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12-25-2011

Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industryafter Chernobyl and FukushimaGayle GreeneScripps College

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Recommended CitationGreene, Gayle. "Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry after Chernobyl and Fukushima,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: JapanFocus Vol 10 Issue 1 (3), 2011.

The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 10 | Issue 1 | Number 3 | Dec 25, 2011

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Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry AfterChernobyl and Fukushima　　ゆがんだ科学−−チェルノブイリ・フクシマの後の原子力発電産業 Japanese translation availablehttp://peacephilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/03/gayle-greene-nuclear-power-industry.html

Gayle Greene

Science with a Skew: The NuclearPower Industry After Chernobyl andFukushima Japanese translation isa v a i l a b l e(http://peacephilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/03/gayle-greene-nuclear-power-industry.html).

Gayle Greene

It is one of the marvels of our time that thenuclear industry managed to resurrect itselffrom its ruins at the end of the last century,when it crumbled under its costs, inefficiencies,and mega-accidents. Chernobyl releasedhundreds of times the radioactivity of theHiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined,contaminating more than 40% of Europe andthe entire Northern Hemisphere.1 But alongcame the nuclear lobby to breathe new life intothe industry, passing off as “clean” this energysource that polluted half the globe. The “freshlook at nuclear”—in the words of a New YorkTimes makeover piece (May 13, 2006)2—pavedthe way to a “nuclear Renaissance” in theUnited States that Fukushima has by no meansbrought to a halt.

That mainstream media have been powerfuladvocates for nuclear power comes as nosurprise. “The media are saturated with askilled, intensive, and effective advocacycampaign by the nuclear industry, resulting in

disinformation” and “wholly counterfactualaccounts…widely believed by otherwisesensible people,” states the 2010-2011 WorldNuclear Industry Status Report by WorldwatchInstitute.3 What is less well understood is thenature of the “evidence” that gives the nuclearindustry its mandate, Cold War science which,with its reassurances about low-dose radiationrisk, is being used to quiet alarms aboutFukushima and to stonewall new evidence thatwould call a halt to the industry.

Consider these damage control pieces frommajor media:

• The “miniscule quantities” ofradiation in the radioactive plumespreading across the U.S. pose “nohealth hazard,” assures theDepartment of Energy (WilliamBroad, “Radiation over U.S. isHarmless, Officials Say,” NYT,March 22, 2011).

• “The risk of cancer is quite low,lower than what the public mightexpect,” explains Evan Douple,head of the Radiation EffectsResearch Foundation (RERF),which has studied the A-bombsurvivors and found that “at verylow doses, the risk was also verylow” (Denise Grady, “Radiation iseverywhere, but how to rate

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harm?” NYT, April 5, 2011).

• An NPR story a few days afterthe Daiichi reactors destabilizedquotes this same Evan Douplesaying that radiation levels aroundthe plant “should be reassuring. Atthese levels so far I don’t think astudy would be able to measurethat there would be any healtheffects, even in the future.” (“Earlyradiation data from near plant easehealth fears,” Richard Knox andAndrew Prince,” March 18, 2011)The NPR story, like Grady’s piece(above), stresses that the RadiationEffects Research Foundation hashad six decades experiencestudying the health effects ofradiation, so it ought to know.

• Brit ish journal ist GeorgeMonbiot, environmentalist turnednuclear advocate, in a muchpublicized debate with HelenCaldicott on television and in theGuardian, refers to the RERF dataas “scientific consensus,” citing,again, their reassurances that lowdose radiation incurs low cancerrisk.4

Everyone knows that radiation at high dose isharmful, but the Hiroshima studies reassurethat risk diminishes as dose diminishes until itbecomes negligible. This is a necessary belief ifthe nuclear industry is to exist, becausereactors release radioactive emissions not onlyin accidents, but in their routine, day-to-dayoperations and in the waste they produce. Iflow-dose radiation is not negligible, workers inthe industry are at risk, as are people who livein the vicinity of reactors or accidents—as is alllife on this planet . The waste produced byreactors does not “dilute and disperse” anddisappear, as industry advocates would have usbelieve, but is blown by the winds, carried by

the tides, seeps into earth and groundwater,and makes its way into the food chain and intous, adding to the sum total of cancers and birthdefects throughout the world. Its legacy is forlonger than civilization has existed; plutonium,with its half life of 24,000 years, is, in humanterms, forever.

What is this Radiation Effects ResearchFoundation, and on what “science” does it baseits reassuring claims?

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The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission(ABCC), as it was originally called, began itsstudies of the survivors five years after thebombings. (It was renamed the RadiationEffects Research Foundation in the midseventies, to get the “atomic bomb” out, ataround the same time the Atomic EnergyCommiss ion (AEC) was renamed theDepartment of Energy (DOE). Japan, which hasthe distinction of being twice nuked, first asour wartime enemy then in 2011 as our ally andthe recipient of our GE reactors, has also beenthe population most closely studied forradiation-related effects, for the Hiroshima andNagasaki bombings created a large, ready-made population of radiation-exposed humans.“Ah, but the Americans—they are wonderful,”exclaimed Japan’s radiation expert TsuzukiMasao, who lamented that he’d had onlyrabbits to work on: “It has remained for themto conduct the human experiment!”5

The ABCC studied but did not treat radiationeffects, and many survivors were reluctant toidentify themselves as survivors, having nowish to bare their health problems to USinvestigators and become mired in bureaucracyand social stigma. But sufficient numbers didvoluntarily come forth to make this thelargest—and longest—study of radiation-relatedhealth effects ever. No medical study has hadsuch resources lavished on it, teams of

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scientists, state of the art equipment: this wasAtomic Energy Commission (AEC) funding.Since it is assumed in epidemiology that thelarger the sample, the greater the statisticalaccuracy, there has been a tendency to acceptthese data as the gold standard of radiationrisk.

