principiascientificinternational--2020-08-20--Learn the Truth About the Risk Of Nuclear Power

The 11th of March , 2011 , felt like any other Friday in Ishinomaki , Miyagi Prefecture , Japan .
In a town known for its oysters , local fishermen rose early to put to sea .
Shopkeepers busied themselves with the end of week trade .
Office workers sat at their computer screens .
At the Okawa elementary school , children practiced their reading and recited their times tables , awaiting the school bell that would announce the weekend .
But the school bell never did ring that day , and it hasn ’ t rung since .
At @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 70 km off the coast of Oshika Peninsula .
It was the most powerful ever recorded in Japan , and the fourth most powerful ever recorded anywhere in the world .
The earthquake moved the main island of Japan 2.4 m to the east , and shifted the whole Earth up to 25 cm on its axis .
More destructive than the earthquake itself was the ensuing tsunami , whose waves reached 40.5 m high , traveled at speeds of 700 km/h and raced up to 10 km inland .
Those living close @ @ @ @ @ @ @ react following the earthquake before raging torrents of water , mud and debris engulfed them .
Ishinomaki was one of the worst-affected areas .
Along with most of the town , Okawa school was completely destroyed .
74 out of a total of 108 students lost their lives , along with 10 out of the 13 teachers .
The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami was a disaster of epic proportions .
It killed around 19,000 people and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands more .
Roads and rail were destroyed .
Power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sewage treatment lost .
Schools , workplaces and most government services ceased to operate .
Despite this , most of the world associates but one word with this disaster : Fukushima .
The earthquake and tsunami victims in Miyagi , Iwate and Fukushima received relatively little media coverage outside Japan , with most airtime given over to grainy shots of the three damaged Fukushima Daiichi plants and rushed TV interviews with nuclear “ experts ” .
Imagine having everything you know swept away in a tsunami , to lose family and friends under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to pick up from TV and radio that the real danger was of you being fatally irradiated by a triple nuclear meltdown .
Nuclear radiation must be more dangerous than anything you can possibly imagine .
Very serious decisions were made on the assumption that nuclear meltdowns are the deadliest of all possible accidents .
Following the incident , 111,000 people were required to leave areas around Fukushima Daiichi , and an additional 49,000 joined the exodus voluntarily ; about 85,000 had not returned to their homes by 2015 .
Mass evacuations are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over 100,000 people out of their homes , away from their jobs and their local services .
In Japan ’ s case , you have to find somewhere for them to live on a small , densely-populated island .
For the adults , you have to find them a job .
For the children , you have to find them a school .
Any residents who do stay are now living in a ghost town with no local services , including even basic things like food , water and medicine .
Now , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ residents are elderly and may have limited mobility and poor health .
Some may need caregivers and medical facilities to support them .
Some of the adults will have disabilities or mental health problems .
Such people are likely to require support to evacuate , and possibly part or even full-time health and social care .
Next , consider the potential thousands of hospital patients , some of whose lives may depend on modern hospital equipment , put them onto trolleys , drive them to another hospital and hope they can be taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be happening in a wider disaster zone , such as happened with the tsunami in Japan .
Roads may be blocked , rail infrastructure inoperable , power out , and food and water in short supply .
Hazardous chemicals may have been released from nearby industry , such as from the fires at petrochemical plants in Sendai during the Tōhoku tsunami .
Consider the mental stress of being relocated , losing your job , your school , your neighbours , as well as the paralysing fear that you and your family have received @ @ @ @ @ @ @ otherwise , why were you evacuated ? )
.
As the relocation draws on , imagine the social dislocation this creates .
In desperation , you might turn to drinking , smoking or drug abuse .
You might start taking excessive risks because you think you ’ re doomed anyway , or perhaps you retreat into a shell and suffer from PTSD ( post-traumatic stress disorder ) .
All these effects were detected among Fukushima evacuees , as well as those relocated from around the Chernobyl nuclear accident .
This begs the question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
How do we know whether a mass evacuation is “ worth it ” ?
Are there alternatives ?
It was with these questions in mind that Professor Philip Thomas of Bristol University started the NREFS project ( Management of Nuclear Risk Issues : Environmental , Financial and Safety ) in 2012 , jointly funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council ( EPSRC ) and the Atomic Energy Commission of India .
While accidents at nuclear plants are very rare , it is impossible to say that they will never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I ’ ve often met with the reaction that we should make sure accidents don ’ t happen .
And that ’ s fine .
But accidents do happen , they have happened — and what do you do then ?
” The NREFS project sought to measure objectively the effectiveness of actions ( usually referred to as ‘ countermeasures ’ ) a government could take following an accident , principally evacuation , sheltering ( staying indoors for a period of hours to days ) , bans on the consumption of locally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ buildings and soils to remove contamination ) and long-term relocation .
Believe it or not , no one had ever before measured — objectively — the effectiveness of such countermeasures , despite the huge social impact they incur .
To do this , four independent strategies were developed by academics at Open University , University of Warwick , University of Manchester and City , University of London ( Prof. Thomas moved from City to Bristol University during the project ) .
The first strategy was to deploy a tool called the Judgement , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ J-value in the 2000s to help engineers decide which safety systems provided the best value-for-money in terms of safety benefit .
Most recently , the J-value has been used to assess the effectiveness of lockdown measures during the COVID-19 outbreak .
The J-value builds on a widely-used economics indicator called the Life Quality Index , which is an ethical way to combine life expectancy at birth with gross domestic product ( GDP ) per person to determine how much money it makes sense to spend on reducing exposure to risk .
Unlike the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ HDI ) , the Life Quality Index is derived rigorously from the economics of human welfare .
As governments only have a limited amount of money to spend on all the services they provide , this means that there are not infinite funds to be spent responding to a nuclear accident ; £1 spent on evacuating residents is £1 less that is spent on schools , hospitals and roads .
The J-value thus cleverly provides an objective way to measure whether countermeasures such as evacuations are “ worth it ” .
It all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ J-value is measuring whether the gain in life expectancy afforded by a countermeasure like evacuation is worth the cost in £s to implement that measure .
As the J-value is a mathematically rigorous approach , economists and statisticians are able to pick apart the methodology and propose tweaks where they disagree .
However , there have been no papers that refute NREFS ’ s findings .
And almost uniquely for the social sciences , the NREFS team were able to empirically validate the J-value method by using it to predict life expectancy in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the United Nations .
A massive 335,000 people were relocated after Chernobyl , never to return .
For Fukushima Daiichi , around 111,000 people were forced to evacuate , with close to 50,000 following voluntarily ; about 85,000 had not returned to their homes by 2015 .
Prof. Thomas and his team set about applying the J-value to both these accidents .
What they discovered was so surprising that even they found the results hard to believe .
Chernobyl was pretty much the worst nuclear accident imaginable .
Due to poor design @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raining pieces of fuel into the nearby fields and setting alight graphite in the core .
The J-value method suggested that for Chernobyl an evacuation was indeed a good idea .
“ We looked at Chernobyl , ” says Prof. Thomas , “ and we came to the conclusion that you would be looking to evacuate people once their loss of life expectancy was greater than 9 months.
” As the area around Chernobyl was relatively poor and the cost of moving people was relatively high , the J-value says it would have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put unless their loss of life expectancy from staying was greater than 9 months .
Prof. Thomas continues , “ Because we had quite extensive data on contamination levels on the various places around Chernobyl , we could work out how many people would be losing that amount of life expectancy .
The answers we came back with surprised us.
” The analysis showed that between 5 and 10 times too many people were moved away from the Chernobyl area between 1986 and 1990 .
The initial evacuation should have been limited to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The second evacuation in 1990 of 220,000 people was entirely unjustified , affording a gain in life expectancy of just 24 days .
The surprising results don ’ t arise from some new , slap-dash way of measuring risk from radiation .
The methodology uses approaches recommended by various United Nations committees , including the “ Linear No Threshold ” model for low doses of radiation , which some radiation experts believe overestimates the risk of a small amount of radiation .
“ The evacuation was very effective in reducing the dose and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thomas , “ but we found that it was well over the top.
” As for measuring the costs of evacuation , “ We were very conservative about this , ” says Prof. Thomas , “ we looked purely at the cost of relocation , and didn ’ t factor in the economic , social and health costs of the disruption caused by evacuation.
” If such effects were factored in , he says , this would reduce the recommended number of evacuees even further .
Prof. Thomas fears that as well as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in scale , those that were relocated , many of whom received government pensions as accident victims , suffered psychological effects for many years : “ A lot of the people evacuated thought , ‘ If the government is spending this amount of money on me , I must have suffered something truly dreadful.
