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Abstract Source: J Environ Radioact. 2011 Dec 27. Epub 2011 Dec 27. PMID: 22206700

Article Affiliation: Environmental Research Department, SRI Center for Physical Sciences and Technology, Savanoriu 231, 02300 Vilnius, Lithuania.

Analyses of (131)I, (137)Cs and (134)Cs in airborne aerosols were carried out in daily samples in Vilnius, Lithuania after the Fukushima accident during the period of March-April, 2011. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs ranged from 12 μBq/m(3) and 1.4 μBq/m(3) to 3700 μBq/m(3) and 1040 μBq/m(3), respectively. The activity concentration of (239,240)Pu in one aerosol sample collected from 23 March to 15 April, 2011 was found to be 44.5 nBq/m(3). The two maxima found in radionuclide concentrations were related to complicated long-range air mass transport from Japan across the Pacific, the North America and the Atlantic Ocean to Central Europe as indicated by modelling. HYSPLIT backward trajectories and meteorological data were applied for interpretation of activity variations of measured radionuclides observed at the site of investigation. (7)Be and (212)Pb activity concentrations and their ratios were used as tracers of vertical transport of air masses. Fukushima data were compared with the data obtained during the Chernobyl accident and in the post Chernobyl period. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs were found to be by 4 orders of magnitude lower as compared to the Chernobyl accident. The activity ratio of (134)Cs/(137)Cs was around 1 with small variations only. The activity ratio of (238)Pu/(239,240)Pu in the aerosol sample was 1.2, indicating a presence of the spent fuel of different origin than that of the Chernobyl accident.

AbstractAnalyses of (131)I, (137)Cs and (134)Cs in airborne aerosols were carried out in daily samples in Vilnius, Lithuania after the Fukushima accident during the period of March-April, 2011. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs ranged from 12 μBq/m(3) and 1.4 μBq/m(3) to 3700 μBq/m(3) and 1040 μBq/m(3), respectively. The activity concentration of (239,240)Pu in one aerosol sample collected from 23 March to 15 April, 2011 was found to be 44.5 nBq/m(3). The two maxima found in radionuclide concentrations were related to complicated long-range air mass transport from Japan across the Pacific, the North America and the Atlantic Ocean to Central Europe as indicated by modelling. HYSPLIT backward trajectories and meteorological data were applied for interpretation of activity variations of measured radionuclides observed at the site of investigation. (7)Be and (212)Pb activity concentrations and their ratios were used as tracers of vertical transport of air masses. Fukushima data were compared with the data obtained during the Chernobyl accident and in the post Chernobyl period. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs were found to be by 4 orders of magnitude lower as compared to the Chernobyl accident. The activity ratio of (134)Cs/(137)Cs was around 1 with small variations only. The activity ratio of (238)Pu/(239,240)Pu in the aerosol sample was 1.2, indicating a presence of the spent fuel of different origin than that of the Chernobyl accident.

This week’s guest is Wladimir Wertelecki, the founder and chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics and Birth Defects Center of the University of South Alabama, in the U.S. Prior to his training in Medical Genetics at Harvard University Medical School, Dr. Wertelecki trained in Pediatrics at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Washington University. Later, he served as Senior Surgeon, U.S. Public Health Commission Corps at the Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute [...] He has extensively studied the effects of the radiation released by the Chernobyl meltdown on public health, particularly in children [...]

Wertelecki: I did give lectures in Tokyo recently and I met people from a variety of Universities that attended these events. My sense is that the path followed in Japan closely resembles the path that evolved after Chernobyl. And there are more regrettables than nonregrettables. It seems like frankly it’s difficult to understand what’s going on and what’s not going on. From my point of view the absolute priority is women of reproductive age… No registry of pregnant women as far as I know… very little concentration on these aspects… everything is concentrated on cancer…children beyond the scope of thyroid cancer are very important…

Wertelecki: There’s a team of expert son birds and ornithology form France, very distinguished Danish ornithologist who found in Chernobyl area very, very major disturbing findings that exactly the same is happening in Fukushima. In other words these birds cannot migrate because they become exhausted… they find microcephaly just like we do, they find all kind of instability like random spotted changes to fur, which are local mutations of course on so on and so on.