ABCC examination of Hiroshima victim

The Japanese physicians and scientists who’dbeen on the scene told horrific stories of peoplewho’d seemed unharmed, but then beganbleeding from ears, nose, and throat, hairfalling out by the handful, bluish spotsappearing on the skin, muscles contracting,leaving limbs and hands deformed. When theytried to publish their observations, they wereordered to hand over their reports to USauthorities. Throughout the occupation years(1945-52) Japanese medical journals wereheavily censored on nuclear matters. In late1945, US Army surgeons issued a statementthat all people expected to die from theradiation effects of the bomb had already diedand no further physiological effects due toradiation were expected.6 When Tokyo radioannounced that even people who entered thecities after the bombings were dying ofmysterious causes and decried the weapons as“illegal” and “inhumane,” American officialsdismissed these allegations as Japanese

propaganda.7

The issue of radiat ion poisoning wasparticularly sensitive, since it carried a taint ofbanned weaponry, like poison gas. The A-bombwas not “an inhumane weapon,” declaredGeneral Leslie Groves, who had headed theManhattan project.8 The first western scientistsallowed in to the devastated cities were undermilitary escort, ordered in by Groves. The firstwestern journalists allowed in were similarlyunder military escort. Australian journalistWilfred Burchett, who managed to get in toHiroshima on his own, got a story out to aBritish paper, describing people who weredying “mysteriously and horribly” from “anunknown something which I can only describeas the atomic plague… dying at the rate of 100a day,” General MacArthur ordered him out ofJapan; his camera, with film shot in Hiroshima,mysteriously disappeared.9

“No Radioactivity in Hiroshima Ruin,”proclaimed a New York Times headline, Sept13, 1945. “Survey Rules out NagasakiDangers ,” s tated another headl ine:“Radioactivity after atomic bomb is only 1000th

of that from luminous dial watch,” Oct 7,1945.10 There were powerful political incentivesto downplay radiat ion r isk. As StateDepartment Attorney William H. Taft asserted,the “mistaken impression” that low-levelradiation is hazardous has the “potential to beseriously damaging to every aspect of theDepartment of Defense’s nuclear weapons andnuclear propulsion programs…it could impactthe civilian nuclear industry… and it could raisequestions regarding the use of radioactivesubstances in medical diagnosis andtreatment.”11 A pamphlet issued by the AtomicEnergy Commission in 1953 “insisted that low-level exposure to radiation ‘can be continuedindefinitely without any detectable bodilychange.’”12 The AEC was paying the salaries ofthe ABCC scientists and monitoring them“closely—some felt too closely,” writes SusanLindee in Suffering Made Real, which

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documents the political pressures that shapedradiation science.13 (Other good sources on themaking of this science are Sue Rabbit Roff’sHotspots, Monica Braw’s The Atomic BombSuppressed, and Robert Lifton and GregMitchell’s, Hiroshima in America). The NewYork Times “joined the government insuppressing information on the radiationsickness of survivors” and consistentlydownplayed or omitted radioactivity from itsreportage, as Beverly Ann Deepe Keeverdemonstrates in The New York Times and theBomb.14 Keever, a veteran journalist herself,writes that “from the dawn of the atomic-bombage,…the Times almost single-handedly shapedthe news of this epoch and helped birth theacceptance of the most destructive force evercreated,” aiding the “Cold War cover-up” inminimizing and denying the health andenvironmental consequences of the a-bomb andits testing.

The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commissionscientists calculated that by 1950, when thecommission began its investigations, the deathrate from all causes except cancer hadreturned to “normal” and the cancer deathswere too few to cause alarm.15

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“It’s nonsense, it’s rubbish!” protestedepidemiologist Dr. Alice Stewart, an earlycritic—and victim—of the Hiroshima studies.16

Stewart discovered, in 1956, that x-rayingpregnant women doubled the chance of achildhood cancer: this put her on a collisioncourse with ABCC/RERF data, which found noexcess of cancer in children exposed in utero tothe blasts. Nobody in the 1950s wanted to hearthat a fraction of the radiation dose “known” tobe safe could kill a child. During the Cold War,officials were assuring us we could survive all-out nuclear war by ducking and covering underdesks and the U.S. and U.K. governments werepouring lavish subsidies into “the friendly

atom.” Stewart was defunded and defamed.

Alice Stewart

She persisted in her criticisms of the Hiroshimadata which were repeatedly invoked todiscredit her findings, pointing out that therewas no way the survivors could have returnedto “normal” a mere five years after the atomicblasts. This was not a normal or representativepopulation: it was a population of healthysurvivors, since the weakest had died off. Herstudies of childhood cancer had found thatchildren incubating cancer became 300 timesmore infection sensitive than normal children.Children so immune-compromised would nothave survived the harsh winters that followedthe bombings, when food and water werecontaminated, medical services ground to ahalt, and antibiotics were scarce—but theirdeaths would not have been recorded asradiation-related cancer deaths. Nor would thenumerous stillbirths, spontaneous abortions,and miscarriages (known effects of radiationexposure) have been so recorded. Stewartmaintained that were many more deaths fromradiation exposure than official figuresindicated.

Besides, the survivors had been exposed to asingle, external blast of radiation, often at veryhigh dose (depending on their distance from

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the bombs), rather than the long, slow, low-dose exposure that is experienced by peopleliving near reactors or workers in the nuclearindustry. Stewart’s studies of the Hanfordnuclear workers were turning up cancer atdoses “known to be too low” to produce cancer,too low as defined by the Hiroshima data: “Thisis the population you ought to be studying tofind out the effects of low-dose radiation,” shemaintained, not only because the workers havebeen subjected to the kind of exposure morelikely to be experienced by downwinders toreactors and accidents, but also becauserecords were kept of their exposures (thenuclear industry requires such records).