’ I think there has been enormous psychological damage , which has led to loss of life expectancy in itself.
” If such negative effects were accounted for this would also strengthen the argument for no evacuation , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one , Prof. Thomas adds .
So what about Fukushima , where residents affected by the meltdowns were also living in a tsunami disaster zone ?
The authors found it difficult to justify moving anyone on grounds of the risk from radiation .
The average loss of life expectancy from radiation if everyone had stayed put was found to be 19 days .
Prof. Thomas explains that “ for the worst-affected town , Tomioka , the loss of life expectancy there would have been less than 3 months , and they shouldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” although he noted temporary evacuation may well have been necessary for some due to tsunami and earthquake damage .
To put that in context , the two and a half month loss in life expectancy in Tomioka would have been less than the four and a half months loss of life expectancy experienced by all Londoners due to air pollution .
Sadly , of the 160,000 people evacuated due to radiation fears , there were 1,121 deaths in the first 3 years from physical and mental exhaustion .
This translates to an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being evacuated of 37 days , which is more than the loss of life expectancy people would have incurred by staying put .
One interesting finding was that remediation , i.e .
the cleaning and decontaminating of urban and agricultural areas , was found to be very good value-for-money .
Food bans were also found to be effective .
The J-value was just one aspect of NREFS .
Mathematicians at the University of Manchester performed an independent economic analysis looking at hundreds of potential nuclear accidents around the world .
Prof. Thomas explains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases was it sensible to relocate anyone permanently [ following an accident ] .
In some cases it might be an idea to move people out temporarily , for a month or so , look at remediation and other things , but to get them back home.
” A third approach managed by the Open University and Public Health England ( the public body in the UK responsible for human health issues , including those related to radiation ) used the latest computer modelling tools to predict what would happen if there were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the English South Downs .
“ [ The researchers ] came to the conclusion that , on average , long-term relocation would be limited to around 600 people , ” says Prof. Thomas .
The only rebuttal to NREFS ’ s findings was in the form of a letter from a group of history and communications academics ( Kasperski et al . )
who questioned the J-value methodology , as well as some of the NREFS team ’ s assumptions .
Prof. Thomas believes that their reply addressed all of the points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everyone .
Even the authors found it hard to believe what the numbers were telling them .
The results seem to fly in the face of everything society assumes about the risk of nuclear accidents .
The papers were published in a special issue of Process Safety and Environmental Protection in December 2017 .
At close to 40,000 downloads , it ’ s among the top 5 downloaded issues of all time .
Prof. Thomas and his team were invited to present their findings at the UK All-party Parliamentary Group for Nuclear Energy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Federal Emergency Management Agency , the American Nuclear Society , an Anglo-French cooperation event at the British Embassy in Paris , and many international conferences on radiation protection .
In Japan , where the NREFS findings are perhaps most sensitive , the response was overwhelmingly positive .
Prof. Thomas was invited to speak at Fukushima Medical University and Hiroshima University , and has even been awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science International Fellowship for 2020 , which will see him work with local universities on remediation at Fukushima .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keen to avoid is putting any blame on Japanese authorities , ” says Prof. Thomas .
“ No one has experience of this , we ’ ve only had one big nuclear accident [ before Fukushima ] , and they more or less copied the mass evacuations that happened at Chernobyl .
They didn ’ t have the benefit of our work — no one knew better at the time .
The key thing is that anything that happens from now on needs to bear [ our findings ] in mind.
” Scientists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have independently reached the same conclusions as the NREFS project : that the scale and duration of the Fukushima relocations can not be justified based on the risk from radiation .
They also looked at public perception of the severity of the accident and found that the further away from Fukushima Daiichi you lived , the worse you believed the accident to have been .
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL , legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes .
Head Office : 27 Old Gloucester Street , London WC1N 3AX @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method .

The tsunami turned to rubble whole towns like Rikuzentakata, Iwate.
The 11th of March, 2011, felt like any other Friday in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. In a town known for its oysters, local fishermen rose early to put to sea. Shopkeepers busied themselves with the end of week trade. Office workers sat at their computer screens. At the Okawa elementary school, children practiced their reading and recited their times tables, awaiting the school bell that would announce the weekend. But the school bell never did ring that day, and it hasn’t rung since.
