Any studies on this "cocktail effect" available?
P!
Oh my, so very sad. It’s a tragedy that just keeps getting worse. 62 km away? Yikes. What did they know and when? Why no big evacuation? I guess time will tell. I hope someone has comments to answer these questions.
What the cocktail means, is that this is the signature of a meltdown. We all knew this on by March 13th or so. I was scared shitless for at least two weeks as I studied up on the phenomenon, but finally relaxed at the end of March as I noticed that it was a local incident and had no direct effect on Tokyo. I find this all very interesting and an ironic vindication of nuclear power.
There are 15 Bq in a banana. There are 4,400 in an average adult from potassium alone.
Japan, Radioactivity, and not one mention of Godzilla! This place is really slacking off.
Probably stress due to anxiety would cause far more health problems than your “cocktail”.
Anecdotic.
This cocktail is probably going to shower down on parts of Japan, and downwind areas (Hawaii, US) for months. I wonder how much more will build up?
Reading up on Chernobyl, I often encountered reports of individuals suffering a ‘host of medical ailments’ in addition to cancers. Also - the differing types of isotopes can be present in different variations (3 different kinds of radio active cesium, each with their own medical impact)and that the different isotopes have different functions in the body. For example, cesium is generally called a ‘muscle seeker’ because it distributes broadly into the muscles and then gives off damaging energy to surrounding tissues where ever it ends up (and some isotopes are excreted). Strontium is a ‘bone seeker’ in that it takes the position in bones that calcium would normally seek - this one is said to bond permanently with bone in children. From there, it can irradiate surrounding tissue (possibly cause cancerous tumors) and is said to cause irregular bone growth and damage platelets and marrow and suppress immune response to illness (possibly by killing white blood cells).
There’s an ‘05 report on a study which seems to indicate that low level radiation can increase cardiovascular illness and strokes by damaging certain elements of platelets. (I’ll see if I can find the link tonight)
When I finally dug up a comprehensive report (3 scientists analyzed and compiled hundreds of studies from numerous countries into one report) I got a bit better idea that the cocktail can create a cocktail of illnesses. (wikipedia has a page describing criticism and praise for the report - you may want to check it out before you consider reading any of that report. I believe it is the most accurrate, detailed account of the health effects of Chernobyl to date) The nuke apologists find this cocktail aspect of radioactive contamination useful - unless you can medically prove an isotope DIRECTLY responsible for an illness (like cancer) then they insist that by definition the isotope did NOT cause the illness. (A heavily contaminated area results in a surge of cancers but the apologists say that they are not radiation related because there is no medical tracer left in the tumor identifying the origin of the tumor) So a host of isotopes (cocktail) causing cocktails of illnesses are declared to have no ill effects on health.
The report I am referring to (http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf) lists detailed accounts of commonly incountered illnesses. Often, the report does not use easily recognizable names for illnesses but identifies the way that the body no longer functions properly (following irradiation) the same way you might identify certain circuits in a complex piece of electronic equipment that no longer ‘work’. By that I mean they may not say ‘diabetes’ but they may say ‘this chemical pathway no longer functions causing the patient to be incapable of producing these chemicals or repair tissue etc.’. So my impression of the ‘cocktail’ effect is risk of key illnesses (cancer, lukemia, bone breakage due to weakening by strontium), genetic damage to fetuses, cardio/strokes, and then they distributed ‘host of illnesses’ that resemble a computer with a few electronic circuits cut on the motherboard. Birth defects - that’s a tough one. I can’t bring myself to watch the videos online, usually. But horrible birth defects and decrease in live births are documented for chernobyl. And the showering of the cocktail will continue for months so who knows what rate of illness is possible.
The Soviets made it illegal to report that people died as a result of radiation injury/illness for the first 3 years following Chernobyl - the doctors had to make up other causes of death. The IAEA supports underreporting of illnesses and deaths related to Chernobyl so it’s hard to get an accurate picture of the cocktail effect from them.
