Fukushima – Science Media Centres and their part in corrupting truth..

Posted by nuclear-news.net

11 July 2013

By arclight2011part2

I would like to bring to your attention the mechanism by which science journalism is being undermined.. It may explain George Monbiot`s conversion to the nuclear industry among other things. This mechanism is the Science Media Centers of the world and the nuclear industry driven PR machine

There is growing evidence that the existence of SMCs is also encouraging news organizations to downgrade science reporters. Recently the newspaper The Australian sacked its science reporter, Leigh Dayton. The reason she was given by the editors was..

“they could rely on the supply of press releases from the Australian SMC so that their general reporters could write the science news”. [Ed: Leigh Dayton denies having said this and we are currently endeavouring to check with the author of the Columbia Journalism Review paper as to the veracity or otherwise of the above statement.]

A large empirical study carried out recently by Andy Williams of Cardiff University, UK also confirmed that..

Science PR was increasing and independent science journalism was decreasing.

Fiona Fox and Connie St. Louis http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/science_media_centers_the_pres.php?page=4

In the UK for some time the independent scientist has been squeezed out of the media and a more pro- industry message is being given to journalists/media outlets, who do not have such a good grip of the full impact of a nuclear disaster.

The UK security services such as MI5 and MI6 have been targeting effective independent scientists and researchers such as Chris Busby, Richard Bramhall and John Large because of their negative reporting on certain aspects of the nuclear industry. the most vicious of which was directed at Chris Busby during the UK nuclear test veterans case where he was replaced with Prof Paddy Regan at the last minute who promptly lost the rest of the cases for the veterans. Richard Bramhall had his email blocked and John Larges web site was hacked.This is just a quick sample of security services interference and a book could be wrote on this subject alone.

With this as a backdrop to the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster and the way that it was handled by the media and PR companies. The SMC model was used to get a grip of the information. NGO`s such as CRIIRAD and ACRO did mange some testing of the environment but their role was limited by agreement, by the Japanese government. This can be seen in the way that Greenpeace was warned away very publicly from testing the surrounding waters to the Daichi nuclear site.

Any other scientists such as Chris Busby were stopped from setting up a laboratory to monitor the contamination efficiently and indeed in the case of Chris Busby, a smear campaign was begun by media outlets around the world. Other Japanese independent scientists and health professionals (with experience of Chernobyl) were sidelined by the press and academic worlds.

The Japanese government stopped a genetic test (a simple blood sample) that could tell if the person had damage from ionising radiation. This test needs to be done within three years (earlier for more accurate results) but the Japanese government has blocked it to mitigate the costs to the Insurance and nuclear industries. The Japanese government released only this year that they could not use this test because there needs to be a moral issues debate (the problem of finding illegitamate children was given as a reason why the tests were not done). The only reason that the Japanese government released that statement was because a Scientist had told everyone about the test on an NHK news broadcast (without consulting with the Japanese SMC)

At Fukushima, no physical health effects of radiation have been observed among the general public and effects on workers have been far lower than those at Chernobyl. The INES was meant to aid public understanding of nuclear safety but has, in fact, made it more confused. The INES should be substantially modified or scrapped.

Dr Don Higson  http://smc-japan.org/eng/archives/1434

Dr Higson feels he can give advise on health effects though he was wrong on that point but continues to say that the INES should be scrapped even though there is comparable if not more health issue effects being reported even though the Japanese health system is tightly controlled by the government. This shows how the system can be corrupted with bad science and bad viewpoints with no stop checks along the way.. This statement is the last post on the Japanese SMC site with no retraction of the inaccuracies and ommissions..

In fact the combined use of SMC`s throughout the globe has hugely helped the nuclear industry out and got Tepco and others out of paying huge compensation to those effected worst by the disaster. To prove a point on the use of the Japanese SMC to mitigate this disaster and nothing else, we can see that the last entry into the Japanese SMC was in 09/03/2012 . With no mention of the dire results of the Thyroid  checks that had been carried out on 150,000 children out of approx 350,000 children who may have been hit by the initial plumes (This is denied in the world of the SMC stating not enough evidence)

A common theme is to concentrate on the psychological aspects of the disaster and make that the main concern. With some blatant lies of course…

On the Fukushima site today:

  The four damaged reactors are in a stable cold shutdown state, cooled by water circulated through a treatment plant. Site clean-up, including removal of radioactive rubble, continues. A mid and long-term roadmap for the decommissioning of units 1-4 was issued in December 2011. Phase 1 prepares for the removal of spent fuel from the cooling ponds to commence by 2013. Phase 2 prepares for the removal of fuel debris from the reactor core to commence within 10 years. The final phase completes the decommissioning of the reactors in 30-40 years.

  There are still over 100,000 people evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture. In the areas within the 20km evacuation zone with an annual radiation dose of <20mSv/year, it is expected that people will be allowed to return in March 2012. For higher radiation areas, remediation is required before restrictions are lifted by perhaps 2014.

Tony Irwin 2012  http://smc-japan.org/eng/archives/1441

Maybe one way for the SMCs to improve their service during such crises would be to ask the scientists offering comments to also make conflict of interest disclosures. It may, in fact, not be a bad idea to do that with all SMC activities.

Susannah Eliott, Peter Griffin, and Kate Kelland http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/science_media_centers_the_pres_1.php?page=4

I just wanted to introduce you to this side of the science “debate” and how the science is corrupted and biased without independent scientist to keep a check and balance. I was surprised to see the Australian SMC coming out in strength to ignore the plight of the children of Fukushima and save the nuclear industry from a well deserved collapse.

Here is an article i posted last year that might be relevent

https://nuclear-news.net/2013/01/02/us-atomic-tests-in-the-marshall-islands-connection-to-japan-and-usa-videos/

Not to mention the extreme decades long MOX contracts that were signed that will force the Japanese government to re start the reactors.. imo [Arclight2011part2]

July 11, 2013 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized