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From Hiroshima to Fukushima ~~~ Worldwide Health
Effects of Nuclear Fission
By mickielynn on 2011-08-19 22:25:34
Here’s another chapter in the ongoing story of what the people of the US have actually been told (and not told) about the
medical effects of the fallout from atomic bomb use, atmospheric testing, nuclear waste pools, and accidents at nuclear
power plants. Let’s start with the suppression and propaganda about the biophysical effects of radiation from the bombs at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Soon after the bombs were dropped people began dying from a mysterious disease that we now know as radiation sickness.
Defying a US media ban on southern Japan, two intrepid reporters traveled to Nagasaki and Hiroshima and tried to
document these effects soon after the bombings. Military censors and a propagandist (a NY Times reporter who was also in
the pay of the war department) worked to keep this knowledge hidden for as long as possible.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Weller (reporter for the Chicago Daily News) was the first reporter to enter
Nagasaki. In September of 1945, 4 weeks after the bombing Weller hired a rowboat to reach Nagasaki. Documenting the
physical zones of destruction and the effects of the bomb on infrastructure he was the first to visit all the hospital and
medical settings that still existed. At each facility he encountered people dying of a mysterious disease although they had
seemed to come through the bombing physically intact. He described the symptoms and the heroic work of the Japanese
doctors who were trying to document radiation effects on organ systems and to care for these patients.
Weller wrote a 25,000-word report detailing his observations. , General Douglas MacArthur personally ordered the story
killed when the military censors vetted Weller’s report. The manuscript was never returned. Fortunately for us, about 6 years
ago his son, Anthony Weller discovered a carbon copy of the manuscript. Although George Weller died in 2002, his story
has now been published in a book called: First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan
and Its Prisoners of War.
Australian reporter, Wilfred Burchett was the first journalist to make it into Hiroshima after a 30 hour train ride. Burchett
also described the medical symptoms of what he called "atomic plague." These included loss of hair, uncontrollable bleeding
(platelet loss), rotting flesh and other aspects of end-stage radiation sickness, He didn’t have to deal with US military
censors and his report was published. His first sentence was: "J write this as a warning to the world." Here at home the
"science" reporter William Laurence was writing press releases for the War Department while also writing a series of news
stories denying the radiation effects of the bomb. He helped initiate a half century of denial and cover-ups and was awarded
a Pulitzer Prize, which some are now working to rescind. For more about these reporters and about a color video shot by the
US military that was also suppressed until the 1980’s you can follow this link:
It’s ironic and very sad that the Japanese people have now suffered their second greatest nuclear disaster: The earthquake
and tsunami caused damage to the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant, where at least three of the reactors or their spent fuel
pools have suffered meltdowns. Once again the people of Japan are worrying about the current and future effects of radiation
exposure. Accurate information seems to be coming too little and too late. During a commemorative ceremony for the WWII
bombing dead, Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, said that he "deeply regrets having believed the so-called ‘security
myth,’ which suggested Japan could be safely powered by the same atomic forces that instantly killed so many Japanese
people over six decades ago."
This week I listened to a speech "From Hiroshima to Fukushima" given by Australian pediatrician and 40+ year anti-nuclear
activist, Helen Caldicott. She dramatically detailed the medical dangers of nuclear power as well as of nuclear weapons
production and storage. One of the most important parts of her speech, given at Los Alamos, home of the original nuclear
weapons, was her description of the radionuclides that most affect the health and functioning of living beings. She also
indicated their half-lives (the time it takes for each element to decay by 50% and then the remaining amount to again decay
by half and so on until it’s no longer radioactive) and the particular body systems that they target.
One of the elements with the shortest half-life is radioactive iodine 131 with a half-life of 8 days, which means that outside
the body it’s not a threat by 6 weeks. But it’s also easily dispersed into air, water and soil. It’s one of the immediate dangers
of nuclear weapons and nuclear meltdowns because it’s mainly taken up by the thyroid gland where (especially in growing
children or fetuses) it can cause cancer or severe metabolic disorders. Once I-131 is in the body it has a half-life of 100 days.
One way to combat this is to give regular iodine to block the uptake of I-131 but this was not done for children or others in
the radioactive zones following the Fukushima accident. There’s a much longer lived radioactive isotope, iodine 129, that
comes mainly from nuclear waste and has a half-life of 15.7 million years.
Rather than write a long article on these bioactive and destructive isotopes I’Il just summarize and also say that during the
dropping of the bombs and the US and Soviet atmospheric testing the fallout dispersed these elements worldwide.
Depending on their half-lives the original levels in air, soil, water, and in the food chain have been decreasing gradually
since around 1963. Levels have spiked in parts of the world, with the accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima and with leaks
of tritium, cesium and strontium from nuclear reactors and nuclear waste pools. Exposure to any and all of these
radioisotopes increases the risk of cancers and birth defects. If you’re interested in more details you can find them at
http://www.epa.gov./radiation/radionuclides
The other radioactive elements most commonly dispersed and contained within the food chain and in our bodies at low
levels are: Tritium (HTO) usually in the form of tritiated water. Tritium is now known to have reached the Connecticut River
from the most recent leaks from the aging Vermont Yankee Nuclear power plant. Half-life is 12.3 years and it usually is
taken up in soft tissues and organs. Strontium 90 has a half-life of 29.1 years and chemically acts like calcium so it goes to
bones and teeth and causes bone cancers and leukemia. Cesium 137 has a half-life of 30 years and is produced by fission of
uranium and plutonium in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. It has an affinity for muscles, bone and fat and greatly
increases the risk of cancer. At high levels it can cause serious burns and even death. And then there’s the most dangerous of
all, Plutonium 239 with a half-life of 24,100 years. Pu has some other long-lived isotopes but Pu-239 is the one that we
produced for nuclear weapons in special "production reactors". Between 1944 and 1988 the U.S. produced about 100 metric
tons of plutonium. If it’s inhaled or ingested into the body it can either remain in the lungs or move through the blood stream
into the bones, liver, or other body organs. Plutonium that reaches body organs generally stays in the body for decades and
continues to irradiate the surrounding tissue.
One other important fact about nuclear reactors: An accident (fire or meltdown) involving spent fuel or nuclear waste pools
releases magnitudes more radioactivity than any leaks or steam from the reactors themselves. Locally we have a chance to
retire an aging, leaking, unsafe nuclear reactor that the State of Vermont is refusing to recertify. If the people and the
environment prevail then Vermont Yankee may be retired by 2012.
I had hoped to tell the rest of the story tonight but it’s getting late. So I'll promise you the next chapter about the relationship
of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and nuclear proliferation next week. Sweet dreams of really safe, clean and inexpensive
forms of energy that we can all live with.
[caption id="attachment_2695" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="One World Balloon glow during retire Vermont
La
Yankee campaign"] [/caption]
