food + health
No Big Fukushima Health Impact Seen, UN Official Says: Scientific American
VIENNA, Jan 31 Reuters – The health impact of last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday. … “What we have seen in Chernobyl – people were dying from huge, high exposures, some [...]
Dealing with cancer
Someone I know was last year diagnosed with prostate cancer. They recently wrote me a letter. His doctor recommended a certain course of treatment. He decided not to take this recommended course at this time. Why not? What will he do instead? I reproduce below, with his permission, part of the letter he sent me. [...]
Reddit Users save a life, maybe
From How the World Works. A friend of mine is due for a bone-marrow transplant, so I was interested in this story. I wonder what the rules are in the UK for compensating bone-marrow donors?
Over one in six Japanese want a geiger counter | 世論 What Japan Thinks
I subscribe to “Yoron What Japan Thinks”. This guy has gone to the trouble of translating into English the results of online surveys that deal with consumer and life-style trends in Japan, surveys that I wouldn’t couldn’t read in Japanese. These statistics are interesting, but I also liked his comment on irresponsible journalism. I suppose [...]
Radiation in Tokyo’s Setagaya-ku due to radium, unconnected with Fukushima
As I was grabbing some breakfast this morning, I caught the following bit of news about a radiation hot-spot in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. Turns out, this may have nothing to do with Fukushima (and of course everyone assumed it did), which is funny because that blows out of the water the assumption that there ain’t no [...]
Slides for Wade Allison talk in Tokyo | Lenz Blog
This popped up in my reader, and I’ve just downloaded the slides and quickly scanned them with my ol’ eagle eye, and my objective, expert opinion is that, if you are at all affected by the Fukushima disaster, or know anyone who is, then you would be well advised to read this. My policy, based [...]
Wade Allison in Japan | Lenz Blog
Prof. Lenz blogs about Wade Allison’s press conference at Tokyo’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club recently. Readers should do their own homework, of course. I reproduce the comments here because it seems there is a lack of balance in the reporting on this matter, both in Japan and abroad. At 500 becquerels per kilogram, a person would [...]
Japan – It’s A Wonderful Rife: Fungi Can Solve Japan’s Radiation Woes
Haven’t blogged about anything for a while – burnout, I guess, getting bored with the subject. But today I read an article that woke me up: Fungi Can Solve Japan’s Radiation Woes | Japan – It’s a Wonderful Rife. Pop over to Andrew’s blog to read the whole thing. It brightened my day. I sincerely [...]
Radiation in food: Radish Boya to Set Its Own Cesium Standard | EX-SKF.
The bottom line is forcing more and more businesses to take matters into their own hands instead of relying on the government. The rice farmers of Fukushima, judging by this unconfirmed but unfortunately not implausible story, apparently don’t need to worry about the bottom line. Radish Boya, an online grocer who first alerted Shizuoka Prefecture [...]
Caesium in rice test results by prefecture
From another Tweet (@Kontan_Bigcat), a link to a chart giving the latest (Sep. 1) results of testing for radioactivity in rice (Japanese only). The limit set by the government is 20 Bq/kg. The chart lists the prefectures starting with the ones with rice at less than 1Bq/kg. Testing is for Cs-134 and Cs-137. There are [...]
