E-Coli: A Tragic German Double Standard

So, now it looks like it really was the beansprouts (see guardian here) Those Spanish cucumbers were innocent after all.

Thirty-one dead. Three thousand infected (and rising). Many left in need of kidney transplants. A terrible catalogue of tragedy which, unfortunately, is far from closed.

It also looks like it was all too predictable. Beansprouts were responsible for a similar outbreak (though this time Salmonella) in the UK in 2010. In fact between 1973 and 2007 Beansprouts were responsible for no less than 37 major outbreaks of food poisoning from either salmonella or e-coli across the world.  (See Here).

That number of course, excludes the UK outbreak or the latest German disaster.

Uncooked "Organic" bean sprouts:- The symbolic food of the Green movement.

I bet nobody told you (before now) that they can harbour E-Coli not only on the outer extremities but also internally. Washing them for a week may not remove the infection. See Here

Compared to other vegetables, uncooked bean sprouts present a significant health risk (See Here - "Minimising your Risk"). This risk is particularly severe to the young, old and vulnerable.

Beansprouts require scrupulous hygiene from seed to plate. Clearly, in Germany this hygiene regime was seriously compromised somewhere early on in the chain. But nobody actually knows where yet.

All over the world, and especially in Germany, environmentally concerned parents have been feeding raw bean sprouts to themselves and to their kids. They then probably wash them down with some unpasteurised "Whole" milk. (another fad). Meanwhile these same parents have been panicking over nuclear incident, on the other side of the planet, that killed no-one and resulted in a few vegetables getting a barely measurable dose of radiation.

Double standard? I think so.

Beside cooking, there is another way you can ensure uncooked bean sprouts are fit to eat. You can irradiate them with Gamma rays. ( See Here )

Actually this process is quietly used by many hospitals to reduce the risk of patients getting secondary infections from poorly cooked food.  To quote from the above link:

[quote]
"Food irradiation for a number of produce items would give us not just a marginal increase, but give us probably the Grand Canyon increase of safety.
[unquote]

It was touted as a method for wholesale treatment of vegetables in the 1980's but in the UK it was rejected.

To be fair is is a bit OTT for most fruit and veg.

It's appeal to the food industry was that it would significantly improve shelf life. The fact that it would also protect consumers from a low risk of food poisoning was, at the time, just a bit of useful propaganda.

But never the less, if these bean sprouts had been irradiated they would not have been poisonous.

Thirty one people would not have died.

By the way don't think that the bean sprouts would have become radioactive either. To make something radioactive you need a Neutron source not a Gamma ray source.

Maybe there is an opportunity here for some adventurous German bean sprout producer:

 Ship your sprouts to Holland.

Get them irradiated and them sell the back in  Germany as guaranteed E-Coli free.

Just don't mention that they have been irradiated. The German irrationality over everything nuclear would guarantee certain bankruptcy.

Fukishima: Time To Go Home

Getting information about the Fukishima nuclear emergency gets harder and harder by the day. Not through some fanciful dark conspiracy. But because there is nothing much to report these days. The drama days are long gone.

Currently the IEIA site has some fancy slideshows of assorted radiation data on Japan and Fukishima. (See Here).

A typical example:

It looks like almost all readings are barely above background - if that. Little if any risk remains, that is if there was any appreciable risk to the general population at a range of 20Km in the first place.

But nobody has the balls to say that.

The problem we have here now is that many tens of thousands of people have been "evacuated" from a danger zone where there is actually little appreciable danger. In fact most of the danger in the  current 20Km exclusion zone comes from the debris and general nastiness left over from the now forgotten earthquake and tsunami.

We end up with people living in a state of limbo because nobody has the guts to make a decision. Those in charge are frightened of what the anti-nuclear lobby will say. Nobody has the guts to endure their wrath and say it like it really is.

Nobody is prepared to stop the arse covering or question  the preposterous comparison of Fukishima to Chernobyl.

Life is full of risks. For the good people from the Fukishima Prefecture there will be many risks as their rebuild their towns and villages. But any risk from radiation falls so far below the risks they must endure from the wreckage it pails into insignificance.

