US Study on Fukushima
Estimates 14,000 Dead Infants From Fallout
Nuclear Power Radiation
EMF Computer Protection
Magnetic Field Detector
Jan. 3, 2012
Eight months after Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s six
reactor Daichi Fuskuhima complex was rocked by an earthquake
measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale and subsequent tsunami,
both Tokyo and TEPCO maintain that the effects of the
disaster have been contained.
Not so, according to a just published peer reviewed medical
paper appearing in the U.S., which indicates that
Fukushima’s pernicious consequences have traveled across the
Pacific.
The figures come from a recently published article in the
December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health
Services, a peer reviewed scientific journal, authored by
Joseph J. Mangano and Janette D. Sherman, “An Unexpected
Mortality Increase in the United States Follows Arrival of
the Radioactive Plume from Fukushima: is There a
Correlation?”
The study is the first peer-reviewed study published in a
medical journal documenting the health hazards of the
Fukushima disaster.
In earlier research published five months ago on
counterpunch.org the authors noted, “The recent CDC (Center
for Disease Control) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID,
Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities
of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and
Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those
younger than one year of age: 4 weeks ending March 19, 2011
- 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week) 10 weeks ending May 28,
2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week.)This amounts to an
increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about
2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further
significance is that those dates include the four weeks
before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power
Plant disaster.”
According to the researchers’ data, on 17 March after
Fukushima was impacted, scientists detected the plume of
toxic fallout had arrived over U.S. territory and 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.
Janette Sherman, MD, said: "Based on our continuing
research, the actual death count here may be as high as
18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up
five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death.
Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find
that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are
rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems,
and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater
than for adults." Dr. Sherman is an adjunct professor,
Western Michigan University and Joseph Mangano is an
epidemiologist, and Executive Director of the Radiation and
Public Health Project research group.
The pair noted, “We recently reported on an unusual rise in
infant deaths in the northwestern United States for the
10-week period following the arrival of the airborne
radioactive plume from the meltdowns at the Fukushima plants
in northern Japan. This result suggested that radiation from
Japan may have harmed Americans, thus meriting more
research. We noted in the report that the results were
preliminary, and the importance of updating the analysis as
more health status data become available.”
Why children?
“The human fetus and infant are especially radiosensitive,
given their rapid cell growth and cell division, as well as
their small size that results in a proportionately larger
dose. These exposures include X-ray, alpha, beta, and gamma
radiation. Depending on the time of in utero radiation
exposure, the result can be expressed as spontaneous
abortion, premature birth, low birth weight, stillbirth,
infant death, congenital malformations, and brain damage.
While this report concentrates on effects to humans, all
life is sensitive to nuclear radiation exposure, including
plants, fungi, insects spiders, birds, fish, and other
animals. The best-studied group near Chernobyl (birds) shows
a 50 percent decrease in species richness and a 66 percent
drop in abundance in the most contaminated areas, compared
with normal background in the same neighborhood.”
In perhaps its most worrying observation the report notes,
“The Fukushima meltdowns, and the introduction of
radioactivity across the globe, indicate that accurate
measurements are needed on subsequent changes in
environmental radioactivity and in health status. In the
United States, there have been limitations in both measures.
Radioactivity samples in precipitation, air, water, and milk
were sporadically reported by the Environmental Protection
Agency. Many measurements failed to produce detectable
levels, and on May 3, 2011, the agency reverted to its
policy of making only quarterly measurements.”
The
report concludes, “The health effects of exposure to
radioactivity from the Fukushima meltdowns, both in Japan
and around the world, will take a long time to fully assess.
The paucity of data from the U.S. EPA is unfortunate and
will hamper future studies. A quarter of a century after the
Chernobyl disaster, and more than 60 years after the
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, compilations of health
casualties are still being updated. It is critical that
research should proceed with all due haste, as answers are
essential to early diagnosis and treatment for exposed
people, particularly children and the very young.”
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