Not really, the article should be titled:
"George Gao Downplays Professional Responsibility Of Objective Journalism".
See what the experts say, and then find anyone with a different conclusion regardless of the quality of their work, and then play one against the other.
Nice.
Let's set aside the obvious bias in this article. Yet I have a related question:
ReplyDelete- The WHO report predicting a potential health risk from the Fukushima accident (for a limited subset of the population) was quickly followed by a rebuttal from UNSCEAR untitled "No Immediate Health Risks from Fukushima Nuclear Accident Says UN Expert Science Panel";
- At the same time, some claim UNSCEAR is backpedaling on the collective dose issue (http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/unscear-attempt-to-limit-collective-dose-assessments-from-fukushimas-fallout/).
So, I'm indeed starting to wonder: isn't UNSCEAR attempting to downplay the risks? I'd very much like to know what you think.
I don't see that UNSCEAR is attempting to downplay the risks. Here is my source for the UNSCEAR statement:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2013/unisinf475.html
UNSCEAR is saying that there are "no radiation related deaths or acute effects" to workers (the highest exposed) from Fukushima. That is a true statement.
It is unlikely that excess cases of thyroid cancer would be "detectable". That means there may be an increase, but due to the variability of thyroid cancers in the unexposed population, the increase may not be statistically detectable at a 90+% confidence level.
They also discuss children, who will have received much less dose than workers, and how the risks can vary between children and adults.
I also don't see UNSCEAR backpedaling on collective dose. Fairlee fails to mention the next paragraph in that document which says:
g) The Scientific Committee notes that public health bodies need to allocate resources appropriately, and that this may involve making projections of numbers of health effects for comparative purposes. This method, though based upon reasonable
but untestable assumptions, could be useful for such purposes provided that it were applied consistently, the uncertainties in the assessments were taken fully into account, and it were not inferred that the projected health effects were other than
notional.
I can go back to paragraph 56 of UNSCEAR 1972, and find this language:
"It is a matter of speculation whether doses of the order of those continuously from natural sources may have similar effect."
In other words, they have been consistent in saying that when a population receives low doses around annual background levels, the risks may be different than the risks derived from high doses. They are not saying the risk is zero. Just that large errors may exist.
This is from UNSCEAR 2000:
ReplyDelete"The collective dose commitment may become rather uncertain if applied to very long time periods in which future environmental conditions and the populations affected cannot be reasonably anticipated."
Also note that the WHO is a UN organization and they used collective dose when studying Fukushima (see above right hand side of this webpage..."WHO Fukushima Preliminary Dose Estimates & Health Effects".
OK, thanks for your answers.
ReplyDeleteObviously the UNSCEAR assessment is, technically speaking, true. Still, its tone seems to contradict the WHO assessment. I find this opposition especially obvious when it comes to the health risks for radiation workers:
UNSCEAR: "Given the small number of highly exposed workers, it is unlikely that excess cases of thyroid cancer due to radiation exposure would be detectable. Special health examinations will be given to workers with exposures above 100 mSv including annual monitoring of the thyroid, stomach, large intestine and lung for cancer as a means to monitor for potential late radiation-related health effects at the individual level."
WHO:"Around two-thirds of emergency workers are estimated to have cancer risks in line with the general population, while one-third is estimated to have an increased risk."
WHO clearly assesses that there is an elevated risk for one-third of the workers, whereas UNSCEAR insists on the fact that workers don't have an elevated risk for thyroid cancers. Showing only the brighter side of the coin and pushing the darker side under the rug, I'd call that a downplay from UNSCEAR (and BTW, yes I know WHO and UNSCEAR are both UN agencies, which doesn't mean that they have to agree on everything).
I don't read it that way. I read that UNSCEAR is more focused on what is detectable. WHO is more focused on risks which exist, though based on our knowledge, would not likely be detectable.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that "detectable" in an epidemiological sense, is what's at play here. It is highly unlikely that the risks will be detectable (UNSCEAR), though they are highly likely to exist (WHO).
It's like CO2 and climate change. If I introduce a pound of CO2, that pound traps infrared radiation (heat). But I can't detect the global temperature increase from that pound.
Fair enough. Let's hope I'm just being induely cynical or distrustful about UNSCEAR. Time will tell!
ReplyDeleteFair enough from my perspective. Welcome to my humble blog and I look forward to your insights.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the welcome. Being a half-baked physicist, I'll probably have plenty more questions than insight though :-)
ReplyDelete