The Latest in Paranoia

The latest paranoid theory is:

A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.

There are two problems. One, the IAEA doesn't seem to know about this. Two, according to Wikipedia, it was trivial:

On June 7, 2011, an electrical component in a switcher room caused a small fire with poisonous gases and Halon extinguisher activation which forced a partial evacuation.^[12] The fire was no longer active when firefighters arrived and according to officials, the public was never in any danger, however in response, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared an alert, which is a level 2 incident.^[13] The fire impacted a pump which is used to recirculate coolant water through the spent fuel pool. The pump was offline for an hour but backup equipment was not needed as estimated time to boiling temperature was over 88 hours.^[14] The evacuation was the first at the facility since 1992, when 20,000 US gallons (76,000 l; 17,000 imp gal) (ca. 76 t) of coolant leaked into a containment building from the reactor.^[15][16]

It's also worth noting that, unlike Fukushima, there really is an official denial. It's also worth noting that such a denial would be pointless if false since you can't hide radioactivity.

But wait, there's more. The article also says:

But, with an already documented 35% increase in the infant mortality rate for American mothers living in the western coastal regions of the US caused by radiation blowing onto them from Japan being ignored by these people there doesn’t seem to be much hope for them.

This, oddly enough, is based on something:

The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:

4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011  - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)

This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant.   Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster.  In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate. 

It might indeed be significant. On the other hand, I'd like to know how many different towns and time periods were examined. For example, why was the time period four weeks before the accident and ten weeks after? Could it be that using the same amount of time led to less hysterical results? Why did they look at one town instead of the entire Pacific Northwest?

Addendum: One of the “researchers” found a 48% increase in infant mortality in Philadelphia. This is a bit strange considering the radioiodine levels in Philadelphia were higher before Fukushima.

Nuclear Power Yes Please has more detailed comments.