Are there any results you have NOT shared with us? Positive for radiocesium etc?
Frankly I am very discouraged that BRAWM has failed to report any recent results on food chain or soil and I wonder if they are simply NOT testing tomatoes, lettuce, berries, peppers, cucumbers etc at all OR that results have been found that BRAWM does not want (or the US government does not want) reported.
BRAWM KNOWS that the radiocesium is in the soil and is migrating through the food chain in variable doses and if there is acumulation in meat or other food sources (especially vegetables and fruit) that the ONLY way the public wil be informed and can act responsibly is IF BRAWM does the tests (since damn near no one else is doing so, including our EPA etc)
WHY doesn't BRAWM at LEAST do a small number of tests on outdoor grown tomatoes, peppers, cukes, melons, lettuce etc????
Or have ANY recent tests been done which have NOT been reported>
ASSUMING there is not going to be any contaminants from FUKUSHIMA in tomatoes and corn and peppers or lettuce when we KNOW that the radiocesium is IN THE SOIL and will be there for dozens of years is NOT SCIENTIFICALLY sound.
PLEASE do some more tests on our summer foods. PLEASE> Or is there some NONscientific reason that such results are not being reported or tests being done???
Posted by Bill (not Bill Duff but the other Bill who has worked on these health issues with the radiation and public health project at www.radiation.org
ONLY tests and results are scientific. It can't be that unreasonable for you to actually test for contaminants before reporting such contmination is not likely.
PLEASE do this for our peace of mind and health!
"radiocesium is in the soil
"radiocesium is in the soil and is migrating through the food chain in variable doses and if there is accumulation in meat or other food sources (especially vegetables and fruit) that the ONLY way the public wil be informed and can act responsibly is IF BRAWM does the tests (since damn near no one else is doing so, including our EPA etc)..." - True
It also seems that almost ANY independent testing gets ridiculed by the BRAWM team. One would think they would ASSIST MORE instead of simply saying "oh there's are 'uncertainties' in that test, so it has to be invalid". or "It's no worse than an airplane ride." That one may work for you, but it doesn't for me.
"HELP us... PLEASE!!!" (I hope you can hear this in your sleep)
I cannot believe that there is no BRAWN member with a family, (ie... BC), who has not taken personal samples to work and tested them. Just out of general curiosity. I mean c'mon, everybody uses the photo copy machine at work for personal reasons at some point or another.
It is 'highly probable' that Fukushima will not end anytime soon or will it be the last incident of it's kind. So WHY not figure out now how to best deal with this.... NOW!
"Risk cannot be and will not be, zero" - William C. Ostendorff, Commissioner NRC
No intention to ridicule
It has not been our intention to "ridicule" any other testing. Any comments I or the others have made stem from our experience doing radiation detection for academic work. Radiation detection is not straightforward but rather requires a lot of analysis to do it right. Any critiques we give are intended to identify possible flaws in the method, and this is what we do in academic work all the time. For example, it is important to quantify the uncertainties in measurements, and it is important to separate naturally-occurring radiation like K-40 and radon progeny from isotopes from Japan. As scientists we constantly critique our own work to make sure it is done right.
Personally, I am glad when folks want to do testing themselves, and we have tried to support inquiries about what kind of detector is needed, what kinds of software, etc.
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
Trying to post legitimate comments/questions- please help :)
Hi Mark,
I think your new spam filter is working too well now. ;-) I just tried to post some legitimate content, not spam, but it got flagged by your spam filter.
Could you please check your inbox, as I have reported it, so I'm hoping you can help me post it here, in a response to your comments about the challenges of radiation detection. :)
Thanks so much!
Seattle Mom
New thread
Seattle Mom, on second thought I think your posting would make a good thread itself since it gets a bit off-topic and involved for this one. So I have started a new thread:
Questions about Be-7
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
Mark - I do wish you would respond to my OP (Thanks...
and thanks for the hay and soil updates which are usedul.
My primary concern is veggies/fruit/root vegetables that soak up csium from the soil and may be on my kids dinner plate tonight.
Again - tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuc (head an romaine) melons (from California grown outdoors) is what I am hoping to see tests for to put my mind at ease (hopefully) that I am not feeding anything with detecxtable limits to my kids. I am still avoiding milk and most California veggies/fruit and also want to know what will be in the frozen foods after this growing season (if anything) to make smart choices.
