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On April 2, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) issued a deeply flawed report, “Levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 great east-Japan earthquake and tsunami.”
Last week I summarized four points of agreement with the UN report found by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) -- the Nobel Peace Prize winning global federation of doctors -- in its otherwise scathing “Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR Report”. The majority of the IPPNW report details 10 major errors, flaws or discrepancies and explains the UN study’s omissions, underestimates, unscientific comparisons, misinterpretations and unwarranted conclusions.

 1 -- The total amount of radioactivity released by the disaster was grossly underestimated by UNSCEAR and was based on disreputable sources of information. UNSCEAR ignored 3.5 years of nonstop emissions of radioactive materials “that continue unabated,” and only dealt with releases during the first weeks of the disaster. UNSCEAR relied on a study by the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) which, the IPPNW points out, “was severely criticized by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission … for its collusion with the nuclear industry”. The independent Norwegian Institute for Air Research’s estimate of cesium-137 released (available to UNSCEAR) was four times higher than the JAEA/UNSCEAR figure (37 PBq instead of 9 PBq). Even Tokyo Electric Power Co. itself estimated that iodine-131 releases were over four times higher than what JAEA/UNSCEAR) reported (500 PBq vs. 120 BPq). The UNSCEAR inexplicably chose to ignore large releases of strontium isotopes and 24 other radionuclides when estimating radiation doses to the public. (A PBq or petabecquerel is a quadrillion or 1015 Becquerels. Put another way, a PBq equals 27,000 curies, and one curie makes 37 billion atomic disintegrations per second.)

2 -- Internal radiation taken up with food and drink “significantly influences the total radiation dose an individual is exposed to,” the doctors note, and their critique warns pointedly, “UNSCEAR uses as its one and only source, the still unpublished database of the International Atomic Energy Association and the Food and Agriculture Organization. The IAEA was founded … to ‘accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world.’ It therefore has a profound conflict of interest.” Food sample data from the IAEA should not be relied on, “as it discredits the assessment of internal radiation doses and makes the findings vulnerable to claims of manipulation.” As with the total radiation release estimates, the presence of strontium in food was ignored by the IAEA/UNSCEAR. Internal radiation dose estimates made by the Japanese Ministry for Science and Technology were 20, 40 and even 60 times higher than the highest numbers used in the IAEA/UNSCEAR reports.

3 -- To gauge radiation doses endured by over 24,000 workers on the site at Fukushima, UNSCEAR relied solely on figures from Tokyo Electric Power Co., the severely compromised owners of the destroyed reactors. The IPPNW report dismisses all the conclusions drawn from Tepco “data,” saying, “There is no meaningful control or oversight of the nuclear industry in Japan and data from Tepco has in the past frequently been found to be tampered with and falsified.”

4 -- The UNSCEAR report disregards current scientific fieldwork on actual radiation effects on plant and animal populations. Peer reviewed ecological and genetic studies from Chernobyl and Fukushima find evidence that low dose radiation exposures cause “genetic damage such as increased mutation rates, as well as developmental abnormalities, cataracts, tumors, smaller brain sizes in birds and mammals and further injuries to populations, biological communities and ecosystems.” Ignoring these studies, IPPNW says “gives the appearance of bias or lack of rigor”.

5 -- The special vulnerability of the embryo and fetus to radiation was completely discounted by the UNSCEAR, the physicians note. UNSCEAR shockingly said that doses to the fetus or breast-fed infants “would have been similar to those of other age groups,” a claim that, the IPPNW says, “goes against basic principles of neonatal physiology and radiobiology”.  By dismissing the differences between an unborn and an infant, the UNSCEAR “underestimates the health risks of this particularly vulnerable population.” The doctors quote a 2010 report from American Family Physician that, “in utero exposure can be teratogenic, carcinogenic or mutagenic.”

6 -- Non-cancerous diseases associated with radiation doses -- such as cardiovascular diseases, endocrinological and gastrointestinal disorders, infertility, genetic mutations in offspring and miscarriages -- have been documented in medical journals, but ate totally dismissed by the UNSCEAR. The physicians remind us that large epidemiological studies have shown undeniable associations of low dose ionizing radiation to non-cancer health effects and “have not been scientifically challenged.”

7 -- The UNSCEAR report downplays the health impact of low-doses of radiation by misleadingly comparing radioactive fallout to “annual background exposure.” The IPPNW scolds the UNSCEAR saying it is, “not scientific to argue that natural background radiation is safe or that excess radiation from nuclear fallout that stays within the dose range of natural background radiation is harmless.” In particular, ingested or inhaled radioactive materials, “deliver their radioactive dose directly and continuously to the surrounding tissue” -- in the thyroid, bone or muscles, etc. -- “and therefore pose a much larger danger to internal organs than external background radiation.”
   
8 -- Giving the direct but mistaken impression in its Press Release and Executive Summary that there will be no radiation health effects from Fukushima, the UNSCEAR report itself states that it “does not rule out the possibility of future excess cases or disregard the suffering associated…” Indeed, UNSCEAR admits to “incomplete knowledge about the release rates of radionuclides over time and the weather conditions during the releases.” UNSCEAR concedes that “there were insufficient measurements of gamma dose rate…” and that, “relatively few measurement of foodstuff were made in the first months”. These glaring uncertainties completely negate the level of certainty implied in the UNSCEAR report’s summary.

9 -- UNSCEAR often praises the protective measures taken by Japanese authorities, but the doctors’ report found it “odd that a scientific body like UNSCEAR would turn a blind eye to the many grave mistakes of the Japanese disaster management…” The central government was slow to inform local governments and “failed to convey the severity of the accident” according to the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission. “Crisis management “did not function correctly” the Commission said, and its failure to distribute stable iodine “caused thousands of children to become irradiated with iodine-131” the doctors said.

10 -- The UNSCEAR report lists “collective” radiation doses “but does not explain the expected cancer cases that would result from these doses.” This long section of the IPPNW report can’t be summarized easily. Suffice it to say that the doctors offer conservative estimates, “keeping in mind that these most probably represent underestimations for the reasons listed above.” The IPPNW estimate that 4,300 to 16,800 excess cases of cancer to do the Fukushima catastrophe in Japan in the coming decades. Cancer deaths will range between 2,400 and 9,100. UNSCEAR may call these numbers insignificant, the doctors archly point out, but individual cancers are debilitating and terrifying and they “represent preventable and man-made diseases” and fatalities.
The physicians conclude that the Fukushima radiation disaster is “far from over.” Melted reactor fuel and waste fuel in damaged cooling pools hold enormous radioactivity “and are highly vulnerable to further earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and human error.” Catastrophic releases of radioactivity “could occur at any time and eliminating this risk will take many decades.”
The UNSCEAR report “does not adhere to scientific standards of neutrality,” “represents a systematic underestimation and conjures up an illusion of scientific certainty that obscures the true impact of the nuclear catastrophe on health and the environment,” and its conclusion is phrased “in such a way that would most likely be misunderstood by most people…”

Anticipating the 2011 catastrophe by a decade, Eliza Gilkyson wrote in her 2003 song “Milk and Honey”:
wayward world I weep for thee / spinning round the sun
wellspring of diversity / your roads all lead to one
what man has loosed upon the sea / cannot be undone
oh what fools we mortals be / each and every one

-- John LaForge works for Nukewatch and can’t seem to shorten a Fukushima report to save his life.