Call for independent radiation monitoring to compare our results with UC berkeley who is downplaying the radiation
Dear Readers
I call everyone to do independent radiation monitoring to compare with UC berkeley, the staff of UC berkeley is repeatedly downplaying valid concerns sometimes calling questions nonsense. I was told to leave the forum when I questioned the black cloud in San Francisco 4/2 and the spike to 100 CPM on the radnet data the same day. No one from UC berkeley answered these important questions but they are repeatedly over and over downplaying our concerns.
Anybody has knowledge how to do our own testing?
The TEPCO head is a graduate of UC NUC See earlier post.
Here's a thought - who out
Here's a thought - who out there has the kind of gear and experience the BRAWM teams does?
Answer - mighty few. This is high-level science.
I have done some testing with a simple meter in my locale (northern NV) and found levels in recent rainwater, soil, and vegetation to be normal (ie, background 20ish CPM). That made me feel better. Is there C-137 and Sr-90 here? Sure. How much? I don't know. If I could have it tested, would I? Most definitely.
My point is this - if someone out there could do some additional testing, that would be great. I am sure the BRAWM team would be interested to see the info. They are here to help with the dissemination of info, not throttle it (the fact that the test results and forum are here prove such). So cheers the BRAWM for that!
First, this is kind of counterprodctive and will hurt
I agree that as many sources of info are important but the BRAWN team DID trespond to your concerns and said that if there was more radiation "in the black cloud" and they detected it they would report it. Last I heard there was no rain to test so how can they respons with any accuracy .
I'd hate to see the BRAWN team decide to stop this forum or censor it because of repeated attacks on their credibility. Their FAQ is exceptionally helpful and they SAY they are not health physicists, but they are making every effort to get us the FACTS and telling us to assess the risks with medical qadvice or whatever other reliable sources we can find but we NEED the data here and the forum to get many answers we cannot get anywhere else so PLEASE give them a break on the issue of their objectivity and reliability.
I, who am a deep sceptic of many sources, trust them to give us the raw data unfiltered and to explain it. Without this raw data, I would be more worried - and I want it to continue for as long as they can manage it. Attacking their credibility is uncalled for as they have given us exceptional information which they are not required to do.
You (and even I at times) may differ with them on the assessment of risk, but at least with the raw data we can get that assessment from sources which we do trust and who HAVE the health physics credentials.
i do hoe they get someone on their team to give better health info, but I can find that elsewhere based on their data.
Do you WANT them to stop providing this info and forum?
as for the TEPCO guy and UC, this is an implication of guilt by association and uncalled for (plus I did not see a link in your post to verify it, but it seems too tenuous a link to worry about)
Thanks to BRAWN and UC Berkeley
This site and information is SO useful to, as Bill said, provide objective information on an issue that is seeing so many ridiculous claims.
I am a physicist by training, as well as someone involved in a citizen's group urging action on energy decline and climate change.
What gets me is people who want others to take action on climate change based on the proof that science provides, yet make outlandish claims and ignore science in situations like this. Yes Fukoshima is a bad situation, but claiming that "Fallout has been detected in North America and throughout Europe" (as one of many articles has) without providing context destroys credibility. This website is very helpful in providing that context.
You can't "pick and choose" your science; and I appreciate the information from this site which helps educate everyone.
okay, no problem
okay, no problem, I will leave the forum anyways.
The 'staff' as you call them
The 'staff' as you call them haven't addressed ANY of the public questions and concerns as nonsensical, and it's just such a disgrace to spill false accusations here against the people who try their best to provide quality public service.
read Brians comment, calling
read Brians comment, calling a readers question nonsense, I will look for the post and you can see for yourself.
witch hunt.
witch hunt.
misleading
Inclusion of the pounds of contaminated spinach that one has to eat in order to get the same radiation as a cross country flight is very misleading and the staff (although not health professionals), I believe know it is misleading. There is no 'good, healthy' amount of ingested radiating particles. They know it. UC Berkley is following the lead of IAEA and NRC's long history of trying to de-emphasize the danger of the multitude of 'small, within acceptable limits' releases by making this ridiculous comparison. Walking past the radiation from 1 gram of Plutonium will not create the cancer that ingestion of that same gram, indeed breathing it will probably give you lung cancer. Radioactive elements found in the spinach (if consumed) will cause cancer. It's only a matter of how much. NRC has decided that 3.5 cancers/1000 people is acceptable and therein sets the acceptable limit of radioactive Iodine and cesium at 3 pCi/l. If everyone in the US were to receive the acceptable dose that would create over a million cancers. Is that safe and acceptable? The forum's controllers has sought to divert attention from this fact by their air travel comparison. It would look very different if they listed (in parenthesis) the number of cancers (known from NRC and IAEA data) which that amount will create via ingestion(cancer risk).
IAEA and NRC have a very poor record as to preserving the people's health and consistently under-estimate and under-report releases and dangers in order to insulate the industry from the public's reaction. I was saddened to see the UC Berkley Nuclear Engineering Department align itself with IAEA and NRC through the aforementioned misleading listings.
