Medical Journal Article: 14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout, PRNewswire, Dec. 19, 2011:
Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count.
An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.
Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.
The IJHS article will be published Tuesday and will be available online as of 11 a.m. EST at http://www.radiation.org.
Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).
Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, said: “This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal. It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world. Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation.”
Mangano is executive director, Radiation and Public Health Project, and the author of 27 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and letters.
Internist and toxicologist Janette Sherman, MD, said: “Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death. Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults.”
Dr. Sherman is an adjunct professor, Western Michigan University, and contributing editor of “Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” published by the NY Academy of Sciences in 2009, and author of “Chemical Exposure and Disease and Life’s Delicate Balance – Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues weekly reports on numbers of deaths for 122 U.S. cities with a population over 100,000, or about 25-30 percent of the U.S. In the 14 weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived in the U.S. (March 20 to June 25), deaths reported to the CDC rose 4.46 percent from the same period in 2010, compared to just 2.34 percent in the 14 weeks prior. Estimated excess deaths during this period for the entire U.S. are about 14,000.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of a related news event will be available on the Web at http://www.radiation.org as of 4 p.m. EST/2100 GMT on December 19, 2011.
The Nuclear Energy Institute learned of the event last week and published this attack piece Friday: NEI Nuclear Notes: Note to Reporters: Be Sure to Fact Check Joseph Mangano, Janette Sherman and Robert Alvarez
Related Posts
- FOX: Is Iodine-131 Killing Babies In Philadelphia? Deaths up 48 percent since radiation levels spiked in tap water (VIDEO) June 16, 2011
- “Huge spike” in US infant mortality in the four months after Chernobyl vs. Is “dramatic increase” in US baby deaths a result of Fukushima Fallout? (VIDEO) June 15, 2011
- FOX affiliate in Seattle: Northwest sees 35% infant mortality spike post-Fukushima June 19, 2011
- B.C. Canada sees spike in number of sudden infant deaths — “Why so many of those have come up this year, we don’t know” July 6, 2011
- Physician: Does Fukushima fallout explain rise in blood clots? — Circulatory diseases one of most widespread consequences after Chernobyl October 27, 2011
And the public aren’t going to turn around and ask why they weren’t told at the time these levels were crazy???
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It could lead to “a march on Washington D.C.”…
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Medical Journal article (Fukushima) and associated NEI attack pieces are interesting. Have a suggestion on the attack piece–come up with the associated data, not just slam authors. So where is the information to back up the NEI statements on the authors claims? Seems to me the attack should describe facts on the article in question, not other articles written in the past which NEI takes exception to. Not saying who is right, who is wrong–just requesting an effort to explain the WHY or WHY NOT.
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someone post the video of obama saying no harful radiation will reach us.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpAqiGSp29c
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“And going forward, we will continue to keep the American people fully updated because I believe that you must know what I know as President.”
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for governements, 14,000 deaths are not harmful levels because they will not undermine their likehood to be re-elected (does not matter which party is in power).
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The “us” he was refering to was himself and family, they flew down to Rio for some fresh air-far from the harmful levels of radiation.
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There are those pesky NRC “experts” telling the prez and all of us that it ok. Any mention of this during the hearing on capital hill last week? Any mention of the fallout that hit US & Canada? Political solution to global warming – nuclear winter.
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A friend of a friend lost their twin pregnancy during that time. So many people were devastated by their loss. The doctors could not determine why she lost the pregancy. I immediately though of the possibility of radiation but we are in the midwest.
If these additional deaths were in certain areas of the country I hope they show any clusters. Such clusters could come from the Jet Stream concentrating the radiation in a given area as has been already shown.
It is so very sad. What recourse do parents who loose their children have? None.
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Although little consolation for the loss, one could devote 2 hours per week towards the worthy goal of stopping any new plants, and mothballing those that exist.
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“The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.”
By choosing a time period arbitrarily, you can make a wiggly statistical line tell any story you choose. It’s a standard trick in marketing or politics.
I’m not saying this story is correct or incorrect, just that this particular statement is manipulative and potentially misleading.
