Monday, January 16th, 2012
Stephan: A while back I ran a piece on Fukushima published in a major peer-reviewed journal, authored by specialists, that claimed radiation from the crisis in Fukushim had been responsible for 14,000 death in the U.S..
However I was sent this and after reading it, I think the case it makes is strong enough that it needs to be published. At this point I am not sure where accuracy lies.
It is hard to believe a paper as flawed is it is claimed this one was got through the review process. I review for several journals and I know how hard I work to make sure what is said can be validated, and that the experiment was conducted in such a way that its conclusions can be relied upon. Yet, it appears the system may have failed in this case.
Only the future is going to settle this, but my commitment through SR is to get you the best and most accurate information I can. So we will have to wait for a final resolution. Whichever way it comes out though it will not change my views on nuclear power. One still has to deal with what has happened in and to Japan. Investing in nuclear power is as mistake.
Josh Bloom is a scholar at the American Council On Science and Health.
Thanks to John Alexander, PhD.
I’ve seen some bad studies in my day, and also some irresponsible headlines. But last week, a couple of antinuclear activists managed to do a superb job at both. The title itself was a giveaway: An Unexpected Mortality Increase in the United States Follows Arrival of the Radioactive Plume from Fukushima: Is There a Correlation?
Drs. Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman, writing in the International Journal of Health Services, proposed that there were 14,000 ‘excess