The persons (apparently grad students responding to the posts) and especially Mark have put forth great effort and time unselfishly to respond to the best of their ability, even going so far as to further research their responses. For that I would like to thank each of you very much. To whoever decided to mislead the public with the flight trip (in parenthesis) to you I Point out that you are the problem and do no service to your fellow human beings.
Skepticism
I think we all appreciate the efforts of the BRAWN team members and owe them a debt of gratitude.
We should however, remember that a source providing some misleading information necessarily cast the shadow of doubt on the rest of their statements.
The original poster is not out of line requesting sources for independent data collection and analysis. This country is set up on the basis of 'freedom of speech' and indeed all of science is based upon repeatability through independent data collection and analysis - the so called repeatable experiment. As a publicly supported University I'm sure UC understands healthy skepticism and hopefully still teaches the reliability of the principles of science over acceptance of 'authoritative pronouncements.'.
In a court of law a single witness' statement shown to be misleading is usually all it takes to cast the shadow of a doubt on everything the witness says - in the juries mind.
Though I feel comfortable with their raw data I do not feel comfortable with all of their analysis. However, the Brawn team should welcome, and probably does welcome verification through independent data collection. Unfortunately what there was available has now been shut down, to the best of my knowledge.
We should remember governmental responses to Chernobyl both here and abroad and how their actions greatly increased the injuries that resulted. Consider the US government classifying the radioactive levels of imported food and allowing it to be sold to the public during the Chernobyl catastrophe. Consider the attempt to hide and then under-report and mislead the public regarding Three Mile Island by TMI, the government, NRC and the
industry as a whole. A healthy skepticism among the public should be expected and promoted in a free country especially considering the tendency of history to repeat itself.
Can you provide some links?
If you are going to make statements about cancer rates (or anything else
for that matter), please provide links to where you got the information
from. We are all interested in that info.
Also, if you are going to accuse the BRAWM team or anyone else of diverting
attention, please provide some reference material that shows how their
statements are incorrect. And then please take the time to contrast that
with the information the BRAWM team has posted in their FAQ:
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling/FAQ
The FAQ covers health issues, dose equivalent explanations and why it is
valid to compare cross coutry flights with inhalation or ingestion. It even
states "none of us are changing our lifestyles in any way due to the fallout from Fukushima". As they say, action/s speaks louder than words.
If you are unwilling to take the time to document your disagreement with
data, you are just making statements that nobody can act on.
Links Provided
I'd be more than pleased to direct your attention to the sources that follow.
If you haven't already read the New York Academy of Science's translation of the Russian publication entitled Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, it can be found free of charge here: http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf
Also a less inclusive German publication; The Health Effects of Chernobyl, 25 years after the reactor catastrophe; can be found here:
http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/chernob_report2011webippnw.pdf
The difference in the health effects of external exposure versus internal exposure can be found here:
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/federal/402-r-99-001.pdf
Please compare and contrast Table 2.1 Risk coefficients for internal ingestion of radionuclides with Table 2.3 Risk coefficients for external exposure of radionuclides. Notice the large differences (many orders of magnitude - 6 zeros for iodine, 8 zeros for uranium) between risk associated with ingestion as compared to external exposure.
Much of the EPA document above was developed from:
http://www.umt.edu/media/research/eh/Materials/Radioactive/INFO%20-%20GO...
While studying this document consider... pg9 "A risk coefficient, r, is specific to the radionuclide, the environmental medium, and the mode of exposure through that medium. For a given exposure scenario, the computation of lifetime cancer risk, R, associated with intake of, or external exposure to, a given radionuclide involves multiplication of the applicable risk coefficient r by the per capita activity intake I or external exposure X. Thus, [R = r x(times) I] for internal exposure and [R = r x(times) X] for external exposure".
Please note there is no [R = r x(times) I] / (divided by) [R = r x (times) X], as internal exposure I divided by external exposure X (I/X), which they have done with the plane trip scenario; this makes no sense whatsoever. It is comparing apples with oranges and is apparently a creation of NRC in conjunction with IAEA which misleads the public into thinking that external exposure has some relatedness to internal exposure; that low levels of external exposure do not create significant damage when applied internally. More specifically, it suggests that [Internal Exposure]/[External Exposure] contains meaningful information. They incorrectly use this fraction to suggest that the damage from external exposure has some relatedness to the damage from internal exposure based on the external exposure received from a particular radionuclide and the consumption of food contaminated with that radionuclide. Not only is it an arbitrary relationship, but if one were to invert the fraction it would appear that only a tiny amount of the contaminated food would be comparable to the flying scenario. This would also be incorrect as can be seen in the 'Risk Coefficient’ tables above. It's Apples/Oranges and has no inherent information regarding health effects as can be seen in the Mortality/Morbidity Risks tables for internal and external radiation.
(The next three 'reply' are my unsuccessful attempts to supply links due to the use of 'greater than' and 'less than' signs. Current, above reply has the links successfully added. Sorry for the syntax error)