4 ms·

What bias ? Telling the population the border is safe knowing it's not and then they get cancer is quite factual. I'm not talking about potential risks, I'm t

What bias ? Telling the population the border is safe knowing it's not and then they get cancer is quite factual. I'm not talking about potential risks, I'm talking about actual confirmed events and the way they have been handled. It's not speculation, it's history. The problem here are not the victims. It's not the risk or the stats. It's respect. E.g: I can read your comment calmly. My friends with his scar in the throat and his helicopter pilot career down the toilet ? He would insult you and you would lose any chance of convincing him and hence his social network about nuclear. So yeah, the pro nuclear community has a serious communication problem.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
I've seen the exact opposite in the general media - when Fukushima was occurring people were buying iodized salt in North America out of panic (I was working at a drug store at the time, I watched it happen). If anything, when people think of nuclear power they only think of the accidents.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  I had a cousin in CA worried about Fukushima defend her concern by saying that she had a Ukrainian friend whose family was affected by Chernobyl. Two guesses as to how effective it was to tell her that Chernobyl was freaking IN Ukraine and that CA is as far from Fukushima as New York is from Chernobyl. Most people make decisions based on a hazy blur of random exposure to flashy stories, not anything remotely resembling rational adult thought. I don't know what the solution is to nuclear's PR and political problems, but I know that it isn't anything that requires a third grader's level of critical thinking ability.
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mbell 8y ago
> Telling the population the border is safe knowing it's not and then they get cancer is quite factual. It's not so clear cut. Thyroid cancer rates started increasing dramatically almost everywhere in the world in the mid 80's. Diagnosis rates in the US for example have tripled since 1980, in South Korea they have gone up 13x since 1993. Meanwhile the mortality rate has been completely flat. The most likely cause of this is increase in both screening and the sensitivity of testing [1]. There is also a current debate about if we should be screening / treating thyroid cancer the way we are, i.e. it seems like we're detecting a lot of innocuous thyroid cancers and then operating without need resulting in unnecessary life long complications for the person. This is why there is a lot of research out there indicating that the vast majority of the increase in thyroid cancer diagnosis in areas like France is unrelated to Chernobyl. [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5745 https://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5745
- sametmax 8y ago
  I understand your reasoning, but my point is precicely that it's the way we talk about this that is important. This is the official story we had after tchernobyl: https://www.bastamag.net/IMG/png/journal_televise_antenne2.png?1461740160* https://www.bastamag.net/IMG/png/journal_televise_antenne2.p... This is the reality we measured: https://img.lemde.fr/2016/04/26/0/0/956/687/688/0/60/0/cb64c47_7635-l6ilh5.PNG https://img.lemde.fr/2016/04/26/0/0/956/687/688/0/60/0/cb64c... It is worst than this, of course, because some plants accumulate radioactivity and we ate them. No recommendation had been given to the general population at all. The region with the most thyroid cancers in the 20 years following is the Isère, at the center east of this map. Now let's say we end up calculating that the actual number of cancers is, let's say, 100 more in France because of the cloud. It would not be much, and would not be worth acting on it: the flu would be more dangerous. That's not the problem. The problem is the way we communicate on this.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago

I've seen the exact opposite in the general media - when Fukushima was occurring people were buying iodized salt in North America out of panic (I was working at a drug store at the time, I watched it happen). If anything, when people think of nuclear power they only think of the accidents.

wutbrodo 8y ago
I had a cousin in CA worried about Fukushima defend her concern by saying that she had a Ukrainian friend whose family was affected by Chernobyl. Two guesses as to how effective it was to tell her that Chernobyl was freaking IN Ukraine and that CA is as far from Fukushima as New York is from Chernobyl. Most people make decisions based on a hazy blur of random exposure to flashy stories, not anything remotely resembling rational adult thought. I don't know what the solution is to nuclear's PR and political problems, but I know that it isn't anything that requires a third grader's level of critical thinking ability.

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mbell 8y ago

> Telling the population the border is safe knowing it's not and then they get cancer is quite factual. It's not so clear cut. Thyroid cancer rates started increasing dramatically almost everywhere in the world in the mid 80's. Diagnosis rates in the US for example have tripled since 1980, in South Korea they have gone up 13x since 1993. Meanwhile the mortality rate has been completely flat. The most likely cause of this is increase in both screening and the sensitivity of testing [1]. There is also a current debate about if we should be screening / treating thyroid cancer the way we are, i.e. it seems like we're detecting a lot of innocuous thyroid cancers and then operating without need resulting in unnecessary life long complications for the person. This is why there is a lot of research out there indicating that the vast majority of the increase in thyroid cancer diagnosis in areas like France is unrelated to Chernobyl. [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5745 https://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5745

sametmax 8y ago
I understand your reasoning, but my point is precicely that it's the way we talk about this that is important. This is the official story we had after tchernobyl: https://www.bastamag.net/IMG/png/journal_televise_antenne2.png?1461740160* https://www.bastamag.net/IMG/png/journal_televise_antenne2.p... This is the reality we measured: https://img.lemde.fr/2016/04/26/0/0/956/687/688/0/60/0/cb64c47_7635-l6ilh5.PNG https://img.lemde.fr/2016/04/26/0/0/956/687/688/0/60/0/cb64c... It is worst than this, of course, because some plants accumulate radioactivity and we ate them. No recommendation had been given to the general population at all. The region with the most thyroid cancers in the 20 years following is the Isère, at the center east of this map. Now let's say we end up calculating that the actual number of cancers is, let's say, 100 more in France because of the cloud. It would not be much, and would not be worth acting on it: the flu would be more dangerous. That's not the problem. The problem is the way we communicate on this.