What do you think?
Rate this book
Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe
Expert essays provide the first comprehensive analysis of the long-term health and environmental consequences of the Fukushima nuclear accident.
On the second anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, an international panel of leading medical and biological scientists, nuclear engineers, and policy experts were brought together at the prestigious New York Academy of Medicine by Helen Caldicott, the world’s leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement. This was the first comprehensive attempt to address the health and environmental damage done by one of the worst nuclear accidents of our times.
A compilation of these important presentations, Crisis Without End represents an unprecedented look into the profound aftereffects of Fukushima. In accessible terms, leading experts from Japan, the United States, Russia, and other nations weigh in on the current state of knowledge of radiation-related health risks in Japan, impacts on the world’s oceans, the question of low-dosage radiation risks, crucial comparisons with Chernobyl, health and environmental impacts on the United States (including on food and newborns), and the unavoidable implications for the US nuclear energy industry.
Crisis Without End is both essential reading and a major corrective to the public record on Fukushima.
On the second anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, an international panel of leading medical and biological scientists, nuclear engineers, and policy experts were brought together at the prestigious New York Academy of Medicine by Helen Caldicott, the world’s leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement. This was the first comprehensive attempt to address the health and environmental damage done by one of the worst nuclear accidents of our times.
A compilation of these important presentations, Crisis Without End represents an unprecedented look into the profound aftereffects of Fukushima. In accessible terms, leading experts from Japan, the United States, Russia, and other nations weigh in on the current state of knowledge of radiation-related health risks in Japan, impacts on the world’s oceans, the question of low-dosage radiation risks, crucial comparisons with Chernobyl, health and environmental impacts on the United States (including on food and newborns), and the unavoidable implications for the US nuclear energy industry.
Crisis Without End is both essential reading and a major corrective to the public record on Fukushima.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published August 5, 2014
16 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 16, 2018
“The Fukushima disaster is not over and will not end for many millennia. The radioactive fallout, which has covered vast swaths of Japan, will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. It cannot simply be ‘cleaned up,’ and it will continue to contaminate food, humans, and animals.”
I remember in the aftermath of Fukushima when coverage suddenly vanished, as if there was some kind of eerie media whiteout. I grew suspicious and decided to look further into what was going on and I eventually came across quite a chilling press conference, a woman expert was doing most of the talking and the revelations were frankly terrifying, as she revealed some of the facts in terms of the true scale of the disaster, and how it was far from over. I realise now that this may well have been Helen Caldicott, the woman who edited this.
A phenomenal emphasis is placed on the importance of maintaining and not losing face in Japan, which is a common factor throughout most of Asia. Obviously people in any country don’t tend to enjoy losing face, but in Asia and in particular Japan this takes on whole new proportions. This is unfortunate, especially when the health and lives of millions is a stake, and lives are placed in jeopardy in order to protect the ego and reputation of a few, select elites in positions of power. Its a disturbing and chilling echo from Japan’s behaviour throughout their occupation of Manchuria and their atrocities in WWII, which took not one but two nuclear bombs to strike a not quite surrender from Hirohito.
We learn that radiation risk assessments are largely based on the Life Span Study (LSS) of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were biased and flawed from the very start. First of all, follow up participants didn’t begin until five or more years after the bombings and obviously many didn’t survive to be included in the first place. As Steven Wing says, “If mortality from the immediate effects of the bombings was related to longer-terms risks, then the most radiosensitive people died before the study began, meaning that the LSS selected for healthier people with lower radiation risks than the people who were excluded. Furthermore, the LSS’s monitoring of cancer incidence (new diagnoses of cancer rather than death) did not begin until 1958.” So basically, all cancers that occurred within 13 years of exposure are omitted from the LSS cancer incidence risk estimates. These caveats are routinely omitted when risk estimates from the LSS are applied to other populations.
The history of the nuclear era has always been a chequered and puzzling one. Deliberate misinformation, decades of propaganda, planned obfuscation, meaningless ambiguities and just plain old lies, keep everyone but the experts permanently confused. Add to this a chronic lack of research funds, patchy resources, fragmented and flawed data, and a painfully narrow field of case studies. All of this helps keep the study of radiation poisoning a continuous uphill battle, marred by constant obstacles and a lack of clarity, which is of course the way the nuclear industry and governments like it. Though there is one fact that all the experts in here seem to agree on, and that is that there is no such thing as a safe dose of man-made radiation.