Worker with radioactive waste at Hanford

In the Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies, bycontrast radiation exposure was estimated onthe flimsiest of guesswork. The radiationemitted by the bombs was calculated accordingto tests done in the Nevada desert and wasrecalculated several times in subsequentdecades. Researchers asked such questions as,where were you standing in relation to theblast, what was between you and it, what hadyou had for breakfast that morning, assumingthat the survivors would give reliable accountsfive years after the event.

“Bible arithmetic!” Stewart called theHiroshima data: “it has skewed subsequent

calculations about the cancer effect ofradiation, and not only the cancer effect, butmany other effects –immune system damage,lowered resistance to disease, infection, heartdisease, genetic damage. These are seriousmisrepresentations because they suggest it’ssafe to increase levels of backgroundradiation.” In fact, as the Hiroshima studieswent on, they turned up numerous radiationeffects besides cancer17—cardiovascular andgastrointestinal damage, eye diseases, andother health problems—which bore out herprediction. Stewart was also proved right onthe issue of fetal X-rays, though it took her twodecades to convince official bodies torecommend against the practice, during whichtime doctors went right on X-raying pregnantwomen. It took her another two decades tobuild a case strong enough to persuade the USgovernment, in 1999, to grant compensation tonuclear workers for cancer incurred on thejob.18 (It helps, in this area, to be long-lived, asshe commented wryly).

Twice, she has demonstrated that radiationexposures assumed “too low” to be dangerouscarry high risk—two major blows at theHiroshima data. Yet this 60-year old RERF dataset continues to be invoked to dismiss newevidence—evidence of cancer clusters in thevicinity of nuclear reactors and findings fromChernobyl.

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More than 40 studies have turned up clustersof childhood leukemia in the vicinity of nuclearfacilities, reckons Ian Fairlie, an independentconsultant on radioactivity in the environmentand a former member of the CommitteeExamining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters(an investigatory commission established by theU.K. government but disbanded in 2004).Fairlie describes this as a “mass of evidencedifficult to contradict”19—yet it continues to becontradicted, on the basis of the Hiroshima

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studies. Generally when a cancer cluster isdetected in the neighborhood of a reactor, thematter gets referred to a governmentcommittee that dismisses the findings on thegrounds that radioactive emissions fromfacilities are “too low” to produce a cancereffect—“too low, according to RERF riskestimates.20

But in 2007, something extraordinaryhappened, when a government-appointedcommittee formed in response to the pressureof concerned citizens turned up increased ratesof childhood leukemia in the vicinity of all 16nuclear power plants in Germany. TheKinderk rebs i n de r Umgebung vonKernkraftwerken study, known by its acronymKiKK, was a large, well-designed study with acase-control format (1592 cancer cases and4735 controls). The investigators—who werenot opposed to nuclear power—anticipatedthey’d find “no effect... on the basis of the usualmodels for the effects of low levels ofradiation.”21 But they found, to their surprise,that children who lived less than 5 km from aplant were more than twice as likely to developleukemia as children who lived more than 5 kmaway. This was inexplicable within currentmodels of estimating radiation risk:22 emissionswould have had to have been orders ofmagnitude higher than those released by thepower stations to account for the rise inleukemia. So the investigators concluded thatthe rise in leukemia couldn’t have been causedby radiation.

The findings are not inexplicable, explainsFairlie, when you understand that the data onwhich risk is calculated, the Hiroshima studies,are “unsatisfactory.”23 Fairlie’s criticism ofthese data echoes Stewart’s: “risk estimatesfrom an instantaneous external blast of highenergy neutrons and gamma rays are not reallyapplicable to the chronic, slow, internalexposures from the low-range alpha and betaradiation from most environmental releases.”24

(my emphasis) Fairlie points out a furtherproblem with the Hiroshima data: its failure totake into account the dangers of internalradiation. As Sawada Shoji, emeritus professorof physics at Nagoya University and aHiroshima survivor, confirms, the Hiroshimastudies never looked at fallout: they looked at“gamma rays and neutrons emitted within aminute of the explosion,” but did not considerthe effects of residual radiation over time,effects from inhalation or ingestion that “aremore severe.”25 The distinction betweenexternal and internal radiation is important to

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keep clear. A bomb blast gives off radiation inthe form of high-energy subatomic particlesand materials that remain as fallout in the formof radioactive elements such as strontium 90and cesium. Most of this is likely to remain onthe ground, where it will radiate the body fromwithout, but some may be ingested or inhaledand lodge in a lung or other organ, where it willcontinue to emit radioactivity at close range.Nuclear proponents cite background radiationto argue that low-dose radiation is relativelyharmless, asserting (as Monbiot argued againstCaldicott) that we’re daily exposed tobackground radiation and survive. But thisargument misses the fact that backgroundradiation is from an external source and so is amore finite exposure than radioactivesubstances ingested or inhaled, which go onirradiating tissues, “giving very high doses tosmall volumes of cells,” as Helen Caldicottsays. (Caldicott explains, when physicists talkabout “permissible doses,” “[t]hey consistentlyignore internal emitters — radioactive elementsfrom nuclear power plants or weapons teststhat are ingested or inhaled into the body,…They focus instead on generally less harmfulexternal radiation from sources outside thebody.”26)

The KiKK study “commands attention,” Fairlieinsists.27 But it got no mention in mainstreammedia in the U.S. or the U.K.—until TheGuardian, in early May of 2011, gave this spinto it: “Plants have been cleared of causingchildhood cancers,” declared the headline.28

“Government’s advisory committee says it istime to look elsewhere for causes of leukaemiaclusters.” What “elsewhere,” what other causesare cited for cancer clusters in the vicinity ofreactors? Infection, a virus, a mosquito,socioeconomics, chance say the experts quotedin The Guardian. The U.K. government is nowmoving ahead with plans to build eight newreactors.

When new evidence comes into conflict withold models, reinvoke the old models rather than

looking at the new evidence. The world is flat.So is it flat in Chernobyl.

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“There is no evidence of a major public healthimpact attributable to radiation exposure twodecades after the accident at Chernobyl,”announced the New York Times, a few daysafter the Fukushima reactors began todestabilize (Denise Grady, “Precautions shouldlimit health problems from nuclear plant’sradiation,” March 15, 2011) The Times basesthis claim on a 2005 World Health Organization(WHO) study that found “minimal healtheffects” and estimated that only 4000 deaths“will probably be attributable to the accidentultimately.” The worst effect of the accident isa “paralyzing fatalism,” an expert tells theTimes, which leads people to “drug and alcoholuse, and unprotected sex and unemployment”(Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Experts find reducedeffects of Chernobyl ,”Sept 6, 2005). “Radiophobia,” this is called—an attitudeproblem.

The T imes d id not ment ion that theInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),which is mandated with the promotion ofnuclear energy, has an agreement with WHOthat gives it final say over what it reports, anentangl ing al l iance much decried byindependent scientists.29 Nor did it mention twoother studies that came out in 2006, “TheOther Report on Chernobyl” and “TheChernobyl Catastrophe” by Greenpeace, bothof which gave much higher casualty estimatesthan the widely publicized WHO/IAEA report.30

N o r d i d i t b r e a t h e a w o r d a b o u tChernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophefor People and the Environment, by AlexeyYablokov et al., translated into English andpublished by the New York Academy ofSciences in 2009—which estimates casualtiesat 985,000, orders of magnitude more than theWHO/IAEA report.31

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Yablokov et al. draw on “data generated bymany thousands of scientists, doctors, andother experts who directly observed thesuffering of millions affected by radioactivefallout in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia,” andincorporate more than 5000 studies, mostly inSlavic languages (compared with the 350mentioned in the 2005 report, most of whichwere in English). The authors are impeccablycredentialed: Dr. Alexey Yablokov wasenvironmental advisor to Yeltsin andGorbachev; Dr. Vassily Nesterenko was formerdirector of the Institute of Nuclear Energy inBelarus. Nesterenko, together with AndreiSakharov, founded the independent BelarusianInstitute of Radiation Safety BELRAD, whichstudies –as well as treats—the Chernobylchildren. When he died in 2008 as a result ofradiation exposure incurred flying over theburning reactor (which gave us the onlymeasurement of radionuclides released by theaccident), his son Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, thirdauthor of this study, took over as director andsenior scientist at BELRAD. Dr. JanetteSherman, consulting editor, is a physician andtoxicologist.

Comparing contaminated areas of Belarus,Ukraine, and Russia with the so-called “cleanareas,” the studies document significantincreases in morbidity and mortality incontaminated regions: not only more cancer,especially thyroid cancer, but a wide array ofnoncancer effects — ulcers, chronic pulmonarydiseases, diabetes mellitus, eye problems,severe mental retardation in children, and ahigher incidence and greater severity ofinfectious and viral diseases. Every system inthe body is adversely affected: cardiovascular,reproductive, neurological, hormonal,respiratory, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal,and immune systems. The children are notthriving: “Prior to 1985 more than 80% ofchildren in the Chernobyl territories of Belarus,Ukraine, and European Russia were healthy;today fewer than 20% are well.” In animals,too, there are “significant increases in

morbidity and mortality… increased occurrenceof tumor and immunodeficiencies, decreasedlife expectancy, early aging, changes in bloodand the circulatory system, malformations.”

After Chernobyl

Photo by Paul Fusco

Parallels between Chernobyl and Hiroshima arestriking: data collection was delayed,information withheld, reports of on-the-spotobservers were discounted, independentscientists were denied access “The USSRauthorities officially forbade doctors fromconnecting diseases with radiation and, like theJapanese experience, all data were classified.”With the “liquidators,” as they’re called, the830,000 men and women conscripted from allover the Soviet Union to put out the fire,deactivate the reactor, and clean up the sites,“It was officially forbidden to associate thediseases they were suffering from withradiation.” “The official secrecy that the USSRimposed on Chernobyl’s public health data thefirst days after the meltdown… continued formore than three years,” during which time“secrecy was the norm not only in the USSR,but in other countries as well.”

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But the parallels are political, not biological, forthe Hiroshima data have proven to be an“outdated” and useless model, as Stewart said,for predicting health effects from low-dose,chronic radiation exposure over time. TheHiroshima studies find little genetic damage inthe survivors, yet Yablokov et al. document that“Wherever there was Chernobyl radioactivecontamination, there was an increase in thenumber of children with hereditary anomaliesand congenital malformations. These includedpreviously rare multiple structural impairmentsof the limbs, head, and body,” devastating birthdefects, especially in the children of theliquidators. The correlation with radioactiveexposure is so pronounced as to be “no longeran assumption, but…proven,” write theauthors. As in humans, so in every speciesstudied, “gene pools of living creatures areactively transforming, with unpredictableconsequences”: “It appears that [Chernobyl’sirradiation] has awakened genes that havebeen silent over a long evolutionary time.” Thedamage will play out for generations — “atleast seven generations.”

Chernobyl legacy

Photo by Paul Fusco

Such findings have provided radiation experts achance to reexamine their hypotheses andtheories about radiation effects, observes

Mikhail Malko, a researcher at the JointInstitute of Power and Nuclear Research inBelarus.32 But rather than using new evidenceto enlarge their understanding, experts havefound ways of dismissing these studies as“unscientific”: they are said to be observationalrather than properly controlled, “EasternEuropean” and not up to Western scientificprotocols, and inconsistent with the hallowedHiroshima data. Radiation scientists deniedthat the thyroid cancer that increasedexponentially after the accident could be aconsequence of radiation: it manifested in onlythree years, whereas it had taken ten years toappear in Hiroshima, and it took a moreaggressive form. They explained the increase interms of improved screening, iodine substancesused to treat the children, or pesticides—eventhough epidemiological studies kept turning upa link with radiation contamination. Finally in2005, a case-control study headed by ElisabethCardis confirmed a dose-response relationshipbetween radiation and thyroid cancer inc h i l d r e n i n t e r m s t h a t h a d t o b eacknowledged. 3 3

Chernobyl does not usually provide the kind ofneat laboratory conditions that allow suchprecise dose-response calculations. But neitherdid Hiroshima, where radiation exposure wasguesstimated years after the fact andrecalculated several times according to newfindings. Yet scientists have accepted theHiroshima uncertainties –all too readily— andhave allowed this data to shape policy affectingall life on this planet, while citing the less-than-ideal conditions for studying Chernobyl as anexcuse to ignore or discredit these findings,dismissing them according to a model morequestionable than the data they’re discounting.The Chernobyl effects demonstrate that “Eventhe smallest excess of radiation over that ofnatural background will statistically…affect thehealth of exposed individuals or theirdescendants, sooner or later.” But as withStewart’s findings about fetal x-rays andnuclear workers, as with the studies that turn

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up cancer clusters around reactors, so withChernobyl — it can’t be radiation that’sproducing these effects because the Hiroshimastudies say it can’t. As independent scientistRudi Nussbaum points out, the “dissonancebetween evidence and existing assumptionsabout… radiation risk,” the gap between newinformation and the “widely adoptedpresuppositions about radiation health effects,”has become insupportable.34

Chernobyl is a better predictor of theFukushima consequences than Hiroshima, butwe wouldn’t know that from mainstream media.Perhaps we would rather not know that 57% ofChernobyl contamination went outside theformer USSR; that people as far away asOregon were warned not to drink rainwater“for some time”; that thyroid cancer doubled inConnecticut in the six years following theaccident; that 369 farms in Great Britainremained contaminated 23 years after thecatastrophe; that the German governmentcompensates hunters for wild boar meat toocontaminated to be eaten35 – and it paid fourtimes more in compensation in 2009 than in2007. Perhaps we’d rather not consider thepossibility that “the Chernobyl cancer toll isone of the soundest reasons for the ‘cancerepidemic’ that has been afflicting humankindsince the end of the 20th century.”

“This information must be made available tothe world,” write Yablokov et al. But their bookhas met “mostly with silence,” as he said in apress conference in Washington DC, March 15,2011.36 The silence of mainstream media hasstonewalled information about Chernobyl’shealth effects as effectively as the Soviets’blackout concealed the accident itself, and asthe Allies’ censorship hid the health effects ofthe Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

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“We need to quash any stories trying tocompare this [Fukushima] to Chernobyl,”“otherwise it could have adverse consequenceson the market.” “’This has the potential to setthe nuclear industry back globally…We reallyneed to show the safety of nuclear,” that “it’snot as bad as it looks.” These statements weremade in a few of the more than 80 emails whichthe Guardian got access to, which were notintended for the publ ic eye. “Brit ishgovernment officials approached nuclearcompanies to draw up a co-ordinated publicrelations strategy to play down the Fukushimanuclear accident just two days after theearthquake and tsunami,” reports theGuardian, “to try to ensure the accident did notderail their plans for a new generation ofnuclear stations in the UK.”37

Comparisons with Chernobyl have beenconspicuously absent from mainstream media,even when Fukushima was upgraded, in early

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June, to a level on a par with Chernobyl, level7, the highest. Even when Arnold Gundersen, anuclear engineer turned whistleblower who hasbeen monitoring Fukushima from the start,asserted that this accident may actually bemore dire than Chernobyl. Gundersen, aninformed, level-headed commentator whoinspires confidence, points out that there arefour damaged reactors leaking into theatmosphere, ocean, and ground in an areamore populated than the Ukraine: “Youprobably have the equivalent of 20 nuclearreactor cores…that is 20 times the potential tobe released than Chernobyl.” (Fairewinds, June16, 2011). But apart from the damage controlpiece it published March 15 (cited above) andHelen Caldicott’s passing reference to“research by scientists in Eastern Europe” (op-ed, “After Fukushima: Enough is enough,”December 2)—the Times has barely mentionedChernobyl (and even Caldicott did not mentionthe Yablokov study by name). What Chernobylhas wrought, which has been documented soclearly by Yablokov et al., is simply toodangerous to give press to, undercutting as itdoes the nuclear industry’s claims to safety andviability.

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The New York Times has done good reportingon Japanese blunders and corruption. It hasdescribed the way plant operators andgovernment officials minimized the severity ofthe meltdown, the corporate and governmentcover-ups and irresponsibility (NorimitsuOnishi and Martin Fackler, “Japan held nucleardata, leaving evacuees in peril,” August 8,2011). It has pointed out complicity betweenindustry and regulators (Norimitsu Onishi andKen Belson, “Culture of Complicity Tied toStricken Nuclear Plant,” April 27, 2011). It hasdone pieces on citizens’ opposition (Onishi andFackler, “Japan ignored or long hid nuclearrisks,” May 17, 2011; Ken Belson, “Two voicesare heard after years of futility”, August 19,

2011) and on grass-roots initiatives to gatherdata where bureaucrats failed (Hiroko Tabuchi,“Citizens’ testing finds 20 radioactive hot spotsaround Tokyo,” Aug 1, 2011). Tabuchi eventakes a swipe at the “tameness of Japanesemainstream media,” which is commendable,though her statement is a model of “tameness”compared to Nicola Liscutin’s denunciation ofJapanese mass media as “little more than themouthpiece of the government and TEPCO.”38

Human interest stories abound in the Times,as in other major media, stories of workers sentin to quiet the reactors, of people living in thevicinity of the reactors. In one such piece, “Lifein limbo for Japanese near damage nuclearplant,” May 2, 2011, Fackler and MatthewWald refer to “a lack of hard data about thehealth effects of lower radiation dosesdelivered over extended periods” – a “lack”that’s assured, as we’ve seen, by thestonewalling of evidence endemic in the media.

