“In the US, 35 per cent spike in infant mortality in northwest cities that occurred after the Fukushima meltdown.
The eight cities included in the report are San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, and Boise”
Just like Europe after chernobyl…
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html?r=456
6 Comments
Research is evidence-based conclusion drawing. This appears to be, in my opinion, conclusion-based evidence drawing by persons who are, in my opinion, anti-nuclear conspiracy theorists. What’s the delta in infant mortality during the same part of the year over 10 years? Aggregate infant mortality varies by season. Finally, correlation is not causation.
[This is Janette Sherman, one of the author of the “report’s” website](http://janettesherman.com/) – she is clearly an anti-nuclear activist. Joseph Mangamo, the co-author, appears to be affiliated with the “[Radiation and Public Health Project](http://www.radiation.org/)” – an anti-nuclear organization which appears to be affiliated with the radiation conspiracy theorist group Physicians for Social Responsibility – run by Helen “It’s Sapping My Precious Bodily Fluids” Caldicott.
In my opinion, these people have about the same level of credibility as Art Bell, Alex Jones, and Glenn Beck do in talking about *The Black Helicopters* and *Obama’s FEMA camps* – “where the machine guns point inward!”
A little misleading… 35% sounds like a lot, but it’s just an increase to the existing rate, which they didn’t state. It may be within the normal amount of fluctuation.
Just in case someone gets excited and decides to check data for himself (I know, you are not supposed to do it in case you might find that such increases happened before Fukushima for purely statistical reasons): the mortality data they refer to are available here: http://wonder.cdc.gov/mmwr/mmwrmort.asp
I’m waiting to look for a dip in live births in Japan starting nine months after the radiation release. The data should be available to see if that happened after Chernobyl, too.
So from what I have gathered the movement is statistically significant. However, as has been stated also, there is no proof of causation.
My personal view on the whole thing is it actually proves nothing because it fails to look at mortality causes. Did the infants die of respiratory distress? If that’s why they died, well then it’s a duh moment, it’s RSV season. Anyone who has worked at a children’s hospital for more than a summer knows about that. Or are the deaths related to something else entirely. Nothing in the paper actually indicates that.
[The 35% stat was debunked](http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/i1g51/fukushima_its_much_worse_than_you_think/c207lhc). A clerical error left out Spokane WA while including Boise ID, among other discrepancies. A more accurate sampling showed a much smaller 6% increase, likely the product of typical statistical fluctuation within a short term sample.