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It could also have been choosen appropriatly to correctly address the underlying statistics. Go to the study and judge from there. But I would not say the study is manipulative without correclty pin pointing where and how. Until then it is correct and right.
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I did not say the study was manipulative – I expressed an opinion only on the statement I quoted. I should not have used the word “manipulative” because it is potentially inflammatory – I should have stuck with “potentially misleading”.
To understand whether the study was manipulative, one would have to investigate the range of variance that is normal from season to season. I infer that a drop of over 8% is considered within a normal range, since it is not cited as remarkable. If an 8% shift in one season is considered unremarkable then a 2% shift in another season may also be unremarkable.
In other words, both shifts may (or may not) be within normal variance. Extracting one of them (the lesser one) and citing it as significant is a questionable practice. One would expect to see a headline trumpeting “infant mortality changes more than 8% in one season” before seeing one that says “infant mortality changes less than 2% in one season”.
The validity of the study is a separate issue.
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What recourse do any of us have ?
Set aside old men
Who shout for war,
Drool with powerlust,
To dream their fantasies
of omnipotence.
Let us not be led
To greed and madness
By those who would
Keep us ignorant,
advising patience.
Fill instead the Chambers
Of Justice with Mothers,
Let the needs of Children
Guide every nations’
Moral conscience.
[Address to your Deity/Deities.
Cross your fingers.
Prepare to cross swords.]
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“Set aside old men
Who shout for war,”
Young ones too.
Hehe, I’m a tired old man, with zero interest in war, yet wars are being fought in my name, they tell me.
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Feel free to sub unfavourite politician, oligarch, plutocrat, banker, etc. for “old men” !
For “war” sub nuke-power,GMOs,any thing that is divisive,deceptive,manipulative etc. and designed to concentrate power and control!
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I know.
Gotta be eternally vigilant about age issues though.
I like your posts a lot!
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ETERNALLY vigilant – about AGE issues – wish I could do more with that……:)
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I was working on immortality until this darned Fuku thing popped up – everything was going so well. Now I’m not so sure.
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@or-well
Try this one:
Set aside rich, old, white politicians
Who shout for war….
(Who shout it because THEY are not going).
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…Oh..Gaia…spinning bonnie in your soiled gown…
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@NoPrev
all blood is red
youth spent
for Wars’ treasure
madness in mind
not skin
is the measure
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14 thousand deaths in a country with a population of 400 million (counting illegals) over a period of March to the end of June. I hope to see more data like this on the mortality rate of infants from July until now. If the levels of radiation that fell during the first 4 months of the disaster reflects the casualty rate of 14k than how will the accumulation of radiation affect the people? The math says 14 thousand every four months so estimated dead Americans from this event could exceed 28 thousand already. We will have more than a crisis on our hands if this keeps up. I don’t look forward to the California sized trash flow either.
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I had 21,000 dead 2 weeks after Mangano and Sherman terminated their data collection:
http://freepdfhosting.com/cec2590caa.pdf (the bottom section was the first report)
Also this report included the week that Fuku blew up, which Mangano & Sherman omitted. So this report contains 3 more weeks of deaths than theirs does. Pretty much the same ballpark.
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Posted your info here Bobby
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/japan-nuclear-crisis-cold-shutdown_n_1152889.html
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Thanks Whoopie.
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It’s more like: 14,000 U.S. deaths tied to Fukushima fallout “and Counting”..
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I think this is a heroic study. These individuals and others who are collecting and sharing data are to be commended (Bobby1 included here)
They are risking a lot professionally and personally to take a stand on this issue.
Counterpunch, which published the first statistical analysis by Mangano and Sherman, had a statistician look at their data after being bombarded with criticism.
Counterpunch’s statistician confirmed the analysis conducted by Mangano and Sherman.
Sherman, Janette D and Joseph Mangano “Is the Increase in Baby Deaths in the US a Result of Fukushima Fallout?” Counterpunch (2011, June 11-12): http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/10/is-the-increase-in-baby-deaths-in-the-us-a-result-of-fukushima-fallout/.
Cockburn, Alexander “Post-Fukushima Infant Deaths in the Pacific Northwest,” Counterpunch (2011, June 17): http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06172011.html.
