Chernobyl was a perfect storm, a damning tale of ineptitude leading to needless loss of life. It was also unequivocally the world’s worst nuclear accident. To many, it is also heralded as proof-positive that nuclear energy was inherently unsafe, a narrative adopted by many anti-nuclear groups … But perception and reality do not always neatly align; in the wake of the disaster, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) and others undertook a co-ordinated effort to follow up on health effects … Despite aggressive monitoring for three decades, there has been no significant increase in solid tumours or delayed health effects, even in the hundreds of thousands of minimally protected cleanup workers who helped purge the site after the accident. In the words of the 2008 UNSCEAR report: “There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure … The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated”.
… … …
Unlike the accident in the Ukraine, events at Fukushima in March 2011 were not the result of ineptitude but rather a massive natural disaster in the form of a deadly 15-metre high tsunami** … While the world media fixated on the drama unfolding at the plant, it lost sight of the fact that around 16,000 had just been killed in a massive natural disaster. Despite the preponderance of breathless headlines since the reality is that five years later, radiobiological consequences of Fukushima are practically negligible — no one has died from the event, and is it extraordinarily unlikely that anyone will do so in future. The volume of radioactive leak from the site is so small as to be of no health concern; there is no detectable radiation from the accident in Fukushima grown-food, nor in fish caught off the coast.
… … …
It is important also to see these disasters in the wider context of energy production: when the Banqiao hydroelectric dam failed in China in 1975 it led to at least 171,000 deaths and displaced 11 million people … None of this is to denigrate the vital importance of such technologies, but rather to point out that every form of energy production has some inherent risk.
Do go and read the whole article.
** It is worth noting again that the containment at the Fukushima plant worked largely as designed. Excepting the natural disaster, the root cause failure appears to have been one of shortcomings in plant external safety design and process which would be just as likely with any major plant.
Following up his Tuesday piece in the Guardian (mentioned here) Simon Jenkins yesterday expanded on his reactions and why current reportage, reaction and policy is so dangerous. As he says in
The scariest thing about Brussels is our reaction to it
our current reactions serve only to act as recruiting sergeants for Isis.
Moreover compare the current paranoia with:
During the more dangerous and consistent IRA bombing campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s, Labour and Conservative governments insisted on treating terrorism as criminal, not political. They relied on the police and security services to guard against a threat that could never be eliminated, only diminished. On the whole it worked, and without undue harm to civil liberties.
Simon Jenkins, writing for the Guardian website has a properly measured response to yesterday’s horrific events in Brussels: Our response to the Brussels bombings requires patience and restraint.
As one might expect, Christopher Snowdon (he who has taken the new alcohol guidelines apart) writing over on City AM is not at all impressed by George Osborne’s new tax on sugar.
It’s a money spinner; no more, no less — at least according to Snowdon. For my money, if we really want a tax on sugar to reduce consumption as well as raise revenue, Osborne has missed several tricks:
tax all forms of sugar in all products
tax all sweeteners (natural and artificial) including honey and stevia (on the basis that they encourage a liking for extra sweetness)
make the tax a sliding scale, starting at something small for less than (say) 1g per litre or kilo, rising to something draconian (20%, 25%) for over 10g per litre or kilo
make it a consumer tax (like tobacco duty) rather than a levy on the producers
That would hopefully affect all consumers, relatively equitably. It would encourage people to buy less-sweetened products (without having to give up sweetness completely). And encourage producers to reduce sweetener content with substantial price advantages, and hence hopefully higher sales/greater market share.
… plonkers to the right of ’em. This, from the Guardian a week or so ago, encapsulates the “Brexit problem” rather well.
The real problem is that no-one knows; there is no objective information; just lies, innuendo and wishful thinking.
Gawdelpus!
At last. Some people who might have some influence are finally getting the message: prohibition doesn’t work. And that by decriminalising and licensing things you can not only control them but you can tax them.
No, for once I’m not talking about sex work. This is about cannabis.
The headline in yesterday’s Guardian read: Sell cannabis to over-18s in licensed shops, says Lib Dem panel
It isn’t quite the Dutch model, but the recommendations have been put forward by a panel of experts including a couple of top cops.
The article is worth a read.
There have been lots of media reports this week along the line of Jeremy Corbyn is right: decriminalising the sex industry is the way forward.
Thank God someone in political circles is getting the message.
More of this common sense please.
Under the title No wonder Britain’s alcohol guidelines are so extreme — just look at who drafted them Christopher Snowdon at Spectator Health lifts the lid on the way in which the new alcohol guidelines were arrived at.
If true, and I have no reason to suspect Snowdon isn’t being truthful, this is a disgraceful abuse of power by the Chief Medical Officer, and others, to arrive at conclusions which suit their personal predilections in the face of major conflicting evidence.
Given the academic stature of many of those involved, they really should know better. The fact that they appear not to, should be sufficient to disqualify them from their roles and they deserve to be summarily sacked.
Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, talked recently at the Spectator annual health debate 2016. He talked about the new government guidelines on alcohol consumption — and he still found them deceitful, but nonetheless could see why they may have been cast the way they are. [Spoiler: because the medical profession don’t trust us to be truthful, they’re not truthful to us.]
Read the summary of Snowdon’s talk here; it is actually interesting.
There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian from Neena Modi in which she attacks the myth that the NHS is unaffordable.
The NHS is not unaffordable, as anyone with half an ounce of common sense can see.
The NHS has shed-loads of money to do everything you and I would want it to. It just uses that money inappropriately and wastefully — often as a result of political intervention.
Neena Modi gives some good examples (I am assuming the figures in her article are accurate):
PFI repayments (that’s money the politicians made the NHS “borrow” from the private sector) cost around £10bn a year.
Virgin Care, who have some large NHS clinical contracts, admit to an 8% profit target. That’s another £1.6bn a year — and that’s just on the estimated £20bn of contracts awarded to the private sector in 2013-14.
The NHS is complex. We understand that; in many ways it has to be. But that doesn’t excuse another £640m being spent on management consultants.
Then the politicians introduced this thing called the “internal market” (everyone bidding against each other for a set amount of work). That is reckoned to cost somewhere between £4.5bn and £10bn a year to administer.
And how much is the NHS being told it has to save over the next few years? Did I hear £30bn? Well OK, let’s call it £22bn after the government has pledged (not yet paid!) an additional £8bn.
BINGO! Add up the savings above (let’s take the minimum figures from above) and we get … Yes, a whopping £16.7bn the NHS is spending *each year* that it should not be.
And that’s without allowing for all the wastage of medicines, dressings, supplies etc. Without any account for the multi-layers of unnecessary management. Without thousands of administrators who, whenever I visit a hospital or clinic appear to be ambling around carrying a single piece of paper. Without the countless project managers and IT specialists who can’t; so major improvement programmes fail. Without continual reorganisation and re-branding creating unnecessary jobs and work.
If we could get rid of all that — and we could, if the will was there — we could not only save the required £30bn but also pay the junior doctors a decent salary to work responsible hours.
Or even better … plough back those savings to improve the quality of the care delivered from fit for purpose buildings.
It needs a really tough businessman at the top. One who will tell the politicians to “f*** off” and let him run the show. And then restructure and rebalance the whole organisation to run on the people who genuinely have the right vision. It wouldn’t be pretty, or comfortable and it couldn’t be done overnight; but it would work. If Mussolini could get the trains to run on time…
Why is this so hard? Oh sorry, it doesn’t line anyone’s pockets with gold. That’s why!
We’re doomed. FFS!
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
As one might expect, Christopher Snowdon (he who has taken the new alcohol guidelines apart) writing over on