Janette D. Sherman is claiming 14,000 deaths due to Fukushima, debunked here
//4 debunked on Forbes
//3 debunked in german
//2 also debunked
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/21/9616921-experts-discount-claims-of-us-deaths-from-japan-radiation
//4 debunked on Forbes
//3 debunked in german
//2 also debunked
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/21/9616921-experts-discount-claims-of-us-deaths-from-japan-radiation
Who are the authors?
Janette D. Sherman, M. D. is the author of Life's Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer and Chemical Exposure and Disease, and is a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. She edited the bookChernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature, written by A. V. Yablokov, V. B., Nesterenko and A. V. Nesterenko, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. (Another scare study claiming huge number of nuclear victims disputed by science) Her primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education. She can be reached at: toxdoc.js@verizon.net and www.janettesherman.com
That New York Acadamy report claims: there were Chernobyl: A Million Casualties on this EnviroVideo presents Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman. Dr. Sherman is interviewed on the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown.
The video is also available with Japanese subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRO0wXjblJc
Joseph Mangano is an epidemiologist, and Executive Director of theRadiation and Public Health Project research group.
Most of the news sources going with this story are
Conspiracy / Islamocentric / Anti-Semitic Sites. In other words they are linked to terrorism-sourced propoganda
Conspiracy / Islamocentric / Anti-Semitic Sites. In other words they are linked to terrorism-sourced propoganda
- Al Jazeera Fukushima: It's much worse than you thinkJanette Sherman MD and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published an essay shedding light on a 35 per cent spike in ...
- counterpunch: Is the Increase in Baby Deaths...
- informationclearinghouse.info 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest...
- Alex Jones Prison Planet.com » Physician and Epidemiologist Say 35% Spike ...
- progressiveradionetwork.com/
- Veterans Today: Fukushima Radiation 1000 Times H-Bomb Peak | Veterans Today Dr Janette Sherman, a highly respected physician and an acknowledged expert in radiation exposure, has estimated the world wide Chernobyl Kill to be at least one million people killed to date.
Latest press release:
Medical Journal Article: 14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout
Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.
Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.
The IJHS article will be published Tuesday and will be available online as of 11 a.m. EST at http://www.radiation.org.
Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390);Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).
Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, said: "This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal. It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world. Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation."
Mangano is executive director, Radiation and Public Health Project, and the author of 27 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and letters.
Internist and toxicologist Janette Sherman, MD, said: "Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death. Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults."
Dr. Sherman is an adjunct professor, Western Michigan University, and contributing editor of "Chernobyl - Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" published by the NY Academy of Sciences in 2009, and author of "Chemical Exposure and Disease and Life's Delicate Balance - Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues weekly reports on numbers of deaths for 122 U.S. cities with a population over 100,000, or about 25-30 percent of the U.S. In the 14 weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived in the U.S. (March 20 to June 25), deaths reported to the CDC rose 4.46 percent from the same period in 2010, compared to just 2.34 percent in the 14 weeks prior. Estimated excess deaths during this period for the entire U.S. are about 14,000.
Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.
The IJHS article will be published Tuesday and will be available online as of 11 a.m. EST at http://www.radiation.org.
Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390);Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).
Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, said: "This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal. It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world. Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation."
Mangano is executive director, Radiation and Public Health Project, and the author of 27 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and letters.
Internist and toxicologist Janette Sherman, MD, said: "Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death. Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults."
Dr. Sherman is an adjunct professor, Western Michigan University, and contributing editor of "Chernobyl - Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" published by the NY Academy of Sciences in 2009, and author of "Chemical Exposure and Disease and Life's Delicate Balance - Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issues weekly reports on numbers of deaths for 122 U.S. cities with a population over 100,000, or about 25-30 percent of the U.S. In the 14 weeks after Fukushima fallout arrived in the U.S. (March 20 to June 25), deaths reported to the CDC rose 4.46 percent from the same period in 2010, compared to just 2.34 percent in the 14 weeks prior. Estimated excess deaths during this period for the entire U.S. are about 14,000.
EDITOR'S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of a related news event will be available on the Web at http://www.radiation.org as of 4 p.m. EST/2100 GMT on December 19, 2011. Embargoed copies of the medical journal article are available by contactingAilis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com.
SOURCE Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman, International Journal of Health Services
Some of their other studies:
Jay M. Gould, Ernest J. Sternglass, Janette D. Sherman, Jerry Brown, William McDonnell, Joseph J. Mangano Abstract Strontium-90 concentrations in deciduous ...Shame on you, Janette Sherman and Joseph Mangano!
