The numbers measured in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown are only scary if you think about them

This memorial service for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami was held on July 24 in Ohkuma-cho, Fukushima Prefecture, 20 kilometers from the Daiichi nuclear plant that melted down.

by Ken

Consider this my version of the Friday news dump. Here's a story I'm guessing hardly anybody wants to read. In a long and impressively detailed report in AlJazeera, "Fukushima radiation alarms doctors," reporter Dahr Jamail writes that (a) Japanese health-care officials are complaining ever more bitterly about what they see as the government's exceedingly lackadaisical approach to monitoring radiation levels in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear-plant disaster, and possibly related to the above (b) doctors believe they're already seeing the beginning -- and only the beginning -- of an alarming public health impact.

"How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives.



"The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant. . . .

Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.



According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs" and the amount of uranium released "is equivalent to 20" Hiroshima bombs. [Emphasis added.]

The Fukushima meltdown, you'll recall, is the only nuclear incident beside the Chernobyl one to be rated Level 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), which reporter Jamail points out is defined as "a major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures."

What's more, writes Jamail, "Doctors in Japan are already treating patients suffering health effects they attribute to radiation from the ongoing nuclear disaster."



"We have begun to see increased nosebleeds, stubborn cases of diarrhoea, and flu-like symptoms in children," Dr Yuko Yanagisawa, a physician at Funabashi Futawa Hospital in Chiba Prefecture, told Al Jazeera. 


She attributes the symptoms to radiation exposure, and added: "We are encountering new situations we cannot explain with the body of knowledge we have relied upon up until now."



"The situation at the Daiichi Nuclear facility in Fukushima has not yet been fully stabilised, and we can't yet see an end in sight," Yanagisawa said. "Because the nuclear material has not yet been encapsulated, radiation continues to stream into the environment."

There's more, oh so much more, but I think this is enough to prove my point: You don't want to read this, do you?

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