At 14:46 JST a magnitude 9.0–9.1 earthquake occurred 70 km off the coast of Oshika Peninsula. It was the most powerful ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful ever recorded anywhere in the world. The earthquake moved the main island of Japan 2.4 m to the east, and shifted the whole Earth up to 25 cm on its axis.
More destructive than the earthquake itself was the ensuing tsunami, whose waves reached 40.5 m high, traveled at speeds of 700 km/h and raced up to 10 km inland. Those living close to the sea had little time to react following the earthquake before raging torrents of water, mud and debris engulfed them.
Ishinomaki was one of the worst-affected areas. Along with most of the town, Okawa school was completely destroyed. 74 out of a total of 108 students lost their lives, along with 10 out of the 13 teachers.
The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami was a disaster of epic proportions. It killed around 19,000 people and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands more. Roads and rail were destroyed. Power lines were toppled, water supply and sewage treatment lost. Schools, workplaces and most government services ceased to operate. Despite this, most of the world associates but one word with this disaster: Fukushima.
The Fukushima Daiichi accident
The earthquake and tsunami victims in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima received relatively little media coverage outside Japan, with most airtime given over to grainy shots of the three damaged Fukushima Daiichi plants and rushed TV interviews with nuclear “experts”.
Imagine having everything you know swept away in a tsunami, to lose family and friends under a crashing wave of destruction, only to pick up from TV and radio that the real danger was of you being fatally irradiated by a triple nuclear meltdown. Nuclear radiation must be more dangerous than anything you can possibly imagine.
Very serious decisions were made on the assumption that nuclear meltdowns are the deadliest of all possible accidents. Following the incident, 111,000 people were required to leave areas around Fukushima Daiichi, and an additional 49,000 joined the exodus voluntarily; about 85,000 had not returned to their homes by 2015.
The challenge of mass evacuations
Mass evacuations are not simple things. They mean taking over 100,000 people out of their homes, away from their jobs and their local services. In Japan’s case, you have to find somewhere for them to live on a small, densely-populated island. For the adults, you have to find them a job. For the children, you have to find them a school. Any residents who do stay are now living in a ghost town with no local services, including even basic things like food, water and medicine.
Now, imagine that tens of thousands of the residents are elderly and may have limited mobility and poor health. Some may need caregivers and medical facilities to support them. Some of the adults will have disabilities or mental health problems. Such people are likely to require support to evacuate, and possibly part or even full-time health and social care. Next, consider the potential thousands of hospital patients, some of whose lives may depend on modern hospital equipment, put them onto trolleys, drive them to another hospital and hope they can be taken in.
Remember, all this may be happening in a wider disaster zone, such as happened with the tsunami in Japan. Roads may be blocked, rail infrastructure inoperable, power out, and food and water in short supply. Hazardous chemicals may have been released from nearby industry, such as from the fires at petrochemical plants in Sendai during the Tōhoku tsunami.
Smoke from the Sendai Nippon Oil refinery
Consider the mental stress of being relocated, losing your job, your school, your neighbours, as well as the paralysing fear that you and your family have received a potentially fatal dose of radiation (otherwise, why were you evacuated?). As the relocation draws on, imagine the social dislocation this creates. In desperation, you might turn to drinking, smoking or drug abuse. You might start taking excessive risks because you think you’re doomed anyway, or perhaps you retreat into a shell and suffer from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
All these effects were detected among Fukushima evacuees, as well as those relocated from around the Chernobyl nuclear accident. This begs the question: do such evacuations represent good policy? How do we know whether a mass evacuation is “worth it”? Are there alternatives?
Coping with a nuclear accident
It was with these questions in mind that Professor Philip Thomas of Bristol University started the NREFS project (Management of Nuclear Risk Issues: Environmental, Financial and Safety) in 2012, jointly funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Atomic Energy Commission of India.
While accidents at nuclear plants are very rare, it is impossible to say that they will never occur. As Prof Thomas says, “I’ve often met with the reaction that we should make sure accidents don’t happen. And that’s fine. But accidents do happen, they have happened — and what do you do then?” The NREFS project sought to measure objectively the effectiveness of actions (usually referred to as ‘countermeasures’) a government could take following an accident, principally evacuation, sheltering (staying indoors for a period of hours to days), bans on the consumption of locally grown foods, remediation (cleaning of buildings and soils to remove contamination) and long-term relocation.
