Originally published November 22 2013
Radiation dunce Dr. Shunichi Yamashita finally admits giving bad info about Fukushima fallout
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) How can an expert on radiation give such fallacious advice and counsel? Well, that's a question more than a few Japanese must be asking themselves.
If you've been following the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster, which occurred as a result of a strike by a massive tsunami-generated wave in March 2011, you know about Dr. Shunichi Yamashita (a.k.a. Dr. 100 mSv). He was the head of the Fukushima Health Survey for a time following the accident and provided advice immediately following the disaster that was consistently incorrect.
According to a recently published interview in the Asahi Shimbun, one of five national daily Japanese newspapers, Yamashita demonstrated that he did not even understand the basics of the lingering disaster and that he "did nothing to seek out information so he could give informed opinions about what people should do," says an analysis of the report on the website SimplyInfo.
On the subject, the "EX-SKF" blog, which has been tracking the Fukushima accident and its radioactive fallout, reported:
According to Asahi Shinbun's still on-going "Trap of Prometheus", Dr. Yamashita was caught off guard when the SPEEDI simulation maps were finally made public. He had confidently persuaded the officials of Fukushima Medical University in the preceding days that there was absolutely no need to distribute potassium iodide pills because the spread of radioactive materials from the accident, compared to the Chernobyl accident, would be so miniscule.
'He gave bad information to the medical university'
SimplyInfo went on to say that Yamashita made the same claim to another of Japan's national dailies, Yomiuri Shimbun, which reported his claims as expert opinion.
"Making matters worse, he told the staff of Fukushima Medical University this bad information that they then put into practice after March 18th. Yamashita made his case to the medical staff of the university with some of these statements," said SimplyInfo, which then listed the statements:
"Many believe that potassium iodide pills will prevent thyroid cancer, but it is nothing but "iodine religion". For the Japanese, the intake of radioactive iodine would be 15 to 25%, unlike 40 to 50% for people in Belarus."
"(2) The amount of radiation exposure west of the twenty, thirty kilometer radius [from the plant] will probably be less than 1 millisievert. [Not clear whether he meant effective dose for the whole body or thyroid equivalent dose.] Compared to Chernobyl, the amount of radiation exposure will be so small that the Japanese government will not issue instruction to take potassium iodide pills."
"I beg that you do not escape [desert your post]. Radiation exposure due to a nuclear accident is a fate of the quake-prone Japan that has nonetheless been promoting nuclear power plants."
Later, Yamashita rejected the university's plan to hand out protective iodine to area residents, for the following reasons:
"(1) The procedure was not in the manual by the Nuclear Safety Commission; (2) There was a danger that people would take a wrong dosage, and it would be hard to respond to the side effect; (3) there was no knowing if it was effective if mixed with drink."
'I thought, oops!'
And finally, there is this from an interview in June with the Asahi Shimbun. In interviewing Yamashita, the paper reported:
What surprised Yamashita was the SPEEDI simulation maps that the national government disclosed on March 23, 2011. At that time, the standard for taking potassium iodide pills was when the equivalent dose at thyroid was expected to reach 100 millisieverts. In the simulation maps, the areas where the equivalent dose would exceed 100 millisieverts extended far outside the 30-kilometer radius from the plant.
The paper quoted him as saying, "I thought, 'Oops.'"
The health of a major swath of the Japanese public hung in the balance following the meltdown of three of the six reactors at the Fukushima station. And here is the resident "expert" saying "oops!"
Sources:
http://www.fukuleaks.org
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com
http://the-japan-news.com
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