The trouble remains that far from creating a task force from the ‘best of the best’ humanity has to offer, to then pose new ideas and define the correct path to save the Pacific Ocean and Japan as far as is possible, they instead idle their time away creating peer reviewed academic papers on why there is no problem at all!
This must take some real thinking! and a great deal of scientific poetic licence to boot. This statement by Murata is the benchmark by which all discussion surrounding the 2020 Olympics must be judged. I pray it finds wings….

What Dogen meant was… If your understanding is not firm in the beginning, your would eventually be lead astray

Well, now you’re here Brian, care to comment on the analysis by myself, Enkidu, and Sam which demolishes the core points of your letter?

Thank you (genuinely) for taking part in this discussion. I hope you can continue to participate in a spirit of learning and exchange. This comment is long, but I hope you can recognise that I do have a passion for this topic and that it is borne out of a genuine concern for the welfare of those afflicted by fear.

First off, I think it’s genuinely problematic that, as an academic, you haven’t yet taken the opportunity to acknowledge that you reproduced an erroneous claim about evidence for renewed criticality at Fukushima. This is not a matter of this or that interpretation: it was based on an error. We can of course argue about whether or not Murata or you should have doubled checked with the observatory and recognised experts regarding your conclusion given the wealth of contrary evidence in the public domain (such as radiation readings from diverse sources within Fukushima prefecture and beyond – all of which prompted me to say “really?” and go and check the Takasaki data for myself). In fact, I would really like to discuss this sort of thing because I think the issue of how non-experts like you and me handle scientific discourse is the fundamental issue here. But we can’t argue over the basic fact: Murata’s “gravest concern” – the climax of the evidence for the prosecution – was based on incorrect data. It doesn’t matter that the error was discovered by someone you plainly hold in contempt. That’s just tough s***.

This is a serious matter. If Murata’s story were true, it would indeed be a source of grave concern. Fear hurts people. It is by far the biggest source of health problems from Fukushima. It is causing alcoholism, obesity in children, stress, depression and family break-up. Accuracy in pubic health statements is really important. Surely you can see that, can’t you?

Secondly, you seem particularly stung by my describing your attempts to postpone your students’ study abroad in Japan as something that would “disrupt” their study careers. I honestly don’t understand the objection here. You don’t dispute any of the facts – you sought to postpone your students’ study abroad trip (By the way, I thought your proposal was rejected by your university and the trip went ahead anyway. Is that not correct?). A postponement in and of itself counts as a disruption, and so what I said is fair comment. But more than that – you yourself described what you did as “one of the most difficult decisions of my teaching career”, and that you “deeply regretted this recommendation”. To me that sounds like you yourself felt it would be disruptive – but that the disruption was in your eyes justified. Could you help me reconcile this? I find your view interesting as at the time, as friends of mine working in universities here that had exchange programmes had to deal with the issue of whether or not their overseas visitors would come, and it certainly felt a disruptive issue for them. It angered them. The issue is surely not whether a postponement would have been disruptive, but whether it was justified. I am inviting you to justify it with reference to proper scientific literature.

If we look at the basis for your intervention – the case of someone developing what you originally described as having the symptoms of radiation exposure – headaches, nosebleeds and vomiting – you somewhat misleadingly here describe these symptoms as happening after a visit to Tohoku. They occurred following a visit to Kyoto after that, and as I hope to show, timing is important in this. From her own account which you helpfully linked to on this page:

While in Nikko, where I went hiking through forests of colorful maple leaves, I began experiencing strange headaches and fatigue. At the time, I had not even considered the possibility of radiation exposure in that area. I was ignorant of the ongoing crisis at Fukushima Daiichi and the nuclear fallout from the March 2011 meltdowns that covered areas of land in the prefectures surrounding Fukushima in the northern half of Honshu.

As I traveled by bullet train to Sendai, the train stopped in Fukushima. For the first time, the possibility of radiation exposure crossed my mind. The doors opened to let passengers pass through, and I felt a heavy mood in the air. The passengers around me seemed to be folding downward. Some covered their noses and mouths with their hands or sleeves, and some even tucked their faces into the tops of their jackets. Did they know something that I didn’t?

