Piers Williamson wrote:

[Referring to Dr. Steven Wing's claim that Three Mile Island (TMI) caused a 10% hike in cancer rates]

> Please note that Wing et. al's (1997a) study was
robust enough to

be

> admitted as testimony in court...

It was admitted in court because, not because it was robust, but because lawyers launched a class action lawsuit and hired Dr. Wing to do a study to support their case. After years of back and forth, the judge ended up giving summary judgment in favor of the defendants and dismissing Dr. Wing's study as useless.
She pointed out that Dr. Wing never demonstrated that the alleged victims received higher doses of radiation; he PRESUMED it, in a classic case of circular reasoning. In the judge's words:

> "In conducting his reanalysis, Dr.

>Wing presumed that TMI area residents were exposed to
levels

(doses) of radiation significantly

> higher than those reported in the government
reports...Plaintiffs

> have presented no evidence in support of this
assumption."

see:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/
readings/tmi.html

PW continues:

> However, this is a digression as

none of it affects my argument.

It is at the heart of your argument about Fukushima, because you extrapolate from Wing's assertion to suggest an alarmist scenario for Japan.

> As a rough example, Dr. Steve Wing

(University of North Carolina) has

> shown that after Three Mile Island there was a 10%
increase in

> cancers. Well, around 30 million people live between
Kanto and

> Fukushima. According to MEXT, on average 20% of
Japanese people die

> from cancer (50% contract it). Let's be generous and
take the 20%

> figure (although that is mixing deaths from cancer
with cancers).

20%

> of 30 million is 6 million. An excess cancer rate at
10% is 600,000

> cancers.

I'm no expert in nuclear issues. That's why I rely on the judgment of experts. So, when someone tells me of a study that supposedly demonstrates X, I think the responsible thing it to tell readers whether this represents the consensus view or a distinct minority.
The fact that someone is in a minority doesn't make them wrong, but I'd lke to know. The fact that someone produced his study in support of a lawsuit would also be nice to know. Just like I'd like to know, when a doctor writes a journal article in support of some new drug, whether his work was funded by the drug company.

When statistical assertion are so far afield, my attennae go up. In the article that PW cited, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/20/fukushima-plan
t-disaster-long-term-effects_n_1103874.html, no one comes close to Wing's 10% figure. Dr. Brenner talks about the possibility of an additional 0.25 percentage points to the lifetime 40% risk of getting cancer.
0.25% of 30 million people is 75,000. And if it's thyroid cancer, Dr. Brenner pointed out in his interview with me that few die of that kind of cancer.
That's still a big and disturbing number, but it's a far cry from suggesting the possibility of a few hundred thousand extra deaths. (I am not dismissing the anguish of even non-lethal cancer. My sister is a breast cancer survivor and my mom died of cancer.)

Japan is already is in a very anxious state.
Psychological maladies are one part of the health impact from Fukishima. To throw out alarmist numbers that have little justification is a disservice to those who live there. It's also makes me, and perhaps others, skeptical of any other "fact" that PW presents. For example, his assertion:

Fairewinds (one of the
few sources of reliable expert information)

Well, go to the Fairwinds website and you are immediately hit with this headline:

Gundersen: Fukushima Meltdown Could Result in One Million Cases of Cancer

The problem with much of the anti-nuclear movement is that it deals in sensationalism. It's just the other side of the coin from the distortions and lies of the "nuclear village," or the global warming skeptics.

To take one last example, PW states:

> Based on data presented to METI by

the power companies in 2010,

> Takano (Masao?) of Nagoya University argued in early
summer 2011

(TV

> Asahi, Morning Bird) that Japan basically has enough
electricity

> without nuclear plants:

Now, we're in my field of economics. The anti-nuke crowd is insisting that Japan has enough electricity even if all plants are shut down. The pro-nuke crowd warns of disaster. Disinterested views are hard to find.

The fact that Japan may get through the summer without blackouts doesn't mean it has enough electricity.
Japan's demand is down because the economy is down so much. Trying to replace the nukes with conventional thermal plants is horribly expensive and further depresses the economy. In 2011 alone, the increase in imports of gas, coal and LNG cost an additonal 1% of GDP and it will be even more in 2012, given recent price hikes. That's taking purchasing power out of the hands of Japanese firms and consumers and sending it to the Middle East and elsewhere. It will hurt an already fragile recovery. That's even if Japan can ramp up conventional thermal power fast enough to replace the shut down nukes.

Just to put my own cards on the table regarding nuclear
power: Prior to the Fukushima disaster, I was basically pro-nuke but with a lot of concerns. Since Fukushima, my concerns have grown immensely. Even if not a single person dies from cancer, the economic and psychological cost has been immense. I shudder to think that, if Japan cannot handle nuclear power safely, what happens when countries like China builds lots of plants? This is a very complex issue, because of all the trade-offs.
Tthousands of coal miners die in accidents every year, not to god-knows-how-many mention deaths from pollution and global warming. There's global warming even from cleaner fossil fuels like natural gas. Renewables aren't yet ready on a mass basis. because of global warming. On the hand, look at the immense damage from just one accident (imagine if the winds had blown most of the radiation from Fukushima into Japan intead of out to the Pacific last March 11.

It doesn't help anyone reach a reasonable policy course when so many people on opposite sides play fast and loose with the facts to support their point.

Richard Katz
The Oriental Economist Report