Fukushima Radiation Data Quarantined by Governments of Japan and the United States. Why?

[Octafish]

Researchers call for nuclear data release

Trove of data from Fukushima and beyond could improve nuclear monitoring and benefit research.

Geoff Brumfiel
Nature
13 June 2011

Shortly after a massive tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 11 March, an unmanned monitoring station on the outskirts of Takasaki, Japan, logged a rise in radiation levels. Within 72 hours, scientists had analysed samples taken from the air and transmitted their analysis to Vienna, Austria — the headquarters of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an international body set up to monitor nuclear weapons tests.

It was just the start of a flood of data collected about the accident by the CTBTO's global network of 63 radiation monitoring stations. In the following weeks, the data were shared with governments around the world, but not with academics or the public. Now scientists working with the CTBTO on behalf of member states are calling for the data to be released, both to give other researchers an opportunity to use them, and to improve the network's performance.

"What I'm after is to make this dataset available to the scientific community," says Wolfgang Weiss, head of the department of radiation protection and health at Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection in Munich. In the coming weeks and months he hopes to persuade member nations overseeing the CTBTO to approve new rules for sharing data with other international bodies and scientific researchers.

SNIP...

Those monitoring stations pick up other things as well. In the latest crisis, the network's sensitive radiation detection sensors were overwhelmed by radioisotopes streaming out of the damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. Monitoring posts picked up isotopes such as iodine-131 and caesium-137 that were of concern to public health officials in other countries. Other radioisotopes such as niobium-95 and rubidium-103 were an early indicator of a meltdown inside one or more of the reactors.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110613/full/news.2011.366.html

Least the governments of Japan, the United States and Who-Knows-Who-Else can do is tell the public what they know about the radiation from Fukushima Dai'ichi. They are democracies, after all, aren't they?

[qb]

1. Because from the governments' point of view, millions of cancer deaths that will occur

years in the future is better than a panicked populace right now.

[Faux pas]

19. That and all of the world's food sources will be ruined. They

don't want to tell us all to bend over and kiss it goodbye. Especially if they still have a chance of making money off of us. Such a pity.

[Octafish]

20. Absolutely. And some, if not most, cancer deaths can be avoided with forewarning and knowledge.

Info on what we can do to protect ourselves and our loved ones:

Nuclear War Survival Skills

How would you protect yourself in a nuclear war (clothing, etc.)?

PDF: Guide of Good Practices for Occupational Radiological Protection in Plutonium Facilities

EXCERPT...

4.2.3 Characteristics of Plutonium Contamination

There are few characteristics of plutonium contamination that are unique. Plutonium
contamination may be in many physical and chemical forms. (See Section 2.0 for the many
potential sources of plutonium contamination from combustion products of a plutonium fire
to radiolytic products from long-term storage.) The one characteristic that many believe is
unique to plutonium is its ability to migrate with no apparent motive force. Whether from
alpha recoil or some other mechanism, plutonium contamination, if not contained or
removed, will spread relatively rapidly throughout an area.

Secrecy only benefits those holding the secrets.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. You always manage to find the most amazing resources!

[Wilms]

2. National Security.

You wouldn't want the terrorists to find out. Or something of that sort.

:sarcasm:

[Zoeisright]

3. Because it's far worse than they want to admit.

Typical coverup, funded by the dirty and poisonous power industry.

[suffragette]

4. If scientists were to have, analyze and publish the info

on this, it would make it much harder to summarily dismiss their and the public's valid concerns .

Nuclear promoters would be slipping up on their self-flung *banana peels* in droves.


Great post. K&R

[Melissa G]

5. My guess is economic and practical.

Russia is a big country. There was a place to locate the refugees from Chernobyl. I'm guessing that it was a lot less densely populated area that needed evacuating as well. How/where is Japan going to relocate Tokyo?

We owe Japan since we are busy bankrupting ourselves with unnecessary wars and rich people tax breaks. Our governments are colluding to keep us sheeple in the dark. Sucks.

[erodriguez]

25. "Sheeple" ugh

[elehhhhna]

6. Answer: B/c radiation is an equal-opportunity carcinogen and we'd demand national healthcare

truefact. we'll need it. les bonton roulez (sp?) on insurance profits 'til the rads hit the fan.


that's one reason.

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. Laissez les bons temps rouler

[elehhhhna]

28. lol i effed that up pretty bad, eh?

and my boss is a Louisianian (?). Who gradutaed from MIT (!). She'd have a COW.

[elehhhhna]

7. 20 recs in an hour? wtf, du?

[Karmadillo]

8. K&R

nt

[Chisox08]

9. Another case of profits over people

[Citizen Worker]

10. Hope, change and transparency, indeed. Isn't it just great?

[Bluebear]

18. +

[amborin]

11. they're invested in it

Obama, e.g., has long ties to Exelon; indeed, O watered down some Illinois legislation that was to protect the aquifer from potential nuclear contamination (was this related to Exelon's donations to his campaign?)

[WillyT]

13. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick:

[Cannikin]

14. GE...

[bananas]

15. k&r - maybe it will show up on wikileaks? nt

[Electric Monk]

16. K & R

+++++

[Bluebear]

17. Hope, change and transparency!

[Highway61]

21. Big K & R

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. "largest total doses would be received by people who would live normal unsheltered lives

for the first month or so after fallout deposition, while the dose rates would be highest."

And that passage was based on the fallout in the USA from "trans- Pacific fallout from a large nuclear war"

in which the assumption was a brief flurry of nukes going off in other countries .
Not from a continuous eruption of radiation emitted over months from 3-5 out of control nuke plants.


http://oism.org/nwss/s73p929.htm

[rhett o rick]

24. "They are democracies, after all, aren't they?" Well you see it's like this. It depends on what

meaning of "is" is. The USofA is not a democracy. It was intended to be a constitutionally controlled democratic republic. But the Constitution has be pushed aside for "security" reasons. We now live in an oligarchy.

[neoralme]

26. The United States does not want too much information getting out

that might save lives, which would mean killing more in other methods. If they can kill enough children and young people they don't have to starve them to death in their retirement years. And there will be plenty of workerbee brown people to toil endlessly for $1.47 per hour. The Ryan Way.

[DeSwiss]

27. K&R

“We do not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the United States, whether it’s the West Coast, Hawaii, Alaska, or U.S. territories in the Pacific. That is the judgment of our Nuclear Regulatory Commission and many other experts.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/17/president-obama-we-will-stand-people-japan ">~President Barack Obama

- If we're not going to hold all of our leaders accountable for keeping us adequately informed, then who is to blame?

[seafan]

29. Thanks, Octafish. We absolutely must get at this information.

These were some of the sites I looked at frequently in the early weeks after the Fukushima disaster.


Very oddly, the information stream ended in late April for the plume dispersion models at the University of Maryland link.


The EPA link is full of *not to worry our little heads* disclaimers.


The French link was helpful, after plugging it into Google translation.





Researchers call for nuclear data release, 13 June 2011


And thanks for these links, Octafish.



More and more, it is important to seek out those who give a damn.