NH #162: US Military Radiation Report Refuted by USS Reagan's Simmons, Epidemiologist Mangano

 Abe Road?  

INTERVIEWS:

The United States military just issued a Congressionally-mandated report that says, in effect, that Fukushima’s radiation could not possibly be responsible for the catastrophic illnesses being experienced by the sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan, despite all appearances and common sense to the contrary.  So two genuine experts take on that report:

• US Navy (retired) Steve Simmons, a 17-year veteran of the service who was on the USS Reagan and three years later is confined to a wheelchair with a wide range of physical illnesses.  He takes on the lack of logic in the report, as well providing his deeply personal response.  (Steve  was originally interviewed on Nuclear Hotseat #159 http://ow.ly/yWnkf)
• Joseph Mangano, Executive Director of Radiation and Public Health Project, offers an epidemiological analysis of that report, pointing out flaws in its premises and its historic similarity to other occasions when the US government downplayed nuclear dangers.

NUMNUTZ OF THE WEEK:
If the officers in charge of arming and firing US nuclear missiles can’t pass their tests, the Air Force has the answer: change the way they’re graded!  Self esteem and anti-bullying classes next on the schedule…

PLUS:

• Ma Nature‘s getting really pissed as monkeys in Japan show low blood counts and cesium in their muscle tissue, caribou herds in Alaska hit record lows, and starfish keep dying and sliming up the beaches of North America’s west coast.
• Fukushima’s ice wall is less of a popsicle, at best like a Slushie, and ain’t gonna stop no water no how.  Didn’t anyone ever explain to the Japanese that salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water?  No wonder all that ice they dumped in just melted…

• Genuine expert invited to the Japanese Ministry of Environment’s Expert Meeting Discussing Health Support After the Fukushima Nuclear Accident tries to discuss providing health support to local residents… and is not allowed to talk by the meeting Chair, who is also the man who invited him.