My headache that was lingering for the past three days suddenly magnified into a piercing migraine. I had experienced migraines in the past, though it had been over six months since the last one. How unusual that something could have triggered a migraine so quickly.

The migraine lasted up to an hour. The pressure in my head eased as the train continued northward. By the time I arrived in Sendai, my pain had completely dissipated. For the next three days, I felt fine.

In mid-November I returned to Kyoto, where I spent my final week in Japan. During the last four days, I experienced a migraine again. On departure day, I flew from Osaka to Tokyo and then from Tokyo to the U.S. During the entire transpacific flight, I felt unexplainable stabbing pains in my stomach, nausea and delirium. The pain was far greater than any kind of food poisoning I had ever experienced.

By the time I arrived back home, I felt relieved that my pain was gone. What I thought was the end of my strange symptoms was actually the beginning. The following morning I woke up with a bloody nose. During the next month, I experienced daily nosebleeds, headaches and dizziness. I felt chronic fatigue and weakness, and my mind was clouded.

During the second week of December, I vomited for two days straight, uncontrollably purging all of the liquids from my body. On those days, I could not consume food. My body became weak and drained of energy. I continued to have nosebleeds halfway into January.

Poor Melanie. She had a horrible time. But was it caused by a typical condition called “low grade radiation exposure” as you claim? I’ve highlighted the key elements that clearly suggest it wasn’t. What’s really important here, Brian, is your understanding of medical science and the effect of radiation on health. You have made medical claims in public that do not appear to stand up. To me, particularly as a parent living in Japan, that’s really important.

Let’s look at the science. Radiation exposure under 0.5 Sieverts does not produce any immediate symptoms, and few appear up until a Sievert. Here’s a reference from the Mayo Clinic website. Radiation-induced headaches are not caused by low level exposure. You basically have to get over two Sieverts (which would be roughly 40 times more than the highest measured dose received by people from the evacuation area near the plant). Vomiting is not caused by low level exposure. You have to get over a Sievert. The symptoms do not appear weeks later as in Melanie’s story, but hours later. Bleeding is caused by even higher exposure. In other words, vomiting, headaches and bleeding only result from radiation in the case of radiation sickness brought on by very high exposures. To say that your student suffered these symptoms because of radiation is precisely to say that she had radiation sickness. (Ironically, fatigue – the symptom she felt immediately – is the only one that takes weeks.) Your only defence here would be that you were ignorant of all this. Which – and I want to make this really clear – would be fair enough, if you admitted it, and we could move on. Neither you nor I are qualified medical practitioners, and I imagine that you, like me, knew absolutely nothing about radiation and health before the Fukushima crisis began. Not knowing things is not a sin.

Think about it: if your student’s short time in Japan brought her all these symptoms from radiation exposure, then all the people who are in Kyoto, or Sendai, or Nikko or Fukushima city all the time would not only also have these symptoms (they do not), but they should all now be dead from radiation exposure. However, they are very far from not all dead. I have repeatedly asked you today to provide me with any evidence from the medical that “low grade radiation exposure” as a phenomenon that causes these symptoms actually exists. I have searched the PubMed database, I’ve trawled through google scholar, I’ve looked at reference sites on radiation and health, and there’s nothing on any such condition with such symptoms. I am open to being proved wrong, which is why I have repeatedly asked you for references from the medical literature. You have refused, saying that people should read your student’s account and decide for themselves. But medical science is not a thing decided by your or my interpretation. It’s not decided by an audience reading accounts and deciding for themselves. It’s done by medical researchers and medical practitioners.

This is important because what bothers me is that if you had consulted with a genuine authority on this issue, I’m pretty sure they would have told you precisely what I’m telling you now. (Not because I’m any kind of authority, but because I read what these people write.) Instead, who did you consult? From your original article:

in March 2013 I attended a two-day Fukushima-related medical seminar at the New York Academy of Sciences [sic; it was the NY Academy of Medicine] where I learned, for the first time, the full scope of the ongoing dangers posed by radiation contamination from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.”

