Cesium-137 still detected in samples of strawberries, kale, and grass from CA

[flamingdem]

Food Chain Sampling, UC Berkeley, May 14, 2011:

Kale on 4/28 had the first detectable amounts of Cs-134 and Cs-137 since a sample on 4/7. Strawberries continue to show levels of Cs-134 and Cs-137.

Grass: Cs-137 @ 45.4 pCi/kg
Strawberries: Cs-137 @ 11.9 pCi/kg
Kale: Cs-137 @ 14.1 pCi/kg

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2525

[FBaggins]

1. What do you mean "still"?

Where was it supposed to go?

At levels that low (barely even detectable)... why does this amount to anything beyond confirmation that there isn't a concern in the US?

[flamingdem]

2. Are you a low level radiation expert now?

I would have said higher but not all of it is higher, topsoil is lower, EPA should be testing this.

[FBaggins]

3. This isn't even high enough to be called LLR.

They told you (for instance) that you would have to eat several thousand pounds of that kale in order to get a .05mSv dose.

.05mSv doesn't even show up on the LLR folks' radar screen... and you aren't going to eat several thousand pounds of kale... now are you?

These are picocuries that we're talking about. A curie is a potentially serious amount of radiation. This is .000000000014 of that amount.

There isn't any need for EPA testing when there isn't any sign that there's anything that needs testing. They know what the most abundant elements should be and they know what levels of those were detected... and that nothing approaching a danger level was ever detected in milk (etc). Fukushima would have to start pumping out large amounts of radioactive material again before anyone would feel a need for ongoing testing.

It could still happen... but there would be plenty of warning before anything got here... and it still wouldn't be much of a threat.

[flamingdem]

5. It's not a one time exposure if this goes on for years, and it's on many items nt

[FBaggins]

9. Yep... And it's so incredibly low that even that is irrelevant.

Once again... That was THOUSANDS of pounds for that one tiny insignificant exposure.

It can "go on" for MANY years and still be too low to make a difference.

[flamingdem]

11. They don't know very much about low level radiation

and the truth is that the numbers are never clear because many things cause illness.

remember just recently they thought smoking was fine

[FBaggins]

12. But "they" can still count.

You can still compare a given exposure rate to known existing rates.

Let's imagine for instance that you live in the San Francisco area and decide that this kale contamination is too much for you... so you move to eastern PA to help vote out this Christie fellow next time around.

Well... you just added probably 100 times as much radon exposure as you cut down on cesium. You could easily have hundreds (even thousands) of Bq worth of radon in each cubic meter of air you breath while you're sleeping.

This was always the point of the "banana" or "cross-country flight" examples (months ago now). The LLR people can harp on "no safe level" all day long, but it still doesn't change the fact that you DO receive a radiation dose all day long... if a given measurement isn't even a rounding error of that amount, why waste your time worrying about it?

[flamingdem]

13. You and the nuke industry like to move the goalposts, it sucks that we have contaminated food nt

[FBaggins]

14. Sorry. Same goalposts.

The fact that you started off two timezones away and couldn't possibly kick it that far isn't our problem.

California foodstuffs were never in any danger. You could have all three cores "burn down to the water table and explode" and still not endanger California.

5,000 miles is a long way.

[flamingdem]

16. You don't know enough on the topic, just another "not harmful to human health" story nt

[FBaggins]

18. Strange that it's exactly what everyone who DOES know says too.

What an odd coincidence, eh?

Including, of course, the people doing the testing that you cite.

[flamingdem]

19. There are plenty of doctors and physicists who disagree nt

[FBaggins]

23. Nope.

Not a single health physicist will tell you that .05mSv is anything to be concerned about at all.

Not one. And that's for thousands of pounds of something you eat just a few ounces of.

[flamingdem]

24. You mean Dr. Happy Nuclear Bunny? Oh yes he will agree "NO HARM TO HUMAN HEALTH" nt

[FBaggins]

25. Nope. Every single health physicist.

Every. Single. One.

[flamingdem]

28. Here's one who knows a lot more than you do a PhD who studied the subject

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hcBGSr9QGk

Dr. DeSante:

I highly recommend watching the entire video, there is great detail related to our current situation.
The Dr. discusses Fukushima low level radiation risks as well.

Dr. Dave DeSante is the founder of the Institute for Bird Population in Point Reyes, California.
After the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl passed over the U.S. West Coast in the spring of 1986 his research uncovered a severe die-off of young birds.

Later, researchers Gould and Goldman duplicated his results with human mortality data from both the U..S. and Germany. The young, the old, and those with weak immune systems were the main casualties - an estimated over forty thousand in all.

In mid-March of 2011, as the nuclear disaster in Japan deepens by the day, scientific predictions of fallout again crossing the Pacific are being made.

HIS STUDY
The Condor, published by the Cooper Ornithological Society, is one of the two most prestigious peer-reviewed ornithological journals published in North America, the other being The Auk, published by the American Ornithologists' Union. DeSante & Geupel (1987) was the runner-up to the 1991 H. R. Painton Award for the best paper appearing in The Condor in the previous four years. DeSante and Geupel (1987) showed that the number of young birds produced in 1986 at the Palomarin Field Station near Bolinas, CA, was 62.3% below the previous ten-year mean and fell well outside the relationship between annual rainfall and productivity established during the previous ten years. The timing of the reproductive failure, its geographical extent in California, and the landbird species most affected are all consistent with the following hypothesis: that the greatly elevated levels of radioactive iodine from the massive April 26, 1986, Chernbyl nuclear plant accident that fell-out over portions of northern California coincident with rainfall on May 6, 1986, were responsible for the landbird reproductive failure by adversely affecting the thyroids and, thus, the development of the young birds during their first nine-twelve days after hatching while they were being fed by their parents in their nests.

The major findings presented by Gould & Goldman in Deadly Deceit revolve around statistical estimates of excess deaths following Chernobyl and other releases of radiation, and indicate that low-level radiation from fallout from nuclear testing and from nuclear reactors may have done far more damage to humans and other living things than previously thought. In particular, they show that the arrival of radiation in the U.S. in early May, 1986, from the Chernobyl disaster "was followed almost immediately by an extraordinary force of mortality, amounting to perhaps 40,000 excess deaths in the summer months, especially in the month of May." Also, please note that Chapter 3 of Deadly Deceit, titled "Silent Summer" and authored by Kate Millpointer, is a lay person's account of the story behind DeSante & Geupel (1987).

[FBaggins]

33. "Here's one" what?

Can you not even tell the difference between a health physicist and a bird biologist?

I can give you a couple names of career pediatritians who swear that there's a link between vaccinations and autism. They too are well-meaning nutjobs. I can link you to weather men who swear that there is no global warming. Should you care?

[proverbialwisdom]

77. Did you know...

... the only other physician who lost his UK medical license along with Andrew Wakefield is the individual considered to be the co-founder of the field of pediatric gastroenterology, Dr. John Walker-Smith. Look it up.

http://journals.lww.com/jpgn/Fulltext/1999/11000/A_Tribute_to_Professor_John_Walker_Smith,_ESPGHAN.6.aspx

Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition:
November 1999 - Volume 29 - Issue 5 - p 14A
Articles
A Tribute to Professor John Walker-Smith, ESPGHAN Editor 1995-2000
Walker, W. Allan MD (Harvard MGH)
With this issue of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Professor John Walker-Smith retires as the ESPGHAN Editor, a position he has held with distinction since 1995. As the continuing NASPGN Editor, I wish to pay tribute to John for his many contributions to the journal over this period of time and his accomplishments in the field of pediatric gastroenterology in general...
...With that news, I thought it would be an appropriate occasion to reflect on John Walker-Smith's contributions to the field of pediatric gastroenterology. John began his training in adult gastroenterology as a House Physician to Professor Chris Booth at Hammersmith Hospital in the United Kingdom after medical school and pediatric training in his native Australia in the early 1960s. With this clinical background, he continued his training as a Research Fellow in Gastroenterology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and with Professor Prader in Zurich, Switzerland. He then began his academic career in the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Sydney, attaining a position of Staff Physician before returning to the United Kingdom to establish one of the most prestigious training programs in pediatric gastroenterology history at the Medical College of St. Bartholomew's Hospital and the London Hospital Medical College at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children in 1973. From that time until the present, John has established himself as one of the premier, if not the premier, pediatric gastroenterologist in the world with a personal Chair in Pediatric Gastroenterology at St. Bartholomew's and, since 1995, at the Royal Free Hospital. His abilities as a clinician, clinical investigator, and educator through lectures, review articles, and textbooks have resulted in a worldwide following by former fellows, colleagues, and general pediatricians... John, you have contributed a great deal to the development and continued excellence of our field. We owe you a sincere debt of gratitude. We wish you well in your adventure as the Society of Apothecaries Lecturer in History of Medicine. Maybe we can convince you to write the definitive history of pediatric gastroenterology as a future assignment.
With deep respect-
W. Allan Walker, MD
NASPGN Editor

*****

http://journals.lww.com/pedresearch/Fulltext/2003/04000/The_Development_of_Pediatric_Gastroenterology__A.27.aspx

Pediatric Research:
April 2003 - Volume 53 - Issue 4 - pp 706-715
Special Article
The Development of Pediatric Gastroenterology: A Historical Overview: A History of Pediatric Specialties
WALKER-SMITH, JOHN; WALKER, W. ALLAN
Section Editor(s): Zipursky, Alvin Editor-in-Chief

*****

http://www.whale.to/v/walkersmith.html
Letter to the editor...John Walker-Smith

http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol359/iss9307/full/llan.359.9307.correspondence.20101.1

Autism, bowel inflammation, and measles

Sir--I was the senior clinician in the preliminary study of ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder reported in 1998.1 Apart from one letter after our report,(2) I have remained silent, except for coauthorship on several articles on this topic.(3,4)

I believe that serious medical and scientific debate should be based on published work in peer reviewed journals, and done in professional media. The latest evidence in this matter has now been published on the internet,5 precipitated by the BBC Panorama programme on Feb 3, 2002. Although I retired from my chair at Royal Free and University School of Medicine in September, 2000, and have seen no patients since then, I hope that my opinions might be of some use.

I belive that the published data in peer reviewed journals show two things. First, a highly selected group of children with developmental disorder (many with regressive autism) exists, who have an unusual gastrointestinal abnormality characterised by ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia and non-specific enterocolitis that is not classical inflammatory bowel disease. The immunopathology of this disorder has been studied by Furlano and colleagues,(4) who have established clear differences from chronic inflammatory bowel disease.

Second, in such highly selected children, Uhlmann and colleagues(5) have now provided new evidence that measles might be involved, by use of molecular techniques to show the presence of measles virus genomes in 75 of 91 children with ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, enterocolitis, and developmental disorder, compared with five of 70 control children. Measles virus was mainly localised in dendritic cells in reactive follicular hyperplastic centres in the ileum. This localisation mirrors that of HIV-1.

Uhlmann and colleagues pose the question does measles virus play a part in the unusual inflammation already reported in children with developmental disorder. Surely there is now a high priority to do research to answer this question.

There has been much criticism of Wakefield and colleagues' work. His results have been said to be refuted. Much of this criticism has been epidemiological. Yet, as Morris and Aldulaimi (6) in their comment on the Dublin data state, "Epidemiology is a pretty blunt tool and the studies done do not rule out the possibility that there are at risk groups where a real link with MMR and autism/bowel inflammatory condition exists". It seems clear to me that what epidemiology has shown is that the MMR vaccine is safe in most children.

Furlano and colleagues' work on the inflammatory changes and the intestine in autism was reviewed in the Medical Research Council's 2001 report. Some criticisms were made but the work was certainly not refuted.

Now, anecdotally, my own observations are that there is grave concern felt by many parents of autistic children about the possible triggering role of MMR for autism and bowel disorders. This issue has been brought to the attention of a wider audience by television. I believe this issue must be addressed by discussion of the lead-up to the initial study and to the follow up publications.

As a paediatrican I am all too aware of the dangers of measles. I have seen the devastation it can cause in children in Africa, and in my new role as a medical historian, I am familiar with the mortality that has been caused by measles in this country. S Murch, in the Panorama programme, described how uncomfortable it is for a paediatrician to be associated with research that might affect vaccine uptake rates. I agree with this view. However, I have also been shocked to see the severity of autism in the children I used to see each week from 1995 to 2000 at the Royal Free, and I have listened to the views of the parents of these children.

I continue to support the MMR vaccine, as have all the Royal Free paediatricians in this research from the beginning. Three of my grandsons have received the MMR vaccination. Although I am very concerned about the current outbreak of measles, I am also concerned that further urgent research is needed to resolve the genuine concerns of parents who associate MMR with the onset of autism and to try to identify whether there are factors that may place a very small but important group of children at risk
of such a disorder.

I believe children have been badly served by the adversarial approach involved in the current legal action against manufacturers, and that adopted towards Andrew Wakefield and his work by some Department of Health officials. This attitude was typified by David Salisbury's mocking comments on Panorama, pouring scorn on Wakefield's work.

Am I too naive to ask all people of goodwill on both sides of this debate to speedily agree on an independent research agenda that will finally resolve this matter? Such an agenda must involve non-epidemiological research, focusing on the bowels of these children. It is self-evident that this whole question is going on far too long and is causing so much heart-ache in parents. Although the original observation has been extended and refined with additional evidence, resolution of this matter seems as far off as it did then. Studies reported lately provide evidence that measles virus might have a role. There is now a case to be answered. This study finding needs urgent confirmation and elaboration of its importance.

John Walker-Smith

Wellcome Trust Centre for History of Medicine at UCL, London NW1 1AD, UK (e-mail:[email protected])

1 Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 1998; 351: 637-41.

2 Walker-Smith JA. Autism, inflammatory bowel disease, and MMR vaccine. Lancet 1998; 351: 1356-57.

3 Wakefield AJ, Anthony A, Murch SH, et al. Enterocolitis in children with developmental disorders. Am J Gastroenterol 2000; 95: 2285-95.

4 Furlano RI, Anthony A, Day R, et al. Colonic CD8 and gamma delta T-cell infiltration with epithelial damage in children with autism. J Pediatr 2001; 138: 366-72.

5 Uhlmann V, Martin CM, Silva I, et al. Potential viral pathogenic mechanism for new variant inflammatory bowel disease. http://mp.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/ 54/6/DC1 (accessed on Feb 19, 2002).

6 Morris A, Aldulaimi D. New evidence for a viral pathogenic mechanism for new variant inflammatory bowel disease and developmental disorder? http://mp.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/ 54/6/DC1 (accessed on Feb 19, 2002).

[SpoonFed]

39. Hilarious and misleading as usual...

Not a single health physicist will tell you that .05mSv is anything to be concerned about at all

That's why my dentist and his staff leave the room when they give me a dental x-ray at around .005mSv. So, seems implicit to me that 10 times this value is bad. But nice try.

Secondly, you say a "health physicist", not physician or doctor. Very revealing about how the shilling nuke industry tries to pretend they have privileged and expert opinion on these matters. Nothing says "bought" to me like "health physicist" on your business card.

Do health physicists take the hippocratic oath or are they like most of the nuke industry and their shills; just through and through hypocrites?

[FBaggins]

40. Still wrong.

That's why my dentist and his staff leave the room when they give me a dental x-ray at around .005mSv

A full-mouth series is not .005mSv... it's 30 times that much... and they do dozens of them each day. That eventually adds up. They aren't hiding from .15 mSv... they're hiding from a 20-year career of dozens of those every day.

That's why they hide behind a wall but you have the thing sticking in your mouth. One presents no risk (though it's thousands of times more than a pound of this kale)... decades of the stuff is worth avoiding.

The question is... if you're worried about eating a little kale... why are you letting your dentist give you thousands of times the dose???

Secondly, you say a "health physicist", not physician or doctor.

And there's a reason for that. Health physicists are the experts on the subject... physicians are not. A pediatrician doesn't have to take ANY courses regarding the impact of radiation. Bird biologists in the 70s most certainly didn't either.

My uncle is a yale and harvard-graduated physician. Doesn't know much at all about radiation apart from using it in treatment of other conditions. Only had to take a 4-wk course in radiology.

Very revealing about how the shilling nuke industry tries to pretend they have privileged and expert opinion on these matters.

You mean like the climatologists try to pretend that they have a privileged and expert opinion on climate change and weathermen don't?

Yes... it's exactly like that.

[SpoonFed]

48. FBags lets slip out a kernel of truth...

decades of the stuff is worth avoiding.

Yes. Yes it is. I think it's easier to avoid if it's not in my body and it's not in my body if I'm not eating it and I'm not eating it if it's not being spread all over hell's half acre and it's not being spread over hell's half acre if there are no nuke plants.

QED.

And thank you.

PS. So it's true they are hypocrites?

[FBaggins]

50. Dodged the questions, eh?

What a shocker.

There's a difference between .1 mSv twenty times a day, five days a week for 20 years...

... and .0000005 each time you eat a serving of kale.

The math isn't all that hard SF. You DID get through elementary school, right?

[SpoonFed]

56. Yep.

You DID get through elementary school, right?

But with your level of sophisticated insults, I feel like I'm still there.
Maybe if you lay of the 0 key and wrote 5x10^-7, I'll think you were less of a child.

When you get around to proving the 5x10^-5, 5x10^-7 or 5x10-9 are equal to zero,
get back to me. It make take a toke of the hobbit pipe.

[CJvR]

59. Yep?

Ahh...

But did you graduate?

[FBaggins]

61. Sure... no problem. Can do.

As soon as you get around to proving that anyone comes anywhere close to "zero" if it weren't for Fukushima.

Don't worry. I won't hold my breath waiting.

[flamingdem]

46. You are good at deciphering Nuke Speak SpoonFed! lol nt

[CJvR]

47. Do he only do...

...one X-ray / year?

When you do 10 a day for 200 days/year of a 40 year career those little Sieverts start piling up.

Seriously Spoon your attempt at not understanding x-rays is a bit pathetic.

[SpoonFed]

49. Oh right

The x-rays add up but the stuff that floats around from a Fukushima doesn't add up, right. I get it.
:sarcasm:

[FBaggins]

52. Obviously the "adding up" is a bit beyond you.

Once again... the amount matters... not just the fact that it "adds up".

If a given event exposes you to 1/10,000th of the amount that you get from an x-ray.... then you have to do that thing 10,000 times before it "adds up" to that one x-ray. If you eat leafy greens three times a day, 365 days a year and the contamination never goes away... you're still at only ~1/10th of that x-ray. You get dental x-rays every year, don't you? They "add up" too, don't they?

Once again... why aren't you running away screaming when your dentist tried to give you that x-ray?

It's like you're saying that a penny a day costs you more than $1,000 once a year because the penny "adds up".

[SpoonFed]

55. Bioaccumulation? Nah. Not in your world.

You get dental x-rays every year, don't you?

Nope. Not if I can avoid it. Just like nuke radiation.
I'd like to floss all the nuke pundits away.

Thanks for making another valid point (of mine).

I think it's wise you're picking your battles and raging on the California Strawberries front.
Too bad the war is lost over there in Japan, huh?

[CJvR]

58. Bioaccumulation?

Cesium have a 3 months biological half life in adults.

[SpoonFed]

68. And if only the reactors were spewing only Cs. n/t

The short bio halflife of Cs is why the nuke industry and TEPCO are spoon feeding the Cs measurement data. They're framing the argument. How about all the other shit those things have been spewing?

[FBaggins]

69. "n/t" normally means that no text follows.

How about all the other shit those things have been spewing?

At one point they also detected radioiodine and there's a bit of Telurium (undetectable for over a month now IIRC). The reason they haven't reported "all the other sh1t those things have been spewing" is because none of it has hit detectable levels here in the US.

The short bio halflife of Cs is why the nuke industry and TEPCO are spoon feeding the Cs measurement data.

:rofl:

Yeah... right! They're hiding the much higher figures for the less volatile elements that somehow got out in greater amounts.

[SpoonFed]

71. Smoke and mirrors...

I think in your case n/t succinctly means nice try.

The reason they haven't reported "all the other sh1t those things have been spewing" is because none of it has hit detectable levels here in the US.

Yep. TEPCO and the Japanese government have pretending like this crisis isn't as bad as it is, simply because none of it is hitting the US. Frankly, I'm not in the US and I'm tired of the US centric navel gazing view of the crisis from you and others.

They're hiding the much higher figures for the less volatile elements that somehow got out in greater amounts.

Yep. Exactly, like the Pu and related filth spread all over Japan in and out of the evacuation zone. You really should avoid the hyperbole when it hits exactly on the truth and non-nuke industry talking points.

:yourock:

[FBaggins]

72. Sigh.

Yep. TEPCO and the Japanese government have pretending like this crisis isn't as bad as it is

Did you miss the OP? We're talking about California here.

And you've been pretending that the crisis is many times worse than it is. I'm sitting comfortably in between you and TEPCO - right around where things really are.

simply because none of it is hitting the US.

Sorry... could you say that again? And maybe somewhere where the rabid "never eat from my garden again!" crowd will see it?

Frankly, I'm not in the US

Where are you?

Yep. Exactly, like the Pu and related filth spread all over Japan

None of which has actually been detected in amounts higher than what was there pre-crisis? My... you are active with the paranoia today, aren't you?

[FBaggins]

60. Never heard of a biological half-life?

What a surprise.

Nope. Not if I can avoid it.

:rofl: - Well... I suppose that's all that needs to be said. Irrational paranoia is thus confessed. Game over.

Too bad the war is lost over there in Japan, huh?

You really haven't looked at the radiation measurements from Japan, have you? They've falled substantially and continue to fall. With the exception of the area close to the reactors, things have returned much close to normal than you'll ever admit...

...and California is several thousand miles away, but you're still worried?

Not that this is a surprise, now that we know that even an xray sends you running in fear.

What part of the country do you live in?

[SpoonFed]

37. Exactly...

All those tiny raindrops... there is no way the levee's gonna break.

I can't remember where I read the metaphor it was apt and it went like this:

a full glass of water only needs a few drops to overflow
a full reservoir only needs a few drops to overflow

if overflow in this metaphor is negative health consequences (cancer/death), and water is radiation exposure, it doesn't really matter how much you have, it's whether those small drops are the tipping point.

Hence the idea that there is no acceptable low level of exposure.

[TheWraith]

38. That analogy is, frankly, bullshit.

And ridiculous bullshit at that. You could use the same "folksy" nonsense to justify all sorts of paranoia, but the fact remains that ACTUAL SCIENTISTS know that there is ZERO danger from low levels of radiation.

[SpoonFed]

41. Yeah...

Lemme just go check all your brilliant citations. You realize that ALLCAPS isn't considered a valid argument on most of Teh Internets, right?

If there is no tipping point and low level radiation isn't important, then, why oh why, for example do they give me a lead apron and leave the lead lined room at the hospital or dental office when they're giving me low level doses of the good stuff?

The effects are cumulative, that's why these absorbed doses are given in units of amount per hour.

It's undisputed that high "amounts per hour" have a very well studied and lethal effect. It's only you and the nuke industry talking heads that pretend that their technology and behavior doesn't add to (sometimes in great amounts) the exposure we all already face and that it's insignificant.

If my estimation the only thing insignificant is your opinion on the subject.

[FBaggins]

42. From the site in the OP

Q - What steps would you recommend members of the public take to avoid the radiation?

All we are showing is that we are observing extra radiation exposures to the public that are far, far smaller than the variations in background exposure that the public routinely accepts.

...

Some have asked what the members of the team are doing in response to Fukushima. The answer is that none of us are changing our lifestyles in any way due to the fallout from Fukushima.

Q - Is there a health risk from low doses of radiation, such as the levels you are measuring?

The short answer: Scientifically speaking, the risk is not zero. However, radiation is not unique in the risk it poses. As discussed above, for other chemicals and radiation sources such as the Sun, any amount of exposure could potentially lead to health effects. However, even if one chooses the most conservative dose conversion, the risk from radiation at the levels we are measuring is still insignificant.

