USA West Coast Tuna, Salmon and Herring contaminated by radiation?
The bottom line – as nuclear experts said 4 days after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami – is that we all need to demand that fish be tested for radiation.
Is Fukushima Radiation Contaminating Tuna, Salmon and Herring On the West Coast of North America?
By Washington’s Blog Global Research, August 26, 2013 Demand that Fish Be Tested for Radiation
We’ve extensively documented that radioactivity from Fukushima is spreading to North America.
More than a year ago, 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna tested in California waters were contaminated with radioactive cesium from Fukushima.
Bluefin tuna are a wide-ranging fish, which can swim back and forth between Japan and North America in a year. But what about other types of fish?
Sockeye salmon also have a range spanning all of the way from Japan to Alaska, Canada, Washington and Oregon: Associated Press reports that both scientists and native elders in British Columbia say that sockeye numbers have plummeted:…….
Another example – pacific herring – is even more dramatic. Pacific herring is wide-ranging fish, spanning all the way from Japan to Southern California:
Every single pacific herring examined by a biologist in Canada was found to be hemorrhaging blood. As Ene News reports:
See also: Alexandra Morton via Vancouver 24 hrs, Vancouver 24 hrs, Alexandra Morton)
The Globe and Mail, Aug 13, 2013 (Emphasis Added):
Independent fisheries scientist Alexandra Morton is raising concerns about a disease she says is spreading through Pacific herring causing fish to hemorrhage. […] “Two days ago I did a beach seine on Malcolm Island [near Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island] and I got approximately 100 of these little herring and they were not only bleeding from their fins, but their bellies, their chins, their eyeballs. […] “It was 100 per cent … I couldn’t find any that weren’t bleeding to some degree. And they were schooling with young sockeye [salmon]”
Sun News, Aug 12, 2013: Continue reading
Bananas and radiation – the nuclear lobby’s favourite lie
When you eat a banana, your body’s level of Potassium-40 doesn’t increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.
Bananas aren’t really going to give anyone “a more realistic assessment of actual risk”, they’re just going to further distort the picture.
Fukushima: Think Low Level Radiation Is Harmless? Think Again… UKIAH BLOG In Around the web on August 25, 2013Time to combat radiation threat From WASHINGTON’S BLOG
”…………Nuclear apologists pretend that people are exposed to more radiation from bananas than from Fukushima.
But unlike low-levels of radioactive potassium found in bananas – which our bodies have adapted to over many years – cesium-137 and iodine 131 are brand new, extremely dangerous substances.
The EPA explains:
The human body is born with potassium-40 [the type of radiation found in bananas] in its tissues and it is the most common radionuclide in human tissues and in food. We evolved in the presence of potassium-40 and our bodies have well-developed repair mechanisms to respond to its effects. The concentration of potassium-40 in the human body is constant and not affected by concentrations in the environment.
Wikipedia notes:
The amount of potassium (and therefore of 40K) in the human body is fairly constant because of homeostatsis, so that any excess absorbed from food is quickly compensated by the elimination of an equal amount.
It follows that the additional radiation exposure due to eating a banana lasts only for a few hours after ingestion, namely the time it takes for the normal potassium contents of the body to be restored by the kidneys. Continue reading
Even Miniscule Amounts of Radiation Can Be Dangerous
Fukushima: Think Low Level Radiation Is Harmless? Think Again… UKIAH BLOG In Around the web on August 25, 2013Time to combat radiation threat From WASHINGTON’S BLOG Cutting through the Misinformation
In response to the news that mass quantities of highly-radioactive water are flowing from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean – and that the radioactivity is spreading to North America – the usual suspects are saying that that low-level radiation won’t hurt anyone.
Indeed, some advocate intentionally dumping all of Fukushima’s radiation into the sea as a “safe” solution.
(And some folks are pretending that a little radiation is good for you.)
The truth is quite different.
Even Miniscule Amounts of Radiation Can Be Dangerous
A major 2012 scientific study proves that low-level radiation can cause huge health problems. Science Daily reports:
Even the very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life, scientists have concluded in the Cambridge Philosophical Society’s journal Biological Reviews. Reporting the results of a wide-ranging analysis of 46 peer-reviewed studies published over the past 40 years, researchers from the University of South Carolina and the University of Paris-Sud found that variation in low-level, natural background radiation was found to have small, but highly statistically significant, negative effects on DNA as well as several measures of health.
