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The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster A First-Hand Account of Japan's Nuclear Crisis Katsumi Furitsu . .28 Young doctors speak out on the Fukushima disaster . .40 Japan’s Nuclear Nightmare Ronald McCoy . .41 “A terribly difficult situation with a lot of uncertainties”: PSR Press Conference . .46 What may we learn from Fukushima? Frank Boulton . .57 Radiation in medicine and in nuclear power plants: the same but very different Andreas Nidecker . .61 Children, Teens and the Japan Disaster Harry Wang . .63 A publication of June 2011 International Physicians for Special Edition the Prevention of Nuclear War Medicine & Global Survival is International Physicians for published by International the Prevention of Nuclear Physicians for the Prevention War (IPPNW) is a federation of Nuclear War. A peer- of national medical organiza- reviewed journal on medical, tions in 63 countries, repre- public health, environmental, senting doctors, medical stu- and humanitarian aspects of dents, other health workers, war—particularly nuclear and concerned citizens who war—and other forms of share the common goal of armed violence, M&GS was creating a more peaceful and published continuously from secure world freed from the 1990 (as The PSR Quarterly) threat of nuclear annihilation. through 2002. IPPNW received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. A complete archive of arti- cles is available at www.ippnw.org. Editor: John Loretz INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR WAR 66-70 UNION SQUARE, #204 SOMERVILLE, MA 02143 USA +1.617.440.1733 (TEL) +1.617.440.1734 (FAX) [email protected] (EMAIL) IPPNW.ORG PEACEANDHEALTHBLOG.COM CONTENTS The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Introduction . .2 About this issue The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis, Month 1: A Brief Chronology . .4 We decided to Fukushima Radioisotopes: Some Key Facts . .6 publish this special issue of M&GS—the Editorials . .7 first since 2002—in order to present in IPPNW has been a constant voice against nuclear energy . .7 one place the per- IPPNW Nuclear Energy Resolution . .8 spectives on radia- Nuclear power—“basta”! . .9 tion and health, the Nuclear energy is no alternative . .10 dangers posed by A potential source of radiation . .10 nuclear energy, Futility of nuclear energy: Alternatives for Nigeria . .10 and the links What could be worse? . .12 From Hiroshima to Fukushima and back . .13 between nuclear The nuclear chain – splitting atoms, hairs and personalities . .13 power and nuclear Just in case you missed it, here's why radiation is a health hazard . .14 weapons technolo- There really is no safe level of radiation . .16 gies that IPPNW, Anger is renewable energy . .17 its national affili- Children of Fukushima need our protection . .17 ates, and its net- work of physician Commentaries . .19 experts have made available to the In the News . .23 press and to the public since the A First-Hand Account of Japan's Nuclear Crisis tragic events in Katsumi Furitsu . .28 Japan in March. Young doctors speak out on the Fukushima disaster . .40 This is by no means a compre- Japan’s Nuclear Nightmare Ronald McCoy . .41 hensive collection, and we refer read- “A terribly difficult situation with a lot of uncertainties”: ers to the IPPNW PSR Press Conference . .46 Peace and Health Blog (peaceand- What may we learn from Fukushima? healthblog.com), Frank Boulton . .57 where many more resources, including Radiation in medicine and in nuclear power plants: the same but very different links to audio and Andreas Nidecker . .61 video reports in several languages, Children, Teens and the Japan Disaster are compiled. Harry Wang . .63 INTRODUCTION n March 11, 2011, a massive earth- quake and tsunami caused extensive and irreparable damage to the nuclear l reactors and spent fuel pools at the OFukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, releasing harmful radiation into the environ- ment. Since then, our physician experts have briefed government officials, medical profes- sionals, and journalists in numerous countries about the impact of these radiation releases on public health in Japan and elsewhere. IPPNW’s first concern has been for the people of northeastern Japan, whose health and security have been seriously compro- mised by a misguided national reliance on nuclear-generated electricity. In the days fol- lowing the disaster, IPPNW called for an expansion of the evacuation zone around Fukushima to protect the health of children and pregnant women, who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of radiation. That evacuation zone, comparable to the one that has surrounded the Chernobyl reactor since 1986, had been extended to 12 miles by mid April 2011. IPPNW has been formally opposed to nuclear energy since 1998, when our Rescue workers monitor children for increased radiation exposure International Council called for a halt to new after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Reuters photo. plant construction and the phase out of exist- ing nuclear plants because of the insur- power stations in the US and in other coun- mountable dangers nuclear energy poses to tries contain thousands of times the amounts health, the environment, and security. of radioactive isotopes released by the First and foremost, we know that there Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Isotopes is an inherent link between nuclear power that have been steadily and increasingly and nuclear weapons. Every commercial entering the air, soil, and water around the reactor produces plutonium and other fissile plant include iodine-131, which causes thy- materials that can be used in weapons pro- roid cancer; cesium-137, which causes cancer grams. The biggest practical obstacle to the in the liver and kidneys; strontium-90, which abolition of nuclear weapons is the prolifera- causes leukemia; and plutonium-239, which tion of nuclear power plants around the has a half-life of 24,000 years and causes lung world—the so-called nuclear renaissance cancer when ingested in microscopic promoted by the industry and its govern- amounts. ment proponents. The International Atomic Energy The nuclear reactors and spent fuel Agency and the World Health Organization pools at Fukushima and at similar nuclear have estimated that there were 6,000 to 9,000 Medicine & Global Survival • June 2011 2 new cases of cancer—primarily thyroid can- and ripple effects—more like an economic cers and leukemias among children—as a tsunami—to the global economy. result of the 1986 Chernobyl explosion in IPPNW rejects the industry's arguments Russia, but there is good reason to believe that nuclear energy is needed to mitigate the that the true numbers are much, much high- effects of global warming. Even if the other er. While it is now impossible to reconstruct risks described above were acceptable, which an accurate data set of exposures and illness- we believe they are not, the world would es related to Chernobyl, independent experts need to build hundreds of new nuclear have concluded that the IAEA/WHO data power plants, at an average cost of $8-10 bil- itself supports an estimate as high as 25,000 lion each, in order to bring about sufficient additional cancer deaths, and that the real carbon reductions to protect the climate. number of deaths and illnesses is substantial- Moreover, it would take decades to bring that ly higher—into the tens or even hundreds of number of plants online, by which time it thousands according to an assessment pub- would be too late to prevent a climate cata- lished by IPPNW-Germany in April 2011. strophe. As Amory Lovins, Arjun Makhijani, In addition to the immediate and long and other energy experts have pointed out, term health dangers from radioactive conta- investments in conservation, efficiency, and mination, the environmental destruction renewable energy sources such as wind and resulting from each major nuclear power solar, are dollar-for-dollar more effective in plant disaster to date has been enormous. reducing carbon emissions than comparable While one of the two reactors at Three Mile subsidies to the nuclear industry. As a sim- Island continues to produce electricity, the ple matter of economics, nuclear energy fails area surrounding the plant, which was the every test. That is why IPPNW has joined site of the first commercial reactor meltdown other NGOs in supporting the International in 1979, will have to be monitored for hun- Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an dreds of years after the facility is finally intergovernmental body of nearly 150 coun- decommissioned. There is a permanent 20- tries committed to the rapid development mile “exclusion zone” around the Chernobyl and deployment of renewable, non-nuclear reactor. It is still too soon to assess the full energy worldwide. extent of the long term dangers around The attempts to provide security with Fukushima, but there is no doubt that an nuclear weapons and to meet global energy extensive area around the doomed reactors needs with nuclear power share the same will be uninhabitable and unusable for gen- flawed premise: that we can prevent the most erations to come. dangerous technologies ever created by IPPNW has additional concerns about human hands from ever failing. The lesson of nuclear power plants. They are tempting tar- Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that nuclear gets for acts of terrorism. Were someone to weapons must be abolished before they abol- deliberately fly an aircraft into the nuclear ish us. The lesson of Fukushima—and of plant at Indian Point, just north of New York Chernobyl and Three Mile Island before City, for example, and rupture the contain- that—is that we can no longer afford to roll ment vessel around the reactor, the probable the dice on a technology that cannot be result, planned or spontaneous, would be the allowed to fail, when failures now appear to evacuation of one of the world's major cities, be inevitable, with catastrophic conse- immeasurable damage to the US economy, quences.
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