I'm actually really angry following watching this.
First of all, I expected them to trivialise the health effects and the danger radiation poses to our environment - but I'd go as far as saying that what I have just watched was offensive.
I'll list what I took exception to;
It was claimed the cooling pumps at the Fukushima site "were working fine until the tsunami struck", this is impossible to verify and is widely disputed to be entirely false;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...truth-behind-fukushimas-meltdown-2338819.html
It remains one of the most hotly debated topics on the disaster, yet the 'documentary' (public exercise in damage limitation/ propaganda might be more accurate titles) passed it off as fact.
In the same sequence it was said to be "reassuring" that despite the "horrendous natural disaster" and the subsequent build up of pressure in the reactor the measures in place to prevent a containment breach were successful, to paraphrase - 'the reactor wasn't breached'.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated in August that they believed the fragments of fuel rods and pellets scattered for miles across the Daiichi site were from the
reactor core of unit 3, and not the spent fuel pools.
http://vimeo.com/28014740
That completely contradicts what was stated in the above programme.
The programme then cuts to Dounreay, where they talk about the vast clean-up operation to the tune of £2.9 billion which will take hundreds of years to complete (they're unable to spin that one).
They then interview a man responsible for the vast clean-up operation of the seabed and coast around Dounreay. There he states that the threat from coming into contact with a hot particle or particles is small and that a feasible manner in which you could come into direct contact with such contamination is by getting such material under your fingernail. He trivialises the seriousness of such contact by stating that you'd simply be subjected to a 'little burn' which would eventually subside (reliant on the particle being removed), he does however then concede that there is an increased risk of developing cancer following such an exposure.
Crucially though, the scenario of exposure he proposed is the very best case scenario, the exposure is a short-term one and the hot particle never enters the body and is removed after a short period of time. He neglects to touch upon the repercussions of such material being unwittingly inhaled or ingested, where the radiation is internally irradiating its subject, and it'll remain in the individual's body until the day he or she dies.
I wonder why such exposure wasn't even theorised in the programme, and the other scenario was trivialised?
In the following sequence the presenter then blabs on about "fear" and uses the old cliche of "press into overdrive", suggesting irrational histeria while simultaneously trivialising the threat radiation poses to our health. And of course they roll out the old Radium painted watches of yesteryear nonsense again continuing with the premise of trivialising the entire subject matter.
But what follows, is ****ing outrageous.
They reel out an 'independent' (laughable, she's made countless tv appearances, namely on the BBC, playing down events at Fukushima and the effects of radiation on the human body - see vested interests) Professor who proceeds to compare a low estimate of 20,000 total deaths as a result of exposure to radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a death toll of falling out of ****ing bed and its' respective 'dangers' comparatively.
She then pulls out a figure of 122 deaths as a result of Chernobyl, which the presenter then proceeds to state "
according to Gerry (our 'independent', 'objective' professor),
includes both the short-term effects of acute radiation sickness and most cancers".
That figure is one of the lowest possible figures you will find on the death toll from Chernobyl, and it
doesn't even include the lives of anyone who was working in or around the site following the immediate aftermath, let alone the wider public. This is despite it being made abundantly clear by the presenter via our professor that it includes "
most cancers" (note how she worded that very carefully).
In Belarus alone there were an estimated 6000 additional cases of thyroid cancers in children between 1986 and 2005. And there are more expected in the coming years and decades. In 2005 the IAEA (who exist solely to promote nuclear power) reported an estimated 4000 deaths as a direct result of the accident. A TORCH report in 2006 estimated an excess of cancers between 30,000 and 60,000. The environmental NGO estimated a total death toll of 93,000 - just among those who worked on the clean-up operation following the accident. On the wider death toll they state, and I quote from their report;
“The most recently published figures indicate that in Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine alone the disaster could have resulted in an estimated 200,000 additional deaths in the period between 1990 and 2004."
And according to the Union Chernobyl, the main organization of liquidators (those who worked on the clean-up operation), 10% of the 600,000 liquidators are now dead, and 165,000 disabled.
One report from a Russian publication written by 'leading Eastern European authorities', translated into English, and then published online in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences puts the wider death toll at 985,000. Following an analysis of scientific literature their report concludes that medical records between 1986, the year of the accident, and 2004 reflect 985,000 excess deaths as a result of the radioactivity released.
Now we'll never know the exact figure of deaths attributable to Chernobyl, but what we can say with absolute certainty is that quoting a figure of 122 and proceeding to state that it "
includes both the short-term effects of acute radiation sickness and most cancers" among that total is complete and utter misinformation. It appears to be designed in order to be intentionally misleading.
Also, I'm not aware of any threat that falling about of bed may make you infertile, or should you remain fertile, your child being born with a birth defect. Increases of both were noted at Nagasak, Hiroshima and Chernobyl, but no mention of that from our 'radiation expert' of course.
Then the presenter cuts to slides of sensationalist tabloid headlines from 1986 while stating; "
figures like these certainly suggest that radiation from accidents like Chernobyl are not as worrying as the media coverage would have us believe".
Are you catching my drift here?
Following a brief interlude where the presenter is seen at a research facility, there's some interesting demonstrations on the harm radiation does to human cells, they then cut back to fatty where she confidently (after bringing her act to a conclusion by pulling out a large card with an emboldened '
0') states;
"
There won't be a death toll from radiation in Fukushima."
Simply astonishing.
Despite what we know of the carcinogenic effects of ionising radiation, our 'radiation expert' tells the British public there won't be a single death attributable to Fukushima. Not even a single cancer which may, or may not result in a death.
Nothing.
Oh, but what's this?
http://enenews.com/40-year-old-fuku...-week-checkup-showed-no-prior-health-problems
A Japanese contractor dying of acute leukemia while working on the site for a week - surely not?
He is among a handful of contractors to now have died while working at the Fukushima Daiichi site, and he won't be the last. And tragically, there will also be a noticeable increase in cancer rates among the Japanese public, likewise infertility rates will increase among adults as will heart disease among young children.
When this begins to become a morbid reality in the coming years, will that not be attributable to the vast amounts of radioactive substances now polluting parts of urban Japan equal to and often greater than those at which it became mandatory for evacuation in what is now the exclusion zone at Chernobyl?
http://enenews.com/tokyo-area-soil-...yl-relocation-levels-at-least-550000-bqm²-map
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBkrIgJUWLk
Now back to the quoted programme on the BBC, this is a purportedly scientific programme televised on our leading broadcaster in the UK, funded by the tax payer. Is it any coincidence that such a programme with such skewed and misleading data and information was presented shortly before our government's referendum on nuclear power?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/30/british-government-plan-play-down-fukushima
The nuclear industry have their fingers in a lot of pies, and if you, or anyone else for that matter, believes that they would reveal information relevant to our health, that they could conceal without censure, in tandem with our government, then you're kidding yourself.
