French nuclear tests infected 'almost entire Polynesian population': report
Source: Agence France-Presse/MSN
AFP 50 mins ago
France concealed the levels of radioactivity that French Polynesia was exposed to during French nuclear tests in the Pacific from 1966-1996, with almost the "entire population" of the overseas territory infected, a report said on Tuesday.
Online investigation site Disclose said it had over two years analysed some 2,000 pages of French military documents declassified in 2013 by the defence ministry concerning nuclear tests on the archipelago.
It worked alongside the British modelling and documentation firm Interprt as well as the Science and global security programme of the University of Princeton in the United States, it said.
For the Centaur test carried out in July 1974, "according to our calculations, based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received, approximately 110,000 people were infected, almost the entire Polynesian population at the time," it said.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/french-nuclear-tests-infected-almost-entire-polynesian-population-report/ar-BB1ep2cF?%253Bocid=u146dhp
malthaussen
(17,235 posts)Miguelito Loveless
(4,477 posts)"Infect" in a medical context has a pretty specific meaning, radiation is not a pathogen.
Kali
(55,031 posts)that was bugging the hell out of me!
Miguelito Loveless
(4,477 posts)Radiation treatment depends on exposure level and duration, and is problematic.
Kali
(55,031 posts)viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and worms.
radiation is energy and can cause illness, but it isn't a pathogen that causes infection. (in fact it can be used to kill pathogens)
Miguelito Loveless
(4,477 posts)I stated elsewhere that "infection" required a pathogen.
caraher
(6,279 posts)Clearly at odds with the dictionary definition of infection. The first dictionary I checked says to infect is to
"affect (a person, organism, cell, etc.) with a disease-causing organism."
This is an actively misleading usage, as "infection" carries a lot of implications that are simply false (e.g. that it might be possible to "infect" other people if you are a victim).
Miguelito Loveless
(4,477 posts)As to infecting other people, it is possible to contaminate other people, especially if a victim comes into contact with others who are unprotected, and the victims has radioactive debris (like fallout) that has not been washed off.
llashram
(6,265 posts)exposed, poisoned might be better words, yet I can understand the point being expressed in the poisoning of these POC by...and America did the same type of "infecting".
oldsoftie
(12,666 posts)relayerbob
(6,561 posts)"Contamination"
Miguelito Loveless
(4,477 posts)That's a thought.
hunter
(38,349 posts)Nuclear weapons testing polluted the environment with toxic materials, many of these radioactive.
The word "infected" is used for fungi, bacteria, viruses, etc., that multiply within the organism they infect.
One doesn't, for example, get "infected" by air or water pollution, although both can be deadly, and both might contain pathogens.
Maybe this is a bad translation of the original French.
Nuclear weapons testing was a horrible thing. My wife's father witnessed an atomic bomb test up close. He was one of the human guinea pigs used in U.S.weapons testing. The military wanted to see how soldiers and sailors would fare in an actual nuclear battle. He didn't tell anyone, not even my mother-in-law, until a few years after Congress rescinded the Atomic Veteran oath-of-secrecy in 1996.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_veteran
Civilian "downwinders" were similarly exposed to toxic materials from nuclear weapons manufacture and testing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downwinders
James48
(4,444 posts)In 1953-54, and participated in multiple Nevada test explosions. He died of a heart attack in 1973, at the age of 39.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)(if anything the French took lessons from us)
How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster
https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/
&ab_channel=BritishPath%C3%A9
Operation Crossroads
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads
Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships.
The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands, and the first to be publicly announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a large press corps. They were conducted by Joint Army/Navy Task Force One, headed by Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy rather than by the Manhattan Project, which had developed nuclear weapons during World War II. A fleet of 95 target ships was assembled in Bikini Lagoon and hit with two detonations of Fat Man plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons of the kind dropped on Nagasaki, each with a yield of 23 kilotons of TNT (96 TJ).
The first test was Able. The bomb was named Gilda after Rita Hayworth's character in the 1946 film Gilda, and was dropped from the B-29 Superfortress Dave's Dream of the 509th Bombardment Group on July 1, 1946. It detonated 520 feet (158 m) above the target fleet and caused less than the expected amount of ship damage because it missed its aim point by 2,130 feet (649 m).
The second test was Baker. The bomb was known as Helen of Bikini and was detonated 90 feet (27 m) underwater on July 25, 1946. Radioactive sea spray caused extensive contamination. A third deep-water test named Charlie was planned for 1947 but was canceled primarily because of the United States Navy's inability to decontaminate the target ships after the Baker test. Ultimately, only nine target ships were able to be scrapped rather than scuttled. Charlie was rescheduled as Operation Wigwam, a deep-water shot conducted in 1955 off the coast of Mexico (Baja California).
Bikini's native residents agreed to evacuate the island, and were evacuated on board the LST-861, with most moving to the Rongerik Atoll. In the 1950s, a series of large thermonuclear tests rendered Bikini unfit for subsistence farming and fishing because of radioactive contamination. Bikini remains uninhabited as of 2017, though it is occasionally visited by sport divers. Planners attempted to protect participants in the Operation Crossroads tests against radiation sickness, but one study showed that the life expectancy of participants was reduced by an average of three months. The Baker test's radioactive contamination of all the target ships was the first case of immediate, concentrated radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. Chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called Baker "the world's first nuclear disaster."[1]
Nasruddin
(756 posts)The Guardian has a better written version here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/09/france-has-underestimated-impact-of-nuclear-tests-in-french-polynesia-research-finds
(Quelle surprise)
I was able to find the original of the story thru them. There's an English version but the links appear damaged or incomplete so I'll just leave you with the French version.
https://disclose.ngo/fr/investigations/toxique
Lire l'enquete has more background info if you need it -
It goes here
https://moruroa-files.org/
& there's a choice of (working) English or French versions.
Side note:
The utter, incredible ignorance of many journalists & their editors when covering science topics is a real danger to us all. Be very, very skeptical of anything in the press written about a science topic, at least in American press or by American "journalists". If you know anything about the topic you will usually be astounded by how wrong they are, & if you don't but do your own background work (like here) you will wind up shaking your head.
Among other things it's no wonder there's so much accusation of fake news - a lot of it is fake!
Nasruddin
(756 posts)Incidentally, the mistranslation seems to go back to the original.
Here's the English version from the morurua files:
According to our calculations, based on a scientific reassessment of the doses received, approximately 110,000 people were infected,
Daprès nos calculs, environ 110 000 personnes ont été dangereusement exposées à la radioactivité,
As you can see someone at disclose mistranslated it & also "improved" the quality of the estimate with a notion not in the French version. I'm assuming the French version is the original, as the issue and the disclose company are French.
Should be wary of the original work with this kind of distortion in play!
Steelrolled
(2,022 posts)I first encountered this 30 or so years ago. I was astonished. But I've become used to it, and just accept it now.
To be fair, doing good, accurate, reporting is difficult. But time is of the essence, and it shows. Sometimes I think inaccurate reporting is willful, but usually not. And bias is frequent even in "unbiased" sources.
CloudWatcher
(1,851 posts)Sadly this is true of almost all MSM, it's not limited to science topics. There are exceptions (Maddow), but it's really sad what passes as journalism.
Warpy
(111,437 posts)/pedantry
However, the sky high rates of thyroid problems and other radiation based illness in French Polynesia have been known for a long time, this is just France finally owning up to the damage 50 years late.
It's one of those things people knew but the government managed to sweep under the rug.
MineralMan
(146,350 posts)Very poor reporting there.