The review is a meta-analysis of studies of locations around the globe …. “Pooling across multiple studies, in multiple areas, and in a rigorous statistical manner provides a tool to really get at these questions about low-level radiation.”
Mousseau and co-author Anders Møller of the University of Paris-Sud combed the scientific literature, examining more than 5,000 papers involving natural background radiation that were narrowed to 46 for quantitative comparison. The selected studies all examined both a control group and a more highly irradiated population and quantified the size of the radiation levels for each. Each paper also reported test statistics that allowed direct comparison between the studies.
The organisms studied included plants and animals, but had a large preponderance of human subjects. Each study examined one or more possible effects of radiation, such as DNA damage measured in the lab, prevalence of a disease such as Down’s Syndrome, or the sex ratio produced in offspring. For each effect, a statistical algorithm was used to generate a single value, the effect size, which could be compared across all the studies.
The scientists reported significant negative effects in a range of categories, including immunology, physiology, mutation and disease occurrence. The frequency of negative effects was beyond that of random chance…….
So-called “background radiation” – most of it created by the nuclear industry
Fukushima: Think Low Level Radiation Is Harmless? Think Again… UKIAH BLOG In Around the web on August 25, 2013Time to combat radiation threat From WASHINGTON’S BLOG
“……..Most “Background Radiation” Didn’t Exist Before Nuclear Weapons Testing and Nuclear Reactors Nuclear apologists pretend that we get a higher exposure from background radiation (when we fly, for example) or x-rays then we get from nuclear accidents.
In fact, there was exactly zero background radioactive cesium or iodine before above-ground nuclear testing and nuclear accidents started.
Wikipedia provides some details on the distribution of cesium-137 due to human activities:
Small amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Chernobyl disaster.
Caesium-137 is unique in that it is totally anthropogenic. Unlike most other radioisotopes, caesium-137 is not produced from its non-radioactive isotope, but from uranium. It did not occur in nature before nuclear weapons testing began. By observing the characteristic gamma rays emitted by this isotope, it is possible to determine whether the contents of a given sealed container were made before or after the advent of atomic bomb explosions. This procedure has been used by researchers to check the authenticity of certain rare wines, most notably the purported “Jefferson bottles”.
As the EPA notes:
Cesium-133 is the only naturally occurring isotope and is non-radioactive; all other isotopes, including cesium-137, are produced by human activity. Continue reading
Radiation emitters Mixing Apples (External) and Oranges (Internal)
Fukushima: Think Low Level Radiation Is Harmless? Think Again… UKIAH BLOG In Around the web on August 25, 2013Time to combat radiation threat From WASHINGTON’S BLOG “…..Moreover, radioactive particles which end up inside of our lungs or gastrointestinal track, as opposed to radiation which comes to us from outside of our skin are much more dangerous than general exposures to radiation.
The National Research Council’s Committee to Assess the Scientific Information for the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program explains:
Radioactivity generates radiation by emitting particles. Radioactive materials outside the the body are called external emitters, and radioactive materials located within the body are called internal emitters.
Internal emitters are much more dangerous than external emitters. Specifically, one is only exposed to radiation as long as he or she is near the external emitter.
For example, when you get an x-ray, an external emitter is turned on for an instant, and then switched back off.
But internal emitters steadily and continuously emit radiation for as long as the particle remains radioactive, or until the person dies – whichever occurs first. As such, they are much more dangerous.
As the head of a Tokyo-area medical clinic – Dr. Junro Fuse, Internist and head of Kosugi Medical Clinic – said:
Risk from internal exposure is 200-600 times greater than risk from external exposure.
See this, this, this and this.
By way of analogy, external emitters are like dodgeballs being thrown at you. If you get hit, it might hurt. But it’s unlikely you’ll get hit again in the same spot.
Internal emitters – on the other hand – are like a black belt martial artist moving in really close and hammering you again and again and again in the exact same spot. That can do realdamage.
