Thoughts on the 2014 UNSCEAR Report Regarding Fukushima Radiation Health Risks

I want to post something irresponsibly ill-informed. Please bear with me. I just saw an article (full disclosure: that site is paid for by the World Nuclear Association which obviously colors how I view their perception of the report) that says UNSCEAR's study shows data against rising cancer levels around the Fukushima plant and against increased radiation exposure excepting areas within the 20km evacuation area. Here is their very poorly made power point presentation. I want to get more informed so I can understand what kind of background the report arises from, but I'm finding that more difficult than I originally expected.

It may be just be that I'm incredibly skeptical of anything authorities say about Fukushima. And I think that's reasonable given how much TEPCO and the Japanese government lied, especially directly following the earthquake when they said there was no meltdown whatsoever. So naturally I have to wonder what affiliations UNSCEAR might have. It's not like it is uncommon in the US to appoint regulatory officials who have been CEOs of the corporations they are regulating. Their conflicts of interest ought to exclude them from taking such appointments, but sadly that is not the case. I googled briefly to see what I could find, but the articles that came up inspired little confidence in their journalistic integrity. One of the better ones can be found here.

That's a big part of the problem I have in trying to find the answers I want. It's easiest to find links to sensationalist articles that are in many cases even less credible to me than the news I consider propaganda. One of them claimed that UNSCEAR is "subservient to IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency)" who must approve all its reports. And that the chairman, Wolfgang Weiss, was "a boss" (how incredibly vague) for Euratom, an international organisation founded to create a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe.

Given common sense developed through years of rolling my eyes at committee appointments, it seems any of that could be accurate. But there's a serious lack of trustworthy information.

I'm not saying it's entirely outside the realm of possibility that UNSCEAR is actually an unbiased and independent committee. I'm also not saying that it is impossible that the observed thyroid cancer spikes were an isolated incident linked with the initial meltdown. It could very well be that the protective measures are working outside of the 20km evacuation zone.

What I am saying is that at the end of the day you have to be able to trust the information you're being given if it is to have any value. Neither side of this argument inspires trust, in my opinion. Data collection is a potentially dangerous task, so it takes a dedicated organisation to do it (assuming they really collect the data and don't just estimate it, a practice that has been employed before and that I wouldn't blame them for because getting close enough to collect useful data would be scary). But who supports that organisation? If their findings aren't transparent and their affiliations utterly independent, I wouldn't be willing to stake human lives on them.

The bloggers writing about this stuff, on the other hand, aren't conducting investigations that can override my skepticism with facts. Linking to Wikipedia and copy/pasting supposed affiliations (however much sense they might seem to make) doesn't argue the case. Neither does jumping to conclusions based on observing other unrelated events and circumstances. Good investigative journalism about the Fukushima plant itself could have been reassuring, but the new secrecy act the Japanese government passed last December made matters of nuclear energy a state secret. Reporting on them can earn both journalists and informants years of prison time.

I think it's hard to come out on either side of this issue without being judged either gullible or paranoid. I suppose I'm a little of both and that may be while it's hard for me to buy into the information I'm finding. But without transparency and without investigative journalism what should a reasonable person think? The best I can come up with is that I'm not moving near the Fukushima plant any time soon, and that I doubt any chairpersons of the IAEA will either.