As laudable as some of the Times coverage hasbeen, what it targets is the ineptitude andcorruption of the Japanese, what happenedover there as opposed to what goes on here,where our own dirty linen remains unwashed,as it were, and out of sight. How much easier tocriticize the lax regulatory mechanisms andlack of transparency of the Japanese than toshine a light on ourselves, on the insidious butlargely invisible working of the nuclear lobbyand lobbyists in this country, on the complicityof our own government and media with thenuclear industry.

A fascinating expose by Norimitsu Onishi,“Safety myth left Japan ripe for nuclear crisis”(June 25, 2011), invites comment along theselines. Onishi investigates the “elaborateadvertising campaigns” led by Tepco and theMinistry of Economy to convince the public ofthe safety of nuclear power. Hundreds ofmillions of dollars were spent to rally support:“Over several decades, Japan’s nuclearestablishment has devoted vast resources topersuade the Japanese public of the safety and

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necessity of nuclear power. Plant operatorsbuilt lavish, fantasy-filled public relationsbuildings that became tourist attractions.” Inone of these, “Alice discovers the wonders ofnuclear power. The Caterpillar reassures Aliceabout radiation and the Cheshire Cat helps herlearn about the energy source”.

Lest we feel smug, recall the promotion of “thefriendly atom” by Walt Disney’s book and film,Our Friend the Atom, read and viewed bymillions of schoolchildren (when they weren’tdoing “duck and cover” drills).

What Onishi describes as happening in Japanhappened in the U.S. as well— perhaps Onishimeans to evoke such resonances— where apowerful propaganda campaign was launched,with hundreds of millions of dollars behind it,to promote “Atoms for Peace,” the new energysource “too cheap to meter” (though there wasnothing “cheap” about it: it required enormousgovernment subsidies, and still does). Thispropaganda machine is described in the 1982study Nukespeak: The Selling of NuclearTechnology in America: “Beginning in themid-1950s, the AEC conducted a huge publicrelations operation to promote the vision ofAtoms for Peace,” using “a wide range of PRtechniques, including films, brochures, TV,radio, nuclear science fairs, public speakers,t r ave l i ng exh ib i t s , and c l a s s roomdemonstrations” (traveling AEC exhibits withnames like “Power Unlimited,” “Fallout inPerspective,” and “The Useful Atom”).39

“Millions of kits of atomic energy informationliterature were distributed to elementary, highschool, and college students.” The publicrelations departments of reactor manufacturerssuch as Westinghouse and General Electricwere also mobilized to prepare communities fornuclear facilities coming soon to theirneighborhoods and to prime the generalpopulation to welcome the new technology. Theconnection with mainstream media couldhardly be more direct, since “Westinghouseowned CBS for many years, and GeneralElectric, NBC,” as Karl Grossman points out.40

This same PR apparatus has been busy, inrecent decades, conjuring the “nuclearrenaissance” from the ashes of Chernobyl,selling nuclear power as “clean, green, andsafe.”

The Times coverage of Fukushima has raisedhopes in some quarters that this currentdisaster may have opened a space for publicdebate in mainstream media about nuclearpower. But how real is this debate, when somany fundamental issues remain hidden? Howopen a discussion can this be, when Chernobyland the German reactor study go unmentioned,when we have to turn to alternative media tolearn that the Yablokov study even exists—or tolearn that, as Alexander Cockburn reports,41

Obama was the recipient of generous campaigncontributions from the nuclear industry (whichmay cast some light on his enthusiastic support

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of nuclear power)? How open a discussion isthis, when the ABCC/RERF radiation riskassessments that enable the industry to existremain unaddressed? A serious considerationof the Yablokov study and the German reactorstudy would reveal them to be “skewed” anduseless, as we’ve seen; but rather than go thisroute, the Times calls on RERF experts to dodamage control for the industry. So RERFreassurances about radiation risk remainunchallenged and in place as the invisiblebuttressing of the nuclear industry, as the basisof radiation safety standards throughout theworld.

Contrast the response of U.S. media to theresponse of the German press: “Fukushimamarks the end of the nuclear era” (Spiegel,March 14, 2011); “Germany can no longerpretend nuclear power is safe…. it is over.Done. Finished.” (March 14, 2011) To Spiegel,Fukushima is a warning that cries out for anend to nuclear power; to the Times, Fukushimais a warning that we should build our reactorsmore efficiently and regulate them morecarefully, rather than cease building them at all(Editorial, “In the wake of Fukushima,” July 23,2011). In the months after Fukushima,“Spiegel’s most popular online feature as thedrama unfolded was an evolving digital map ofthe ‘radiation plume,’” observes Ralph Martin;42

“the German electorate made nuclear powertheir top concern—they made Fukushimatheirs,” whereas “the reaction of Americanmedia…[was to] regard the events as yetanother story, without any larger socialramifications,” without much relevance toourselves. And so nuclear power marches on:“Alabama nuclear reactor, partly built, to befinished,” Matthew Wald, August 19, 2011;“Two utilities win approval for nuclear powerplants,” Matthew Wald, December 23, 2011(neither of these is a particularly long ornoticeable article, and neither is front page).

There has been precious little mention in U.S.mainstream media of the plume Spiegel was

tracing, except to whisk it away as presenting“no health hazard” (Broad, cited above), thoughthe worldwide fallout from Fukushima hasoccasioned much discussion on the Web.Gundersen43 cites evidence that the earlyreleases, which were revealed to be more thandouble what we were initially informed,contained “hot particles” of cesium, strontium,uranium, plutonium, cobalt 60 that have turnedup in automobile engine filters, and accordingto what’s been detected in air filters, a personin Tokyo was breathing about ten hot particlesa day through the month of April. A person inSeattle was breathing about five, that samemonth.

