Fukushima nuclear plant worker dies

[sce56]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8810953/Fukushima-nuclear-plant-worker-dies.html

The male worker, in his 50s, was taken to hospital for treatment on Wednesday after feeling ill during a regular morning assembly at the plant, some 140 miles north of Tokyo, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO). He died early morning on Thursday at the hospital, TEPCO spokesman Chie Hosoda said, adding that the cause of his death was being investigated. "He had been exposed to a small amount of radiation. It is difficult to assume that radiation was a cause of his death," she said.

The unidentified worker had worked for 46 days at the plant to install a tank which will be used for processing contaminated water from the crippled reactor units. He worked three hours every day and had been exposed to a total of 2.02 millisieverts of radiation, the official said. An exposure of 100 millisieverts per year is considered the lowest level at which any increase in cancer risk is evident.
He was the third worker to die at the plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

A male worker, in his 60s, died of a heart attack in May and another, in his 40s, succumbed to acute leukaemia in August. TEPCO said both cases were not attributable to radiation. Two other male employees were also killed directly in the disaster. The 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami left 20,000 dead or missing on Japan's northeast coast and crippled cooling systems at the Fukushima plant, causing reactor meltdowns.



Leukemia is never related to radiation right.

[MineralMan]

1. Leukemia can be related to exposure to radiation, of course.

It also occurs with no such exposure. It's difficult to accurately assign a cause to individual cases of leukemia, since it has many possible causes. That death may well have been attributable to the worker's exposure, but it could also be that he had the disease before the exposure.

Nuclear power generation is not safe. It has never been safe, and cannot be made to be safe.

That said, definitively tying a single leukemia case to this person's exposure isn't possible. Over time, statistical evidence will show if there is a rise in the rate of leukemia cases resulting from the Fukushima disaster.

[The Traveler]

3. One doctor claims heart disease is one result of cesium exposure

Muscle tissue retains cesium ... and the heart is of course muscle. So the stuff is prone to accumulate in such tissues and radiate ... which of course kills off cells, etc. Eventually, the heart muscle is weakened to the point where it can't function properly.

Not all heart attacks are caused by cesium poisoning, of course ... but if we start seeing a spike in heart attack rates in the area ...

[MineralMan]

4. Most diseases have many possible causes.

Any statistician or scientist with any standards would not attempt to assign an individual case of a disease to a particular cause. It takes a long time to build statistical evidence that a particular incident or exposure caused a disease in a population. There has not been enough time in the Fukushima disaster. No causation can be assigned to radiation so far. Down the road 10 years, we'll have enough evidence to make such judgments.

There is no doubt that this disaster will cause diseases and deaths, but it's far too early to start assigning individual cases to that cause.

[The Traveler]

7. The doctors in question

studied heart disease rates in the area around Chernobyl ... there is a statistical basis for the prediction. If it is of interest, I'll see if I can't dig up a link.

[MineralMan]

8. And what do statistics have to do with this individual case.

People with no radiation exposure also die from heart disease. Individual cases are, well, individual. It may be that cesium cause the problem. It may be that it did not. It's often hard to tell exactly what factors caused a heart disease death. Here in the United States, though, all heart disease is caused by smoking or second-hand smoke. Did you know that? It's equally a wrong statement.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. The leukemia could have been caused by smoking

Japanese blue collar male workers, especially those 40 and older, are typically heavy smokers. It is possible that the leukemia victim contracted the disease from smoking. Saying that, though, it is also quite possible that the radiation had some hand in the disease.

Here is a study about leukemia rates in Japanese A-bomb survivors:

http://www.rerf.or.jp/radefx/late_e/leukemia.html

[barbtries]

5. i just don't believe them.

"...It is difficult to assume that radiation was a cause of his death," she said.

for me, it is It is difficult NOT to assume that radiation was a cause of his death. clearly they have lied and lied and lied throughout the disaster. no reason to believe them now imo.

[sce56]

6. I guess I should have put a snarky sarcasm smiley on my never caused by radiation

It will take a lot of time before we know if we ever do know for sure how many in Japan will die from this nightmare of a atomic fuckup! I'm sure there are people over there working diligently to save as many as possible from it's effects but I think they need an occupy TEPCO movement also.

Last Saturday I posted this on the water supply being contaminated in Tokyo!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x623130

[caraher]

9. Leukemia, etc. take more time than this to develop

http://www.enotes.com/public-health-encyclopedia/latent-period">Try again in five years.

It's safe to say the March disaster was not the cause of leukemia or any other cancer claiming the lives of Fukushima workers dying this year.

I don't think the Japanese have good measurements of the exposure of many workers (I understand many did not have proper personnel monitors early on). But the basic biology doesn't add up, at least for cancer, this soon after an exposure. We won't ever know the cause for an individual cancer but we should certainly look out for a spike down the road (which may be hard to quantify).

[sce56]

10. Yes you are right but how long was he working for TEPCO?

When I went to school up the hill from this place.




The chief Academics Instructor went ballistic about how safe Nuke power is April 86. Of course he would not own up to the fact that his Leukemia was probably from working around the Army plants in Alaska the Sturgis and SM-1.