On several web sites there has recently been references to an article published on the web site Counterpunch with the title “Is the Dramatic Increase in Baby Deaths in the US a Result of Fukushima Fallout? – A 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown“.The article, published on 10 June 2011, is authored by Janette D. Sherman and Joseph Mangano, both renowned persons in the anti-nuclear movement. In the text the authors claim a statistically significant increase of infant mortality deaths with 35% after the Fukushima accident in eight selected cities on the U.S. west coast.They writeThe 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.Furthermore, they try to link the releases of radioactivity from Fukushima and Chernobyl to the relatively high infant mortality rate in the U.S. A look at the data used by Sherman and Mangano does indeed seem to indicate an increase in the number of infant deaths in northwest U.S. after Fukushima, see the plot below:
Infant mortality for 8 northwest U.S. cities, as reported by Sherman and ManganoThe Fukushima events started on March 11, i.e. by the end of week 10. Then it took slightly more than a week for the first release of radioactivity to reach the nortwest part of the U.S. The data do show an increased infant mortality rate after Fukushima. The black line shows the average value for the 4 weeks before March 19, and the orange line shows the average value for the 10 weeks after that. The error bars on each data point indicate the statistical uncertainties.But why are the 10 weeks after Fukushima compared with only 4 weeks before? There seems to be a reason for it, commonly referred to as cherry-picking, i.e. you select the data that supports your theory without showing the full picture. To show the full data set may falsify what you want to show. This is quite common in politics and by people who have an agenda that is more important than the truth. But here we have two persons in medicine, one Medical Doctor and one Master of Public Health, they should be trustworthy professionals who are keen on giving people honest information, right? Let’s check their deck of cards closer.So, if we include data for, say, the first 7 weeks of 2011, we get a very different idea about the situation:
Infant mortality for 8 northwest U.S. cities, less biased versionVery interesting, the first seven weeks of 2011 actually has higher infant mortality than the weeks after Fukushima, quite different from what Sherman and Mangano wants us to believe. There is no spike after Fukushima, instead there is a dip during the 4 weeks before! A more detailed report on the closer scrutiny of Sherman and Mangano’s article is found in our Deep Repository.So, why does a Medical Doctor mistreat official data in this way? It is quite remarkable, and embarrasing, especially since Janette Sherman writes about herself on her web page (http://janettesherman.com/about/):Dr. Sherman’s primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education and patient awareness.She seems to have forgotten about her primary interest in this case, I fail to see how cherry-picking data can be part of public education and public awareness. And if anybody can see how you can prevent illness through scaring people with false statistics, then please explain it to me. Embarrasing, Janette Sherman…Joseph Mangano already has a track record of handling data in not so honest ways, we may come back to that in other blog entries (a few links to examples, as requested by a commenter: http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2005/08/joseph-mangano-and-art-of-deception.html andhttp://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/safetyandsecurity/factsheet/scienceonradiationhealtheffectsdispelstoothfairyproject/).What baffles me the most is that he and Sherman try to get away with this alarmistic claim by such a lousy handling of official data. Anybody can easily check it for themselves and see that Sherman and Mangano are wilfully interpreting data so that they agree with their already decided view on things. What is worse, they are scaring a lot of people with their claims, for no reason at all. Therefore: Shame on you!/Mattias Lantz – member of the network Nuclear Power Yes PleaseFollow-up blog entries on the same subject
19 June 2011: More bullshit from Joseph Mangano, take 221 June 2011: CounterPunch verifies infant mortality was alarmism but seems keen to create more of it27 July 2011: Sherman & Mangano admits errors – or do they?Update 24 June 2011
Several other people have scrutinized the Sherman-Mangano joke (by now I do not want to mis-use the word “study” in connection with these people), most notably in Scientific American. Here is a list:- Scientific American, “Observations” blog, by Michael Moyer, 21 June 2011: “Are Babies Dying in the Pacific Northwest Due to Fukushima? A Look at the Numbers”
- The sei-uno-zero-nove (6109) blog, by Antonio Rinaldi, 21 June 2011: “e-nucleare disinformazione” (in Italian)
- The xkcd forum, user signatures ++$_ and endolith, 16 June, under the post “8.8 Earthquake hits 250 miles from Tokyo”
- The Cliff Mass Weather Blog, 17 June 2011: “Fukushima Radiation and Infant Mortality in the NW? No way” (borrowing our plots)
- U.C. Berkeley, Department of Nuclear Engineering, Berkeley Radiological Air and Water Monitoring Forum (comments in all directions, but a couple of people are checking the data for themselves): “Fukushima fallout caused significant increase in baby deaths?” and“Post-Fukushima Infant Deaths in the Pacific Northwest Update.”
