No sabía que fertiberia era una instalación nuclear. ¿No tendrá que ver mas con los tóxicos para el campo que con la radiación como he dicho ya en este erial de hilo?.
Veamos esos catorce mil muertos en Estados Unidos por el asunto. Esta es la revista Forbes la cual no se caracteriza por ser poco seria.
Garbage In, Anti-Nuclear Propaganda Out:
The 14,000 Death Fukushima Lie
1/11/2012
Ikata Nuclear Power Plant
Josh Bloom is a scholar at the American Council On Science and Health. Here, he writes about a new study on Fukushima’s impact on the U.S.
I’ve seen some bad studies in my day, and also some irresponsible headlines. But last week, a couple of antinuclear activists managed to do a superb job at both. The title itself was a giveaway: An Unexpected Mortality Increase in the United States amows Arrival of the Radioactive Plume from Fukushima: Is There a Correlation?
Drs. Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman, writing in the International Journal of Health Services, proposed that there were 14,000 “excess” deaths in the U.S. amowing the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, due to the release of a plume of radioisotopes over 5000 miles away. This theory is preposterous on so many levels that I don’t know where to start.
The “study” found that during the 14 weeks amowing the accident, death rates in 104 U.S. cities were about 2 percent higher than those for the 14 weeks before the accident, constituting about 3,300 “extra” deaths. Applied to the entire country, this number rose to 14,000. Right away this smelled fishy. But that didn’t stop Mangano, as quoted in MedPage Today, from concluding that the finding is “a clarion call for more extensive research.” No it’s not—it’s a clarion call for some common sense.
The only two (barely) conceivable ways that such a plume could kill anyone are cancer or radiation poisoning. Cancer can be ruled out immediately, since there is no way it could even begin to develop in such a short period of time, let alone kill anyone. Cancers take years, or even decades, to grow—not weeks. And, almost all of the radioactive material released was iodine-131, associated with thyroid cancer, which is one of the slowest growing and least deadly cancers.
An explanation involving radiation poisoning is not quite as absurd, but almost. If you’re wondering how enough radioactive material could arrive here and kill Americans within 3 months, you are not alone. And even if it did get here, some sort of geographical pattern of illness and death would logically be expected. Good luck finding it in this data.
For instance, in the 14 weeks amowing the accident, there were 82 “extra” deaths in New York and 336 in Philadelphia, compared to the same time period in 2010. At the same time, Los Angeles— which is 3000 miles closer to Japan—had 246, while in San Diego there were 137 fewer deaths. And if that doesn’t make sense, consider Houston. Although the city had 484 “extra” deaths during this time, in the 14 weeks prior to the accident there were 1,649 fewer deaths (45%) than in 2010. Must have been a very healthy year there. Or some utterly meaningless data.
Upon closer examination of the data, things get worse. The authors—in their effort to support a crackpot theory— used data that is essentially useless. What data was available came from a very small number of samples, and these showed very little radioactivity. For example, they analyzed a grand total of 67 milk samples and found measurable radioisotopes in just 15 of them. Likewise, in 153 samples of drinking water, only 36 had any radioactivity.
In trying to make a case against nuclear power, the authors have succeeded only in embarrassing themselves. They are asking us to believe that radiation released from a plant in Japan (
where no one died) somehow traveled 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S., where it haphazardly killed (or in some cases saved) thousands of Americans by a process that is utterly implausible—all by manipulation of dubious statistics. Nice job, guys.
I happen to believe that, given the available technology, nuclear power is among the safest, cleanest and most practical options we have. Other people have different yet reasonable opinions on this issue, which is fine. However, when garbage like this gets into the scientific literature, some people will actually believe it; the discussion then becomes contaminated with false information, and a reasonable conversation about nuclear power becomes even more difficult to come by.
Propaganda that poses as science is irresponsible. And as for the editors of the International Journal of Health Services: Shame on you.
Josh Bloom is a scholar at the American Council On Science and Health.
Garbage In, Anti-Nuclear Propaganda Out: The 14,000 Death Fukushima Lie - Forbes
Y luego volvemos al tema de que se vuelve a comer marisco procedente de Fukushima.
En que quedamos, es el fin del mundo o no. Pues parace que no para los que no padecen histeria.