This was, inevitably, a gathering of well-known cranks and fringe scientists, not actually sponsored by NYAM (they just rented out conference space). It was organised by Helen Caldicott who even before then had been exposed by the British environmental journalist George Monbiot as such. For an update on her activities, here’s an analysis of a lecture recently given by her. It’s by an anti-nuclear activist who appears to have lost patience with her. In the comments you will find Azby Brown of Safecast (also himself anti-nuclear) pointing out myriad additional problems. She, it should be emphasised, is not a recognised expert in health and radiation in scientific circles.

Brian, it is your choice to rely on these people instead of recognised medical and scientific opinion. As an academic, you surely have the research skills to know that they are not mainstream. You must surely be aware how these people are seen by the wider scientific community.

Let’s look at the source you offer for there actually being a danger in Nagoya, not so far from Kyoto. You repeat previous claims regarding hot particles by “PhD candidate” Marco Kaltofen, sourced to a site called nsnbc (which misspells his name). To quote the anti-junk science website rationalwiki:

nsnbc.me

Not to be confused with MSNBC, who probably aren’t aware this site copied 4/5ths of their name.

nsnbc.me, or nsnbc ìnternational, is a lowercase alternative news site created in 2013 by a Danish man named Christoff Lehmann as a replacement for his blog.[1] The website is one of the more professional-looking crank sites. However, under the shiny exterior, the website supports a wide range of conspiracy theories and woo. nsnbc features articles supporting 9/11 conspiracy theories,[2][3]FEMA concentration camps,[2][4] Bilderberg conspiracies,[2][5]Zionist conspiracies,[6] Rothschild conspiracies,[6] Monsanto conspiracies,[7] Séralini’s discredited rat study,[8] vaccine-induced autism,[9] fluoride conspiracies,[10] and cancer woo.[11]

Well, that’s clearly no good as a source (I really hope you agree). So, I went to check Google Scholar if Kaltofen had published anything in a peer reviewed journal on this topic. He hasn’t. He’s presented at a couple of non-specialist public health conferences, and his PhD, from a civil engineering department, not a radiology or suchlike department, isn’t currently available online (not even an abstract) so it’s not clear even how much of these ideas managed to get through a PhD review likely overseen by the wrong kind of experts. However, I do know that he has worked with Arnie Gundersen on this hot particle idea, and I know that Arnie Gundersen is a crank who, as another commenter has mentioned here, gets lots of things wrong. I also know that NO recognised health researchers anywhere believe there are such risks to people in Kyoto, nor in Nagoya. Or indeed Tokyo. Or Nikko, or Sendai. So why rely on Kaltofen? He doesn’t pass the test for credibility.

Equally, you ask me if I was worried about the spent fuel removal at pool 4. No, I wasn’t. Do you know why? Because I couldn’t find anyone except identifiable cranks saying it was going to be a threat to some large area. The cranks certainly want people to be frightened. Some of them quite literally earn money that way. But they’re cranks.

I mentioned at the beginning that I think the issue of how non-experts like us handle scientific information is absolutely fundamental to all this. This is a politicised issue, like climate change, HIV/AIDS, vaccines and so on: the facts can conflict with what your ideology or financial interests are. The temptation to fall into science denial is therefore strong, and there are groups seeking to exploit that temptation, for financial or political profit (or usually both). Key to this are battles over the mainstream narrative. The denier movement doesn’t need to create an alternative coherent and consistent narrative. Instead it needs to disrupt the mainstream narrative with whatever comes to hand. Most of those people at that conference at NYAM, that, let’s be fair, turned your head, do just that. Their numbers and stories don’t actually make coherent sense when all put together. The numbers will be scary, the stories will be scary, but when you try to put them all together into some kind of coherent picture, it doesn’t work. This contrasts sharply with the mainstream science account, which should from all angles fit together and make coherent sense, including bits where we are not threatened by saying “we don’t know”.