*******

Not to worry: “The effects of radiation do notcome to people that are happy and laughing.They come to people that are weak-spirited,that brood and fret.” So says Dr. YamashitaShunichi,44 who has been assigned to head theofficial study of radiation health effects in theFukushima population. Yamashita was sent bythe Japanese government from NagasakiUniversity, where he was part of the RERFstudies, revered for their long experience withthe A-Bomb survivors. Mandated withaddressing the concerns of the citizens andcorrecting their misconceptions, Yamashitarallies the population with stirring words: “Thename Fukushima will be widely knownthroughout the world…This is great!Fukushima has beaten Hiroshima andNagasaki. From now on, Fukushima willbecome the world number 1 name. A crisis isan opportunity. This is the biggest opportunity.Hey, Fukushima, you’ve become famouswithout any efforts.”

We’re in good hands.

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Alice Stewart (right) and the author

Gayle Greene is Professor of English at ScrippsCollege. She is the author of The Woman WhoKnew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secretsof Radiation, a biography of pioneering Britishradiation epidemiologist and anti-nuclear guruAlice Stewart, and “Alice Stewart and RichardDoll: Reputation and the Shaping of Scientific‘Truth’,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine,autumn 2011, 504-31.

Her work has been published in scholarlyjournals such as Signs , ContemporaryLiterature, and Renaissance Drama, and inpopular venues such as Ms Magazine, TheNation, The Women's Review of Books, and InThese Times. gaylegreene@earthlink.net(http://apjjf.org/mailto:gaylegreene@earthlink.net)

Recommended citation: Gayle Greene, 'Sciencewith a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry AfterChernobyl and Fukushima,' The Asia-PacificJournal Vol 10, Issue 1 No 3, January 2, 2012.

References

1 Yablokov, Alexey et al. 2009. Chernobyl:Consequences of the Catastrophe for Peopleand the Environment. Annals of the New YorkA c a d e m y o f S c i e n c e s 1 1 8 1 , l i n k(http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Cher

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nobyl%20book.pdf)

2 “The Greening of Nuclear Power,” NYTeditorial, May 13, 2006

3 2010-2011 World Nuclear Industry StatusReport , Wor ldwatch Ins t i tu te , l ink(http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/WorldNuclearIndustryStatusReport2011_%20FINAL.pdf)

4 George Monbiot “Prescription for Survival: ADebate on the Future of Nuclear Energy,” AmyGoodman , March 30 , 2011 , L inks 1(http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/30/prescription_for_survival_a_debate_on), 2(http://www.monbiot.com/2011/04/04/correspon d e n c e - w i t h - h e l e n - c a l d i c o t t / ) , 3(http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/30/presc r i p t i o n _ f o r _ s u r v i v a l _ a _ d e b a t e _ o nhttp://www.monbiot.com/2011/04/04/correspond e n c e - w i t h - h e l e n - c a l d i c o t t /http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/georgemonbiot)

5 “Ah, but the Americans….”: Daniel Land, “Areporter at large,” New Yorker, June 8, 1946,quotes Tzuzuki; in Robert J. Lifton and GregMitchell, Hiroshima in America: A Half Centuryof Denial, 1995, 53

6 Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger, 143-4;also, Shoji Sawada, “Cover-up of the effects ofinternal exposure by residual radiation fromthe atomic bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival,2007, 23, 1, 58-74, p. 61: “Brigadier General T.Farrel, of the research commission of theManhattan Project… said that at that time[Sept 1945] in Hiroshima and Nagasaki allthose fatally ill had already died and no onewas suffering from atomic radiation.” His exactwords: “In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at present,the beginning of September [1945], anyoneliable to die has already died and no one issuffering from atomic radiation.”

7 Catherine Caulfield, Multiple Exposures:

Chronicles of the Radiation Age, U of ChicagoPress, 1989, 62-3

8 Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima inAmerica: A Half Century of Denial, Avon, 1995,4-5; Monica Braw, The Atomic BombSuppressed , 119-23

9 Wilfred Burchett, Shadows of Hiroshima,London, 1983; a lso Sue Rabbit Roff ,Hotspots: The Legacy of Hiroshima andNagasaki, Cassell, 1995, 271, and Lifton andMitchell, 46-9

10 Caulfield, 62-4

11 Brian Jacobs, “The politics of radiation: Whenpublic health and the nuclear industry collide,”Greenpeace, July-Aug 1986,7

12 Caulfield, 120

13 Susan Lindee Suffering Made Real: AmericanScience and the Survivors of Hiroshima U ofChicago Press, 1994, 107

14 Beverly Ann Deepe Keever News Zero: TheNew York Times and the Bomb, CommonCourage Press, 2004, p. 16; 1-3

15 Shoji Sawada, “Cover-up of the effects ofinternal exposure by residual radiation fromthe atomic bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival,Jan-March 2007, 23, 1, 58-74

16 Stewart’s quotes are from my biography ofher. Gayle Greene, The Woman Who Knew TooMuch: Alice Stewart and the Secrets ofRadiation, 1999, 143

17 Shimizu, Y, et al. 1992. Studies of themorality of A-bomb survivors. Radiat Res 130:249-266. 1574582

1 8 L i n k(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/29/us/us-ackn o w l e d g e s - r a d i a t i o n - k i l l e d - w e a p o n s -

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workers.html?pagewanted=all)

19 Ian Fairlie, “New evidence of childhoodleukeaemias near nuclear power stations,”Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 24, 3, July-Sept2008, 219-227. A fuller discussion of cancerclusters and the studies that dismiss them is inchapter 13 of The Woman Who Knew TooMuch.