AND
I am hoping for an opinion or guess even re: reason for finding cesium 134 and not 137 in most recent tests
I honestly believe that BRAWM feels the likelihood of detectable amounts in fruits and veggies BUT I would argue this is not a scientific determination. IF cesium is in the soil it MAY be getting into these foods in detectable levels and the ONLY way to know is to check
and BTW I do not feel you have ridiculed other tests. I trust your results and candor and openness here BUT do critique when i feel it might help broaden your perspective for us laypeople who do not KNOW what is in the food and have no other ral outlet for info...
I had responded to some of
I had responded to some of this on another thread:
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/5174#comment-16182
I looked through our list of samples and found a couple that fell through the cracks. We do have a few samples with levels of cesium in them that have not been reported, but it is one sample of sand from a beach and a few samples of grass from the raw milk pastures. These are not food items per se, which is what your main concern is. I will be posting these soon. We do not hold back results for any reason, nor is there anyone telling us what we can and cannot do.
I agree that it is not scientific to just say that there would be nothing; I am a huge fan of measurements. Measurements must be chosen judiciously, however, so that maximum information can be gained. I will see what I can do with our limited detector time and person time. Those are our main constraints.
And as always, the critique is welcome. I think it broadens all of our perspectives :)
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
Thanks Mark -- and a question...
I apologize for not thanking you sooner for responding.
I am glad to hear you have sand and grass samples to report as any info is better than none.
As you noted, foodchain results are my primary concernj for foods that you have not yet tested or reported on at all plus additional tests on mushrooms and berries ...
Is there any scientific reason that you believe that tomatoes, potatoes, head lettuce, grapes, etc which have been exposed in soil where you have detected (likley) Fukushima radiation would NOTY yield results (thus not worth the time)?
I would suspect that every plent has varying absorption mechanisms which may or may not cause it to accumulate radiocesium in the soil and that the only eway to know is to test soil and then test fruits, veggies, legumes, root veggies etc grown in that soil (and of course the depth of the contamination and samples matters.
Already deposited Radiocesium is obviously dispersing in the environment and not going "away" but is spreading throughout the ecosystem in presumably smaller and smaller quantities per kilo BUT IF there is accumulation in, say, in particular crops like potatoes or grapes or tomatoes or nuts etc we would have NO way of knowing at all which pathways are the most likley to increase our exposure without your tests.
So again PLEASE when you can get someone on some of these PLEASE report back to us and if there are studies or other actual data that causes you to de-prioritize this testing of current harvest foods than PLEASE lay it out for us.
I guess the fear is that government and business interests might want us not to get the data for their own nefarious reasons, and the failure of BRAWM to provide such testing adds to that concern that there is either a conscious or unconscious reluctance to get that data on BRAWM's part.
I take you at your word on there being noone telling you what to report etc but still again the most likley exposure of my children to radiocesium in even small amounts concerns me and knowing which crops are the most "efficient" bioacumulators of radiocesium (if it is detectable with yoru equipment) is critically importnat to MOST of us here who care to post onthis forum.
Cheers and thanks for all the data you ave provided but PLEASE more and more varied crops - espeically root crops and salad veggies and grapes/nuts (and/or meat since it is still in the milk - yikes).
I am not a team member, to
I am not a team member, to be clear.
I do wish I had the gear and know-how at my work, you can bet I would test a hell of a lot of things. It strikes me that the BRAWM team has tested some very likely places to find contamination - and they HAVE found it. Just below a level of their concern. I daresay that their idea how about levels of exposure is quite different from those not in the field because they deal with radioactive materials every day. A little bit does not panic them, they see it is very small, etc. I am certain that they all of family of one sort or another, many must have kids.
I work in a field where I often have 5-10K cash on me. This freaks many folks out, but I am used to it. I can make a $5000 dollar mistake or profit in an hour (and no I am not into any illegal BS) . I am used to that scale of transaction. When others quibble over 5 or 10 dollars it is hard for me to understand.
Perspective plays into this, that is what I am getting at, and professional scientists who deal with this stuff every day are probably quite used to the risks involved with some of these materials. I do think that the team has done a very good job, although I would like to see some science that is more about qualitative data on the materials rather than quantitative data on their radioactivity .
Let's help ourselves...please see collective effort thread. We can do a lot to further the level of knowledge.
Bump
Bump!