Attack of the Infographics!

Fukushima Goes Global

When Will Governments Act to Protect Us From Fukushima's Spreading Radiation?
By ROBERT ROTH

To a limited extent, you can protect yourself and others against cancer from radiation.(1) But such means offer limited protection at best, and meanwhile massive amounts of irreparable damage are being caused ongoingly by the Fukushima disaster. Here are the high points of the latest disclosures and findings:

First, there was a coverup, and that there were one or more meltdowns at the Fukishima site very early on, one of them even before the tsunami hit. Besides confirming the usual about reliability of official sources, a key conclusion to draw from that is that many reactors are even less safe than previously thought. Besides the four on the California Coast plus a number of smaller research reactors in their vicinity, all in line to be damaged by the earthquake and possible tsunami likely to happen sooner or later and possibly any time, there is at least one that was in danger of damage from the Mississippi flooding that just occurred last week.(2)

Second, it becomes clearer all the time that we don't have to wait for one of the reactors in the U.S. to blow to create serious danger and harm. Among nuclear experts not paid by the industry or employed by government sources essentially in league with the industry, one suggests that fuel rods were blown into the air and vaporized by early events at Fukushima, others may or have already melted down through their containment structures and are going who knows where, and massive amounts of radioactive water have been and continue to be released into the ocean. It also appears that far greater harm could yet be done by the Fukushima reactors, and neither TEPCO nor the Japanese Government are up to the task of preventing that. Harvey Wasserman, a longtime activist who edits the nukefree.org website, calls for an international effort to devise and implement a plan to contain the damage to the extent possible.(3)

Third, part of the reason it's so hard to tell exactly what's going on is that the Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) and the Japanese Government are being a lot more effective at controlling the flow of information than at containing the disaster at Fukushima. The Japanese Government has refused to let Greenpeace conduct testing inside its territorial waters. Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory [sic: Marketing and Promotional] Commission has stopped monitoring the situation. The U.S. EPA and the Canadian Government have shut down much of their monitoring. And no one in an official position is talking straight. So we have a combination of independent experts saying the situation is grave and worsening, and official sources refusing not only to disclose what they know but declining to find out the truth. So you get people like me trying to figure out and sum things up instead of the systematic disclosure and analysis we should be getting from official sources.(4)

Fourth, there is no such thing as a safe dose of radiation. So the figures about readings in excess of legal limits, while they are disturbing, are also misleading in that they imply there are levels below which radiation would not be harmful. I recently found an article that confirms what I had guessed at myself (although, to be clear, I am not a health professional or formally trained in biology or related sciences): The reason there is no safe dose is that cancer begins at the molecular level: "Several lines of evidence convince most cancer biologists that cancer starts its development from ONE genetically abnormal cell."(5)

The probability of developing cancer is quantitative, that is, the greater the number and volume of exposures to cancer-causing substances or radiation, the greater the probability that cancer will occur. Conversely, it would seem, the greater the number and volume of protective activities or substances we can accumulate, the lower the probability that the carcinogens we encounter will actually cause cancer to develop. But at the same time, the exposure of large populations to carcinogens is likely to cause a large number of cancers. The threat here is that seawater, seafood, soil, air, and rain can all carry radioactive materials, and apparently are doing so increasingly, with the continual release of radiation from Fukushima, and that these cancer-causing material are reaching the United States. So while the meltdown of a reactor located in the U.S. would cause a quantitatively greater exposure to residents here, we are already being exposed as a result of radiation released by Fukushima.

Although it may seem Quixotic to speak of protecting ourselves in the face of the planetary-level onslaught on our health and well being and indeed, on all life forms on the Earth, I return to the fact that the risk of cancer is quantitative, that we are exposed to numerous carcinogens on a daily basis, and it is possible to counteract to some extent their effect, through exercise, nutrition, and by other means. Both red wine (a glass a day) and dark chocolate (an ounce a day) are among the many protective substances available to us.(6)

However, there is a limit to how much red wine, dark chocolate, or even Justice, can heal. It seems clear that massive amounts of irreparable damage are being caused ongoingly by the Fukushima disaster. 

My purpose in sharing this information and analysis is to inform you of the threat to your own health and that of your children and grandchildren, born, unborn or maybe just hoped for, to give you the tools to do as much as can be done to protect yourself and those you love, and to attempt to motivate you and others to become vocal and otherwise active in advocating that the U.S. Government begin behaving responsibly, first, by monitoring and disclosing accurate information about the situation at Fukushima, the ongoing releases of radiation and where the various radioactive elements are traveling; by cutting off (rather than continuing, as President Obama has proposed) the billions of dollars in subsidies, including the limitations of liability, without which nuclear power could not continue to operate; and by seeing to the shutdown and responsible decommissioning of nuclear reactors in the U.S. and the development of replacement sources of power, including conservation, and excluding biomass incineration, as the governments of Japan and Germany are now beginning to do.

