Worldwide Overdose

Without the proper media attention it's hard to find reliable information about the situation in Japan in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster, especially with regard to the radiation levels. Some people, like the physician Helen Caldicott, aren’t being quiet about the media blackout.

Dr. Caldicott, a well known speaker and author, has been spreading the word about the unprecedented danger of this disaster through a number of articles and videos that urge us to meet our energy demands using a cleaner and safer source.

According to Dr. Caldicott, radioactivity can be dangerous at any level, and the trouble with making an accurate prediction about just how deadly a certain amount can be has to do with the difficulty in detecting most cancers before they are too late. For instance, “Leukemia takes only 5 to 10 years to emerge, but solid cancers take 15 to 60,” and also “most radiation-induced mutations are recessive” taking “many generations for two recessive genes to combine to form a child with a particular disease.” These calculations contradict the reports from International Atomic Energy Agency and their proponents for nuclear power that claim nuclear energy is clean and energy efficient.  Unlike more short-sighted studies, Caldicott's calculations track high radiation exposure through the many avenues it travels throughout the ecosystem.

We, as a global culture, need to stand up for our home and use our abilities as co-creators of our world to consciously adapt to a different way of operating that doesn't destroy our environment or poison our children in the generations to come. We get what we give, and right now we are accumulating a very heavy debt indeed.

Dr. Caldicott raises a call to arms to her fellow doctors and scientists to confront policy makers, inform the public, and to not to keep silent on the constant radioactive bombardment of our planet and all its inhabitants. She reminds us that with regard to incurable diseases “the only recourse is prevention", and that, "there’s no group better prepared than doctors to stand up to the physicists of the nuclear industry.”

 

Image: "093-365"  by -Zora- on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing.

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