Arnie Gundersen Descends into the Deepest Depths of the Dark Side

Arnie Gundersen Descends into the Deepest Depths of the Dark Side

(posted November 10, 2015)

On November 4, 2015, Arnie Gundersen posted his latest video concerning Fukushima on his Fairewinds site. Gundersen’s numerous prior videos have been rife with elaborate exaggerations and deeply-flawed speculations. However, this most recent posting has shown him stooping to a new low; outright lying to “prove” his prediction of a future Japanese cancer epidemic caused by F. Daiichi.

Gundersen entitles his video diatribe “Cancer on the Rise in Post-Fukushima Japan”. ⁽¹⁾ He begins by alleging that the Tokyo Electric Power Company has verified that the accident has caused a case of leukemia in a “long-term Tepco employee”, more than 100 child thyroid cancers, and that Japan’s future cancer rate will be “much greater than normal”. Arnie says that these alleged admissions by Tepco have verified his outrageous speculations of two years ago, declaring that between 100,000 and a million cancers will happen in Japan due to the Fukushima accident releases. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tepco never said anything of the sort! Arnie made up the “Tepco confirmations”, in all three cases.

First, Gundersen tries to prove his claim about the “Tepco employee” by saying that there are no accurate records of actual worker exposures at F. Daiichi because some subcontract workers didn’t always wear their dosimeters, and a few mistakenly took their monitoring devices home with them. Arnie obviously believes the exception is the rule, denoting that the employee necessarily received a much higher dose that has been reported.

To the contrary, the worker was not a Tepco employee. Rather, he was actually a welder working for a sub-contractor at F. Daiichi. In addition the welder only worked at F. Daiichi for about 14 months, which is hardly “long-term”. Further, the welder’s period of employment was two years after the questionable dosimeter incidents had been resolved. Finally, the leukemia diagnosis had nothing to do with his 15 millisieverts of exposure. The Japanese welder received a workman’s comp benefit package because he satisfied the statutory criteria stipulated in Japan’s 1976 Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act…a blue law, if you will!⁽²⁾There was no medical diagnosis connecting the leukemia to his occupational exposure. And, Tepco never “confirmed” this to be a cancer caused by F. Daiichi exposure.

Japan’s Health Ministry, which awarded the compensation, stressed that their decision did not mean there was a proven link between radiation exposure and effects on the claimant’s health. In fact, the welder told the Asahi Shimbun, “Initially, I did not think the illness was caused by radiation exposure,” but when he heard of others who had applied for workman’s comp under the 1976 statute, he decided to give it a try. He was successful. ⁽³⁾ It should be noted that the latency period for leukemia is 5-7 years, but he welder had been diagnosed only 14 months after his work at F. Daiichi began. There is no way his leukemia was caused by his Fukushima exposure.

With respect to his second Fukushima cancer claim, Gundersen uses a solitary report published in a Japanese journal on October 5^th, to allegedly prove that there’s a child thyroid cancer epidemic in Fukushima Prefecture. The report was authored by an epidemiological researcher (Toshihide Tsuda) who has been claiming a Fukushima thyroid cancer epidemic since 2012. This was the first time any science journal saw fit to publish his deeply flawed conception. Deeply flawed? Fukushima University’s Dr. Shinichi Suzuki is the head of the team actually running the study from which Tsuda drew his “evidence”. Suzuki says the data does not support the new claim because the confirmed cancers, thus far, “appear to have occurred prior to [Fukushima] radiation exposure”. ⁽³⁾ There have been other errors noted, but this one exposed the vacuity of the Tsuda claim. And, once again, Tepco has made no “confirmation” of the Fukushima child thyroid anomalies having been caused by the nuke accident.

Gundersen’s third claim, that Tepco admits there will be numerous cancers in the future, is an utter fabrication. Gundersen says, “[Tepco] acknowledged that there will be numerous cancers in Japan, much greater than normal, due to the radioactive discharges from the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi.” Tepco has not said anything of the sort! Empty, apocalyptic claims such as this guarantees considerable circulation among the antinuclear internet sites, such as has happened with ENE News and Green Med since Gundersen posted on Nov. 4. ⁽⁴⁾ That apprears to be exactly what Gundersen wanted.

In all three cases, Gundersen’s alleged “proof” of Tepco admissions is vacuous. There was no such statement made by Tepco with respect to any of them. Gundersen lied! But, he will get away with it because he is telling his worshiping audience exactly what they want to hear. Gundersen has become what is tantamount to an antinuclear televangelist. In fact, he has openly said (in a recent video) “divine intervention” kept the Fukushima accident from escalating into a fourteen unit catastrophe that would have forced the evacuation of most, if not all of Japan. He actually said this as one of many antinuclear speakers at an April 15^th Canadian symposium on uranium mining! ⁽⁵⁾

It is also possible to conclude that Gundersen is a terrorist; a person who uses misinformation to induce fear for political purpose and/or personal gain. He says, “I believe, as do many of my colleagues, that there will be at least 100,000 and as many as one million more cancers in Japan's future…The cancers already occurring in Japan are just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sorry to say that the worst is yet to come." Assuring his audience that there will unquestionably be massive future cancer epidemics is a tacit death threat directed at the Japanese public. And, personal gain? As always, Arnie ends his video with a call for more and more donations in order to continue his antinuclear campaigning.

Professional antinuclear voices like Arnie Gundersen…as well as Helen Caldicott, Harvey Wasserman, and Robert Hunziker, just to name a few…are socio-political incendiaries who may well be the reason behind the recently reported death threats inflicted on innocent scientists by dyed-in-the-wool antinuclear zealots. ⁽⁶⁾ Hopefully, the line between threat and actualization will not be crossed. But if it is, Arnie Gundersen and those of his seditious, irresponsible ilk should be prosecuted as criminal accessories, before, during, and after the fact.

References:

1 - http://www.fairewinds.org/nuclear-energy-education/cancer-on-the-rise-in-post-fukushima-japan

2 – http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20151020_34.html -- http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201510200086 --http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20151020p2g00m0dm081000c.html

3 - http://www.cancernetwork.com/ata-2015-thyroid-cancer/role-fukushima-radiation-unclear-pediatric-thyroid-cancers

4 - http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/million-cancer-deaths-fukushima-expected-japan-new-report-reveals-1

5 - http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-fud/gundersen-s-14-fukushima-myth.html

6 - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/canadian-researcher-targeted-by-hate-campaign-over-fukushima-findings/article27060613/ -- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/charges-laid-against-bc-man-who-called-for-death-of-ex-fukushima-researcher/article27136264/ -- http://www.jaif.or.jp/en/fukushima-cleanup-by-school-youth-met-with-threatening-calls-and-emails/