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Agree +100
Unfortunately, I believe this number will or has gone up by now..
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But then it’s not just deaths we’re talking about. Deaths are at the top of the pyramid! What about birth defects and illnesses that the newly born will succumb to due to the adverse effects of the radiation? This is not to mention the entire population that has to some degree been affected! They make up the rest of the pyramid! There is no such thing as escaping radiation fully.
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RE: the NEI blog site? I just tried to post a contrary opinion on the site and it’s being held for the blog owner (NEI) to approve. What are the odds it will ever show up? Try it yourself; post and see if we get our info up. If it doesn’t show, let me know and I’ll give it some time on Nuclear Hotseat tomorrow (Tues., Dec. 20).
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ever since the disaster i have wanted a Geiger counter. is there a place that i can get one besides ordering it? are there instructions on how to use it on your food, milk, baby formula, vegetables? i know nothing about it and i don’t have much money thanks.
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If you’re handy, get the parts and make one. They’re @$400 and don’t monitor internal radiation, only external. In other words, the outside of your food, but not the content. That requires really expensive equipmnt.
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http://medcom.com/services-support/rentals
“We offer our Radalert 100, the Inspector, the Inspector Alert, and the Inspector EXP on a rental basis within the United States. We require advance payment by credit card and agreement to the terms of our rental policy. The standard rental period is two weeks; one-week and four-week rental periods are also available for prorated rates. Rental fees are $80.00 plus shipping & handling for each instrument for a two-week rental period. The customer also is responsible for the cost of shipping the instrument back to us. If you are interested in renting one of our instruments, please read our rental policy below and then contact us by telephone or email to place your order.”
I am not affiliated, have yet to be a customer. Maybe Santa Baby will stuff one in my stocking this year.
I just post this link whenever anybody asks about how/where to get one.
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We must understand that this is a correlational study, meaning that it can only show relationships such as direct (in this case), indirect, or none. A correlational study cannot show cause and effect. Our hearts know the answer, for sure. I just don’t want misinformation running rampant throughout this honorable community of concerned citizens. Also, 14,000 is an estimate. My instinct tells me that the true number is exponentially higher and increasing every second. Love is the only thing that matters.Much love to you all. Peace. No Nukes!
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Well said, Dr. A.
If the good guys use faulty arguments (even unconsciously), the bad guys can exploit it to slip their FUD into a discussion.
Oops – if you don’t know the acronym, it’s for Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. I never know when to just abbrv or when to spell it out.
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I’m giving this article to all of my friends. They think I’m just a conspiracy theorist. I’ve been avoiding rain for 9 months now, and they all laugh. I’ve been checking where food came from for 9 months now. They make fun of me, saying that the stress will kill me before any “imagined radiation” does. I’ve been telling all of my friends who are pregnant to be very VERY careful, but they don’t listen. I’ve been telling all of my friends with small children that the baby food isn’t safe. They think I’m nuts. I’m both horrified and glad that this article is finally telling *some* of the truth. We all know that if it was published, it is only a fraction of the truth.
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@Ariane: Right you are Ariane. I have posted the enennews link on my URL
Abandon Nuclear Power at
http://abandonnukes.blogspot.com/
What you say absolutely tunes in with our own experience. Why should Pensylvannia, Pittsburg etc should be blessed with 12% preterm babies?
It is high time that modern civilization is immediately set on a crash corrective course.
I immediately emailed to my groups and friends the link.
Thanks also to enenews for this providence!
I pray that this providential site is protected by providence.
The bottomline for activities should be that we all should live in health here and now and that health is not just the absence of disease but harmonious living.
The authors are great workers. And the NYAS is a pioneer in publishing Yablokov et al work edited by Janette Sherman on Chernobyl consequences.
Shame on the Indian Government in sticking to ICRP’s witchcraft. I call upon India to reject and mothball nukes of all types and start the work now and stop the agony of the long suffering public. Similarly I appeal to all leaders in the world to change over to a normal way of life with the bottomline mentioned above. Nukes and modern civilizaion’s excesses, no never or become extinct.
