There is not much news coming out of Fukushima these days, since TEPCO declared its melted reactors and fuel pools "stable" as they promised they would, whether they are or not. It has been five months today since the first of the reactor buildings blew up so spectacularly the explosion could be seen from miles away. Then another one blew up. And another. And still another. Each explosion sent massive plumes of intense radiation and contamination into the atmosphere, where it was picked up by prevailing winds to settle haphazardly across the countryside. Residents were evacuated. 5 kilometers at first, then with the first explosion the evacuations were extended to 10 kilometers inland from the reservation. Then 15. Finally the people within 20 kilometers were moved and the area declared an "exclusion zone."
Fast forward a month, and it became clear that the prevailing winds over northern Japan weren't paying any attention to government bureaucrats who had drawn that 20 km boundary line. Massive radioactive contamination began to show up farther than 20 kilometers away. It traveled up river valleys and blanketed towns so the government bureaucrats advised citizens to stay indoors. To not eat the spring vegetable crops. To wear hats and raincoats when they went outdoors. And they raised the "allowed" accumulated radiation dose for young children to the level that the world's nuclear industries allow for adult nuclear workers to receive. Because that's how much radiation the children were being exposed to, and the government didn't want to help them or their families get out of the danger zone.
Fast forward another couple of months and cesium contamination of tea grown south of Tokyo could not be hidden. Soon the meat and fish started setting off radiation alarms even though nobody was checking it routinely, because nobody really wanted to know. 30, 40, 50 kilometers away the food had to be condemned. Then 60, 70, 80 kilometers. 100. Cesium contaminated crops and livestock from as far from Fukushima's melted nukes as 280 kilometers.
"No danger to the general public."
"Unlikely to harm humans."
"No expected rise in cancers."
We heard the standard reassurances day after day after day. And a great many people both in Japan and around the world wanted very much to believe it. But what we didn't hear, because it wasn't something anyone was anxious to publicize, was anything about the water. Oh, sure, the cows ate contaminated rice straw - from LAST season, stored outdoors 80 kilometers from Fukushima's epicenter of nuclear destruction. Some people maybe ate some radishes and spinach during those many weeks when they were told to stay indoors and no one bothered to send them food. The people and the animals all drank the water, having been told repeatedly by their government that the levels were not dangerous once the iodine tapered off.
A couple of weeks ago the Japanese government began making body scanners available to residents at long last. Japanese state television - NHK - aired a report on its "News Watch Nine" program on August 3 about citizens of Minami soma shi, a town 30 kilometers south of the Fukushima plant toward Tokyo and outside the exclusion zone. The NHK cameraperson happened to catch one patient's scan report in the hand of a facility interviewee…
The unknown person who received this scan shows levels of 129,746 Bq of Cesium 137 and 122,676 Bq of Cesium 134 per kilogram of body weight. Which translates, if you care to read the notations to 596.8 mSv of Cs-137 and 564.3 mSv of Cs-134. Or 1,161 mSv/kg internal dose from radioactive Cesium. 116.1 rem/kg.
A hundred and sixteen rem is a considerable dose of radiation from any source. And of course there is nothing here about radioactive iodine the individual absorbed from the plume in the first days and weeks of the crisis, because the iodine pretty much all decayed away by the time s/he was allowed to seek a body scan for internal contamination. That damage is already done. As is the damage done by each and every one of those 252,422 cesium atom disintegrations occurring every second of every minute of every hour in each kilogram of that individual's body.
I do not wonder why this person felt the need to take advantage of the body scanner. For convenience, let's pretend it's a Japanese man who weighs a bit over 145 pounds, or 66 kilograms. It's a wonder this man is still alive. He must be very, very ill. I wonder if he has been working outdoors every day. I wonder if he's been eating the same foods and drinking the same water as his neighbors and family in Minami soma shi for the past five months. I wonder with horror how many others in this area and other contaminated areas outside the Fukushima exclusion zone - have been very sick for awhile now, and probably have been told by doctors and public health workers that there's nothing to worry about. It's just stress, as so many were told in the months and years after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
But it's not stress, I assure you. At doses from 100 rem radiation sickness kicks in hard, it kicks in harder the higher the dose gets. By the time 450 rem are accumulated, death is the most likely outcome and it won't be pleasant. Worse, this isn't all of the dose this person or anyone else in the area received, as the very significant doses from radioiodine are no longer detectable. Red blood cell count drops greatly, causing anemia and internal hemorrhages. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and general malaise take over. Most victims of 100 rem acute dose will recover in 6 to 10 weeks, but not if the dose is chronic and increasing over time. White blood cells start disappearing too, incapacitating the body's first line of immune defense. Victims will easily fall prey to severe colds, flu, pneumonia and any other infectious disease they come in contact with. Think of it as an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. At least, that's how our U.S. Environmental Protection Agency characterizes doses this high.