This is why I keep badgering you over this issue of acute radiation sickness. It’s really, really important that the story of your student doesn’t actually make coherent sense in terms of the large medical literature on radiation exposure. Something is really really fishy about that picture. It’s really important that Murata’s claims about the detection of tellurium and iodine by the Takasaki observatory in Gunma didn’t make sense when put together with all the other evidence we have. There should be alarm bells going off. Alarm bells should be ringing loudly about Arnie Gundersen, given that so many of his predictions or statements have been wrong.

I’m not calling you a science denier. I’m saying you’ve fallen in with a bad lot who are, and I’m pleading with you to come over to the right side. It doesn’t mean denying that there are problems at Fukushima. Far from it – there are. It means we put our faith in mainstream science because it’s mainstream for a damned good reason.

What a great article, perhaps the distraction of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is starting wear thin. I wonder what new distraction the Japanese government will come up with next. Perhaps the first manned space mission to Mars. Fukushima needs to be resolved now!!!

(Reply 2) Hi Scott

Sorry – I misread the source too! (>_<) Your link is up to date – but the data comes from further down the page.

It's actually 78,000 nanosieverts per hour (nSv), which is 78 microsieverts. This is a billion times lower than 78,000 Sieverts.

Judging from the map, that figure is right next to reactor number 1. "Administration building south". 78 uSv/ hour is indeed fairly high. It would result in a yearly dose of 683mSv if you stayed there for an entire year, which would elevate your risk of cancer. It illustrates the dangers the workers face. But the readings from the other monitors at the edge of the plant are at the highest equivalent to a dose of 27 mSv per year. This is still over the limit for resettlement, but you can see how the inverse square law operates. You don't have to get that far away from a radiation source for a radiation risk to diminish to negligible – double the distance, quarter the dose.

I'm not suggesting that it's acceptable for people to live right up to the gates of the plant, but large parts of the evacuation zone are safe as much as safe actually means anything. (ie whatever risks there are are tiny compared to what we normally call a risk. For example, lower radiation than a place like Tokyo. No one worries about radiation when they think of living or not living in Tokyo.)

I am really distressed reading all of this. Brian Victoria completely failed to answer the legitimate questions put to him about the actual health risks from radiation in Japan, which, despite his protestations, was one of the major issues he raised in the article. At the same time I am frustrated that people like me with little science background have to rely on message boards like this to get the truth about the various issues that have been raised about Fukushima. Just by way of example, most governmental or non governmental travel websites I have read talk about areas outside the evacuation zone being safe, and point to the safety of background radiation levels, but none of these address the issue of ingestion of radioactive material through air, water or food. Why?? There are some obvious questions that global Governments are not answering for their citizens. For example: (1) There were hot spots discovered at least as far as Kanagawa Prefecture in 2011. And radioactive material was found elsewhere and cleaned up. What happened to the material that formed these hot spots? Is it possible there are more? How do we know that “hot particles” are not being carried around Japan? Even if we do not believe the cranks who claimed to have discovered radioactive particles far from Fukushima (and I myself am skeptical), the basic question still remains that there were hot spots, how do we know we found them all, and how do we know that hot particles are not being carried around in the wind to this day? To what extent can we guarantee that children in Japan (including tourists) are not ingesting these? (2) Is any foreign Government or reputable agency checking the procedures the Japanese government is using for testing of food and determining they are satisfied? (3) Similarly, what procedures are in place to prevent foodstuff from Fukushima making its way into the food chain by covert means? (4) Radioactive material from Fukushima is being apparently transported for incineration around the country. Have foreign governments or agencies determined that this is being done in a safe manner? (5) Many will have seen Youtube Videos of steam coming from the reactors. I have no idea why they have been posted, but just want to know from official sources whether any steam with radioactive material is being released from Fukushima, is it being carried to other places in Japan, and could it be dangerous? Are we sure and if so, why? (6) What potential risks remain from Fukushima, say in the event of another large earthquake or tsunami or from the reconstruction procedures being undertaken there? We all know there is a possibility that Japan may face large earthquakes in future, which in itself is scary enough but what additional risks (if any) are posed due to the Fukushima situation? (7) Is there anything we do not know yet about the status of the reactor and any possible melt down there (say because robots have been unable to operate there) that could exacerbate radiation risks? WHY DO I ASK ABOUT THIS? A close friend is completely distraught by all this, reading Japanese blogs and Youtube videos and not knowing what to believe. I am worried for her psychological well being because there is no place where people who are not experts can go to get all the facts from a credible source on the various issues that are being raised. It is clear she is not alone, and that many will suffer from psychological damage that we know occurred after Chernobyl. So I get very angry when I see articles like this which suggest there are health risks but which are not based on facts. I get more angry when the author appears to evade answering key questions. Now, I realize that in an ideal world we should not need to prove that all these concerns are baseless. In an ideal world we should be able to trust the people with expertise. Most people would like to trust their Governments to keep them safe. But the fact is that TEPCO and the Japanese Government have given us no reason to have faith in them, quite the contrary, most Japanese I talk to have little faith in their Government and believe the Government here is not releasing full and truthful information. They have not earned our trust. I think it is also possible that many international agencies have conflicts of interests to greater or lesser extents which may slant their views. And where some individuals do point to risks, they are generally branded as cranks, usually due to circumstantial evidence such as their lack of credentials, lack of publication or peer review etc. Now logic tells me that if there were ongoing radiation risks, then countries like Germany or Switzerland would be would be warning their citizens not to come here. But I have no idea what level of information they possess. And I also believe you would have to be pretty brave to announce that places such as Tokyo may not be safe. But I would love to see an impartial, up to date and easy to read report prepared by a reputable Government (Germany please) assessing the risks to adults and children in Japan arising from background radiation or ingestion of radiation caused by the Fukushima disaster and related recovery and decontamination efforts. The issue of information and disinformation is the most critical right now. This type of article only makes things worse.

