photo ·

    ReplyDelete
  3. My thoughts exactly Weez.

    Yesterday and today I tried searching for this blog post using search terms:

    "majia's blog the radiation that counts"

    and the blog post is NOT showing up, even after three comments have been posted.

    Now why is that?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I tried it on 3 search engines. All I get, are results about North Korean, nuclear, deformed babies. They are right-wing, pro-war outlets like Fox news, The Sun, Telegraph, USA newswires. The republican war machine is in full force. Build nukes till the earth is a cinder.

    ReplyDelete
  5. When the republicans, militarists, oligarchs, hardcore sadists and psychopaths, consolidated their power in a full-blown 1984 style police state, under george w bush, there were spooks everyehere. They were in police departments. They were working as private contractors under the guise of homeland security. They were overtly controlling the media. They were embedded with troops in iraq. They were brought on by municipalities as agents of homeland security. The FBI was infiltrating quaker and veteran groups, against the Iraq war. In the Obama years, the overt domestic surveillance and headcode media control did not seem as bad. Now it is back.

    ReplyDelete

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