Pentagon maps Japan radiation after March 11 disaster; says U.S. personnel were safe

Sure it is safe........?

I remember American navy vessels changing course away from the north east of Japan as they were met with clouds of radiation..........

american_bengoshiSep. 08, 2012 - 03:06AM JST

To be clear, I am not saying that I believe the results of the study are not accurate. We just need to be careful about trusting the results when the US Department of Defense has a motive to deter future disability benefits claims.

Then trust the results results of an independent study by Stanford university and a second study of 10000 Japanese people who returned to the secondary exclusion zone. Both place the exposure at 0.1 REM, so the pentagon is OVERESTIMATING exposure. Additionally, many servicemen receive far greater exposures due to the tools of their trade. DOD disability benefits wouldn't play a role as it would be covered by their medical coverage since even the largest possible rate is less than statistically significant.

Do you know when the Pentagon is lying? Their lips are moving...There is alot of truth's expressed here....

To be clear, I am not saying that I believe the results of the study are not accurate. We just need to be careful about trusting the results when the US Department of Defense has a motive to deter future disability benefits claims. It would be easier to trust the results if the study had been performed by an organization without a motive.

We cannot trust the results of this mapping study by the US Pentagon. The US Department of Defense prepared this study with its rosy results out of fear that government personnel will make health claims in the future due to radiation exposure. Particularly, the US government is worried about military personnell filing claims for service connected disability benefits. Veterans who are able to successfully claim 100% connected and unemployability due to illnesses or injuries that are armed services connected receive more than $3,000 a month tax free for the rest of their lives, improved lifetime healthcare for themselves and dependents which includes free prescription medications, paid college tuition for all dependents, etc. The US government has seen a flood of service connected disability applications since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and has a orocessing backlog of 3-5 years. I see this bogus study as an attempt by the US government to arm itself with a reason to reject future disability claims due to radiation exposure in Japan.

@Basrol: Well, YOU continue as YOU see fit, it is your personal choice, you decide for you and yours we'll decide for ours. See you in 30? The contamination is real, actual and present. Daily life time intake, DO the arthimetic!

The sample size is large enough that we can make very accurate readings and know that the public was not harmed whatsoever. Now that 20k people have been checked, they can make some very accurate predicitons for the maximum exposure, and all those reading lead to numbers under 1mSv for 99% of the population and less than 5 for the remainder (not working at the plant).

Hell, these service men are less exposed to radiation even with Fukushima than the background levels in the US (not including basement jobs, where rate is 10x higher)

. I certainly remember Edano on tv stating there had been no explosion for 3 odd hrs yet forign media showing live footage of it. I guess the dirty gaijin media must've doctored the footage from a movie to make Japan look bad... Or maybe Japan lied. Hmmmm. Which could it be. I think some posters on here definitely are in the pay of government funds because that's the only way they could be so blinkered and forgetful. Jp gov screwed up, tepco screwed up they nuked Japan and the people who saved it were the "Fukushima 50" and others like the firemen who risked/gave their lives. Do not belittle them or those who have/will die with the parroting of gov properganda.

So, Camp Sendai did not exist until after the nuclear accident?

Yes. CAMP Sendai (the base camp where the American forces in that area operated out of) did not exist until the American forces set it up. The CITY of Sendai was already there, of course. As for where these readings came from, I'm going to say they came from on-site radiation counters owned by the U.S. military. That's why there are readings for only 13 locations. (13 base camps, perchance?)

Antonio: we were half a day close to the biggest ever humanity catastrophe. That was avoided thanks to the Tokyo firemen who could pump water into SFP #4. That was not a movie, that was reality, while all officials were saying there was no risk. From a trustable source of mine, I can tell you we have been luuuucky it did not go worse. I am sure the plan to evacuate Tokyo was deeply discussed with serious arguments!

And as my source told me on March 13th (Sunday after the earthquake): if SFP #4 collapse, don't waste one second and don't look backward, just run south. This danger is still hanging over our heads for at least 1 to 2 years. Don't forget this advice!

It showed the highest rate of adult exposure at Sendai, just north of Fukushima, where the estimated adult dose of whole body radiation was 0.12 rem and 1.20 for the thyroid - the organ most affected by radiation. By comparison, a full-body CAT scan yields a whole body exposure of 5.0 rem.

I hope that everyone understands right now that the panic following the catastrophic events of March 11th, caused mostly by foreign media, was to a large extent unnecessary. I remember many foreigners at that time accusing the J-government for its failure to conduct an evacuation plan for Tokyo, apparently not realizing that it was impossible to conduct such a plan, while struggling to cope with the consequences of the tsunami and assist the affected areas.

There are many things to blame the J-gov for, but in my view, its dealing with the crisis at that time was the most appropriate. There were no looting, people quitting their jobs, etc. Everything was in order with the sole exception of the power cuts. Now, can you imagine what would have happened if the Jgov had announced "the evacuation of Tokyo due to radiation fears" as many readers had suggested at that time? Chaos. Personally, I am glad that both the Jgov and the Japanese media did not cause any unnecessary panic, contrary to how many foreign governments reacted due to over sensationalism by global media.

Also lot of interesting information in this IRSN report:

http://hps.org/documents/IRSN_Fukushima_Report.pdf

none of the American DATA relates to Fukushima. The American troops arrived in Sendai after the explosions at the Fukushima atomic plant and were less exposed than in the first days. There can still be radiation hot spots, there are in Tokyo and Yokohama, so it can be in Miyagi and Iwate.

So, Camp Sendai did not exist until after the nuclear accident?

Where are the current hot spots in Tokyo and Yokohama?

Working link should be

http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/en/contents/5000/4651/24/E255_0321_18.pdf

MEXT's (JGov's) own accumulated dose estimations by MEXT for mars 11 2011 to febr. 11 2012 can be found here. These would be external dose, not including ingestion and inhalation (I.e. not thyroid doses).

< http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/en/contents/5000/4650/24/E255_0229_18.pdf >

It is not as sunny reading as the DOD estimates for US military personnel during the 60 days following the accident. But I am glad that the US military are safe. And I am glad they published this data.

My thoughts exactly, edojin

While it would be good if all the refugees were offered internal radiation measurement, why do some comments to this article again focus on things which are not even mentioned in the article rather than eventually acknowledge the one positive fact – that even with the highest doses in Sendai “health risks associated with this event are so low, no one is being placed in a medical surveillance program to monitor their long-term health outcomes” And this estimate is not made by a Japanese organization, which for many people should be more than significant.

If it is the case with the American personnel in Sendai, it sure is true for the rest of the people who were there AND in other areas out of Fukushima at the time and at present.

Can this really be true? Something sounds out of line here. Wish the Pentagon would go into more detail about how it carried out its radioactive survey. Hope it isn't relying on TEPCO information ...

As long as US Forces are stationed here, I'll remain in Japan.

And where is the data coming from to compile these radiation "maps", I wonder?

Something the JP government failed at doing.