There are few natural high-dose internal emitters. Bananas, brazil nuts and some other foods contain radioactive potassium-40, but in extremely low doses. And – as explained above – our bodies have adapted to handle this type of radiation.
True, some parts of the country are at higher risk of exposure to naturally-occurring radium than others.
But the cesium which was scattered all over the place by above-ground nuclear tests and the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents has a much longer half life, and can easily contaminate food and water supplies. As the New York Times notes:
Over the long term, the big threat to human health is cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years.
At that rate of disintegration, John Emsley wrote in “Nature’s Building Blocks” (Oxford, 2001), “it takes over 200 years to reduce it to 1 percent of its former level.”
It is cesium-137 that still contaminates much of the land in Ukraine around the Chernobyl reactor.
***
Cesium-137 mixes easily with water and is chemically similar to potassium. It thus mimics how potassium gets metabolized in the body and can enter through many foods, including milk.
As the EPA notes in a discussion entitled ” What can I do to protect myself and my family from cesium-137?”:
Cesium-137 that is dispersed in the environment, like that from atmospheric testing, is impossible to avoid.
Radioactive iodine can also become a potent internal emitter. As the Times notes:
Iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days and is quite dangerous to human health. If absorbed through contaminated food, especially milk and milk products, it will accumulate in the thyroid and cause cancer.
(In addition to spewing massive amounts of radioactive iodine 131, Fukushima also pumped out huge amounts of radioactive iodine 129 – which has a half-life of 15.7 million years. Fukushima has also dumped up to 900 trillion becquerels of radioactive strontium-90 – which is a powerful internal emitter which mimics calcium and collects in our bones – into the ocean.).
The bottom line is that there is some naturally-occurring background radiation, which can – at times – pose a health hazard (especially in parts of the country with high levels of radioactive radon or radium).
But cesium-137 and radioactive iodine – the two main radioactive substances being spewed by the leaking Japanese nuclear plants – are not naturally-occurring substances, and can become powerful internal emitters which can cause tremendous damage to the health of people who are unfortunate enough to breathe in even a particle of the substances, or ingest them in food or water.
Unlike low-levels of radioactive potassium found in bananas – which our bodies have adapted to over many years – cesium-137 and iodine 131 are brand new, extremely dangerous substances.
And unlike naturally-occurring internal emitters like radon and radium – whose distribution is largely concentrated in certain areas of the country – radioactive cesium and iodine, as well as strontium and other dangerous radionuclides, are being distributed globally through weapons testing and nuclear accidents.
US doctors owning radiation facilities: conflict of interest
Gov’t report: Doctors with financial interests order more radiation Doctors who invest in radiation treatments and centers are more likely to prescribe it to their prostate cancer patients, a government report finds. CBS NEWS/ MICHELLE CASTILLO / August 19, 2013,
The U.S. Government Accountability Office said that most Medicare patients with prostate cancer who went to doctors with a vested interest were not made privy to the fact that there were alternative options to radiation therapy. Many of these other treatments were less expensive and may have been just as effective.
“We are extremely concerned that many older male patients are receiving such vigorous, possibly unnecessary treatment by urology groups,” Dr. Michael L. Steinberg, the chairman of the American Society for Radiation Oncology, said in astatement. “Clearly, these self-referring urology groups are steering patients to the most lucrative treatment they offer, depriving them of their full range of treatment choices, including potentially no treatment at all.”
Doctors who had a monetary stake in radiation treatment included those who invested in a treatment center or doctors who owned radiation therapy equipment that they shared with others in a medical group.
Between 2006 and 2010 the number of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) procedures billed by self-referring medical organizations rose from 80,000 to 366,000 — an increase of 456 percent. IMRT involves using radiation beams to reshape a tumor in order to avoid touching healthy areas and to limit side effects, the Mayo Clinic explained. In contrast, the number of IMRT procedures billed by non-self-referring medical professionals went down 5 percent in the same time period.
IMRT spending by doctors who referred patients to their own centers or used their own equipment went up $138 million, compared to non-self-referral groups which just increased their spending by $91 million.
