57 Comments

  1. Thanks for posting this. I’ve been following the news about this lawsuit for several months now. I am very sympathetic toward anyone with the kind of symptoms being reported, but some symptoms reported in the less responsible media don’t seem to match those associated with radiation exposure.

  2. Thanks for the update on this widely-misrepresented story.

    People seem to have have turned against punctuation recently, However, I would still say that the adjective you are looking for in the headline is “ambulance-chasing”, including the hyphen, otherwise it is unclear whether we are describing a lawyer or describing an ambulance.

  3. Why was not a health physicist, oncologist or other medical professional interviewed for this segment? A nuclear ship with nuclear trained sailors, air particulate monitors has plenty of capability to determine dose levels. The lawyers make me ill….

    1. Exactly Sir! And why is not shipboard data presented anywhere. Models make me disgusted when a simple $500 geiger data would show so much, and a proper air filter date, even if saved to analyze at a more advanced facility could have been so valuable.

  4. Actually I took the missing hyphen headline as a separate unrelated story. The ambulance driver was just hoping… and hoping… and hoping.

    Rod, you make a good point about “Democracy Now.” What it has done to me is make me wonder if the show has bias on things I thought they did a good job reporting. Maybe someone needs to tell Amy there are a lot of well qualified, smart people who disagree with the show’s position on nukes. And that shakes our confidence in the show. You never know, they might give you, and others, a forum to state a different opinion. That show has a big audience so it might be a productive session.

  5. Form the beginning, the FIRST thing those involved in this case should have been discussing was the results of full body scans/organ scans/Micronucleus tests/etc. Especially as a select few of the symptoms described could possibly be consistent – and can only be associated with acute radiation poisoning if anything commonly connective at all. (most are just seemingly random symptoms/complaints).

    I HAVE NOT SEEN THE RESULTS OF A SINGLE ONE.

    Feel free to correct me here, and as always I will surely back down to a well made argument and even usually admit how and why I was mistaken, but as is, this looks like a total scam bordering on criminal extortion exploiting people with existing illnesses, phenomenal ignorance on radiation issues and even general horrific stupidity on the part of the media.

  6. I checked through the linked documents, and I was dissappointed to not see any real data from any of the ships, some of these are nuclear powered so they definitely have a whole gamut of readings and data logs. Even just one report of real data would make me feel a lot better about this.

    Was it a scam about the news reports that some countries wouldn’t let our ships dock because they were too radioactive?

    1. So a conspiracy with no proven outcome or evidence. Were you not the one arguing long biological half lives and accumulation of some isotopes ? Hmmm.

      Anyway:

      ” All told, environmental and radiological monitoring data were collected by all four DOD military services (Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy), specialized U.S. DOD and DOE teams, and as well as the Tokyo Electric and Power Company (TEPCO) and Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). This data was then used in calculating doses for those areas on the Japanese mainland where the majority of the DoD population was located from March 12, 2011 to May 11, 2011. ”

      So did you try the curiously labeled:

      Operation Tomodachi Registry: Radiation Data Compendium – Data ( https://registry.csd.disa.mil/registryWeb/Registry/OperationTomodachi/DisplayReferences.do )

      Which is pages and pages and pages of raw readings. Or would you demand access to all military files before offering up another vague conspiracy.

      1. Please point specifically to any that exist that show boat based radiation readings in air.

        ALL of it is for land bases

        What does exist at your shotgun link is some air, water, and soil at selected US bases as selected times. The idea is that for the most part air moves east, as well as the main plume.

        ——————-
        Indeed, Sr has bio half life of 333 years, Uranium and Plutonium similar

        John, are you up to this?

  7. For the USNS Bridge, they stated the Whole Body Dose of .005 rem
    Assuming on deck and working 24/7 for 60 days

    Wow, that must be some special ships they have, I mean if you accept 2mSv as “background” some say it is 6mSv, that would equal .2 rem for a year

    or about .033 rem for 60 days….but somehow they got it down to .005, those special navy ships can reduce background by 85%, I think I will go enlist tomorrow!

    1. Oh like the wipp background conspiracy thing? Yea,

      And again you assume they included background in that dose when they do not state they did.

      I think the problem is your (lack of) comprehension and not the data.

      1. They are showing in a graph they give to the enlisted men in terms of their total exposure compared to other total backgrounds.

        And they compare 60 days to a full year.

        the issue is not my comprehension, and you really should stop being insulting to anyone who holds an opposing view.

        I respect Rod, and really, I respect Conca because they both can stand their ground with a good argumentive rhetoric. You use pot shots. I have some information from Dr. Hardy that I will present shortly.

        1. Maybe you should enlist tomorrow. A large body of water is a very good protection against telluric radiation. And also it tends to emit no radon. They are left with cosmic radiation, but sea level is where it will be lowest and a lot of the navy activities happen at sea level.

          IIRC Rod already referred to the fact that the inside of a nuclear submarine is one the place on earth where you will receive the least radiation (amongst the crew members who are not in charge of attending the nuclear reactor, so don’t need to go to the area nearest from it).

          1. @jmdesp

            IIRC Rod already referred to the fact that the inside of a nuclear submarine is one the place on earth where you will receive the least radiation (amongst the crew members who are not in charge of attending the nuclear reactor, so don’t need to go to the area nearest from it).

            Even the submariners in charge of taking care of the reactor get a bit less radiation dose than average background in the US.

            I spent roughly 2 years underwater plus another 300 days in maintenance periods. During all of that time, I wore a dosimeter. My total exposure during that period was about 360 mrem. About half of that total came from my reactor compartment inspection tours — while shut down, of course.

          2. Just to add another anecdote to Rod’s comment.

            I too served on US submarines, in my case as an Engineering Laboratory Technician.

            The night before a 3 month deployment one of the nuclear machinist mates had a medical issue and missed the deployment. Because he had been expected to make the deployment he had a TLD. He left his TLD on the desk in his home while the ship was at sea.

            When we returned he turned in the TLD. Since he wasn’t onboard the TLD did not have to be read as it wasn’t occupational dose. But just for fun we read it anyways.

            His TLD sitting on the desk in his house recorded a larger dose than any of the TLDs from crewmembers who had made the deployment. The dose was still well below any level of concern but I don’t remember the actual numbers.

      2. Hmmm, now WIPP fessing up to large leakage prior to the HEPA, AND additional release that was twice the size of the original release.

        Why don’t you ask them to clarify? And ask them to stop comapring 60 days to a year. And ask them for actual radiation data, not models and projections, of course it exists

  8. I also did not appreciate that on the last page of the typical ship report that they plotted the 60 day estimates against annual estimates. Kind of unneccesary and a bit misleading to the common crewmembers.

  9. >> I’m disappointed that a news source which questions almost everything else has such a blind spot when it comes to the assertion that any radiation can cause harm <<<

    It's not Dem Now's "blind spot". It's their green liberal calling to obliterate nuclear at all costs by all means. Period.

  10. It’s great to see that the Navy is using sieverts for dose. It’s a pain when Americans use different units to the rest of the world, so it’s good to see that some areas are up to international standards. Rod, would you be able to give any details about the units used in the Navy and when they switched from rem to sieverts?

    1. I confess. The Navy posed its dose estimates in mrem. I converted them.

      In my opinion, there’s no good reason to adhere to unique measuring system for radiation dose. All it does is increase confusion.

    2. Did you know that an American president did an Executive Order which made the metric system the official system of the USA. It was not Obama

      It was President

      ……………………..

      Lincoln

        1. It couldn’t say much at that time. CIPM adopted Becquerel as a replacement for Curie in 1975 http://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/15/8/
          Likewise the ICRP defined the Sievert as a replacement for Rem in 1977, and it was officially adopted by CIPM in 1980.

          This means that the change occurred at the same time for every country on earth, soon 40 years ago, but there’s basically one place where most official government report and a part of peer-review published science still resist it. About peer-review published science, many scientists have used the cheat of referring to centiGray (cGy) which at least is less confusing.

  11. Thirty years ago, a local news media managing editor told me that the Press will “bend over backwards” to keep the nuclear energy issue alive. It’s still the case. IMHO, nuclear energy issues are no. 2 on the “protection” list, superseded only by war. Please recall, Fukushima was the top news story in America until we started bombing Libya in March, 2011, and then the Fukushima fetish ceased. As long as there is a numerically-significant part of the population irrationally averse to nuclear energy, the Press will cater to it. It doesn’t matter how trivial the subject might be; e.g. the current shutdown of the ALPS system test at Fukushima and the completely inconsequential incident at WIPP. If it’s nuclear, and can be tied to RADIATION (o-o-o-h n-o-o-o…shudder, shudder), it’s getting covered. Fukushima has revived the nuclear issue with the Press and they will go to ridiculous lengths to keep it alive, even if it means giving free publicity to a money-grubbing ambulance-chaser exploiting radiophobic sailors. As a former sailor, I personally believe the lawyers pushing the R. Reagan suit should be dis-barred.

  12. “Thirty years ago, a local news media managing editor told me that the Press will “bend over backwards” to keep the nuclear energy issue alive.”

    How much does it cost for them to report on nuclear items? I would think it would be cheaper and easier than doing the digging to find real news. An excellent example has been the many days and many hours they’ve been reporting on the missing plane. They’ve had ‘breaking news’ to tell the public that they don’t know anything. News reporting is a business. Nuclear news means that they can show a few shots of cooling towers, mention TMI and Chernobyl and interview a few wild eyed entertaining kooks. It is an inexpensive way to fill the space between ads. I’m sure it also provides cheap copy for newspapers.

  13. I’ll stay out of this one, for the Pentagon and the VA has proven itself despicably dishonest when it comes to service caused illnesses and maladies. I do not trust ANY graph they put forth in regards to exposures, and have no doubt they will lie through thier teeth to avoid accepting resonsibility for any culpability if any servicemen were exposed to harmful levels of radiation.

    Agent Orange??? Remember that?

    Gulf War Syndrome? Ring any bells?

    So now what? They’re giving us the straight scoop, because it involves radiation exposure, Rod?

    Heres the deal for me.First, I don’t know enough about exposures to put forth an opinion about the science. But even if I did, exhibiting the blatant idiocy of trusting the stated exposures would prove to be an impossible mental task for me, rendering the actual science useless. How do you base scientific opinion on exposure figures offered by an institution that only a fool would trust?

    1. @POA

      Do you have personal experience with the DOD or the VA or are you just repeating what you have been told?

      I’m in the system, my medical care (and my family’s medical care) has been provided by the DOD and/or VA since I was 17 years old. I have “a few” friends and extended family members who can say the same thing.

      Though it is certainly not perfect, the system is full of hard-working, caring people who do the best they can to serve. The processes they have to follow are cumbersome, but part of the problem is, and has always been, that people like to get something for nothing.

      Believe it or not, there are a lot of dishonest people passing through the armed services. All of them get older while they are there and many of them do not take very good care of themselves. Not all of their health problems are caused by their service or by the effects imparted by chemicals that they may have been “exposed to” while they were serving.

      1. So, we are to ignore the way Agent Orange exposure and Gulf War Syndrome has been handled?

        Come on, Rod, my post isn’t an attack on the “hard-working, caring people who do the best they can to serve”, nor would I attack them.

        How many years did those exposed to Agent Orange have to fight before our government admitted to the harm it did to thousands of Viet Nam vets? And is the reality of Gulf War Syndrome even been admitted to yet?

        I’m suprised at your response. I understand and respect your loyalty towards the service. And am pleased you and your family have recieved your due from the VA. But the despicable manner in which Nam vets were treated, have been treated, in regards to Agent Orange exposure cannot be denied. I’m suprised you skirted around that fact.

        1. @POA – Once again – are you speaking from personal experience or are you repeating something that you have been told by the news media?

          1. I am speaking as someone that was personally touched by a good friend that was SOAKED in Agent Orange, (as many were), and had indisputable health problems from that exposure, while our government stood by and allowed him to lose everything he owned, everything he loved, while denying he deserved compensation, or that his exposure was harmful. He died. Homeless, and sick. Again, like so many.

            You can’t possibly be denying the history behind the Agent Orange saga, Rod?

            1. @POA – I acknowledge there was a problem with Agent Orange. However, I also have anecdotal evidence of hundreds of cases of fraudulent claims in recent years from people who CLAIMED to have been soaked in the material whose exposure turned out to be about as serious as my exposure to yard fertilizer.

              Your good friend’s experience was not unique, but it was also not universal.

          2. “Your good friend’s experience was not unique, but it was also not universal”

            Rod, it is not my friend’s “experience” that is the real crux of what we are discussing. It is my government’s response to that “experience” that is at issue here.

            The harmful effects of dioxin are indisputable within the scientific community. And our government’s denial of those effects, for far too long, (at the behest of Monsanto and Dow), is also indisputable. It was only after the agent orange issue was wrested from the VA, and handed to the science community, that the effects became honestly presented, and Nam veterans began to be compensated for the damage caused to thier health.

            What possible reason has the DOD given us to trust thier willingness to accept responsibility for the welfare of our veterans when policy has had wide scale and harmful health effects? In the future, will we find that the effects of DU have been denied, even though science may prove that denial to be simply a monetary consideration? And what about the vaccines and stimulants being administered, that many in the medical field are alleging to have damaging physical and mental health effects?

            I am perplexed at your reluctance to admit the obvious; that the DOD works for its own benefit, and will not hesitate to throw our veterans under the bus if deemed necessary to protect monetary considerations, favored policy, or public image.

  14. Kinda opens the door to the ‘ol DU thing, too. Harmless, right?

    Just because so many soldiers have the stuff showing up in thier urine, don’t mean nuthin’, right?

    1. How many chemicals do you think you have in your urine ? Why would they be less damaging ? Most of California population in the 50th and 60th had strontium in it’s teeth, still lived to by far be the longest living generation until now.
      Who truly has an agenda and is cheating you ? Is it the government or the people doing the DU claims ?

      I’m sorry POA, but I’m starting to think that the people who are most easily duped are the one who keep distrusting authorities and claiming they being duped by them.

      This can give very sad result like the people dumping official cancer treatment for quack therapies, not seeing that those quack therapies are generally offered at extremely high prices, earning their proponents tens of thousands of dollar.

      1. “Who truly has an agenda and is cheating you ? Is it the government or the people doing the DU claims ?”

        Not being versed in the science, I’m in the untenable position of having to trust, or distrust, whether or not our government handles these kinds of “issues” ethically and honestly. Apparently, both you and Rod would have me ignore history when deciding where to place my trust.

        1. @POA – who wrote the history that you have been reading? Why do you trust that source? (Not disputing you, I am honestly curious.)

          1. Knowledge is power. I am spending a lot of time trying to help build trust with an anti-WIPP person here in Roswell about the radiation leak. He does not trust the DOE and his reasoning is flawed. It may not be possible to change his ‘feelings’.

  15. “Just because so many soldiers have the stuff showing up in thier urine, don’t mean nuthin’, right?”

    I wouldn’t say it means nothing, but maybe it’s better to have radionuclides be just passing through rather than deciding to stay a while.

  16. The disturbing thing for me about this lawsuit was that I just *assumed* that our military personnel had training in CBRN, or at least those personnel that be in forward positions and might see combat (like on a ship). If the ships or their crew get squeamish in the face of doses this small, then how would they behave in a real combat situation?

  17. “If the ships or their crew get squeamish in the face of doses this small, then how would they behave in a real combat situation?”

    The “crew” simply follows orders. Who states they were “squeamish”? It is the alleged over-reaction of the superiors that Rod would have you question. Its interesting to me that they can be considered dishonest enough to over-react and inflate the risk, but not dishonest enough to under-react and deny the risk.

    1. @POA – I am not alleging any dishonesty in the overreaction. I was trained as a navy nuke. I know what those leaders were taught. Their overreaction is a result of that training. It was after I left my last ship that I began serious research and met people like Jim Muckerehide, Jerry Cuttler, Ted Rockwell, Dave Rossin and Alan Waltar.

  18. “I know what those leaders were taught. Their overreaction is a result of that training”

    Well, if that training belies the science, than I’m sorry Rod, but dishonesty must be part of the dynamic.

    If not dishonesty, than surely unfounded denial of the truth. Which is dishonesty through ommission.

    Are you saying sound science is being ignored, perverting the training process? You don’t find that dishonest?

    1. @POA

      No. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that the Navy nuclear program has always been populated by engineers, not by research scientists and not by people who spend a lot of time questioning conventional wisdom about what they believe is settled science. They spend a lot of time learning settled science, understanding lessons learned and applying settled science. There is nothing wrong with that.

      The science that questions the LNT is not conventional and it is strongly resisted for many reasons. Some of the reasons are good, some are self-serving. Some of the facts about the history that help to explain why the conventional wisdom is incorrect have only recently been discovered. You’ve seen some of the debate here.

      One of the challenges you and I have in communicating is that, while I recognize there are greedy, self-serving a-holes in some positions of responsibility, I also know that there are also far more responsible people who are hard-working and trustworthy. I am a retired US Navy Commander, US Naval Academy graduate, and former staff officer. Many of my most admirable and respected friends wear stars on their collars, others run small, medium-sized or large corporations.

      Of course, I’ve known people of the other stripe, but they are actually in the minority, despite the impression provided by commercial media.

      Skepticism and a questioning attitude are useful, complete cynicism can result in major depression and unproductive ways of approaching the world.

      1. “Skepticism and a questioning attitude are useful, complete cynicism can result in major depression and unproductive ways of approaching the world”

        Well, on some issues I suppose I am a “complete cynic”. Thats why my “approach to the world” is kept within my immediate influence. I can only affect change within myself, so the only interaction I worry about is my day to day contact with my fellows. You’re right in assuming I have exactly ZERO trust in the workings of our government. You’re wrong in assuming that I do not recognize the fine works of people that comprise the bottom and middle rungs of the ladder. Sadly though, I happen to believe that the only way you ascend to the top of that ladder is by pushing people off and out of your way. There’s a point in that ascendency where attributes don’t get you to the next rung. Quite the opposite, really.

        Here, in Tehachapi, one of the slimiest and most despicable people I have done business with is an ex senator, and I do not believe he is the exception to the rule. Losing his last bid to slime his way back into office, he now lobbies (prostitutes himself) for whomever will meet his price. One only need to watch a few hours of C-Span on any given day to realize this scumball is indicative of 90% of these posturing sold-out elitist fops masquerading as true “representatives” of the people’s interests and welfare.

        I can’t change it, and the amount of people still buying into it is still too great for any successful unified effort.

        I don’t know, maybe people are beginning to see it. I hope so. But until then, I’m not willing to throw my trust, and my efforts, into the crapper. I ‘ll just tend to my own immediate sphere, and those dirtbags that have clawed, lied, and cheated thier ways into high office and position will just have to get by without my undeserved and unearned faith in thier character.

        1. @POA

          This is where we strongly disagree:

          Sadly though, I happen to believe that the only way you ascend to the top of that ladder is by pushing people off and out of your way. There’s a point in that ascendency where attributes don’t get you to the next rung.

          I know many good people who have made it to or near the top. That is certainly not to say that there are not plenty of examples of the other kind, but if everyone in charge was as worthless as you imagine, we probably would not be able to travel anywhere, most Americans would be hungry, and the power would be off more than it is on instead of being off so infrequently that it makes the news if it goes out.

          1. “but if everyone in charge was as worthless as you imagine, we probably would not be able to travel anywhere, most Americans would be hungry, and the power would be off more than it is on instead of being off so infrequently ”

            Increasing poverty, a shrinking middle class, and this BS known as the GWOT used as an excuse for the ridiclously intrusive exercise of police powers at our nation’s transportation portals. To say nothing of the steady deteioration of all aspects of our infrastructure.

            Traveled to Cuba lately? What lists will you be on if you decide to visit Iran? Try getting into Gaza or the West Bank without huge delays and attracting “attention”. Yeah, you can travel freely, if you go where they’ll let you.

          2. BTW, my power goes out two or three times a year. And I’ve NEVER seen it “make the news”.

  19. BTW, Rod. I do not respect “Democracy Now” because of thier avoidance of casting light on the TRUE nature of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and the powerful and often corrosive effect the Israel lobbies have on American foreign policy. Like most media, Democracy Now has certain biases, some I respect and agree with, others I do not. Prioritizing those biases I find disagreeable, the Pal/Isr issue ranks near the top, because of the damage our unfettered support of all things Israel does to our credibility in the eyes of the global community.

      1. I’ll look at your link. I hope you’re right, and they’ve changed thier ways since I gave up on them a couple of years ago.

    1. POA, maybe you should heed your own advise next time. Many of us made it to the top without ‘knocking’ others aside and when I got there, I turned it all over to others to carry on. Life is about accomplishments..

  20. The following quote is from a 2012 article by Don Higston at the New Scientist web site: “EVERYBODY who gets cancer in Japan over the next 40 years will no doubt blame their misfortune on radiation from Fukushima Daiichi. This will probably be the case for many other diseases too, ranging from heart failure to nose bleeds – as happened after the catastrophic explosion in 1986 at Chernobyl, a Soviet nuclear power station in Ukraine. This would be entirely understandable but will have no basis in science.”

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