It is time to stop using the the people of Fukishima as pawns in a propaganda game play.It is time to stop pretending that this is all about their safety. It is not. It is about "looking good". It is about appeasment.

It is about time that someone in Japan took responsibility for ending the torment of the people of Fukishima. It is time they judged the situation on the real current status of the Fukishima Nuclear plant. They need to show leadership. If in the highly unlikely event something changed, well, then re-evacuate. But seriously leadership should do just that - lead. Not cower behind politically correct stupidity that leaves many thousands in misery.

The people of Fukishima need to restart their businesses. They need to rebuild  their lives.

It is time they were allowed to go home.

A Natural Experiment: The Fukushima Reactor

 First of all - What is a natural experiment? Wikipediea defines it rather well HERE.

Basically natural experiments are based on events as they happen rather than events that are planned.

The study of disease and infection are the most common uses of a natural experiment. The most famous related to a study in the 1850's that discovered the cause of a Cholera outbreak in London was due to foul drinking water.

So how does this relate to the drama unfolding around the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex in Japan, and all the other 55 nuclear reactors in Japan for that matter.

Well, I think there are three important natural experiments that can be conducted here. There are certainly, many more.

Here are my Pet three:

1. The first and most important would be, of course, related to the any potential health issues to the local population.
2. The second would be concerned with the resilience of Japans nuclear infrastructure to this massive earthquake.
3. The final one involves an assessment of the accuracy and honesty of the reporting that has gone on. 

So why these three and what should they cover? 

Without a doubt the first two are probably under way and brainpower massively more capable than that of the humble Billothewisp are formulating their criteria. 

But hey! this is my blog so this is what I think they should be considering.

The first natural experiment would consider the health consequences.

• How many people died from the damage caused to the reactors?
• What was the total radioactive release? 
• What are the short term health consequences from these releases for the local population?
• What are the long term health consequences from these releases for the local population?
• How long lasting will these affects be?
• How effective was the mitigation put in place by the Japanese authorities and how appropriate was it to the situation

The second natural experiment relates to the Japanese Nuclear Reactor Fleet

• How many plants were affected?
• How old were the worst affected plants?
• What was the cause of issues that arose?
• What was the real danger to the public?
• What level of control was maintained over the reactors?
• What were the chain of events that lead to the reported problems?

My final natural experiment, I regret to say unlikely to get done. Today's news may well be tomorrow's chip wrapper but the damage from propaganda and irresponsible reporting can last for years.

First here is my opinion of the reportage so far:

The reporting around the unfolding events has (to say the least) been lurid. Many of the reports have started from a pre-supposed position without any factual backup. The majority of the reportage has been inaccurate and sensationalist.

In true news-hack style, many of the worlds news agencies has not let the truth get in the way of a good story.

But that is just my opinion.

So what should out natural experiment consider? Bullet pointing what should be done in this case is less clear, but here are some ideas.

• First we should  let the media frenzy die down for a while. Then our natural experiment can begin by analysing the news reports and comparing them to the actual events, and the actual potential scenarios.
• We could trawl through them for accuracy and consider such aspects as event reportage accuracy and the accuracy of the quotations and their context. The end result of this would allow the general population to gauge the integrity of the various news bodies and verify their accuracy (or otherwise). These are essential aspects for future informed decisions by the worlds population.
• We can also judge the accuracy and "reasonableness" of the various experts quoted by the media.
  Those who provided accurate information can be applauded. Those who mislead or grandstanded on issues they knew little could be named and shamed. Again very important for the general public for future news assessment.

Meanwhile the chaos and trauma in the rest of Japan with its ever mounting death toll (now in excess of 10,000) has been virtually airbrushed out as the news media focus on the drama surrounding  the Fukushima Reactor complex.

I wait for the first results from the first two natural experiments with anticipation. It would be good if someone also did the third experiment, but I am afraid that is unlikely.

It appears our world press loves to make a drama out of a crisis. But the Japanese Earthquake, a crisis several orders of magnitude greater than the Fukushima drama was simply not compelling enough for them. 

Too mundane. 

Just another natural disaster. 

But a a sub issue in the main context of the Japanese Earthquake tragedy, a crippled nuclear reactor  - is much more juicy.