Urologists who were financially involved in radiation treatments advised 38 percent of their patients in 2007 to undergo the treatments. By 2008 to 2009, that number was as high as 54 percent.
In 2009, doctors with a vested interest were more 53 percent more likely to refer their patients to undergo radiation compared to other procedures like radical prostatectomy (removal of the prostate) or brachytherapy (radiotherapy where radiation is placed inside or next to the treatment area). Brachytherapy typically causes fewer side effects and has shorter overall treatment time compared to IMRT because it allows doctors to deliver more specific, higher doses of radiation to affected areas, the Mayo Clinic pointed out…….
“Unfortunately, when you look at the numbers in this report, you start to wonder where health care stops and where profiteering begins,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., in a statement. “Enough is enough. Congress needs to close this loophole and fix the problem.”……http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57599131/govt-report-doctors-with-financial-interests-order-more-radiation/
Dental X rays a serious public health cancer risk
Radiation safety of dental X-rays questioned Straight.com, by ALEX ROSLIN on AUG 14, 2013“………..In a study in the journal Cancer last year, 1,433 people with meningioma were found to be two times more likely to have had a “bitewing” dental X-ray as those without the illness. Those who reported having a panorex scanning dental X-ray (which gives a two-dimensional panoramic view of the mouth) before age 10 were 4.9 times more likely to have meningioma.
Meningioma is the most common form of primary brain tumour (tumours that start in the brain). Women get it more than twice as often as men.
Other studies have linked dental X-rays to thyroid cancer, breast cancer (in women who hadn’t worn a shielded apron), saliva-gland tumours, and glioma (a cancerous type of brain and spinal tumour).
Pregnant women who got a dental X-ray were three times more likely to deliver a low-birth-weight baby (weighing less than 2.5 kilograms), according to a 2004 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dental X-rays are the most common way Americans are exposed to human-made radiation, the 2012 Cancer study said. Continue reading
Regular radioactive releases into water, air are “normal” says nuclear industry
Radiological releases are an inevitable part of the nuclear power industry
“Dilution is not the solution to radioactive pollution,” “It rather guarantees a chronic exposure over years and decades to tritium, a known cause of cancer, birth defects and genetic damage, to all those who drink Lake Michigan water.”
Release of nuclear plant ‘effluents’ into lake described as part of normal cycle Opinions differ on safety of practice Harbor Country News By Andrew Lersten July 17, 2013 COVERT — The May 5 release of about 80 gallons of slightly radioactive water from the Palisades nuclear power plant into Lake Michigan was unusual because it wasn’t planned.
But the incident brought into focus what many Southwest Michigan residents likely didn’t realize: The region’s two nuclear power plants (Palisades and the Donald C. Cook Plant in Lake Township) routinely discharge radioactive material into the air and into Lake Michigan.
In the nuclear industry, it’s called effluents. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows such releases, as long as they are closely monitored and do not exceed federal radiation release standards set in place by the NRC.
“Plants need to discharge small amounts of radioactive materials to operate,” said Jack Geissner, branch chief for the regional NRC office. Continue reading
How the IAEA negates true medical research on nuclear radiation
The IAEA wants the people make believe, that the main effect of the atomic catastrophe is psychological.
The Nuclear Cancer inside of the United Nations, blog by Jan Hemmer, June 1, 2013 by Mikkai 妊娠中の日本人女性の避難す
22nd July 1946 – Creation of World Health Organiation (WHO)
10th December 1948 – The UN adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
July 1957 – Creation of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
28th May 1959 – Signing of the Agreement WHA 12-40 between WHO and IAEA.
The UN is divided into 7 organisations, of which two are of interest to us, the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council. The “Economic and Social Council” oversees ALL the United Nations agencies with the exception of the “IAEA”. In fact, the IAEA is the only agency that reports directly to the “Security Council” which is made up of representatives of 15 countries, of which 5 are permanent members of the Council : the United States, the Untied Kingdom, the Russian Federation, China and France. These 5 nations are all nuclear powers, both civil and military, and almost all are exporters of nuclear technology.
The 10 remaining members (or countries) have a mandate which lasts for 2 years.