NOTES

(1) Colors of the Sun: Getting Some Protection from Ionizing Radiation (May 1, 2011), and Who'll Stop the Rain? Fukushima, Radiation, and What You Can and Can't Do To Protect Yourself and Others (March 31, 2011).

(2) Nuclear Information and Resource Servic:
UPDATE, 2:30 pm, Friday, May 20, 2011 ; Washington's Blog, "Fuel Rods Most Likely Melt[ed] COMPLETELY at Reactors 1, 2 AND 3 in the Early Hours of the Crisis, Raising the Danger of More Catastrophic Releases," May 19, 2011, ; Stephen Lendman, "Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown Confirmed," May 14, 2011.

(3) Harvey Wasserman, "A Nuclear Rapture? Fukushima's Apocalyptic Threat."

(4) Vivian Norris, "Deadly Silence on Fukushima," (Posted: 05/ 9/11 05:05 AM ET); and a good site for ongoing updates (along with NIRS, note 1 above).

(5) John W. Gofman and Egan O'Connor, The Causes of Cancer: Is There "Too Much Emphasis on Genes, and Not Enough on the Environment?" How to Avoid Some Mistakes, April 2001.

(6) Washington's Blog ; see also (1) above.

Spill payouts likely to prohibit lawsuits against BP and all implicated firms

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, August 20th, 2010

Recipients of money from BP's 20-billion-dollar oil spill compensation fund will likely be required to waive their right to sue any firm involved in the disaster along the US Gulf Coast, The New York Times reported Friday (link).

Citing internal documents from lawyers handling the fund, the daily said businesses and individuals who accepted compensation from the fund would waive their rights to sue not only the British energy giant, but any company implicated in the largest accidental spill in history.

The waiver would come into effect only if a final settlement is accepted.

The fund, set up by BP at the White House's urging, is being administered by Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw a similar fund to compensate victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Recipients of money from that fund faced a similar choice: sue, risking a lengthy battle and uncertain outcomes, or waive their right to litigation and accept settlements before the full impact of the disaster is known.

In the case of the spill fund, even though BP is the only firm paying into the compensation account, it is expected to seek a litigation exemption for at least three other firms linked to the disaster, the Times said.

They include Transocean, which leased its Deepwater Horizon rig above the ruptured well to BP; Halliburton, which cemented the well; and Cameron International, which supplied the blowout preventer, the device atop the wellhead that failed to shut the well down after the April 20 explosion that ripped through the rig, sparking the spill.

The Times also reported that compensation eligibility is expected to be based partly on geographic proximity to the spill, potentially cutting out individuals and businesses who suffered serious knock-on financial hardships.

Other potentially controversial provisions prohibit payments based exclusively on declining home values linked to the spill, and compensation based on mental health claims.

Feinberg is expected to release regulations for emergency payments Friday and the final settlement protocols in the fall, with the two terms expected to be similar except for a higher burden of proof in the case of final payments, the newspaper said.

Insurers Push Plans That Limit Choice of Doctor

(Seems like even under the new health care bill, things will be pretty much the same. Too many loopholes that let the health insurance corporations have it their way, anyway. A wasted opportunity.--jef)

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July 17, 2010 By REED ABELSON

As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals.

The plans, being tested in places like San Diego, New York and Chicago, are likely to appeal especially to small businesses that already provide insurance to their employees, but are concerned about the ever-spiraling cost of coverage.

But large employers, as well, are starting to show some interest, and insurers and consultants expect that, over time, businesses of all sizes will gravitate toward these plans in an effort to cut costs.

The tradeoff, they say, is that more Americans will be asked to pay higher prices for the privilege of choosing or keeping their own doctors if they are outside the new networks. That could come as a surprise to many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain a variety of health-care choices.

But companies may be able to reduce their premiums by as much as 15 percent, the insurers say, by offering the more limited plans.

“What we’re seeing is a definite uptick in interest because, quite frankly, affordability is the most pressing agenda item,” said Dr. Sam Ho, the chief medical officer for UnitedHealth’s health-care plans.

Many insurers also expect the plans to be popular with individuals and small businesses who will purchase coverage in the insurance exchanges, or marketplaces that are mandated under the new health care law and scheduled to take effect in 2014.

Tens of millions of everyday Americans will buy their coverage through those exchanges, a vast pool of new customers, including many of the previously uninsured, whom insurers expect will be willing to accept restrictions to get a better deal.