Believe it or not, no one had ever before measured — objectively — the effectiveness of such countermeasures, despite the huge social impact they incur. To do this, four independent strategies were developed by academics at Open University, University of Warwick, University of Manchester and City, University of London (Prof. Thomas moved from City to Bristol University during the project). The first strategy was to deploy a tool called the Judgement, or J-value.
Prof. Thomas developed the J-value in the 2000s to help engineers decide which safety systems provided the best value-for-money in terms of safety benefit. Most recently, the J-value has been used to assess the effectiveness of lockdown measures during the COVID-19 outbreak. The J-value builds on a widely-used economics indicator called the Life Quality Index, which is an ethical way to combine life expectancy at birth with gross domestic product (GDP) per person to determine how much money it makes sense to spend on reducing exposure to risk.
Unlike the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), the Life Quality Index is derived rigorously from the economics of human welfare. As governments only have a limited amount of money to spend on all the services they provide, this means that there are not infinite funds to be spent responding to a nuclear accident; £1 spent on evacuating residents is £1 less that is spent on schools, hospitals and roads.
The J-value thus cleverly provides an objective way to measure whether countermeasures such as evacuations are “worth it”. It all gets a bit technical, but the J-value is measuring whether the gain in life expectancy afforded by a countermeasure like evacuation is worth the cost in £s to implement that measure.
As the J-value is a mathematically rigorous approach, economists and statisticians are able to pick apart the methodology and propose tweaks where they disagree. However, there have been no papers that refute NREFS’s findings. And almost uniquely for the social sciences, the NREFS team were able to empirically validate the J-value method by using it to predict life expectancy in 180 out of the 193 countries recognised by the United Nations.
The big surprise
A massive 335,000 people were relocated after Chernobyl, never to return. For Fukushima Daiichi, around 111,000 people were forced to evacuate, with close to 50,000 following voluntarily; about 85,000 had not returned to their homes by 2015. Prof. Thomas and his team set about applying the J-value to both these accidents. What they discovered was so surprising that even they found the results hard to believe.
Chernobyl was pretty much the worst nuclear accident imaginable. Due to poor design and mismanagement, the reactor exploded, raining pieces of fuel into the nearby fields and setting alight graphite in the core.
The J-value method suggested that for Chernobyl an evacuation was indeed a good idea. “We looked at Chernobyl,” says Prof. Thomas, “and we came to the conclusion that you would be looking to evacuate people once their loss of life expectancy was greater than 9 months.” As the area around Chernobyl was relatively poor and the cost of moving people was relatively high, the J-value says it would have been better for local people to stay put unless their loss of life expectancy from staying was greater than 9 months.
In 2009, over two decades after the Chernobyl incident, the Azure Swimming Pool in Pripyat shows decay after years of disuse (Source: Photo by Timm Suess from Basel, Switzerland — Swimming Pool Hall 4 (Flickr), CC BY-SA 2.0)
Prof. Thomas continues, “Because we had quite extensive data on contamination levels on the various places around Chernobyl, we could work out how many people would be losing that amount of life expectancy. The answers we came back with surprised us.”
The analysis showed that between 5 and 10 times too many people were moved away from the Chernobyl area between 1986 and 1990. The initial evacuation should have been limited to 31,000 people, instead of 116,000. The second evacuation in 1990 of 220,000 people was entirely unjustified, affording a gain in life expectancy of just 24 days.
The surprising results don’t arise from some new, slap-dash way of measuring risk from radiation. The methodology uses approaches recommended by various United Nations committees, including the “Linear No Threshold” model for low doses of radiation, which some radiation experts believe overestimates the risk of a small amount of radiation. “The evacuation was very effective in reducing the dose and increasing life expectancy,” says Prof. Thomas, “but we found that it was well over the top.”
As for measuring the costs of evacuation, “We were very conservative about this,” says Prof. Thomas, “we looked purely at the cost of relocation, and didn’t factor in the economic, social and health costs of the disruption caused by evacuation.” If such effects were factored in, he says, this would reduce the recommended number of evacuees even further.
Prof. Thomas fears that as well as the Chernobyl relocations being far too large in scale, those that were relocated, many of whom received government pensions as accident victims, suffered psychological effects for many years: “A lot of the people evacuated thought, ‘If the government is spending this amount of money on me, I must have suffered something truly dreadful.’ I think there has been enormous psychological damage, which has led to loss of life expectancy in itself.” If such negative effects were accounted for this would also strengthen the argument for no evacuation, or at least only a short, temporary one, Prof. Thomas adds.