A criticality is not the issue with the passive design features and controls in place.

Hi Joe,

I think the best way to reduce stress is to have a way of identifying and cutting out nonsense so that you’re just left with reliable sources. It’s a trick I learnt in trying to understand climate change and climate change denial, and it really helped when the Fukushima crisis began. I’ll show how this applies to Toru Bove, who in my opinion is absolutely not a reliable source.

The problem is that in any scientific area which is politicised (and nuclear power is one of them) there are people who for ideological or other reasons make stuff up on the Internet and in the media. When I say make up, they literally produce outright and often huge falsehoods. The two clearest examples outside this area are climate change denial and the anti-vaccine movement. Although both these movements claims have no basis in science, there are large groups of people committed to spreading them. They will tell you amazing horror stories of fraud, corruption and death. It can be hard to accept that pretty much all of what they say is actually made up. The temptation is to believe that they must be at least a little bit right.

Don’t give in to that temptation. Instead, if you think a source is rather suspect, don’t give it less weight, but just ignore it in your calculations. If what they say is true, there should be other more respectable sources also saying it anyway.

And always remember: don’t prejudge what the sources will say. We all have a very strong tendency towards confirming our prejudices. A lot of people look for proof that Fukushima is dangerous or proof that it is completely safe, and in doing so they ignore all the counterevidence. Instead, try to ask a question where the answer will tell if it is safe or not, and then look for the best quality answers. Accept those answers even if they are not the ones you wanted to hear.

Ideally you want your sources to be:
1. People qualified directly in the field, with a track record of having their work favourably accepted by the scientific community. That is, they publish work in scientific forums and they haven’t been identified by the scientific community as doing dubious work (ie major issues of competence and honesty).
2. People whose financial sources of income are independent of their conclusions – that is, they don’t make their money by playing to a crowd. Ideally, university appointments. People who are paid for the quality of their work, not for their conclusions.
3. Collectively broadly consistent. Although there is disagreement in science, genuine scientists are all trying to describe the same reality using more or less the same methods. They should all be telling the same story.