“What this does is eliminate the Gucci doctors,” said Peter Skoda, the controller of the Haro Bicycle Corporation, a Vista, Calif., business that employs 30 people. Facing a possible 35 percent increase in its rates, Haro switched to an Aetna plan that prevents employees from seeing doctors at two medical groups affiliated with the Scripps Health system in San Diego. If employees go to one of the excluded doctors, they are responsible for paying the whole bill.

“There wasn’t any pushback,” Mr. Skoda said. Haro’s employees are generally young and healthy, he said, and they rarely go to the doctor. Instead, they want to make sure they have adequate coverage if they go to the emergency room.

The company’s premiums average $433 a month, Mr. Skoda said, with employees paying one-fourth of the expense. A few employees opted for more traditional coverage, enabling them to go where they please. But they are paying significantly higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs that could add thousands of dollars to their medical bills.

The last time health insurers and employers sought to sharply limit patients’ choice was back in the early 1990s, when insurers tried to reinvent themselves by embracing managed care. Instead of just paying doctor and hospital bills, insurers also assumed a greater role in their customers’ medical care by restricting what specialists they could see or which hospitals they could go to.

“Back in the H.M.O. days, it was tight networks, and it did save money,” said Ken Goulet, an executive vice president at WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest private health insurers, which is experimenting with re-introducing the idea in California.

The concept was largely abandoned after the consumer backlash persuaded both employers and health plans that Americans were simply not willing to sacrifice choice. Prominent officials like Mr. Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton learned to utter the word “choice” at every turn as advocates of overhauling the system.

But choice — or at least choice that will not cost you — is likely to be increasingly scarce as health insurers and employers scramble to find ways of keep premiums from becoming unaffordable. Aetna, Cigna, the UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint are all trying out plans with limited networks.

The size of these networks is typically much smaller than traditional plans. In New York, for example, Aetna offers a narrow-network plan that has about half the doctors and two-thirds of the hospitals the insurer typically offers. People enrolled in this plan are covered only if they go to a doctor or hospital within the network, but insurers are also experimenting with plans that allow a patient to see someone outside the network but pay much more than they would in a traditional plan offering out-of-network benefits.

The insurers are betting these plans will have widespread appeal in the insurance exchanges as individuals gravitate toward the least expensive options. “We think it’s going to grow to be quite a hit over the next few years,” said Mr. Goulet of WellPoint.

The new health care law offers some protection against plans offering overly restrictive networks, said Nancy-Ann DeParle, head of the office of health reform for the White House. Any plan sold in the exchanges will have to meet standards developed to make sure patients have enough choice of doctors and hospitals, she said.

Ms. DeParle said the goal of health reform was to make sure people retained a choice of doctors and hospitals, but also to create an environment where insurers would offer coverage that was both high quality and affordable. “What the Congress and the president tried to accomplish through reform is to transform the marketplace by building on the existing system,” she said.

But most of these efforts have been limited to a small number of markets. How widespread these plans will become is anybody’s guess, and some benefits consultants wonder if these plans represent any real solution to high medical costs. The narrow network, if it is based on the insurers’ ability to demand low prices, may be “just another short-term fix,” warned Barry Schilmeister, a consultant at Mercer.

What’s more, no one is predicting a wholesale return of the classic H.M.O. as an employee’s only option of health plan. “We went through the choice battle with the managed care wars,” said Andrew Webber, the chief executive of the National Business Coalition on Health, which represents employer groups that purchase health care.

A lot has also changed in the last 15 years. The average premium for family coverage is now more than $13,000 a year, and many businesses have already asked their employees to pay a much greater share of their premiums and more of their overall medical bills.

UnitedHealth is experimenting with a more limited plan in California and Chicago and plans to expand to four or five other markets next year. Patients are allowed to see a doctor who is not in the network the insurer established, but they pay much higher out-of-pocket costs than they would in a traditional plan offering out-of-network benefits.

UnitedHealth is also starting a new plan in San Diego, which was developed for a collection of school districts, representing some 80,000 people. The plan creates tiers of doctors, and employees who use physicians deemed to offer high-quality care at low price will pay the least for their medical care.

Even large employers, worried that the new law will result in higher prices for care as government programs pay less, are reconsidering their earlier stance.

When Cigna informally asked some of its clients about their interest in these plans before the legislation passed, very few were receptive. But that has changed, said David Guilmette, a senior executive for the insurer.

One way insurers say they hope to prevent another consumer backlash is by emphasizing that they are not choosing doctors on price alone. The insurers say they look to see how quickly a doctor’s patients recover from surgery, for example. But how much the insurers emphasize quality remains to be seen.

But many insurers say they are still figuring out how to persuade people to choose these plans rather than force them to enroll. “What’s not changed are the old techniques of black-belt managed care,” said Mark T. Bertolini, Aetna’s president. “We have to create the same kind of model without the ‘Mother, may I.’ What we want is the ‘Mother, should I.’ ”