Reporting about the nuclear crises in Japan and around the world is notoriously ambiguous. Western media are downplaying the threat of radiation in what amounts to an Alice in Wonderland fable of disinformation straight out of the rabbit hole.
Worried about profits and the the destabilization of the YEN and NIKKEI Index, the media is doing damage control to help keep people from flooding out of Japan and further destabilizing the Japanese economy. Given the evidence, the history of disasters and epidemics of disease, reporting that downplays Japan’s radiation threat is criminal.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S.A., frightened investors are seeking protections and insurances from industry and government. Wall Street is worried. This is getting curiouser and curiouser.
For example, on 20 March 2011, CNN ran a video story Facts whisper, fears scream during crises, where their experts proclaim that fears of radiation are unfounded and misinformation abounds. CNN’s latest nuclear expert — Dan Polansky — calls this RADIOPHOBIA: an irrational fear of radiation with no basis in fact. Even for the Japanese nuclear workers who are closest to the Fukushima hot zone, says CNN reporter Stan Grant, “radiation might make people sick, but it won’t kill them.”
Meanwhile, CNN describes Dan Polansky as a “nuclear expert”, who “specializes in weapons of mass destruction and knows about radiation.” What they don’t tell us is that Polansky works for the Georgia (USA) Department of Community Health, he studied at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL), and is a recent graduate of Radiological Emergency Planning at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Pretty good credentials, no doubt. Must be telling the truth. [Quack.]
However, LLNL and INEL are two of the Department of Energy and Department of Defense top classified weapons laboratories, both also SUPERFUND sites of massive toxic nuclear waste. Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has produced some studies that show some incidence of disease around the Yankee Rowe plant (Rowe, MA, U.S.A.), which is now decommissioned, they have also helped to whitewash nuclear (and other) risks of modern day society.
This is very curious.
For example, the so-called Society of Environmental Journalists’ professional David Ropeik is a Risk Assessment Expert at HSPH — and is part of an industry front producing junk science and debunking truth everywhere in the corporate media.
The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA) was founded by John D. Graham and specializes in advocating forms of risk-assessment widely criticized by community groups and legitimate health professionals. The Center gained funds from both industry and government agencies, including nuclear interests like: General Electric, the Edison Electric Institute, Electric Power Research Institute, New England Electric System (at least five nukes on the New England power grid) and Westinghouse Electric. GE and Westinghouse are two of the U.S.A.’s biggest nuke companies, and EPRI is a pro-nuke think tank that has produced propaganda about nukes for more than four decades.
Work at national laboratories like INEL and LLNL requires high-level national security clearances: Daniel Polansky is another spook. [Quack, quack.]
Given that there is “so little threat from radiation” in Japan, it is very curious that NBC pulled their entire news team out of Japan. Curiously, it seems that CNN’s Anderson Cooper also pulled out of Japan — and who could blame him! — and is now reporting on Libya from somewhere else (Hong Kong?).
Curiouser, and curiouser.
On March 20, 2011, Japanese Officials confirmed radiation food poisoning. “Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said checks of milk from Fukushima prefecture, where the plant is located, and of spinach grown in Ibaraki, a neighbouring prefecture, surpassed limits set by the government… It was the government’s first report of food being contaminated by radiation since the March 11 quake and tsunami unleashed the nuclear crisis.”
Meanwhile, on March 19, 2011 financial media began reporting that U.S. investors seeing the nuclear industry in Japan crash, burn and melt are frightened of Financial Losses due to Boring Utility Debt.
“Investors are seeking protection from a public backlash against nuclear power producers as the threat from earthquake-damaged reactors in Japan stokes calls by U.S. lawmakers to limit plants in this nation,” reported Bloomberg News.
“Utility companies, typically considered a haven among credit investors because of their resilience in economic downturns, are being punished as Tokyo Electric Power Co. struggles to cool damaged reactors. Environmental groups want limits on U.S. nuclear plants, and Representative Edward Markey is seeking a moratorium on facilities in seismically active areas. Nuclear-power executives say the nation’s reactors can withstand such disasters.”
Behind the scenes, corporations and money markets managers and futures investors are swapping debt portfolios and jockeying to maximize profits and minimize losses..
While the people of Japan suffer the fate of massive radiation emissions — ‘leaks’ is another term invested by the industry and used by media to downplay the incredible but invisible quantities radiation dispersed — the utility companies are portrayed as the victims. Utility companies are “being punished” and “investors seeking protection” are now the victims.
Curiouser, and curiouser, and curiouser.
For a detailed look at disinformation and nuclear deceptions, please read keith harmon snow’s extensive and penetrating expose — NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE IN JAPAN from 18 March 2011.