Conversely, you want to be careful of people peddling junk science. The pattern across areas (climate change denial, anti-vaccinism etc.) is that they do not operate in scientific forums. Instead, they try to go directly to the public to disrupt popular understanding of science. Their goals are political, not scientific. So they’ll be all over the media, they’ll self-publish glossy reports, but they will rarely engage scientists in scientific forums.
1. People who do not have evidence that they are recognised experts. They do not have the right qualifications or publication track record or appointment as an expert. People who have appointed themselves to grand sounding positions in their own organisations.
2. People whose work and ideas have been severely criticised in scientific forums – such as post-publication peer responses. Peer review is a good thing, but there are ways of sneaking bad work past peer review, so the science community response is very important.
3. People who say stuff that is clearly scientifically wrong in a way obvious to someone with a high school science education. This may sound like an obvious criterion, but it is surprising how often cranks with a habit of talking scientific BS will be constantly given a pass on each new claim they make. The case of Brian Victoria’s student claiming radiation sickness is a perfect example. It doesn’t take a degree in any kind of science to look up the effects of radiation on a reputable site. I gave the well-known Mayo Clinic as a supporting site on this page, for example.
4. Collectively, the picture these people paint is not consistent. That is, if you put their claims all together, you don’t get a clear picture, you just get an impressionist scary or conspiracist cloud. This is because what junk scientists and science deniers work to do is bring doubt on the “official” (ie mainstream science) view. They are not obliged by their followers to paint a coherent consistent alternative. They’re not doing science.
5. People whose views are the key to their income stream. This of course includes PR agents for corporations, but it also includes professional activists and activist organisations.

So what about Toru Bove?

First off, he himself is not an expert. He’s a superbike rider. So his testimony has no authority in itself. The best thing you can do is go and check the sources he quotes. He makes some extraordinary claims about how dangerous it is to live in Tokyo. He openly says that within five years health effects will start to be seen in the Tokyo population. You have to ask yourself – if this were based in any kind of scientific reality, wouldn’t you have scientists campaigning en masse for an evacuation? Yet where are they? Wouldn’t the politicians have all left? There are radiation detectors everywhere. Why aren’t they picking all this up?

I actually have an interesting test for people I encounter on line who spread these ideas. I ask them this question: “When the 2020 Olympics comes and the world’s media descends on Tokyo broadcasting live and uncensored, if they do not find the human devastation you (and others like Bove) predict, will you change your mind about such ideas?” Amazingly, not one person has accepted this challenge, and I must have asked over a dozen by now. Curiously, it’s as if they don’t really believe in the literal truth of what they are saying, and many come close to saying that. Anyway, Bove’s going to need some really high quality sources.

Secondly, he’s a Greenpeace activist and a long-time anti-nuclear campaigner. This is a red flag regarding reliability. As much as it pains me to say this, as climate change for me is the most pressing issue we all face, but what I discovered as I tried to understand the risks from Fukushima was that organisations like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF cannot be trusted to provide factually accurate information on the topic of nuclear power. Extreme anti-nuclearism forms not simply a tribal article of faith, but also a steady income stream from hardcore members. In a really surreal twist, I discovered that they actually mimic the tactics of the climate change denial movement – bypassing scientific forums, promoting non-experts, producing in-house reports that go unreviewed by independent properly qualified scientists. Greenpeace, for example, sponsored a notoriously bad book on Chernobyl that claimed a death count hundreds of times higher than can be found in the mainstream literature (the book was trashed in scientific reviews, and the publisher withdrew it from print after it became clear that Greenpeace activists had sneaked it past all review processes). Greenpeace’s international radiation expert is actually an antiques restorer. FoE UK expelled one of its leading members because he – like some of the world’s most prominent climate scientists – argued that nuclear power might help mitigate climate change. Meanwhile FoE’s founder is happy to give an annual lecture named after a prominent living British climate change denier. WWF quite openly fakes data on carbon emissions for nuclear (look at the footnote). That’s an environmental organisation faking data about climate change because its anti-nuclearism takes precedence. It was a shock to me when I discovered all this because my natural inclination was to trust these organisations.