So what about Fukushima, where residents affected by the meltdowns were also living in a tsunami disaster zone? The authors found it difficult to justify moving anyone on grounds of the risk from radiation. The average loss of life expectancy from radiation if everyone had stayed put was found to be 19 days.
Prof. Thomas explains that “for the worst-affected town, Tomioka, the loss of life expectancy there would have been less than 3 months, and they shouldn’t have been evacuated at all,” although he noted temporary evacuation may well have been necessary for some due to tsunami and earthquake damage.
George Monbiot explains how the Fukushima nuclear accident made him pro-nuclear.
To put that in context, the two and a half month loss in life expectancy in Tomioka would have been less than the four and a half months loss of life expectancy experienced by all Londoners due to air pollution.
Sadly, of the 160,000 people evacuated due to radiation fears, there were 1,121 deaths in the first 3 years from physical and mental exhaustion. This translates to an average loss of life expectancy due to being evacuated of 37 days, which is more than the loss of life expectancy people would have incurred by staying put.
One interesting finding was that remediation, i.e. the cleaning and decontaminating of urban and agricultural areas, was found to be very good value-for-money. Food bans were also found to be effective.
The J-value was just one aspect of NREFS. Mathematicians at the University of Manchester performed an independent economic analysis looking at hundreds of potential nuclear accidents around the world. Prof. Thomas explains they concluded that “in very few cases was it sensible to relocate anyone permanently [following an accident]. In some cases it might be an idea to move people out temporarily, for a month or so, look at remediation and other things, but to get them back home.”
A third approach managed by the Open University and Public Health England (the public body in the UK responsible for human health issues, including those related to radiation) used the latest computer modelling tools to predict what would happen if there were an accident at a fictional nuclear reactor on the English South Downs. “[The researchers] came to the conclusion that, on average, long-term relocation would be limited to around 600 people,” says Prof. Thomas.
The only rebuttal to NREFS’s findings was in the form of a letter from a group of history and communications academics (Kasperski et al.) who questioned the J-value methodology, as well as some of the NREFS team’s assumptions. Prof. Thomas believes that their reply addressed all of the points raised in the letter.
Ground-breaking results
NREFS surprised everyone. Even the authors found it hard to believe what the numbers were telling them. The results seem to fly in the face of everything society assumes about the risk of nuclear accidents.
The papers were published in a special issue of Process Safety and Environmental Protection in December 2017. At close to 40,000 downloads, it’s among the top 5 downloaded issues of all time. Prof. Thomas and his team were invited to present their findings at the UK All-party Parliamentary Group for Nuclear Energy, as well as at the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, the American Nuclear Society, an Anglo-French cooperation event at the British Embassy in Paris, and many international conferences on radiation protection.
In Japan, where the NREFS findings are perhaps most sensitive, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Prof. Thomas was invited to speak at Fukushima Medical University and Hiroshima University, and has even been awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science International Fellowship for 2020, which will see him work with local universities on remediation at Fukushima.
Fukushima Medical University (Source: Photo by Kozo — 投稿者により撮影, Public Domain)
“One of the things we’re keen to avoid is putting any blame on Japanese authorities,” says Prof. Thomas. “No one has experience of this, we’ve only had one big nuclear accident [before Fukushima], and they more or less copied the mass evacuations that happened at Chernobyl. They didn’t have the benefit of our work — no one knew better at the time. The key thing is that anything that happens from now on needs to bear [our findings] in mind.”
Scientists at Fukushima Medical University and Hiroshima University have independently reached the same conclusions as the NREFS project: that the scale and duration of the Fukushima relocations cannot be justified based on the risk from radiation. They also looked at public perception of the severity of the accident and found that the further away from Fukushima Daiichi you lived, the worse you believed the accident to have been.
Read more at medium.com
****
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principiascientificinternational--2020-08-21--Huge Lava Tubes: Our Moon Could Be Like Swiss Cheese

Huge Lava Tubes : Our Moon Could Be Like Swiss Cheese Mars is pockmarked with absolutely massive lava tubes , with ceilings as high as the Empire State Building , new research shows .
And the moon hosts even more gargantuan tubes , with heights that dwarf Dubai ’ s Burj Khalifa , the world ’ s tallest building , and “ skylights ” as big as football fields .