The influence of these 5 permanent members of the Security Council on policy making within the IAEA is enormous and ongoing. With no counterbalancing power, it is almost impossible to claim that the IAEA has an objective view of the nuclear industry and the consequences of its use.
On 28th May 1959, the IAEA (not yet two years old !) and WHO signed an agreement referred to as “WHA 12-40” which, though it might, on paper, appear balanced and reciprocal, in practice, puts WHO in a subordinate position to the IAEA.
The IAEA wants the people make believe, that the main effect of the atomic catastrophe is psychological. This is made in these steps: Continue reading
Radiation sickness: what it is.
With a large enough dose of radiation, for instance, bone marrow will break down almost completely causing major problems with anemia and maintenance of the blood.
this problem is distinct from cancer as caused by radiation.
Geek Answers: What is radiation sickness and why does it happen? GEEK By Graham Templeton Aug. 15, 2013 Acute Radiation Syndrome, more commonly known as radiation sickness, is one of the scarier threats out there, since it’s born of a force we can neither see nor readily detect and its symptoms can be varied and hard to identify. It can range in severity from an upset stomach to a long, painful death, and it often attacks people literally from the inside out. It seems like an almost spooky threat, but there is some very simple science radiation sickness. Essentially, it comes down to the type of radiation that can alter the electrical structure of atoms in the body.
We call such radiation “ionizing radiation” because it carries enough kinetic energy to knock an electron off of an atom it hits, giving that atom a non-standard number of electrons, turning it into an ion. It generally takes quite a bit of energy to achieve this, and ionizing radiation is almost exclusively the result of large and violent events (both manmade and cosmic). A nuclear reactor produces ionizing radiation that must be filtered out with shielding around the core which can — in the event of a disaster — contaminate whole communities, like Chernobyl. Continue reading
Chernobyl’s trees show radiation damage
Chernobyl’s legacy recorded in trees By Mark Kinver Environment reporter, BBC News Exposure to radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl accident had a lasting negative legacy on the area’s trees, a study has suggested.
Researchers said the worst effects were recorded in the “first few years” but surviving trees were left vulnerable to environmental stress, such as drought.
They added that young trees appeared to be particularly affected.
Writing in the journal Trees, the team said it was the first study to look at the impact at a landscape scale.
“Our field results were consistent with previous findings that were based on much smaller sample sizes,” explained co-author Tim Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US.
“They are also consistent with the many reports of genetic impacts to these trees,” he told BBC News.
“Many of the trees show highly abnormal growth forms reflecting the effects of mutations and cell death resulting from radiation exposure.”…… Prof Mousseau and his team hope to follow up this study by carrying out similar work in the Fukushima region in Japan, where logging also had considerable economic importance and pine trees were widely dispersed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23619870
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty aimed to protect world from radiation
The Legacy of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, counterpunch by JOSEPH J. MANGANO and JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD, 5 Aug 13, “…….The treaty is often referred to as a peace treaty, a step against nuclear war. While it was a goodwill gesture between hostile nations, it did nothing to prevent a war, since both sides continued to furiously test weapons underground and add to its already-large stockpiles. Only in the 1970s did non-proliferation treaties begin the process of cutting nuclear arsenals.
The 1963 test ban treaty was actually an environmental and public health action to reduce threats of deadly radiation, especially to the more susceptible infants and children. In a speech urging passage of the treaty, Kennedy – whose prematurely born son died that summer after living only 39 hours – made the case to prevent suffering among the youngest members of society:
“The number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard, and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby, who may be born long after we are gone, should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent.” Officials who had downplayed the idea that fallout was causing cancer and other diseases now told the truth. In October 1964, at a campaign stop in New Mexico, President Lyndon B. Johnson triumphantly told a cheering crowd:
“We cannot and will not abandon the test ban treaty to which I just referred, which is the world’s insurance policy against polluting the air we breathe and the milk we give our children.
Already that policy has paid off more than you will ever know, and since this agreement was signed and the tests stopped, the dread strontium-89 and iodine-131 have disappeared from the environment. The amount of strontium-90 and cesium-137 has already been, in a year, cut in half. This is technical language, but what it means is that we can breathe safely again.”