This is not to say that Greenpeace et al are always wrong on the topic, but their track record is not good enough to pass the hygiene test. Not backed by science, not backed by peer review, often at odds with mainstream science. So out it goes.

Thirdly, Bove cites a man called Arnie Gundersen a lot. Whereas Greenpeace is unreliable, Arnie Gundersen is usually just wrong. The basic facts about Gundersen:
* He trained as a nuclear engineer. That’s about all he has going for him. He has no training in radiation and health whatsoever. He has never been employed by any institution as a researcher, and he has no scientific publication track record.
* His career as an actual engineer appeared to end rather quickly as he was moved to administrative work.
* In the mid to late 1980s he got fired. His employer sued him and won. (I believe it was for defamation). He eventually left the industry in 1990 and became a high school physics teacher.
* In 2008 he and his wife started an organisation called “Fairewinds Associates” and he appointed himself “Chief Engineer”. However, Fairewinds Associates originally consisted of two people: Arnie and his wife Marge, and it’s not an engineering firm anyway.
* Fairewinds is actually constituted as a religious/educational charity. This means it is not liable for the truth of any information it publishes.
* On his site he claims to have 40 years nuclear engineering experience. That’s not actually true in the sense that most people would understand it, ie actually working as a nuclear engineer in the industry.
* He displays on the site a reactor operator license certificate, but this apparently comes from learning how to operate a 100W reactor as part of his master’s degree course, not a proper full-sized reactor. The 100W reactor may not even have been on at the time.
* If you look at who now works at Fairewinds (and they’ve made good money out of Fukushima and expanded), none of them have any health qualifications and no one else has any qualifications relating at all to nuclear power in any way. There are instead a couple of musicians, an English major, a fireman, a couple of media specialists, a geologist and a forester. This is an activist campaign organisation, not a scientific organisation.
* Gundersen offers his services to anti-nuclear groups as an expert witness in court (which is how we know what his CV really says). You can earn some very good money doing this – I have seen figures of 300 dollars an hour.
* He has consistently made false statements about Fukushima. He claims there was a fuel-pool explosion. There wasn’t (satellite photos show there wasn’t). He claims the explosions were caused by a nuclear criticality; they weren’t, they were caused by a build up of hydrogen. I would recommend that you look at Jag Levak’s deconstruction of the Nagoya radiation claims on this page: they are scientifically illiterate. Nothing he says on the topic appears to be true. He claims that Fukushima “dwarfs” Chernobyl. It doesn’t – but it helps his income stream to say so.

If you see anyone citing Gundersen: just put them on ignore. What follows will very likely be wildly wrong. To repeat the point: if they’re right, then someone more reliable than Gundersen will also be saying it. The chances of that happening are pretty slim though. There are other names and sources that if you see being cited you can put the person on ignore safely: Chris Busby (I see Brian Donovan has linked to Busby’s work here. Google Busby Monbiot to find out about Busby), Helen Caldicott, Joseph Mangano, Harvey Wasserman.

Regarding the Toshihiro Tsuji claim about rice. I hadn’t heard this one before, and it doesn’t appear to be corroborated or published anywhere. I see he’s also made claims about caesium from Fukushima reaching Nagasaki in equal densities to those in the soil near the plant. This is physically insanely implausible (look at where Nagasaki is on a map), and contradicts all known oversighted radiation readings – and radiation detectors are in independent hands and the government ones are audited by an NGO. Again, not published or corroborated anywhere. He was also a joint author of a widely panned paper about butterflies in Fukushima that couldn’t even get its scientific units straight. (The lead author is a homeopath who had never done any radiation research before 2011, and the reference list was heavy with the work of two notorious researchers – one a convicted academic fraud, the other the agent for that Greenpeace sponsored book I mentioned above). So I’m going to call BS on that.

So I look at Toru Bove and I shrug my shoulders and think he’s a bit crazy. I don’t know how much he believes the literal truth of his claims. I’m not calling him a liar. As I am sure you are aware, the Internet is full of oddballs, and “crank magnetism” draws them together.

If you have any sources you are concerned about, share them here and I’m happy to look at them for you.