Masao Yoshida had been the chief manager of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi (No. 1) nuclear power plant for just nine months when, on March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple nuclear reactor meltdown. The plant spewed radioactive material into the air and water, terrifying the Japanese public and much of the world.
Yoshida's death last week from cancer under the pall of that nuclear disaster brings to mind how vulnerable facts can be to distortion.
In the accident's wake, a lack of trustworthy information — and an abundance of misinformation — fueled fear among the public, both in Japan and abroad. As we learned from the Three Mile Island (United States) and Chernobyl (Ukraine) accidents, stress can be at least as harmful as the radiation exposure itself. Thus, a veracity rating in the same spirit as The Washington Post's Fact Checker, which rates the reliability of politicians' statements in "Pinocchio" units, may help to save lives in future public health crises.