Producing a lecture today for my risk communication course and discovered this fascinating and oddly salient critic's review of the classic horror film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers:
Producing a lecture today for my risk communication course and discovered this fascinating and oddly salient critic's review of the classic horror film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers:
Thanatopolitics is a politics of letting die as much as it is a politics of killing.
Letting Die....
The data reviewed by Dr. Campbell came directly from Pfizer's Cumulative Analysis of Post-Marketing Adverse Reactions Dec 1, 2020 to Feb 28, 2020.
Campbell observes that the total number of vaccines given by Pfizer during this 3 month period was redacted from the data release. Although it is impossible to calculate the percentage of adverse events in relation to total vaccination events during this 3 month period, the reported total of 42,086 cases of adverse events raises questions about the cost-benefit analysis.
What is being hidden?
Note that "The C.D.C. Isn’t Publishing Large Portions of the Covid Data It Collects" The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/health/covid-cdc-data.html
Read this truly exceptional critique of the shameful practices that were employed to make the unvaccinated and under-vaccinated a new class of untouchables here:
Why Anger towards the Unvaccinated was Intentional Psychological Manipulation. https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/why-anger-towards-the-unvaccinated?s=r
This happened to me
My employment was threatened because I did not get the second vaccine after a serious systemic reaction and lasting heart pain from the first shot.
Former friends refused to believe me when I shared the terrible adverse events experienced by 50% of my household. We are still dealing with surgeries and medical bills from these adverse events.
Several of my former friends were no longer interested in associating with me after I shared that we were vaccine-injured.
These people who I thought were capable of critical thinking had been subject to a concerted propaganda campaign that invoked categories of pollution and mortal threat to create this vaccine apartheid.
Efforts to create a class of untouchables, denied basic liberties and employment, meet the criteria of evil and the people who fell for it - willing to throw out people on the street to starve and to deny them medical care because of their under-vaccinated status - were weak victims.
The never-ending Fukushima nuclear disaster persists, contaminating ground water and the Pacific Ocean ceaselessly.
Nuclear disasters are proliferating, adding to the Cold War contamination legacy of plants such as Hanford.
The ongoing invasion of Ukraine is likely to deliver yet another nuclear catastrophe, promising to accelerate our demise.
2021 Headlines
Japan Plans to Release Contaminated Fukushima Water into Sea. Translator: TEMPO. Editor: Laila Afifa 13 April 2021 14:49 https://en.tempo.co/read/1452120/japan-plans-to-release-contaminated-fukushima-water-into-sea
TEMPO.CO, Tokyo - Japan will release more than 1 million tonnes of contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear station into the sea, the government said on Tuesday, April 13. The move is opposed by neighbours including China, which called it “extremely irresponsible.”
The first release of water will take place in about two years, giving plant operator Tokyo Electric Power time to begin filtering the water to remove harmful isotopes, build infrastructure and acquire regulatory approval.
Japan has argued the water release is necessary to press ahead with the complex decommissioning of the plant after it was crippled by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, pointing out that similarly filtered water is routinely released from nuclear plants around the world.
Nearly 1.3 million tonnes of contaminated water, or enough to fill about 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, is stored in huge tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant at an annual cost of about 100 billion yen ($912.66 million) - and space is running out.
Study: Fukushima discharge to affect entire Pacific Ocean in 10 years. CGTN https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-12-03/Study-Fukushima-discharge-to-affect-entire-Pacific-Ocean-in-10-years-15GVRMPB84w/index.html
Chinese scientists have mapped out the potential global effects of Fukushima discharge, suggesting that the contaminated water, if poured forth, may sprawl onto the entire Pacific Ocean within 10 years.
The study, published online in the peer-reviewed journal National Science Review, showed that 3,600 days after discharge, the pollutants will have covered almost the entire Pacific Ocean.
The Japanese government announced in April that it would start dumping contaminated water from around the spring of 2023.
The researchers from China's Tsinghua University led by Zhang Jianmin and Hu Zhenzhong simulated the diffusing process of nuclear elements and found that the pollutants could affect China's coast 240 days after discharge.
The polluted water would spread to almost the entire North Pacific region within 1,200 days, before spreading southward to the South Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, according to the study.
The nuclear elements would eventually cause concern near North America, noticeably polluting the West coast of the United States after 2,400 days, it found.
