FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR PLANT DISASTER "IS NOT OVER AND WILL NEVER END," DR. HELEN CALDICOTT WARNS
By Sherwood Ross
The Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown disaster "is not over
and will never end," warns Dr. Helen Caldicott, Nobel Peace Prize
nominee and holder of 21 honorary doctorate degrees.
"Radioactive fallout which remains toxic for hundreds to thousands of
years covers large areas of Japan and will never be 'cleaned up,'"
asserts Dr. Caldicott, a medical doctor who has been showered with
honors and awards for her long-time campaign against the dangers of
nuclear power production and nuclear war.
Instead, "It will induce an epidemic of cancer as
people inhale the radioactive elements, eat radioactive food and drink
radioactive beverages," the anti-nuclear authority said. "It is the
greatest industrial accident in the Earth's history," she points out.
Dr. Caldicott formerly taught pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and
founded the Nuclear Power Research Institute of Washington, D.C.
In 1986, she recalled, a single meltdown and explosion
at Chernobyl covered 40% of the European land mass with radioactive
elements…and over one million people have already perished as a direct
result of this catastrophe, according to a 2009 report published by the
New York Academy of Sciences.
"This is just the
tip of the iceberg, because large parts of Europe and the food grown
there will remain radioactive for hundreds of years," Dr. Caldicott
adds.
No
dose of radiation is safe, she noted. Each dose received by the body is
cumulative and adds to the risk of developing malignancy or genetic
disease.
What's
more, "Children are 10 to 20 times more vulnerable to the carcinogenic
effects of radiation than adults, Dr. Caldicott says. "There are medical
homes near Chernobyl full of grossly deformed children, a situation
that has never been seen before in the history of medicine."
Early
findings of thyroid cancer, thyroid cysts, and/or nodules, among
Fukushima's children compared to Russian children at Chernobyl, suggests
the former have almost certainly received a high dose of radioactive
iodine.
Each nuclear
reactor manufactures 30 tons of deadly radioactive waste a year and
there are more than 400 reactors globally. This high-level waste must be
isolated from the environment for one million years---but no container
lasts longer than 100 years.
"The
isotopes will inevitably leak, contaminating the food chain, inducing
epidemics of cancer, leukemia, congenital deformities and genetic
diseases for the rest of time," Dr. Caldicott points out.
"The
Japanese government is desperately trying to 'clean up' radioactive
contamination but in reality all that can be done is collect it, place
it in containers and transfer it to another location. It cannot be
neutralized and it cannot be prevented from spreading in the future."
The
Great Eastern Earthquake of March 11, 2011, measuring 9.0 on the
Richter scale, triggered the massive tsunami on Japan's East Coast that
induced the meltdown of three of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s(TEPCO)
reactors at Fukushima within hours.
"The
radioactive contamination and fallout from nuclear power plant
accidents will have medical ramifications that will never cease, because
the food will continue to concentrate the radioactive elements for
hundreds to thousands of years," Dr. Caldicott states. "This will induce
epidemics of cancer, leukemia and genetic disease."
Dr. Caldicott
urges that all 440 nuclear power plants around the world be closed down
and replaced with alternative (solar, wind, tidal) plants and that all
atomic weapons be dismantled. #
(Sherwood Ross is a Miami, Fl.-based reporter and public relations consultant for good causes. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com)
sherwood ross