We get quite a number of interesting angles on Fukushima and the Chornobyl (the Ukrainian spelling is used in here) from many well qualified individuals. We get people like Arnold Gundersen, who lays much of the blame for the disaster at the feet of American engineers, and their blatant ignorance of the power of a tsunami. The reactor was designed by General Electric and built by (Ebasco) Electric Bond and Share Company back in 1965.
Kevin Kamps takes a fascinating approach with his angle, showing us the many, worrying similarities between Japan and The US in their attitudes towards nuclear power. “Both have Mark I and II reactors in common. Both are catastrophically flawed General Electric boiling-water reactor designs.” He goes onto list the many leaks, lies, cover ups and deaths caused by the industries of both nations. We also learn about one, Matsutaro Shoriki, war criminal suspect, turned media mogul who was in the pay of the CIA. One of his assignments was to sell nuclear power to the Japanese people. One of the first companies to adopt nuclear power happened to be one that Shoriki worked for. This gave birth to Japan’s ‘nuclear village’ with its Plutonium Boy mascot. So began the vast propaganda campaigns, carefully building the nuclear safety myth, which often targeted children, until Fukushima shattered the myth once and for all.
Elsewhere, Cindy Folkers rightly wonders why American children are allowed to be subjected to twelve times more man-made radioactive poison than children in Japan?...She concludes that, “These limits are based on what is best for the nuclear industry. Clearly nothing else counts.”
We learn that in the US reactors, where the spent fuels are now storing four to five times more than they were originally designed to hold. They were only supposed to be temporary storage facilities for a period of five years, and therefore didn’t require nuclear-safety related defence and depth requirements. These pools don’t have secondary containments. Some of these buildings had no more than tin roofs for protection. The US industry only began to make some changes after external pressures, in the aftermath of Fukushima.
“Cesium-137 was one of the most dangerous radioactive materials to be dispersed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The amount of cesium-137 that was released into the atmosphere by Fukushima Daiichi’s Units 1,2, and 3 was 168 times that of Hiroshima, according to the Japanese government report to the International Atomic Energy Agency. This is an underestimate.” Though it turns out that around 400 to 500 times the amount of cesium-137 dispersed by Hiroshima has since been dispersed, so says Hiroaki Koide. Who also claims that around 10 million were left in areas that should have been designated as contaminated areas, and they continue to be exposed to radiation every day.
To put this into some sort of perspective, if you took less than 2 grams of cesium-137, and evenly distributed it, you could render Central Park in NYC uninhabitable for more than a century. Also, there are as roughly as many atoms in one gram of cesium-137 as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.
So this was a fascinating collection, filled with nightmarish scenarios that will be a veritable buffet for hypochondriacs. This is a familiar enough story line of corporate and government collusion/greed/lies/cover-up, but with a more chilling twist. There are two or three drier moments here and there, but overall this is essential reading and gives us some genuine and meaningful insight into the myth and lies that have propped up the multi-billion dollar nuclear energy industry for over half a century.
October 15, 2019
"Massive quantities of radiation escaped into the air and water: three times more noble gases (argon, xenon, and krypton) than at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986, and huge amounts of other volatile and nonvolatile radioactive elements, including cesium, tritium, iodine, strontium, silver, plutonium, americium, and rubidium."
"The latent period of carcinogenesis and the incubation time for leukemia is five to ten years. For solid cancers, it is fifteen to eighty years. It has been shown that all modes of cancer can be induced by radiation exposure—both external and internal—as well as over six thousand genetic diseases caused by mutations in the eggs and sperm, which are pass on the future generations."
"The Japanese government is desperately trying to clean up the radioactive contamination from Fukushima Daiichi. But in reality, all that can be done is to collect it, place it in containers—usually plastic bags—and transfer it to another location. Some contractors have allowed their workers to empty radioactive debris, soil, and leaves into streams and other illegal places. We do not know how to neutralize these elements nor how to prevent them from spreading in the future. The main question becomes where to store the contaminated material safely away from the environment for thousands of years. No container remains effective for longer than one hundred years. Sooner or later, they will leak long-lived radioactive elements."
"The latent period of carcinogenesis and the incubation time for leukemia is five to ten years. For solid cancers, it is fifteen to eighty years. It has been shown that all modes of cancer can be induced by radiation exposure—both external and internal—as well as over six thousand genetic diseases caused by mutations in the eggs and sperm, which are pass on the future generations."