Johnson was correct. U.S. infant mortality had only dropped 13% in the 14-year period from 1951 to 1965, during bomb testing (the fallout peak was 1964). The next 14 years showed a decline of about 50% – the same 50% drop during the prior 14 year period. The years 1951-1965 had the poorest improvement in infant mortality during the 20th century. Cancer cases in children under age five in Connecticut, the only state with a cancer registry, plunged from 58 to 30 from 1963 to 1968. Years later, a 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that up to 212,000 Americans developed thyroid cancer from radioactive iodine in bomb fallout. ….. http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/05/the-legacy-of-the-comprehensive-test-ban-treaty/
Fukushima’s radioactive leak now reaches emergency stage
Contaminated water could rise to the ground’s surface within three weeks, national newspaper Asahi Shimbun said on Saturday. Mr. Kinjo said the three-week timeline was not based on NRA’s calculations but acknowledged that if the water reaches the surface, “it would flow extremely fast.”
A Tepco official said on Monday the company plans to start pumping out a further 100 tonnes of groundwater a day around the end of the week.
Radioactive leak from crippled Japanese nuclear plant creating ‘emergency’ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/radioactive-leak-from-crippled-japanese-nuclear-plant-creating-emergency/article13602630/ ANTONI SLODKOWSKI AND MARI SAITO TOKYO — Reuters Monday, Aug. 05 2013 Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an “emergency” that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country’s nuclear watchdog said on Monday.
This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters.
Countermeasures planned by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the utility that runs Fukushima, are only a temporary solution, he said.
Tepco’s “sense of crisis is weak,” Mr. Kinjo said. “This is why you can’t just leave it up to Tepco alone” to grapple with the ongoing disaster.
“Right now, we have an emergency,” Continue reading
Bahrain to set up nuclear radiation monitoring centre
CENTRE TO MONITOR NUCLEAR RADIATION http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=358742By Ahmed Al Omari , Tuesday, August 06, 2013
MANAMA: Bahrain may soon set up a nuclear radiation monitoring centre.
This comes amidst growing concerns over threats of a fallout from Iran’s disputed nuclear power plant at Bushehr, just 300km away from Bahrain, across the Gulf.
The GCC last month raised concerns about radiation leaks from the facility after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Iran in April earlier this year, killing more than 60 people.
Supreme Council for Environment (SCE) director-general Dr Adel Al Zayani believes a National Centre for Radiation could be approved within a week – the National Disaster Committee is currently studying a SCE proposal in this regard.
He said the nuclear threat has become larger with neighbouring countries moving toward using atomic facilities for energy production.
Saudi Arabia has announced plans to set up 16 nuclear reactors within the next 20 years and two are already being built in the UAE.
Dr Al Zayani said the proposed centre is designed to become a resource for the field of radiation and to prevent local disasters if they occur regionally.
“The centre will give Bahrain a more dedicated and faster radiation warning and reporting system.”
The centre will also give training to Bahrainis in subjects such as nuclear physics..
Discovery of medical records of world’s first nuclear bomb radiation victim
“The records are invaluable as those reporting in detail on changes in her health condition after she was exposed to a fatal level of radiation.”
Medical records of world’s first radiation victim from A-bomb recovered Asahi Shimbun, By YURI OIWA/ Staff Writer, 4 August 13,
Long-lost medical records detailing the sharply deteriorating health of the world’s first recognized radiation sickness patient have been
recovered 68 years after the victim died within weeks of being exposed to the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
The patient, Midori Naka, a stage actress, died 18 days after she was injured in the nuclear blast on Aug. 6, 1945. She was staying in Hiroshima as part of a traveling theater troupe. After returning to Tokyo a few days later, Naka died while undergoing treatment, which included blood transfusions, at the University of Tokyo Hospital. She was 36.
The discovery came after decades of efforts by researchers to locate her missing records.The hospital kept updates of her condition leading up to her death and the results of her autopsy. But other vital records have been missing until their recent recovery.
Kazuhiko Maekawa, professor emeritus with the University of Tokyo who is expert in treating patients suffering from radiation exposure, hailed the discovery of Naka’s medical records. Continue reading
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