But... you know... what do these clowns know? They're just Cal Berkeley's nuclear engineering department.. They weren't pediatricians a few decades ago or bird biologists... THOSE are the REAL experts. :sarcasm:

[thereismore]

15. You are a perky little fellow, always there. nt

[flamingdem]

17. And desperate to try to change the discussion to happy nuclear bunny talk nt

[SpoonFed]

34. You nuke dudes are really on your heels...

All the "don't worry" talking points
have become "there's nothing we can do about it"...

I cite this thread and the thread where you basically said there was so much Pu from '45 and the Pacific nuke tests that it doesn't matter if there are a few more sprinkles from Fuku.

Seems to to me to be the basically idea behind nuke power, when it goes wrong, throw your hands up in the air, blame nature maybe, like this was all caused by the tsunami/quake as you like to do...

Seems to me it was caused by know-it-all engineering type personalities and greed; guess in which direction I'm wagging my finger in...

[FBaggins]

36. You seem to still have reading comprehension problems

That... or you can't make a point without a straw man to debate.

Which is it?

you basically said there was so much Pu from '45 and the Pacific nuke tests that it doesn't matter if there are a few more sprinkles

I never said anything of the sort. What I did say was that (so far) nobody has found any plutonium that can be clearly associated with "Fuku". The amounts that have been detected so far are consistent with what was already there.

like this was all caused by the tsunami/quake as you like to do...

Wrong again. The point there has constantly been that you guys are OCD-esque focused on events that might increase the number of cancers by a few hundred a few decades down the road... and ignoring the tens of thousands who died from the same event.

[proverbialwisdom]

76. What are your views about this related topic?

Do nuclear industry proponents such as yourself bear any responsibility for what might happen in Japan to pregnant women or children?



http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/26_06.html

Radioactive substances detected in tea leaves

Thursday, May 26, 2011 07:45 +0900 (JST)

Radioactive contamination has been found in tea leaves in Chiba and Gunma prefectures, about 200 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Similar contamination has been found over a wide area around Tokyo including Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Saitama and Shizuoka prefectures.
Chiba authorities say up to 763 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium were detected in tea leaves picked on Tuesday in Narita and 3 other cities. The provisional state limit is 500 becquerels per kilogram.

The Chiba government on Wednesday requested tea growers in the 4 cities to voluntarily halt shipments, and asked dealers not to sell the tea produced in the areas. But 2 tea growers in Narita City reportedly shipped their tea leaves, and dealers sold some processed tea to local consumers. Radioactive materials in tea leaves exceeding the legal limit was earlier detected in other areas in the prefecture.

In Gunma Prefecture, 780 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium were detected in tea leaves picked on Tuesday in Shibukawa City. The Gunma government on Wednesday asked farm cooperatives to halt shipment of tea leaves. This is the first tea contamination case reported in Gunma Prefecture.


.

[FBaggins]

79. Easy

Do nuclear industry proponents such as yourself bear any responsibility for what might happen in Japan to pregnant women or children?

Of course not.

I also support hydro power. Do you? If a dam breaks and thousands of people die... do you bear any responsibility for their deaths?

I advocate for mass transit. If a train crashes and kills people... do I bear responsibility for it?

I love offshore wind power. What if a passenger vessel strikes one in a storm and sinks? Or one onshore starts a fire that burns down 100 homes?

[caraher]

4. Interesting and actually useful data

When I get a little time I'd like to work out what this gives in terms of estimated overall population cancer risks (based on how much consumption of produce there is). Individual risks here are tiny but spread over a big population there should be some calculable consequences (though a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cancer rates).

[caraher]

21. OK, here's a very incomplete look...

Let's just consider strawberries and Cs-137. The same basic ideas can be applied to all the other foods/isotopes. I'll work with the values given for mass ingested to result in 0.05 mSv doses. Note that this accounts for biological dynamics upon ingestion; Cs behaves in the body much the same way as potassium, and its biological half-life (mean residence time in the body) is much shorter (a few months) than the physical half-life of Cs-137 (30 years).

The Berkeley figures for strawberries and Cs-137 range up to 0.72 Bq/kg, which translates to about 5000 kg eaten to result in a 0.05 mSv dose. Of course, no single person is going to eat that many strawberries, but millions of people will eat a smaller quantity. So let's look at the overall dose to the population, on the assumptions that (1) all the strawberries in California will be eaten by someone, somewhere and (2) this highest reading is typical of California strawberries.

According to the http://www.calstrawberry.com/commission/backgrounder.asp">California Strawberry Commission, in one year they grew 1.8 billion pounds of strawberries amounting to 87% of all strawberries grown in the US. Converting to kg yields 820 million kg. Let's suppose all these strawberries are eaten and have 0.72 Bq/kg of Cs-137.

If one imaginary glutton ate all these strawberries, he would incur a dose of (0.05 mSv)*(820 million kg)/(5000 kg)=8200 mSv = 8.2 Sv. That works out to 820 rem (which I'm more familiar with). One rule of thumb is one excess cancer death per 2000 person-rem of exposure to the general population, so exposure to this one isotope would produce, on average, 0.4 excess cancer deaths. A slightly less optimistic rule of them says 10 mrem of exposure is a "micromort" - a 1-in-a-million chance of cancer, which in turn implies 10 rem is a millimort and thus 820 rem would be associated with, on average, 0.82 of a cancer.

There are assumptions and things left out that cut both ways, so these numbers do no more than give a sense of scale. On one hand, I've looked only at one food and one isotope, and there are other foods and other isotopes in play here. One might perhaps triple the numbers to reflect this; though on the other hand the concentrations of all isotopes, especially the shorter-lived iodine isotopes, is decreasing, which means that my assumption that we can take a year's crop and assign these concentrations is unduly pessimistic.

So Fukushima-tainted strawberries under these assumptions would result in maybe one death in the US. One could add in all the other food crops in a similar way and the toll would only increase. Still, against a "background" rate of roughly 500,000 cancer deaths annually in the US this would be literally undetectable from a public health standpoint. At the same time, the linear no-threshold assumption that is used by default in radiation protection physics suggests that statistically there probably will be some "excess" cancer deaths.