Fukushima & Japan Tokyo Area Outside Tokyo Fukushima Reactors Status of Reactors Reactor No. 1 Reactor No. 2 Reactor No. 3 Spent Fuel Pools Spent Fuel Pool No. 1 Spent Fuel Pool No. 2 Spent Fuel Pool No. 3 Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 Common Spent Fuel Pool Radiation Releases Plutonium Uranium Longterm Chernobyl Comparisons Criticality US & Canada West Coast California Los Angeles San Francisco Bay Area Hawaii Seattle Canada Midwest East Coast Florida US Nuclear Facilities North Anna (VA) Calvert Cliffs (MD) World Europe France UK Germany Chernobyl Rest of Europe South America Russia Asia China South Korea Taiwan Rest of Asia Pacific Rad. Maps & Forecasts Radiation Maps Radiation Forecasts Rad. Facts Internal Emitters Health Testing Food Water Air Rain Soil Milk Strange Coverups? Children Video Home Log In Discussion Forum page_item

See all charts here.

Beyond the police roadblocks that mark the no-go zone around the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, 2-meter-tall weeds invade rice paddies and vines gone wild strangle road signs along empty streets. Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate, a village in Fukushima Prefecture, to retrieve her car. Beside her house is an empty cattle pen, the 100 cows slaughtered on government orders after radiation from the March 11 atomic disaster saturated the area, forcing 160,000 people to move away and leaving some places uninhabitable for two decades or more. "Older folks want to return, but the young worry about radiation," said Harada, whose family ran the farm for 40 years. "I want to farm, but will we be able to sell anything?"

What is emerging six months since the nuclear meltdowns at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant is a radioactive zone bigger than that left by the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

While nature reclaims the 20-km no-go zone, Fukushima's ¥240 billion a year farm industry is being devastated and tourists that hiked the prefecture's mountains and surfed off its beaches have all but vanished.

Sufficient funds have been pledged to enable the start of construction of a new shelter over the damaged reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, according to the country's minister of foreign affairs.

Political decisions were made allowing us to say with certainty that the issue of raising funds for building the shelter is resolved," said Ukrainian minister foreign affairs, Kostyantyn Grushchenko. "It is very important for us that already now, this year, we can start building the shelter, which will protect Kiev, Ukraine, the world from possible risks associated with the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster."   He was speaking yesterday after officially notifying President Viktor Yanukovych of the outcome of a meeting of the international donors to the Chernobyl clean-up fund at the headquarters of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London. Aside from the good news on funding, Grushchenko noted without elaborating that there are still a number of "issues requiring technical completion."

Because it appears on the websites of local Fox News stations, one instinctively takes an article titled Insider: Iran Will Be 'Next Chernobyl' with a grain of salt. But its plausibility is undeniable. See if you agree. The first Iranian nuclear power station is inherently unsafe and will probably cause a "tragic disaster for humankind," according to a document apparently written by an Iranian whistleblower. There is a "great likelihood" that the Bushehr reactor could generate the next nuclear catastrophe after Chernobyl or Fukushima, says the document. … It claims that Bushehr, which began operating last month after 35 years of intermittent construction, was built by "second-class engineers" who bolted together Russian and German technologies from different eras; that it sits in one of the world's most seismically active areas but could not withstand a major earthquake; and that it has "no serious training program" for staff or a contingency plan for accidents. The document's authenticity cannot be confirmed, but nuclear experts see no reason to doubt it.

More about the Russian-German incompatibility: "The Russian parts are designed to standards that are less stringent than the Germans' and they are being used out of context in a design where they are exposed to inappropriate stresses," the document says. It goes on to claim that "much of the necessary work for Bushehr is outside the competence of the Russian consulting engineers," who consider the project a "holiday."

What's ironic about this article is that Fox types no doubt view the shoddy-sounding state of Iran's nuclear-energy program as a force multiplier to add to Iran's alleged development of nuclear weapons. Operating in synergy, theoretically they should make the case for attacking Iran. To others though, Iran's possible nuclear-energy troubles eclipse the nuclear weapons threat. Thus is Iran reduced from malevolent to incompetent and not worth attacking. Given enough time, its nuclear program may well blow itself up. 

Fukushima & Japan Tokyo Area Outside Tokyo Fukushima Reactors Status of Reactors Reactor No. 1 Reactor No. 2 Reactor No. 3 Spent Fuel Pools Spent Fuel Pool No. 1 Spent Fuel Pool No. 2 Spent Fuel Pool No. 3 Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 Common Spent Fuel Pool Radiation Releases Plutonium Uranium Longterm Chernobyl Comparisons Criticality US & Canada West Coast California Los Angeles San Francisco Bay Area Hawaii Seattle Canada Midwest East Coast Florida US Nuclear Facilities North Anna (VA) Calvert Cliffs (MD) World Europe France UK Germany Chernobyl Rest of Europe South America Russia Asia China South Korea Taiwan Rest of Asia Pacific Maps & Forecasts Radiation Maps Radiation Forecasts Rad. Facts Internal Emitters Health Testing Food Water Air Rain Soil Milk Strange Coverups? Children Video Home page_

A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency praised Japan on Friday for steps it has taken to reduce radiation exposure for the public, particularly children, near the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.During a nine-day trip, the IAEA team visited schools, farms and government offices outside the 20-mile (12-kilometer) exclusion zone surrounding the power plant, which was damaged by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami.In a preliminary report submitted to the government, the 12-member team said Japan had developed "an efficient program for remediation — allocating the necessary legal, financial and technological resources to bring relief to the people affected by the accident, with priority being given to children."