20 Wing, S., D. Richardson, A.M. Stewart. “Therelevance of occupational epidemiology toradiation protection standards,” New Solutions,1999, 9, 2: 133-51

21 Claudia Spix et al, “Case-control study onchildhood cancer in the vicinity of nuclearpower plants in Germany 1980-2003,”European J of Cancer 44, 2008, 275-84

22 BfS. Unanimous statement by the expertgroup commissioned by the Bundesamt furStrahlenschutz on the KiKK Study. GermanFederal Office for Radiation Protection. Berlin,G e r m a n y ; 2 0 0 7 . L i n k(http://www.bfs.de/de/bfs/druck/Ufoplan/4334_KIKK.Zusamm.pdf)

23 Ian Fairlie, “The risks of nuclear energy arenot exaggerated,” The Guardian, Jan 20, 2010,l i n k(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/20/evidence-nuclear-risks-not-overrated)

24 Fairlie, “Childhood cancer near Germannuclear power stations,” J of Environ Scienceand Health Part C, 28:1-21, 2010, 1-21; alsoRudi Nussbaum, “Childhood leukemia andcancers near German nuclear reactors,” Int JOccup Environ Health, 2009, 15, 318-23

25 Shoji Sawada, “Cover-up of the effects ofinternal exposure by residual radiation fromthe atomic bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival,Jan-March 2007, 23, 1, 58-74

26 “Unsafe at Any Dose,” Op Ed, New York

Times, April 30, 2011

27 Ian Fairlie, “Infant leukaemias near nuclearpower stations,” CND Briefing, Jan 2010

28 Sarah Bosley, “UK nuclear power plantscleared of causing leukemia: Government’sadvisory committee says it is time to lookelsewhere for causes of leukemia clusters,”Guardian, May 6, 2011

29 A quick WEB search turns this up: Link 1(http://www.llrc.org/health/subtopic/iaeawhoagr e e m e n t . h t m ) ; l i n k 2(http://www.nuclearfreeplanet.org/blogs/who-and-why-they-should-not-be-in-bed-with-the-iaea.html). Also, Helen Caldicott, NuclearPower is Not the Answer, New Press, 2007;Rudi Nussbaum, “Clinging to the nuclearoption,” Counterpunch, May 30 2011

30 The Other Report on Chernobyl, Ian Fairlieand David Sumner, 2006. MEP Greens/EFA,Berlin, Brussels, Kiev; and Greenpeace. 2006.The Chernobyl Catastrophe: Consequences onHuman Health, Amsterdam, the Netherlands,l i n k(http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/chernobylhealthreport.pdf)

31 Yablokov, Alexey et al. 2009. Chernobyl:Consequences of the Catastrophe for Peopleand the Environment. Annals of the New YorkA c a d e m y o f S c i e n c e s 1 1 8 1 , l i n k(http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf)

32 Mikhail Malko MV. 1998 “The Chernobylaccident: The Crisis in the InternationalRadiation Community,” Research Activitiesabout the Radiobiological Consequences of theChernobyl NPT Accident KURR-KR-21, link(http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/reports/1998/kr-21/Malko96-1.html)

33 Elisabeth Cardis et al. 2005. “Risk of thyroidcancer after exposure to 131-I in childhood,” J

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Natl Cancer Inst 97: 724-734

34 Rudi Nussbaum, Childhood malignanciesnear German nuclear reactors. Int J OccupEnviron Health, 2009, (15) 3: 318-23; also, IanFairlie, “Childhood cancer near Germannuclear power stations,” J of Environ Scienceand Health Part C, 28:1-21, 2010, 1-21.

35 Charles Hawley, “A quarter century afterChernobyl: Radioactive boar on the rise inGermany,” Der Spiegel, July 30, 2010, link(http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,druck-709345,00.html)

3 6 L i n k s 1(http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x283 5 1 9 ) , 2(http://ascendingstarseed.wordpress.com/2011/0 5 / 0 7 / a r n i e - g u n d e r s o n - f u k u s h i m a -groundwater-contamination-worst-in-nuclear-history/)

3 7 Rob Edwards , “Revea led : Br i t i shgovernment’s plan to play down Fukushima,”G u a r d i a n , J u n e 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 . L i n k(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/30/british-government-plan-play-down-fukushima) (“Read the emails here” has beenblocked.) Also, John Vidal, “Fukushima spinwas Orwellian,” Guardian, July 11, 2011, link(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/01/fukushima-emails-government-nuclear-industry)

38 “New Media and anti-nuclear activism inJapan, Asia-Pacific Journal, Nov 21, 2011

39 Stephen Hilgartner, Richard Bell, RoryO’Connor, Nukespeak:The Selling of NuclearTechnology in America, Sierra Club Books,1982, pp.74-6

40 “Downplaying deadly dangers in Japan and athome, after Fukushima, media still buyingmedia spin,” Extra! The Magazine of FAIR, theMedia Watch Group, May 2011; Grossman’sarticles on media spin are well worth reading.Karlgrossman.blogspot.com

41 “In the midst of Fukushima,” Counterpunch,March 18-20, 2011

4 2 Ralph Martin, “When Japan sneezes,Germany catches a cold,” The European, April2 9 , 2 0 1 1 , l i n k(http://theeuropean-magazine.com/257-martin-ralph/258-fukushimas-media-coverage)

43 Gundersen, “Scientist Marco Kaltofenpresents data confirming hot particles,”F a i r w i n d s , O c t 3 1 , 2 0 1 1 , l i n k(http://fairewinds.com/content/scientist-marco-kaltofen-presents-data-confirming-hot-particles)

44 Dr. Yamashita Shunichi, Democracy Now,J u n e 1 0 , 2 0 1 1 , l i n k(http://onlyinamericablogging.blogspot.com/2011/06/witch-doctor-shunichi-yamashita-to-head.html); from a lecture, Fukushima City,M a r c h 2 1 , L i n k s 1(http://www.wakeupx.com/fukushima/news/1161-dr-shunichi-yamashita-radiation-advisor-to-fukushima-fukusima-will-be-world-famous-it-s-j u s t - g r e a t . h t m l ) , 2(http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/06/dr-shunichi-yamashita-radiation-advisor.html)