While fatal cancer is not the only possible health effect of radiation, it is by far the largest. I'm much more concerned about other contaminants getting into my food than I am about getting a trace of Cs-137 from California strawberries.

[flamingdem]

22. Thanks for your work on that but I think you should learn about this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hcBGSr9QGk

Also Helen Caldicott though she is too extreme she lays out the way ingestion works pretty well. As you said
there will be multiple isotopes at play and different levels of vulnerability and consumption. And it is
still building up in the food chain, at this point the cesium is probably not that deep into the soil but it
will be and there is more coming over. Figure this is not the first and it won't be the last, it will impact DNA too.

Dr. DeSante:

I highly recommend watching the entire video, there is great detail related to our current situation.
The Dr. discusses Fukushima low level radiation risks as well.

Dr. Dave DeSante is the founder of the Institute for Bird Population in Point Reyes, California.
After the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl passed over the U.S. West Coast in the spring of 1986 his research uncovered a severe die-off of young birds.

Later, researchers Gould and Goldman duplicated his results with human mortality data from both the U..S. and Germany. The young, the old, and those with weak immune systems were the main casualties - an estimated over forty thousand in all.

In mid-March of 2011, as the nuclear disaster in Japan deepens by the day, scientific predictions of fallout again crossing the Pacific are being made.

HIS STUDY
The Condor, published by the Cooper Ornithological Society, is one of the two most prestigious peer-reviewed ornithological journals published in North America, the other being The Auk, published by the American Ornithologists' Union. DeSante & Geupel (1987) was the runner-up to the 1991 H. R. Painton Award for the best paper appearing in The Condor in the previous four years. DeSante and Geupel (1987) showed that the number of young birds produced in 1986 at the Palomarin Field Station near Bolinas, CA, was 62.3% below the previous ten-year mean and fell well outside the relationship between annual rainfall and productivity established during the previous ten years. The timing of the reproductive failure, its geographical extent in California, and the landbird species most affected are all consistent with the following hypothesis: that the greatly elevated levels of radioactive iodine from the massive April 26, 1986, Chernbyl nuclear plant accident that fell-out over portions of northern California coincident with rainfall on May 6, 1986, were responsible for the landbird reproductive failure by adversely affecting the thyroids and, thus, the development of the young birds during their first nine-twelve days after hatching while they were being fed by their parents in their nests.

The major findings presented by Gould & Goldman in Deadly Deceit revolve around statistical estimates of excess deaths following Chernobyl and other releases of radiation, and indicate that low-level radiation from fallout from nuclear testing and from nuclear reactors may have done far more damage to humans and other living things than previously thought. In particular, they show that the arrival of radiation in the U.S. in early May, 1986, from the Chernobyl disaster "was followed almost immediately by an extraordinary force of mortality, amounting to perhaps 40,000 excess deaths in the summer months, especially in the month of May." Also, please note that Chapter 3 of Deadly Deceit, titled "Silent Summer" and authored by Kate Millpointer, is a lay person's account of the story behind DeSante & Geupel (1987).

[AtheistCrusader]

30. Actually, very little is 'coming over' now. And less all the time.

When they get the tents up, and add more filtration of particulates on site, there will be less still. Runoff is the major concern left, assuming we get no burn-through of the containment.

[SpoonFed]

54. Meaningless, fraught with errors

why not just round down and say zero?

[flamingdem]

6. As the dude says: "BIOACCUMULATION, MAN!"

This is the issue, if you're eating this all the time as a California for instance, and consuming milk where levels are more concentrated, you are getting a dose.

Plus, it's not all about cancer, there are other health issues, especially if the person is very young or old.

[Spinny Liberal]

7. Whatever

I can't say no to strawberries. I'll take my chances of glowing in the dark.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. Same. Box of california strawberries in my fridge right now.

At these levels, I do NOT care.

[Spinny Liberal]

35. Nowadays

nearly everything will kill you. So I say to hell with it and eat whatever you want.

[AtheistCrusader]

44. If I had to pick, I'd be more concerned

about the chemicals used to force early ripening, and preserve for transport in cold storage.

[Spinny Liberal]

45. I don't know

about either of those, so I'll be blissfully unaware of all the chemicals I'm sucking down. =)

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. what kind of grass? the good kind? THAT's a problem, then.

:scared:

[flamingdem]

10. bummer, now that could be big news in Northern Cali

so it will be hush hush to maintain profit

Easier to skip kale than weed!

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Ah yes

By the way no milk, kale, strawberries. But you knew that.

[PamW]

26. How about some perscpective!!

From the OP:
Grass: Cs-137 @ 45.4 pCi/kg
Strawberries: Cs-137 @ 11.9 pCi/kg
Kale: Cs-137 @ 14.1 pCi/kg

Some look at these levels with alarm. However, let's employ some
science. There's a book I recommend to all here. It's by a
University of California - Berkeley Professor of Physics. His
name is Professor Richard Muller, and in addition to the book
"Physics for Future Presidents" which is the name of a class
he teaches at UCB, he also wrote "The Instant Physicist":

http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Physicist-Illustrated-Guide/dp/0393078264/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305603853&sr=1-1

If you click on the picture of the book, you will engage Amazon's
"Look Inside" sampler. Please forward to pages 12 and 13 to read
how the US Government requires that wine and liquor have a
certain level of radioactivity, because that is the only way to
insure that the liquor was produced from recently grown plants,
and the alcohol didn't come from petroleum.

The caption of the cartoon on page 13 states that in order for
liquor to be legal, it must have a concentration of radioactivity
of at least 400 decay per minute per 750 ml bottle.

The radioactive decay rate must be at least 400 decays per
minute which is 6.67 decays per second. Now a Curie is 3.7e+10
decays per second. So we convert the above decays rate to Curies:

Rate = (6.67 decays/sec) / ( 3.7e+10 decays/sec/Curie ) = 1.8e-10 Curies

Now a picoCurie (pCi) is 1.0e-12 Curies. Therefore, the above decays
rate 1.8e-10 Ci = 180 pCi.

The major constituent of the spirits is water with a density of 1 gm/cm
= 1 gm / ml. Therefore the mass of the 750 ml bottle is 1 gm/ml * 750 ml
= 750 gm = 0.75 kg.

Therefore, the above limit of 400 decays / min per 750 ml bottle translates
into 180 pCi / ( 0.75 kg ) = 240 pCi/kg.

Therefore, in order for wine or liquor to be legally sold in the USA,
it must have a radioactivity concentration of at least 240 pCi /kg .

The MINIMUM radioactivity concentration for wine and liquor is
20 TIMES the radioactive concentration of Cs-137 on strawberries
which some are so concerned about.

If the radioactivity concentration of a batch of wine or liquor was as
low as the Cs-137 concentration on strawberries, the US Government would
NOT ALLOW that batch of wine or liquor to be sold. The only way
to get wine / liquor with a radioactivity concentration that low would to
use alcohol distilled from petroleum, and that is outlawed.

Now I will follow a maxim from Dr. Edward Teller, who said,
"When you argue with a fool, it is difficult to tell who is the fool".

So I bid you adieu.

PamW

[flamingdem]

27. Here is some perspective based on what really did happen with fallout in California

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hcBGSr9QGk

Dr. DeSante:

I highly recommend watching the entire video, there is great detail related to our current situation.
The Dr. discusses Fukushima low level radiation risks as well.

Dr. Dave DeSante is the founder of the Institute for Bird Population in Point Reyes, California.
After the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl passed over the U.S. West Coast in the spring of 1986 his research uncovered a severe die-off of young birds.

Later, researchers Gould and Goldman duplicated his results with human mortality data from both the U..S. and Germany. The young, the old, and those with weak immune systems were the main casualties - an estimated over forty thousand in all.

In mid-March of 2011, as the nuclear disaster in Japan deepens by the day, scientific predictions of fallout again crossing the Pacific are being made.

HIS STUDY
The Condor, published by the Cooper Ornithological Society, is one of the two most prestigious peer-reviewed ornithological journals published in North America, the other being The Auk, published by the American Ornithologists' Union. DeSante & Geupel (1987) was the runner-up to the 1991 H. R. Painton Award for the best paper appearing in The Condor in the previous four years. DeSante and Geupel (1987) showed that the number of young birds produced in 1986 at the Palomarin Field Station near Bolinas, CA, was 62.3% below the previous ten-year mean and fell well outside the relationship between annual rainfall and productivity established during the previous ten years. The timing of the reproductive failure, its geographical extent in California, and the landbird species most affected are all consistent with the following hypothesis: that the greatly elevated levels of radioactive iodine from the massive April 26, 1986, Chernbyl nuclear plant accident that fell-out over portions of northern California coincident with rainfall on May 6, 1986, were responsible for the landbird reproductive failure by adversely affecting the thyroids and, thus, the development of the young birds during their first nine-twelve days after hatching while they were being fed by their parents in their nests.

The major findings presented by Gould & Goldman in Deadly Deceit revolve around statistical estimates of excess deaths following Chernobyl and other releases of radiation, and indicate that low-level radiation from fallout from nuclear testing and from nuclear reactors may have done far more damage to humans and other living things than previously thought. In particular, they show that the arrival of radiation in the U.S. in early May, 1986, from the Chernobyl disaster "was followed almost immediately by an extraordinary force of mortality, amounting to perhaps 40,000 excess deaths in the summer months, especially in the month of May." Also, please note that Chapter 3 of Deadly Deceit, titled "Silent Summer" and authored by Kate Millpointer, is a lay person's account of the story behind DeSante & Geupel (1987).

[SpoonFed]

67. Wow, as disingenuous as ever...

So to summarize from your (in)credible source (an illustrated picture book, hahaha)... the ATF uses carbon dating to ensure that alcohol is not produced from petroleum. This is a little bit different than your pathetic spin that the USG requires alcohol to be radioactive. But this is typical of the kind intellectual dishonesty that everyone should have come to expect from anyone related to the nuke industry.

Do you get all your knowledge from picture books?

Next headline, "The Smithsonian requires exhibits to be radioactive for our own good?"

You do another intellectually dishonest thing, which is to attempt to cloud your rather simplistic (and completely off base) point with a bunch of math and conversion of units. This is just another reason bad academics suck so much. The techno-cog uses much jargon to distract and convince the layperson they don't understand the issue. Lame.

[PamW]

74. The FACTS are never disingenuous

So to summarize from your (in)credible source (an illustrated picture book, hahaha)... the ATF uses carbon dating to ensure that alcohol is not produced from petroleum. This is a little bit different than your pathetic spin that the USG requires alcohol to be radioactive. But this is typical of the kind intellectual dishonesty that everyone should have come to expect from anyone related to the nuke industry.
===================================================================

I don't know how you can call what I said "disingenuous". I am merely reporting a fact and gave a reputable reference for same.

The technique used by the ATF really isn't "carbon dating". Carbon dating looks at the ratios of the relative concentration of C-14 to its radioactive daughter product, and infers from that the age of the material. Because C-14 has a 5700 year half-life, there really hasn't been enough time to build up appreciable amounts of radioactive daughter products.

No, the technique Professor Muller discusses is actually much simpler. Carbon in the eco-sphere is radioactive due to C-14 produced by the interaction of fast neutrons from the Sun on the Nitrogen in our atmosphere. Because Mother Nature makes radioactive C-14 naturally, ALL recently grown plant material is radioactive. Therefore, any alcohol produced by fermentation of recently grown plant material is also radioactive. The ATF is simply looking for that radioactivity, and as I reported accurately, REQUIRES that the radioactivity exceed the level of about 240 pCi / kg in order to ensure that the alcohol came from recently grown plant material.

I'm sorry you have trouble with unit conversions. Contrary to your statement, unit conversion are merely a rather TRIVIAL arithmetic operation, and not "intellectually dishonest". As a scientist, I want my posts to by complete and informative, and so I don't "dumb them down" for the benefit of the "mathematically challenged".

My previous post just shows that the concentration of radioactivity on the strawberries under discussion was just 1/20-th the concentration of radioactivity that we can expect in ALL our food just because Mother Nature makes C-14 naturally. ( I'm sorry I used 1/20, which is one of those dreaded "fractions" that the mathematically challenged seem to have some a difficult time with. Would the equivalent 5% make it easier for you? )

If someone follows the lead of idiots like Helen Caldicott who tell you that any amount of radiation or radioactivity is going to give you cancer, so that the radioactivity due to Fukushima is going to give you cancer; then by a factor of 20 times, the natural radioactivity due to the C-14 produced by Mother Nature is also going to give you cancer.

If you are going to avoid eating strawberries with Fukushima radioactivity on them, then to be logically consistent, you would have to avoid eating ALL foods, because ALL your foods have 20 times as much radioactivity as that contributed by Fukushima.

You'd have to stop eating now and forever. That would indeed be a solution to a most vexing
problem. It's a Darwinian solution at its best; survival of the smartest.

PamW

[FBaggins]

75. You just don't get it, do you?

"Natural" radiation is safe. Mother Nature makes sure of that.

Artificial man-made radiation is the dangerous stuff.

:sarcasm:

[PamW]

80. I guess I don't

Thanks for the response, and sarcasm understood.

However, you have a great point about the anti-nuclear
chowder-heads "thinking" ( term used loosely ) that there
is a difference between Mother Nature's and man-made
radiation.

As a scientist, it's obvious to me that a 5 MeV photon
is a 5 MeV photon, is a 5 MeV photon, regardless of
who made it.

PamW

[amerfayed]

31. Interesting that you get most of your info from enenews and don't cite it... cut and paste

if anyone wants to see original
http://enenews.com/cesium-137-rising-samples-strawberries-kale-grass-northern-california

[CJvR]

32. Following Chernobyl...

...some areas in Sweden were contaminated a bit more seriously than the pixie dust in California.
The limits set up then was 300 Bq/kg for regular foodstuff and 1500 Bq/kg for mushrooms, lake fish and wild game shot in the area. The yearly limit was set to 80 kBq or about 1 mSv. Unless you live of the land in the affected areas you are unlikely to get more than 1/300 of the limit in Sweden. Also Cesium have a biological halflife of about 3 months in humans, 1 month for children, so it's ability to accumulate is limited.

[FBaggins]

43. Anyone wonder why the anti-nukes have shifted to grass/kale/etc?

It's because the testing of air/water supply/ rain are dropping off the charts.

Most recent rainwater sample

Most recent rainwater sample has been in the cave for over a day now, and we do not yet see any radioactive isotopes of cesium, tellurium, or iodine. This appears consistent with the no detection readings we saw the last time it rained. As with the air monitoring, we will have to count for longer and longer times if we want to lower our minimum detectable activity.

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/4031

[SpoonFed]

51. Oh, I thought I read that...

they just dropped the testing.

[FBaggins]

53. You read wrong.

Not a surprise.

The rainwater testing post was from... wait for it... today. The expiration date on their last milk test was for the day after tomorrow. Their last air sampling ended on the 10th (they have to run for a number of days between samples now in order to get the MDL low enough to detect something).

On edit - Seeing that you were late to the thread and appear to have possibly just hopped on to stalk me :) - I'll cut you some slack. The "they" you're probably thinking of is the EPA, which DID cease testing of milk and foodstuffs once the detected airborn levels of new contamination dropped by orders of magnitude from what were already low levels. Since the ongoing air testing will continue, they'll have a warning if they ever need to start testing milk (etc) again going forward.

The subject of this thread, however, is testing that IS ongoing from Cal Berkeley. Strangely enough, most of the folks on your side of the fence like them because they're doing independent testing (and y'all don't trust government sources)... but can't seem to bring themselves to listen to the conclusions that they draw. And (as I jabbed), suddenly have little interest in posting the air/water/milk levels that are still being reported.

Have a good evening. As always, I enjoyed the debate. :hi:

[flamingdem]

57. It's not over yet and Hillary cut a deal to stop EPA testing, clear from the timing of her visit

to Japan and the exchanges that took place with her counterpart.

Then the news this week has been the US advising Tepco to keep their stock price up.

Berkeley is a good source but it's only one point, and one lab, we need more testing.

The numbers were worse in Los Angeles and other areas that got hot spots.

Lack of testing in this case is political.

They shouldn't stop until there is stability, this is all about propping up economies
not about health.

[FBaggins]

62. Hillary cut a deal to hide the radiation?

Was that before or after she photoshopped the president's birth certificate and hid her whitewater billing records?

Are you sure you're on the right site?

[flamingdem]

63. You ned to learn to put two and two together

What I'm saying is obvious

[FBaggins]

64. Yes.

"Obviously" a little around-the-bend.

There IS a great deal of testing still being done and ALL of it shows that there isn't a need for wider testing.

There hasn't been a SINGLE test of air/water/milk/vegetables in the US that EVER showed anything CLOSE to levels that are a cause for concern.

And you think "they" are hiding something and the conspiracy goes all the way to the top?

Are the aliens in on it too?

[flamingdem]

65. You are incapable of seeing the bigger political picture, and you think inside of a tiny box nt

[FBaggins]

66. By "bigger political picture" you mean interstellar, don't you?

I thought as much.

Maybe they intend the planet to be unfit for human use. They probably promised Hillary a cushy home on some other planet to buy off her allegiance?

[flamingdem]

70. Continue to trust that it's all happy nuclear bunnies

That's your best bet, don't think outside the box, what they taught you in school, and what the authorities want you to think, that coincides fine with your agenda as expressed here anyway.

[FBaggins]

73. There's a HUGE gap between the understatement of the TEPCOs of the world...

...and the massive overstatement of you and your team.

I'm pretty happy here in between the two extremes... in reality.

You should visit. We'll get you a free t-shirt. :)

[wtmusic]

81. Desperation?

Do I win? :shrug:

[FBaggins]

82. That too.

There are a few answers that would provide full credit on the quiz. :)

[Harmony Blue]

78. This is disturbing

Trace amounts of cesium-137 still lingering after this time? Worse, we do not know how much accumulation will take place over the next few years.

I hope people start taking this a little more seriously. Not necessarily panic, but still don't be afraid of asking questions just because some people's utopia of a nuclear power future has been dashed.