The report noted efforts to decontaminate schools and some 400 playgrounds — mostly by volunteers, many of them parents of students. Towns around the exclusion zone have begun washing down public areas and removing topsoil in parks and school yards.It was the U.N. atomic agency's second major mission to Japan since the nuclear crisis began. Its purpose was to assess Japan's strategy and plans to reduce radiation exposure in areas around Fukushima prefecture.

No one has died from radiation in the nuclear crisis, but concerns remain high over how the lingering contamination will affect Fukushima's youth. On Sunday, local doctors began a long-term survey of children in the region for thyroid abnormalities, a problem linked with radiation exposure.In Ukraine, more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer have been detected in people who were children or adolescents when they were exposed to high levels of fallout immediately after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Japan's nuclear safety agency has said the radiation that leaked from the Fukushima plant was about one-sixth of that released from Chernobyl.

: Dr. Helen Caldicott

All areas of Japan should be tested to assess how radioactive the soil and water are because the winds can blow the radioactive pollution hundreds of miles from the point source at Fukushima. Under no circumstances should radioactive rubbish and debris be incinerated as this simply spreads the isotopes far and wide to re-concentrate in food and fish. All batches of food must be adequately tested for specific radioactive elements using spectrometers. No radioactive food must be sold or consumed, nor must radioactive food be diluted for sale with non-radioactive food as radioactive elements re-concentrate in various bodily organs. All water used for human consumption should be tested weekly. All fish caught off the east coast must be tested for years to come. All people, particularly children, pregnant women and women of childbearing age still living in high radiation zones should be immediately evacuated to non-radioactive areas of Japan. All people who have been exposed to radiation from Fukushima – particularly babies, children, immunosuppressed, old people and others — must be medically thoroughly and routinely examined for malignancy, bone marrow suppression, diabetes, thyroid abnormalities, heart disease, premature aging, and cataracts for the rest of their lives and appropriate treatment instituted. Leukemia will start to manifest within the next couple of years, peak at five years and solid cancers will start appearing 10 to 15 years post-accident and will continue to increase in frequency in this generation over the next 70 to 90 years. All physicians and medical care providers in Japan must read and examine Chernobyl–Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment by the New York Academy of Sciences to understand the true medical gravity of the situation they face. I also suggest with humility that doctors in particular but also politicians and the general public refer to my web page, nuclearfreeplanet.org for more information, that they listen to the interviews related to Fukushima and Chernobyl on my radio program at ifyoulovethisplanet.org and they read my book NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT THE ANSWER. The international medical community and in particular the WHO must be mobilized immediately to assist the Japanese medical profession and politicians to implement this massive task outlined above. The Japanese government must be willing to accept international advice and help. As a matter of extreme urgency Japan must request and receive international advice and help from the IAEA and the NRC in the U.S., and nuclear specialists from Canada, Europe, etc., to prevent the collapse of Fukushima Dai-ichi Unit 4 and the spent fuel pool if there was an earthquake greater than 7 on the Richter scale.As the fuel pool crashed to earth it would heat and burn causing a massive radioactive release 10 times larger than the release from Chernobyl. There is no time to spare and at the moment the world community sits passively by waiting for catastrophe to happen. The international and Japanese media must immediately start reporting the facts from Japan as outlined above. Not to do so is courting global disaster.

Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count

An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.

The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.The IJHS article will be published Tuesday and will be available online as of 11 a.m. EST at http://www.radiation.org . Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92)

There is a great deal of research about spirulina's effectiveness in insulating you from the effects of radiation. Spirulina was actually used to treat children exposed to chronic low-levels of radiation after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which I'll be covering in more detail below. According to a scientific review of spirulina's benefits in the Journal of Applied Phycology: "Up to very recently, the interest in Spirulina was mainly in its nutritive value. Currently, however, numerous people are looking into the possible therapeutic effects of Spirulina. Many pre-clinical studies and a few clinical studies suggest several therapeutic effects ranging from reduction of cholesterol and cancer to enhancing the immune system, increasing intestinal lactobacilli, reducing nephrotoxicity by heavy metals and drugs and radiation protection."