If this person does not receive remediation to remove as much of the cesium as possible from his body right away, it is unlikely that he will live long enough to develop cancer. But if he did receive remediation and recover - hopefully somewhere far enough away not to simply absorb that much cesium again through the air, food and water - cancer is certainly a big risk for the future.
Cesium-134 has a half-life of 2 years. Cesium-137 has a 30 year half-life. This man and all his neighbors live in a place that will remain dangerously contaminated for 300 years. Right now it is fatally contaminated. And there's not a whole heck of a lot that medicine can do to help any them, even if they were flown a thousand miles away tonight.
We don't know how much contamination is still going out of reactor containments and spent fuel pools still wide open the atmosphere at Fukushima Daiichi. Every single wisp of steam or billow of smoke that goes out day and night carries with it a load of nasty radioactive contamination that is still traveling with the prevailing winds and adding constantly to the load well outside the exclusion zone where people - tens of thousands of men, women and children - still live. Still eat. Still drink. Still breathe.
The Japanese government knows how bad it really is. They and their buddies at TEPCO have known how bad it really is right from the beginning - Day-1. They have told monstrous lies. They have refused to help the people in danger to put reasonable distance between themselves and the radiation that is making them very sick and will kill them. Areva has known how bad it is. The IAEA has known how bad it is. Our military, our spy agencies, our NRC and even our EPA have known how bad it is. The entire world nuclear industry has known how bad it is. All of them have known that innocent people will die by the thousands. They have all known this, all along.
I have no real power in this world. I'm just one little old lady on a mountain growing tomatoes and typing on a keyboard into cyberspace. But I do know a few things about nukes, and about radiation and what it does to human beings when it gets into them. Thus I also have highly suspected (if not known) all along how bad it is. And I am guilty of couching my words here so as not to run afoul of the DKos powers that be, knowing that people would die. And for that I apologize to the entire world, to readers here at DKos, and to God for trying to salvage my own credibility instead of screaming as loud as I possibly could about this horrendous ongoing mass murder in progress.
This is A Crime Against Humanity. The nuclear industry with the willing aid of governments and militaries across the face of this planet have allowed this to occur. They are still allowing it to occur. They have lied repeatedly to save the golden goose that nuclear technology represents to all of them. And they have refused steadfastly to do what was necessary from Day-1 to protect and defend the innocent population that didn't have to die.
I guess that's really all I've got the heart to say right now. I know that the "right thing" will not be done, by any involved power, to mitigate even an iota of the vast harm done. Japan simply cannot surrender a third of its national territory, so it has decided to sacrifice the people instead. So I'll just sign off with...
Good Night, and Good Luck.
___
Some links for the interested:
George Washington's Blog at Zero Hedge
Scandal Hits Japanese Nuclear Industry
Link-packed comment by Jim P
Sun Aug 14, 2011 at 10:25 AM PT: The argument low in the comments is that the readout is microsieverts and not millisieverts. This could be right, as the tenth-digit space is missing on all the reads (thus may apply). If so, then it's very good news for this person, though the number of disintegrations per second (becquerels) is no less. The first argument tried was about what the +/- sign was for in each line, looks to me like it varies and doesn't indicate (in the mSv read) the uncertainty. Because the second figure is larger than the first by considerable amount. Probably the full-body read, the first figure (used) being per kg body weight. Or possibly to a subsection (chest or abdomen) showing greatest concentration in organs.
My concerns for the people still forced to live in grossly contaminated areas remains the same either way. They must be moved, and the government of Japan (with help from TEPCO and the rest of the gang) to finance it. Thanks to all.