- My colleague Andrea Mattera have translated this post into Italian and it has been posted as a comment on the Come don Chisciotte web page, 18 June 2011: “PICCO DEL 35% DI MORTALITÀ INFANTILE DOPO L’INCIDENTE DI FUKUSHIMA” (in Italian)
- Mike, a physics student from Victoria (Canada?) have checked the data for himself, they are available here. (Mike linked to his data from the discussion on the Unsilent Generation blog post: “Infant Mortality on Pacific Coast Jumped after Fukushima”
- The Buzz Blog on Physics Central comments on the scrutiny done in Scientific American and asks the question why Sherman and Mangano is doing this nonsense: “Beware the Evil Scientists”
- The uvdiv blog has a guest post by Alexey Goldin that hopefully is enjoyable also for non-statistics nerds, and he shows data for several years back: A curious case of cherry-picking data for the greater good. I can only agree with his final statement: “At this point it is worthwhile to question either the scientific integrity or statistical competence of Sherman and Mangano. They might be decent people and believe in what they say, but allow themselves to say “small lies” in a service of “Greater Truth”. This never ends up well. Because they are likely to kill some unstable people with their small lies.“
- The newspaper Hawaii Reporter has an article about it by guest writer Michael R. Fox, 5 July 2011: Anti-Nuclear Fictions Continue
- British Columbia Centre for Disease Control have issued a comment both on the S&M joke, and the increase of infant mortality in British Columbia this spring. The latter effect is real, and was a great concern for the authorities (although media reported it in a bit scandalous manner by comparing only with last year when the infant mortality for the region was unusually low). It turns out that the unusually high level is the same for the time period before Fukushima as in the time period after, so any alarmist should better look for other things to scare with: http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/5B6E918D-F306-4842-8EC9-32EBD4149715/0/infant_mortality_response.pdf
- …(to be updated)
Update 25 June 2011
Several persons have asked about how to get access to the raw data. I put a summary of the links I have used on the follow-up post regarding the strange results from the CounterPunch re-analysis of the data (here), but I will now put them here as well. The last link on the list is the one that is the easiest one to use. Some information will appear if you hold the pointer over each link:
== Credibility of anti-American pro-Muslim websites challenged ==
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//2 also debunked
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/21/9616921-experts-discount-claims-of-us-deaths-from-japan-radiation
Experts discount claims of U.S. deaths from Japan radiation
A provocative new study released this week suggests as many as 14,000 Americans may have died as a result of exposure to radioactive particles blown here from Japan after the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown in March. But even though the report is gaining some attention, experts say there is no scientific basis for its claims.
//3 Debunking of Mangano & Sherman by Alfred Körblein (a scientist with many papers on radiation-induced infant mortality) in German : www.strahlentelex.de
4//http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/01/11/garbage-in-anti-nuclear-propaganda-out-the-14000-death-fukushima-lie/
//3 Debunking of Mangano & Sherman by Alfred Körblein (a scientist with many papers on radiation-induced infant mortality) in German : www.strahlentelex.de
4//http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/01/11/garbage-in-anti-nuclear-propaganda-out-the-14000-death-fukushima-lie/
OP/ED
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1/11/2012 @ 2:17PM |804 views
Garbage In, Anti-Nuclear Propaganda Out: The 14,000 Death Fukushima Lie
Drs. Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman, writing in theInternational Journal of Health Services, proposed that there were 14,000 “excess” deaths in the U.S. following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, due to the release of a plume of radioisotopes over 5000 miles away. This theory is preposterous on so many levels that I don’t know where to start.
The “study” found that during the 14 weeks following the accident, death rates in 104 U.S. cities were about 2 percent higher than those for the 14 weeks before the accident, constituting about 3,300 “extra” deaths. Applied to the entire country, this number rose to 14,000. Right away this smelled fishy. But that didn’t stop Mangano, as quoted in MedPage Today,from concluding that the finding is “a clarion call for more extensive research.” No it’s not—it’s a clarion call for some common sense.
The only two (barely) conceivable ways that such a plume could kill anyone are cancer or radiation poisoning. Cancer can be ruled out immediately, since there is no way it could even begin to develop in such a short period of time, let alone kill anyone. Cancers take years, or even decades, to grow—not weeks. And, almost all of the radioactive material released was iodine-131, associated with thyroid cancer, which is one of the slowest growing and least deadly cancers.
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