"The Japanese government is desperately trying to clean up the radioactive contamination from Fukushima Daiichi. But in reality, all that can be done is to collect it, place it in containers—usually plastic bags—and transfer it to another location. Some contractors have allowed their workers to empty radioactive debris, soil, and leaves into streams and other illegal places. We do not know how to neutralize these elements nor how to prevent them from spreading in the future. The main question becomes where to store the contaminated material safely away from the environment for thousands of years. No container remains effective for longer than one hundred years. Sooner or later, they will leak long-lived radioactive elements."
March 27, 2017
I wonder how ignorant are we about the dangers of nuclear power?
I wonder how crazy are we for using such a power recklessly?
I wonder how greedy are we to endanger the future generations for transient benefits?
I wonder what will be with the radioactive trash!!
I wonder!!
Thank you Helen Caldicott for this eye-opening alarm about the beast that we cuddle in our ignorant, crazy and greedy arms to harm us all in one of its uncontrollable rage episodes.
I wonder how crazy are we for using such a power recklessly?
I wonder how greedy are we to endanger the future generations for transient benefits?
I wonder what will be with the radioactive trash!!
I wonder!!
Thank you Helen Caldicott for this eye-opening alarm about the beast that we cuddle in our ignorant, crazy and greedy arms to harm us all in one of its uncontrollable rage episodes.
May 8, 2021
Overall pretty decent, I don't think someone who is pro-nuclear will come out of this completely against the practice (especially if put up against fossil fuel use and renewable's short & medium-term limitations). As a collection of writings from various authors, the work doesn't have much of a flow and I guarantee I would gain more with a better understanding of nuclear physics. This is not to say that a layman couldn't read it, I am one of those and completely could just recognize some concepts or chapters that might need to be reread or go over one's head.
The articles were almost all thought provoking and interesting (the exceptions being Kevin Kamps article which I will dispute to some of the historical claims he makes and the ending chapter by the editor, Helen Caldicott, for its holier/smarter than thou East coast elitism and coming off as preachy as a Glenn Beck monologue and I mean that in the worst way). But every other one I had some level of informative or 'enjoyable' read. 18/20 ain't bad with some particular highlights for me being the chapters by Naoto Kan, Hakio Matsumura, Timothy Mousseau, Alexey V. Yablokov, Robert Alvarez, and Herbert Abrams. As this may tell you the good was much greater than the bad here.
I don't think this sways opinion on nuclear energy for a majority of people completely. To be fair, getting through some of the preachy and self-righteous writing makes it seem like that's not the intended audience. But there is plenty to gain from reading still. If nothing else you gain an understanding of the sort of regulatory separation, independent watchdogs, and popular pressure it would take to make energy safer in general.
The articles were almost all thought provoking and interesting (the exceptions being Kevin Kamps article which I will dispute to some of the historical claims he makes and the ending chapter by the editor, Helen Caldicott, for its holier/smarter than thou East coast elitism and coming off as preachy as a Glenn Beck monologue and I mean that in the worst way). But every other one I had some level of informative or 'enjoyable' read. 18/20 ain't bad with some particular highlights for me being the chapters by Naoto Kan, Hakio Matsumura, Timothy Mousseau, Alexey V. Yablokov, Robert Alvarez, and Herbert Abrams. As this may tell you the good was much greater than the bad here.
I don't think this sways opinion on nuclear energy for a majority of people completely. To be fair, getting through some of the preachy and self-righteous writing makes it seem like that's not the intended audience. But there is plenty to gain from reading still. If nothing else you gain an understanding of the sort of regulatory separation, independent watchdogs, and popular pressure it would take to make energy safer in general.
July 28, 2017
can't wait until her new book comes out in Aug 2017. Humans can do dumb things for money
January 16, 2023
The most terrifying book I’ve ever read.
January 9, 2022
XXXXX
What this book tells us: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SAFE NUCLEAR POWER
XXXXX
“The Fukushima disaster is not over and will not end for many millennia. The radioactive fallout [or release], which has covered vast swaths of Japan, will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. It cannot simply be ‘cleaned up,’ and it will continue to contaminate food, humans, and animals.”
The above quote (in italics) is found in the introduction of this eye-opening and thorough book edited by Dr. Helen Caldicott. She is a physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate. Caldicott is the co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, founder of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (now known as Beyond Nuclear), and a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the president of the Helen Caldicott Foundation.
For those that are unsure, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was an energy accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (located in Okuma, Fukushima, Japan) initiated primarily by a tsunami (tidal wave) that was triggered by an earthquake on (March 11, 2011). The damage caused by the tsunami produced equipment failures, and without this equipment, a loss-of-coolant accident followed, resulting in three nuclear meltdowns (that is, the melting of the cores of the nuclear reactors) and the release of radioactive material beginning on (March 12, 2011).
It is the largest nuclear disaster since the Chornobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
This book came about from a symposium organized by Caldicott that was held on (March 11-12, 2013) at the New York Academy of Medicine. The symposium was and this book is concerned with the medical and ecological consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe.
This book is a compilation of the symposium presentations where the world’s leading scientists, epidemiologists, physicists, physicians, and others presented. It contains information that has never before been seen by either the nuclear industry or the public at large.
Each chapter of this book is thus authored by a person who was at the symposium. Caldicott, besides writing the last transcribed symposium presentation/essay/chapter in this book, also wrote the excellent introduction to it.
Here are selected phrases from this book’s chapter titles:
Contaminated world; radioactive cesium; effects of ionizing radiation; biological consequences; congenital malformations; radioactive waste; radioactive risks; food monitoring; epidemiologic studies; cancer risk.
There is a section at the end of the book entitled “About the Contributors.” This section tells us about the person who wrote a particular chapter. For example, chapter 1 is authored by Herbert Abrams who we are told “is the emeritus professor of radiology at Stanford University and member of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) Committee of the National Academy of Sciences.” I recommend referring to this section first before reading a particular chapter.
Finally, there could have been a few things added to this book to make it more user-friendly. A glossary would have been beneficial, preferably at the end of each chapter. I feel more illustrations (diagrams, pictures, etc.) would have enhanced this book. Lastly, an index would have been handy.
In conclusion, this is the book to read for all those who care about the future of our beautiful planet in this nuclear age!!
(2014; introduction; 20 chapters; main narrative 225 pages; notes; about the contributors; about the editor)
XXXXX
What this book tells us: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SAFE NUCLEAR POWER
XXXXX
“The Fukushima disaster is not over and will not end for many millennia. The radioactive fallout [or release], which has covered vast swaths of Japan, will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. It cannot simply be ‘cleaned up,’ and it will continue to contaminate food, humans, and animals.”
The above quote (in italics) is found in the introduction of this eye-opening and thorough book edited by Dr. Helen Caldicott. She is a physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate. Caldicott is the co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, founder of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (now known as Beyond Nuclear), and a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the president of the Helen Caldicott Foundation.
For those that are unsure, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was an energy accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (located in Okuma, Fukushima, Japan) initiated primarily by a tsunami (tidal wave) that was triggered by an earthquake on (March 11, 2011). The damage caused by the tsunami produced equipment failures, and without this equipment, a loss-of-coolant accident followed, resulting in three nuclear meltdowns (that is, the melting of the cores of the nuclear reactors) and the release of radioactive material beginning on (March 12, 2011).
It is the largest nuclear disaster since the Chornobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
This book came about from a symposium organized by Caldicott that was held on (March 11-12, 2013) at the New York Academy of Medicine. The symposium was and this book is concerned with the medical and ecological consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe.
This book is a compilation of the symposium presentations where the world’s leading scientists, epidemiologists, physicists, physicians, and others presented. It contains information that has never before been seen by either the nuclear industry or the public at large.
Each chapter of this book is thus authored by a person who was at the symposium. Caldicott, besides writing the last transcribed symposium presentation/essay/chapter in this book, also wrote the excellent introduction to it.
Here are selected phrases from this book’s chapter titles:
Contaminated world; radioactive cesium; effects of ionizing radiation; biological consequences; congenital malformations; radioactive waste; radioactive risks; food monitoring; epidemiologic studies; cancer risk.
There is a section at the end of the book entitled “About the Contributors.” This section tells us about the person who wrote a particular chapter. For example, chapter 1 is authored by Herbert Abrams who we are told “is the emeritus professor of radiology at Stanford University and member of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) Committee of the National Academy of Sciences.” I recommend referring to this section first before reading a particular chapter.
Finally, there could have been a few things added to this book to make it more user-friendly. A glossary would have been beneficial, preferably at the end of each chapter. I feel more illustrations (diagrams, pictures, etc.) would have enhanced this book. Lastly, an index would have been handy.
In conclusion, this is the book to read for all those who care about the future of our beautiful planet in this nuclear age!!
(2014; introduction; 20 chapters; main narrative 225 pages; notes; about the contributors; about the editor)
XXXXX
March 9, 2015
it's a fierce anti-nuclear argument. primarily composed of essays by nuclear specialists and even former PM of Japan, Naoto Kan. some of the information gets complicated, especially when the book talks about specifics in nuclear technology but with a little googling, the information is not too far out of reach.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews