USS Ronald Reagan post Fukushima

[chopper2004]

A buddy of mine retired Chinook crew chief who runs a veterans society / chapter shared this link on Fakebook here

Sickened by service: More US sailors claim cancer from helping at Fukushima | Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/20/sickened-by-service-more-us-sailors-claim-cancer-from-helping-at-fukushima/)

[Tourist]

total bullsh1t.

[The Helpful Stacker]

A stunning response, full of facts countering those of the linked article and no doubt based on years of experience working in the field of oncology.

[satsuma]

Tourist, you've excelled yourself.

[alfred_the_great]

I know significant numbers of USN personnel (including those who were on RONALD REGAN for the incident), and their general response is much the same as Tourist's.

[awblain]

Tourist's reply may be terse and "direct", but it's almost certainly correct.

Given Veteran Administration benefits, which are OK but not excellent, and suffering from serious illnesses, taking legal action is a promising way to pay for better long-term care and rehabilitation. And it's a good way to make some lawyers very wealthy.

Over time, Fukushima will certainly lead to enhanced rates of cancers, perhaps tens of thousands. However, the enhanced risk of an individual getting cancer due to the plant - especially within four years - is small.

Nuclear-powered ship workers presumably all have dose meters - which gives some idea of external exposure. They were almost all young, so presumably were all given potassium iodide to ward off the biggest internal exposure risk.

If it had been 60 aircrew with cancer from flying near the site (out of maybe 1000 aircrew onboard) that would be dramatic evidence of contamination and a causal link from exposure to emission from Fukushima. But it's not - the claim is that their desalinated seawater caused it, in 60 out of all 10000 onboard. In almost 4 years, out of 3000 men on Essex and 6500 on Reagan, how many would naturally get (not die from) testicular and other cancers?

Half of testicular cancers occur in 20-35 age group - the age of naval personnel. The lifetime risk of testicular cancer (over ~50 years) is about 1:300, so in 3.7 years, the risk in this group is 1:300x2x50/3.7 = 1 in 8,000. 60 cases of testicular cancer amongst 10,000 crew is unlikely - there should be about 1.

But, there are lots of other cancers listed in the report. The annual risk of a man getting any cancer at 20-40 is about 1:1000, so the chance of getting cancer in 3.7 years is about 1:300. For 10,000 crew, that would give ~30 cases. Having 60 cases dug up by diligent lawyers amongst 10,000 crew is thus not at all unexpected.

Furthermore, the proposed means of making them sick - consuming purified (corrected from evaporated) water drawn from the Pacific - is absurd. If that's an enhanced risk, then everyone who drank water falling as rain evaporated from the Pacific since 2011 should be at the same enhanced risk.

To make any case, the lawyers need to show that it's aircrew that make up the claimants, not general crew. However, whether a jury is numerate or not, is a question. There is no case, but it might still be worth a gamble.

PS - When the water's desalinated, there's a good chance that it's also de-nuclearwasted as well.

[SASless]

I did not know Navy folks had Testicles....except for the Marines!:oh:

[Tourist]

awblain


Thank you for beautifully expanding my initial post.

[Courtney Mil]

awblain,

Too many false assumptions there, Buddy. Desalination is generally not done by boiling sea water (which may well remove radioactive material) it's done by reverse osmosis (RO). RO can remove some 90% of radionucleides from water, but this depends a lot on the membrane used and the intake water chemistry AND, of course, how safe the remaining 10% is depends on the level of contamination in the uptake.

Furthermore, the proposed means of making them sick - consuming evaporated water drawn from the Pacific - is absurd. If that's an enhanced risk, then everyone who drank water falling as rain evaporated from the Pacific since 2011 should be at the same enhanced risk.

Again, RO, not evaporation.

Nuclear-powered ship workers presumably all have dose meters

presumably were all given potassium iodide

[awblain]

Mr Mil,

The issue is not the mechanism for purifying seawater, but that the contamination is supposed to have come from seawater itself.
The Pacific is very very large. If it was a question of drinking rainwater from the deck, there might be a case… but there isn't.

If you'd expect ~30 cases from the crew of the two ships since 2010, being able to drag 60 into a class-action lawsuit is completely expected. There's no evidence for an excess cancer rate… so there is no case, unless they can find an innumerate judge and jury.

[Courtney Mil]

awblain,

Yes, I do take your point, but, judging by the various articles I've seen on this, one of the favourite "theories" is the uptake of sea water contaminated with radionuclides for desalination for use as drinking water, washing, bathing etc. Oh, hang on, seamen don't bathe, do they? Showering.

The Pacific is very big, but there were several huge discharges of heavily contaminated water from the plant, which are known to have caused high, albeit relatively short-term, concentrations of nasty stuff in the vicinity. Uptake of seawater from one such "plume" COULD cause a problem.

I'm not sure if you're separating desalination from purification, but to clarify my point, RO does both. There is chemical treatment thereafter, but this is to stop the development of algae and bacteria in stored water.

I also take you points regarding the statiscial likelihoods of developing various cancers. I guess you could attribute a statiscical blip to probabilities - random distribution is not (by definition) even, so "clusters" do happen - but you cannot use that fact to discount a cause and effect in this case.

BTW, I'm not arguing that this issue IS caused by exposure, I'm simply pointing out some of the science behind it.

Regards,

Courtney

[awblain]

courtney mil,

The "suck up a plume" theory is just nonsense on stilts. The dilution is always going to be extreme tens of miles off the coast, even if a cloud of concrete dust landed right in front of the ship.

The key problem with the lawsuit is the lack of any excess cancer cases. The guy who was working in the exclusion zone for months might have a case, and so might any aircrew who flew closer and have developed cancers... but there's no reported excess over the number of cancers expected given the number of the general ships' crew.

I'm somewhat surprised that what seem to be a well-organized team of ambulance-chasers would chose this losing approach. I guess they expect the defendant to just roll over and buy them off - although for a few hundred K I'd be willing to expand on the few minutes of research I did above to destroy the case as an expert witness.

[rh200]

Unless they can come up with specific problems that could cause it, they will just do a statistical analysis. If its enough above the background noise, then they might have a case. As for the actual causes, the reports of rashes etc., at particular times may give some credence to claims of a cluster.

That said, on a population that size in confined conditions, I would imagine theres a constant stream of aliaments, including rashes etc.

I would be surprised if the navy couldn't wheel out some nice graphs of medical conditions that would be an eye opener.

[Courtney Mil]

The "suck up a plume" theory is just nonsense on stilts. The dilution is always going to be extreme tens of miles off the coast, even if a cloud of concrete dust landed right in front of the ship.

It's not fallout in the sea, it's highly contaminated water discharged from the plant.

rh200, that's how I see it too. There has been no in-depth analysis conducted that would lend evidence to either side of the argument. Therefore there is no basis for dismissing claims or counter-claims as "nonsense", "total bullsh1t" or "There is no case".

Any prosecution would, as stated, by awblain, have to prove its case with evidence and I haven't seen any of that just yet. Doesn't mean it isn't there, doesn't mean it is. But the issue cannot simply be dissmissed as "total bullsh1t" without any investigation or analysis.

It would be a hard one to prove.

[PhilipG]

Surely IF the Ronald Reagan did 'suck up a plume of very contaminated water, there would be evidence of this in the RO plant?
As I recall the Reagan detected airborne contamination, then returned to port, surely contamination travels quicker in air than water.

[West Coast]

Sounds like Siri has been busy today researching CVN systems.

[chopper2004]

Originally when I looked back at the link, I was thinking like most of you guys about the desalination and why no more cases on board the air wing came to light.

It is not like a bunch of DoD contractors who worked for the now revealed Area 51 / Groom Lake suing the Pentagon for years due to handling / in contact with x,z, z (Nope I;m not going into VX!!!) which may have been carcinogenic.

I would have thought heaven forbid in the good old days of the Cold War if the Balloon went up, that any carrier battle group would encounter contaminated or radiated water, there were systems would be in place to make sure the crews weren't going to be at risk? And the very same systems would be refined over time with improvements in shipbuilding??? Arn't all warships designed to not only be buttoned up in the event of a nuclear attack which includes the water supply?

Otherwise if there is any proof in the pudding so to speak with the affected sailors linking the contaminated water seeping through Ronnie's ship :) then maybe future warship designers especially the environmental engineering experts could improve the desalination systems?

Cheers

[awblain]

There's nothing wrong with the environment on the ship, unless the engine room has its own issues.

In purification, all the normal ocean salt is left behind and exhausted - it's not clear why any radioactive elements would get into the drinking water, were there to be any in the water at all.

The risk to those in contact with the plume of debris from Fukushima is from ingesting the plume directly. Washing themselves in the Pacific would reduce that contamination.