2020 Headlines
LIVING WITH RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION
Yuka Nakao Apr 10, 2020 Fukushima mothers record radiation for future generations Kyodo https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/04/10/national/social-issues/fukushima-mothers-record-radiation/#.XpS9DM17nqo
Iwaki, Fukushima Pref. – A group of more than 10 mothers set up a citizen-led laboratory to monitor radiation levels in Fukushima communities only months after a massive earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at a nuclear power plant in the prefecture nine years ago.Since the foundation of the institute on Nov. 13, 2011, it has been recording and disclosing radiation data on foodstuffs and soil it collected or were brought in by people from different parts of the prefecture, as well as seawater off the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
• “If the risks of nuclear power had been thoroughly verified by the previous generations, I think the disaster would not have happened,” Kaori Suzuki, 54, an executive of Mothers’ Radiation Lab Fukushima, based in Iwaki, said in a recent interview. “But since it did occur, what we must do now is record our measurements and changes in the environment so we won’t make the same mistake,” said Suzuki, one of the founding members. “Passing down something that will be useful when major decisions must be made is the only thing we can do.”
Begley, Sharon (2021, January 26). ‘But I never smoked’: A growing share of lung cancer cases is turning up in an unexpected population. Statnews. https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/26/growing-share-of-lung-cancer-turning-up-in-never-smokers/comment-page-1/#comment-3070061
“Since the early 2000s, we have seen what I think is truly an epidemiological shift in lung cancer,” said surgeon Andrew Kaufman of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, whose program for never-smokers has treated some 3,800 patients in 10 years. “If lung cancer in never-smokers were a separate entity, it would be in the top 10 cancers in the U.S.” for both incidence and mortality.
A 2017 study of 12,103 lung cancer patients in three representative U.S. hospitals found that never-smokers were 8% of the total from 1990 to 1995 but 14.9% from 2011 to 2013. The authors ruled out statistical anomalies and concluded that “the actual incidence of lung cancer in never smokers is increasing.” Another study that same year, of 2,170 patients in the U.K., found an even larger increase: The proportion of lung cancer patients who were never-smokers rose from 13% in 2008 to 28% in 2014.
“It is well-documented that approximately 20% of lung cancer cases that occur in women in the U.S. and 9% of cases in men, are diagnosed in never-smokers,” Kaufman said.
What are the long-term implications of the disaster?
Ongoing contamination of ocean, fresh water, and atmosphere.
Newer research has documented that 75 percent of the radiation released
by the plant into the atmosphere occurred after March 15 because of
ongoing melting of hot fuel in the cracked spent fuel pools,[iii]
with subsequent episodes of increased atmospheric levels of emissions
in November and December of 2011, April of 2012, and September of 2012,
after which the researchers discontinued sampling.[iv]
In
north east Honshu, property owned by generations of families in
Fukushima prefecture was devalued or made uninhabitable by the Fukushima
nuclear disaster. As of December 21, 2014, six municipalities near the
Daiichi site remain closed because of radiation contamination and more
than 120,000 people are still living in temporary shelters (More
Radioactive Materials,
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20141221_16.html).
The
long term implications of the disaster are not fully understood because
information about the scope of damage and contamination are still
forthcoming.
Atmospheric contamination continues still with
steam emissions still visible as TEPCO injects over 300 tons of fresh
water daily to cool melted fuel. This feed and bleed system is
contaminating atmosphere but even more importantly it is contributing to
the problems of contaminated water at the site.
TEPCO has
acknowledged that ground water at the site is encountering highly
radioactive melted fuel and that some of that water makes it to the
ocean. TEPCO claims to lack knowledge of the specific location of the
melted cores – corium – but a diagram released by the Swiss Embassy
depicted at least one of the cores as located in the underground river.
The
“German Risk Study, Phase B” found that a core meltdown accident could
result in complete failures of all structural containment, causing
melted fuel to exit the reactor foundation within five days (cited in
Bayer, Tromm, & Al-Omari 1989). Moreover, the study found that even
in the event of an intact building foundation, passing groundwater would
be in direct contact with fuel, causing leaching of fission products.
Strontium leaches slower than cesium.
A follow-up German study, “Dispersion of Radionuclides and Radiation
Exposure after Leaching by Groundwater of a Solidified Core-Concrete
Melt,” predicted that strontium contamination levels would rise
exponentially years after a full melt-through located adjacent to a
river (Bayer, Tromm, & Al-Omari, 1989).
The German study’s
experimental conditions are roughly similar to Daiichi’s site
conditions, including groundwater emptying into an adjacent river,
whereas Daiichi is physically situated above an underground river
emptying into the sea. The study predicted concentrations of
Strontium-90 in river water would spike relatively suddenly, but
maintain extraordinarily high levels of contamination for years: “The
highest radionuclide concentration of approx. 1010 Bq/m3 is reached by
Sr-90 after some 5000 days.”
It is noteworthy that TEPCO
reported an exponential increase in the Strontium-90 level in ground
water beginning in July 2013, with levels continuing to rise steadily
through early 2015. In July 2013 water from the well between the ocean
and unit 1 measuring a record 5 million Becquerels per liter of
radioactive Strontium-90 alone (“Record Strontium-90 Level,” 2014). By
February of 2015 TEPCO was reporting even higher levels of Strontium-90
in the same location, with the highest sample measured at 590,000,000
Bq/m3 of Strontium-90 (Fukushima Diary 590,000,000 Bq/m3 of Strontium-90 measured from groundwater of Reactor 2 seaside).
The accident at Daiichi may fit the German melt-through scenario. An
exponential increase in the level of Strontium-90 contamination would
invalidate models of projected ocean contamination relying on samples
collected in 2011.
Ocean
contamination has not ended and there is no end in sight. Strontium is
among the long term risks because it is a very significant environmental
hazard and bioaccumulates in bones and in the brain.
Rising rates of thyroid cancer already found in Fukushima
children.By February of 2014, there were 75 confirmed or suspected
thyroid cancer cases among 270,000 Fukushima Prefecture individuals
screened, who were 18 or under at the time of the disaster (Nose &
Oiwa, 2014). The screening committee claimed the Fukushima disaster was
an unlikely cause (“Eight More,” 2014). However, the observed frequency
of thyroid cancer and nodules exceeds established incident rates. For
example, the prevalence of thyroid nodules in children typically ranges
from 0.2-5.0 percent (Gerber & Meyers, 2013), while in Fukushima, 42
percent of 133,000 children were found to have thyroid nodules and
cysts (Haworth, 2013). A study measuring thyroid exposure to Iodine-131
conducted between April 12, 2011 and April 16, 2011 and published in
Research Reports found “extensive measurements of the exposure to I-131
revealing I-131 activity in the thyroid of 46 out of the 62 residents
and evacuees measured” (Tokonammi, Hosoda, Akiba, Sorimachi,
Kashiwakura, & Balonov, 2012).
Nuclear Power is Not Safe and is Truly the Path Toward Our Extinction.
My presentation: https://www.academia.edu/1454715/Lessons_From_Fukushima_Powerpoint_Presentation_on_Media_Censorship_and_Crisis_Communication
References
[i]
Masson, O. et al (2011) Tracking of Airborne Radionuclides
from the Damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Reactors by European
Networks. Environ. Sci. Technol, 45 (18), 7670−7677. http://nadp.isws.illinois.edu/dl/dgay/Radiation%20Papers/Masson%20et%20al%20Fukashiima%202011.pdf
[ii]
Sheng Xu, Stewart P. H. T. Freeman, Xiaolin Hou, Akira
Watanabe, Katsuhiko Yamaguchi, and Luyuan Zhang (2013) Iodine Isotopes
in Precipitation: Temporal Responses to 129I Emissions from the
Fukushima Nuclear Accident. Environmental Science and Technology, 47,
10851-1085.
[iii] Nuclear Watch: New Findings on Fallout (Jan 29 2015). NHK http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/features/201501301223.html
[iv]
Sheng Xu, Stewart P. H. T. Freeman, Xiaolin Hou, Akira
Watanabe, Katsuhiko Yamaguchi, and Luyuan Zhang (2013) Iodine Isotopes
in Precipitation: Temporal Responses to 129I Emissions from the
Fukushima Nuclear Accident. Environmental Science and Technology, 47,
10851-1085
[v]
“Industry Minister to Continue Nuclear Fuel Cycle Policy” (18 January
2013), The Asahi Shimbun,
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201301180037, date
accessed 19 January 2013.
[vi] M. Gorbachev (1995) Memoirs (London: Doubleday), p. 191.
[vii]
C. Neef (24 March 2011) “‘This Reactor Model Is No Good’
Documents Show Politburo Skepticism of Chernobyl,” Spiegel,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/this-reactor-model-is-no-good-documents-show-politburo-skepticism-of-chernobyl-a-752696.html
[viii]
V. Ramzaev, H. Yonehara, R. Hille, A. Barkovsky, A. Mishine, S.
Sahoo, K. Kurotaki, and M. Uchiyama (2006) “Gamma-Dose Rates from
Terrestrial and Chernobyl Inside and Outside Settlements in the Bryansk
Region, Russia in 1996–2003,” Journal of Environmental Radioactivity,
85, 205–227, 217.
[ix] Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 193.