The nuke apologists like to point to an international report that said that psychological illness in contaminated areas was a greater harm than that caused by radioactive contamination. One poster told me that anxiety regarding radiation caused more harm than the radiation itself - of course this is not true. The problem was the depth of deciept and betrayal on the part of those lying about the hazards. People were told, even with Chernobyl actively burning the day or two after the explosion that there was NOTHING TO FEAR etc. No problem, everything is under control. They were even allowed to hold their regularly scheduled MAY day celebration in the shadow of the smoldering reactor - receiving mass doses of radiation as they did so. The gov didn’t want ‘people to worry’ so they opened up a carousel which lifted people high into the toxic air etc. All the while telling them they were perfectly safe and should not worry. Then the gov and nuke offials did the math and realized that everyone living in the town nearest Chernobyl would be dead in 2 weeks if they continued to receive the levels of radiation they were experiencing. So, 36 hours after Chernobyl blew, the gov lined up buses and bused the entire population of the town elsewhere, all the while telling the citizens that they could return in two weeks and everything was perfectly fine even though the gov knew the people could never return. They lied about how much radiation people received and lied about the people dying from radiation. The first day of the accident - over 4 thousand people went to the hospital reporting illness but the government said nothing was wrong. Then there was no place to relocate people living in contaminated zones and in the Soviet Union, the government tells you wehre you can live so people were forced to remain in toxic areas and watch people around them sicken etc. (die?) with radiation but this was where they were to live the rest of their lives. This comes on top of the fact that people were depressed in the first place to be living in a country without freedom (Many Soviets drank to cope with communism). So after years of punishing communism, they are lied to and betrayed every time a statement was made about radiation and then they were told they had to live in contaminated areas, raise their families there. It was the end of hope for many people - the depth of betrayal.
THIS is what apologists like to say is irrational fear of radiation resulting in mental illness when in fact it was the lying combination of government and nuke officials. This is what I fear for Japan - the people had already had their hearts broken by tsuanmi and earthquake - all those people who lost everything including family members etc. Now the people are becoming enraged with all the lying on the part of the gov and nuke officials - how much more can people stand? Who wouldn’t be depressed. I read some painful first person accounts of life following Chernobyl. When the Soviet Union fell, official papers were siezed and those who lied about the radiation risks and contamination were brought before tribunals where the truth was dragged out of them. The people won some useless rights (the gov found a way around the new rules) and one of them was that citizens in contaminated zones could be issued a geiger counter. One woman talked of getting clean clothes out of the dryer - the clothes look white but the geiger counter sounds the alarm as she folds the laundry. Change the bedding - the geiger counter goes off. Wash the dishes, the geiger counter goes off. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO??!!! Live in the contaminated zone - watch people sicken and sometimes die - experience a host of illnesses and wait your turn for more serious illnesses, raise your kids there - yeah that would be depressing.
Japan has been betraying people the same way and parents afraid to have their children eating contaminated food, playing on contaminated playgrounds are being dismissed as irrational etc. They too will one day be recorded as ‘mentally ill’ as a result of ‘anxiety’ and over reacting. So I’d rank medical illness as the most significant harm and then utter betrayal by gov and nuke officials resulting in depression or other mental health issues as secondary radiation damage.
A survivor of Chernobyl who worked the cleanup crew said immediately following Fukushima event, ‘leave! run away while you can. The government working with the nuclear officials will lie to you and tell you everything is fine.” It was her belief that the nuke industry becomes too strong when emeshed with the government. I agree.
There’s so much more nuclear fuel in Fukushima than there was in the Chernobyl event. Fukushima is going to be distributing radioactive contamination for months if not years, unlike Chernobyl. It’s not over yet and there is no precedent so I part company with those who post on FR that it’s going to be ok and bananas/human bodies contain radioactive isotopes too. Like that should make me happy inhale radioactive contamination! Because bananas contain some isotopes too? See, I can choose whether I want to eat a banana, I cannot chose whether I want, as a person living downwind of Fukushima, to experience months of continued radiation leaks from Fukushima into the air and oceans. Prayers for the people of Japan.