Antinuclear

Radiation: “acceptable to society” is not the same as “safe”

We talked to scientists, and scientists agree – to use a highly scientific term, “safe levels” of radiation are bullshit. Radiation is unsafe at any level. “The general view,” explains Postol, “is that any exposure to radiation increases your risk of some kind of medical consequences.” Namely, cancer……
Supposedly “safe” or “normal” levels of radiation may be permissible to us or some authority, “but they are actually low cancer risk levels that assume that that level of cancer risk is acceptable to society,” explains Makhijani….o tiptoe around the truth, that more radiation equals more cancer, period, is cowardly and negligent – risk remains risky, however slight.

There’s No Such Thing As Safe Radiation | Gizmodo Australia, 5 April 11, “……Since Fukushima failed, the Japanese government and power plant reps have obscured the danger of the Fukushima crisis-and it is a crisis. The word “safe” has been tossed about loosely. Unfortunately, when it comes to radiation, there’s no such thing…..we shouldn’t be ignorant either. And, largely, we are.

Japanese authority figures have taken steps, whether deliberately or out of pure ineptitude, to whitewash the danger of the Fukushima’s radiation. Speaking out of both sides of his mouth, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yukio Edano said that Tokyo’s drinking water was both safe and unsafe. Levels of iodine 131, a radioactive isotope that clogs your thyroid gland and can have devastating effects children, was found to be 110 becquerels per liter above the safe level. The evacuation zone surrounding the plant was expanded by 11km – but only as a voluntary, not mandatory move. The government has advanced and retreated on the danger of irradiated food, with clear internal discord. The radiation limit deemed unsafe was suddenly erased and replaced with a new figure, on the fly. And just today, the TEPCO said it’ll start dumping thousands of tons of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean – an act they’re saying poses ”no major health risk”.
Nevermind that, before the Fukushima disaster, the average person outside of a physics classroom had zero idea in radioactive hell what a becquerel is. Nevermind that the entire concept of a safe level of radiation has been shown to be demonstrably elastic.

A proven, harmful, radioactive substance was detected in Tokyo’s tap water – the water drunk and bathed in daily – and Tokyo’s water purification chief said babies shouldn’t drink it. But this didn’t stop Edano from claiming that “even if people consume the water a few times, there should be no long-term ill effects”. Huh?

This is what Dr Theodore Postol, professor of Science, Technology and International Security calls “bureaucratic ass-covering mode”. Edano, and the lumbering bureaucratic safety monster in general, simply aren’t sure what the hell is going on in Tokyo’s water, so rather than give one answer and be damned by history, it provides two, entirely contradictory answers. What better insurance policy than that! The water is safe and unsafe – avoid it and drink up!

“Any exposure to radiation increases your risk of some kind of medical consequences.”
But this entire exercise – the theatrics of raising safety levels and detecting radiation in abundance of them – begs the question. It makes the massive assumption that there’s such a thing as safe radiation, as if iodine 131 under a certain threshold amounts to touching a pan once it’s cooled.

We talked to scientists, and scientists agree – to use a highly scientific term, “safe levels” of radiation are bullshit. Radiation is unsafe at any level. “The general view,” explains Postol, “is that any exposure to radiation increases your risk of some kind of medical consequences.” Namely, cancer……
Supposedly “safe” or “normal” levels of radiation may be permissible to us or some authority, “but they are actually low cancer risk levels that assume that that level of cancer risk is acceptable to society,” explains Makhijani. Acceptable to society. That means us. We’re society – we should get to decide what’s acceptable to us…..
There’s no need to promote fear – neither I nor Japan stand to benefit from it. But to tiptoe around the truth, that more radiation equals more cancer, period, is cowardly and negligent – risk remains risky, however slight. Japan may be concerned for its reputation in a generation – but it should shift that concern to its people’s DNA and dignity.
There’s No Such Thing As Safe Radiation | Gizmodo Australia

April 5, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized