TCHERNOBYL: Guess What Percentage Of Children From Belarus Have Sustained PERMANENT GENETIC DAMAGE?

A comment over at Energy News hipped me to this. (If you haven't spent some quality time below the 'Related' suggestions on an Energy News page, you don't know what you're missing, unless you are an asshole or a troll, or a paid shill, which is both, in which case, what I want you to please understand is instead this: they are all a bunch of wankers, and you should do yourself a favor and don't even waste your time, there or here.  In fact, if you are an asshole, or a troll, or a paid shill – or just curious – hold on a sec... okay, here, click below, and you will see the paragraph with which, for you, this blog ought more properly have opened.)

A comment over at Energy News hipped me to this, but of course this is just another fact I, being yet another clean-nuclear-power-hating, conspiracy-theorizing, privacy-and-internet-anonymity-defending wacko, have, no doubt, no discoverable rationale for having stated. It is a good working assumption that I am of little social, political, intellectual, or cultural worth, either specifically as a source of information, or, more generally, as a human being. Any doubt remaining over whether to take me or my ideas seriously should, to any having read thus far, swiftly be settled once you discover, to your dismay, that not only do I try not to let such inadequacies dampen my near-evangelical zeal to infect the unsuspecting Gentle & Innocent Reader with the contagion of such opinions, but also, and more to the point of this particular rant, that I most emphatically choose not to endorse a form of energy generation that literally requires 100% successful attention to detail as well as a 0% rate of failure
for anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics or logic to be at all comfortable with the risks involved. Risks of catastrophic loss of life, of health and well being, spanning a greater number of generations than that for which humankind has proven itself capable, to date, of even keeping accurate records, much less doing anything dangerous continuously. But no, the nuclear industry, worldwide, prefers to base crucial decisions on BEST CASE SCENARIOS – probably because otherwise there would be no choice at all. Everyone would have to resign. A few mirror neurons might regenerate, but that would only make it worse: a mere resignation probably won't make up for enough to make a difference when you are lying in bed at night in the dark thinking about the children in Belarus, or Tokyo, or Santa Ana, or St. Louis, or Middletown, or Benton County, or Hunters Point, or Seascale, or Carlsbad, or... No. Not enough to assuage the conscience, seething in direct proportion to years of neglect. Nothing else to be done but go on tour on the protest circuit.But there I go again; just ignore me, and if you want to remain civilized, avoid places out at which vulgar elements like myself are known to be found hanging.

In fact, I have some texts you might find more to your liking: a couple from the Wall Street Journal, and one from Forbes, dating back to mid 2011. Click on this next button, and you can stay up here and reread them, while the rest of us go on and finish the post. Try not to fight amongst yourselves, please don't hack any widgets, and when you're done, remember to turn off the light and mouseover the marquee above the header (to turn off the scrolling) on the way out.

Anyway, where were we?
Oh yes. Reread the title: now guess. Permanent genetic damage, kids in Belarus today. Go ahead.... guess.

10%?

20%? 

30%?   

Here's a hint. According to Wikipedia, "about 60% of the fallout [from Tchernobyl] landed in Belarus."

Now how much would you guess? 

40%?

50%?  That would be alarming, wouldn't it? 

60%?  Correlation coefficient approaching +1 with that fallout statistic?  

Isn't that too high for an area from which not everyone was evacuated?  I would have thought so, in a sane world.

How about 85%?

EIGHTY-FIVE PER CENT.

Don't believe me?  That's all right, it is fully understandable. I didn't believe it either.  My research led to this post.  It was very preliminary; it consisted of a search, and the viewing of the result.  Here's the search string, and a few choice hyperlinks it retrieved:

Now think a moment about Fukushima.  All those families being told it was safe to go back to their homes.  All those kids made to clean and decontaminate their schools.  All those people shamed into eating Fukushima produce.  All that skipjack tuna – remember that 80% of the world's miso soup is made from the tuna caught off the NE of Japan – all that prime skipjack which was not allowed to live its contaminated life in comparative peace. All that tuna which should not have been caught and sold and eaten, but which, by hook and by crook, by stealth and subterfuge, most certainly was.

Which, at least in 2011, was all of it.

And that was then.  That is not now.  

Now, just today, I have seen the most unnerving headline I have seen yet at Energy News, and still do not know even where to start.  It happened again:  Tepco at the wheel: dear us, oh look, dear dear, we really do not understand how this could be happening, oh well.

Like I said, be sure and turn off the marquee and the lights on your way out. If you changed your mind and want to see the original post despite it challenging your previously indoctrinated beliefs, click here to refresh....

Apologies to parents, whether they hail from Belarus or not, for my ranting: if I came across as insensitive, it was not my intent.  Far from it.

Be seeing you.