What’s happening in Japan should be criminal – but when the state colludes with a secretive, dangerous private industry, this is what we get. I’ve no doubt similar would happen if the Fukushima catastrophe was relocated to the UK or the US or France or any other country where the nuke lobby is embedded in government.

> …a benchmark of dosages and symptoms that I found at Wikipedia was helpful…

One critical thing to always mention when discussing radiation toxicity is internal versus external emitters. It makes no difference if someone waved a Geiger counter around and recorded a ‘low’ reading – if a particle of caesium, strontium, plutonium, etc. is ingested then all bets are off. You now have radiation firing directly in to cells, causing massive damage and often leading to cell mutation which leads to cancer.

It might take 20 or 30 years to develop (good for denying responsibility if the radiation is yours!), but once these radioactive elements are embedded in soft tissue or bones, then you’re playing a long game of Russian Roulette.

Here’s a quote from 1979 which is still horribly true today:

* “…cancer … risks are increased even with the smallest dose of radiation. The so-called permissible dose of radiation, for nuclear workers or for the public at large, represents only a legalized permit for the nuclear industry to commit random, premeditated murders upon the … population.” http://ratical.org/radiation/CNR/PP/Foreward1979.html