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you might want to consider some therapy. there is a name for the phobia you are describing,its called radiophobia. really,google it. the cure is simple, do some reading on the subject and increase your knowledge.
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Other affects: sterility, difficulty getting pregnant, difficulty carrying a fetus to full term, birth defects. And oh yeah, cancer.
I believe the only way we can wake up the populace is to make people aware that radiation = cancer + sterility + birth defects + miscarriages, and that every nuke reactor leaks radiation (tritium, etc.) and creates radioactive nuclear waste that we do not know how to safely store or neutralize. Once they feel the threat to their gonads created by every nuclear reactor on earth, the chance is greater that they’ll wake up.
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The threat of the goanads is serious but I think the general population is going to need to hear it from Diane Sawyer. “Tonight we have some alarming news out of Japan…..”
look how many people are effected by autism, most parents are 100 % certain it is linked to vaccines, but people continue to get the shots and now there is an epidemic, 1 in 100. That is incredible. Nothing changes….
People have been brainwashed to believe that if Diane doesn’t say it, it must be a wacko thought that deserves to be ignored….
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On identifying the radionuclides. Performing analysis is now within reach of Joe The Plumber.
Those interested in following up the possibility of going beyond gieger counters which are better than nothing at all of course.
Simple gamma spectrometer with PRA software
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4EygC4K2vA
GS-1100A with PRA (4.0)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvI-gWuAiko
If food testing is involved, Lead shielding is essential in my amateur experimenter opinion.
The software PRA, is free software and can also be used to log counts from an ordinary Geiger counter.
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In paragraph 5 of the article: “[This study] raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world.”
is probably a mistake. I suggest the PRNewswire journalist meant to say: “[This study] raises concerns, and strongly suggests that [official] health studies continue to understate the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world.”
…maybe.
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Mangano and Sherman’s article is now online and available at:
http://www.radiation.org/reading/pubs/HS42_1F.pdf
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Some more reaction to the article:
http://longevity.about.com/b/2011/12/20/fallout-from-fukushima-thousands-of-deaths-in-the-united-states.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/19/1047040/-Medical-Journal:-14,000+-US-Deaths-Related-to-Fukushima-Fallout?via=sidebar
http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/medical-journal-article-14000-u-s-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-fallout-mangano-sherman-via-enenews-com/
http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/the-nrc-vs-joe-mangano-repost/
http://climate-connections.org/2011/12/20/principal-findings-reported-u-s-deaths-after-japan-fallout-arrives/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/14000-u-s-dead-in-14-weeks-after-fukushima-meltdown.html
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has anyone here seen the reports debunking this so called peer reviewed report ? The entire article is full of lies.everyone is so anxious to jump on the anti nuclear bandwagon that all reason is lost. what a collection of sheeple.http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/21/9616921-experts-discount-claims-of-us-deaths-from-japan-radiation.
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if you want facts instead of scare tactics,if you want to discuss nuclear energy then go here. https://www.facebook.com/pages/nuke-roadie/186860624662864?ref=tn_tnmn.
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FROM YOUR FAIR AND BALANCED ARTICLE!! nuke roadie
“He was unable to point to any studies showing how low levels of radiation in the U.S. would cause death.
While U.S. deaths did rise in 2011, radiation doesn’t make sense as the cause, experts say.
“There’s nothing in the radiation health effects research to substantiate those claims,” said Bernadette Burden, a spokesperson for the CDC.”
Hmmm! I take it you subscribe to the icrp bag o water statistical theory then?
“For acute radiation sickness you would need much higher levels of radioactivity”
Acute for adults or acute for a baby in the womb??..
The particulates cant be good for those with existing chest/lung complaints!! Still that isn’t incuded in the icrp stats either,,,
Go to low level radiation campaign, greenpeace, criirad, chilfrens rights organisations green action japan and all American downwinders (theres some on this site actually so they already know) and tell them your wonderful news!!
Great face book page!/sarc
“666
like this
76
talking about this”
anyone told david icke? LOL
ps ever seen chernobyl heart?? best you dont!!
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i hope you enjoy the free round trip to japan! send us a post while your there!
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