These yawning , subterranean caverns , which are shielded from punishing solar radiation , could be used as sites for future human bases , scientists argue .
A lava tube @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s surface , formed by an intense flow of during a volcanic explosion .
On , they ’ re most easily spotted when they collapse , forming long furrows in the dirt .
Partial collapses sometimes form chains of “ skylights ” that reveal hidden lava tubes that are mostly intact .
Researchers have speculated that lava tubes might exist on Mars and the moon since the 1960s , but in recent years Martian and lunar orbiters have beamed home images showing how common these formations likely are , both on the Red @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , researchers argue in a new paper published July 20 in the journal , it ’ s time to explore them in earnest .
Here ’ s why : These lava tubes are truly enormous , and might offer safer habitats than the lunar or Martian surfaces .
“ The largest lava tubes on Earth are maximum [ about ] 40 meters [ 130 feet ] of width and height , ” said study co-author Riccardo Pozzobon , a geoscientist at the University of Padova , Italy .
“ So like a very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a possible lava tube on Mars near the southern flank of the Martian volcano Arsia Mons .
( Image credit : Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter/NASA ) That ’ s certainly big enough space for some people to fit inside .
But on Mars collapsed lava tubes tend to be about 80 times larger than Earth ’ s , with diameters of 130 to 1,300 feet ( 40 to 400 m ) .
Lunar lava tubes seem to be still larger , the researchers found , with collapse sites 300 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s .
Lunar lava tubes likely range from 1,600 to 3,000 feet ( 500 to 900 m ) .
A lava tube on the moon , Pozzobon told Live Science , could easily contain a small city within its walls .
The sheer scale of these extraterrestrial lava tubes is likely a result of low Martian and lunar gravity , as well as differences in how volcanoes operated on those bodies compared to Earth .
To assess the size of lunar and Martian lava tubes , the researchers collected 3D laser scans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intact — on Earth .
Then they collected all the available satellite images of collapsed lava tubes on Mars and the moon and modeled the size of the intact tubes based on the relationships between collapsed and intact tunnels on Earth .
Lava tubes make appealing human habitats for a number of reasons , including protection from meteors that don ’ t burn up as easily in the thin Martian and lunar atmospheres , the researchers wrote .
They also likely contain useful chemicals , like water ice and volatile chemicals that can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thick layer of rock overhead can also , as , offer shielding against solar .
And skylights would still offer easy access to the surface .
Science-fiction authors like Kim Stanley Robinson have occasionally imagined pressurizing craters or lava tubes and filling them with air .
But Pozzobon said that scenario is unlikely , not least because in the moon ’ s lava tubes , openings can be as wide as a football field .
“ Due to their huge size and the possibility of having leaks due to the fracturing of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very unlikely , ” Pozzobon told Live Science .
“ What is more likely is to establish settlements within these voids , either to host humans or for storing equipment.
” “ Although a lava tube could provide a shelter to thermal excursion , radiation and micro impacts , it is not easily accessible and the basaltic rocks of its interior can be razor-like sharp and the terrain very uneven , ” he said .
“ So the engineering challenges of placing inflatable habitats within such impressive caves is not trivial and requires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes .
Head Office : 27 Old Gloucester Street , London WC1N 3AX .
Please DONATE TODAY To Help Our Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method .

Huge Lava Tubes: Our Moon Could Be Like Swiss Cheese
Written by Rafi Letzter
Mars is pockmarked with absolutely massive lava tubes, with ceilings as high as the Empire State Building, new research shows. And the moon hosts even more gargantuan tubes, with heights that dwarf Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, and “skylights” as big as football fields.
These yawning, subterranean caverns, which are shielded from punishing solar radiation, could be used as sites for future human bases, scientists argue.
A lava tube is a tunnel under a world’s surface, formed by an intense flow of molten rock during a volcanic explosion. On Earth , they’re most easily spotted when they collapse, forming long furrows in the dirt. Partial collapses sometimes form chains of “skylights” that reveal hidden lava tubes that are mostly intact. Researchers have speculated that lava tubes might exist on Mars and the moon since the 1960s, but in recent years Martian and lunar orbiters have beamed home images showing how common these formations likely are, both on the Red Planet and on our moon. Now, researchers argue in a new paper published July 20 in the journal Earth-Science Reviews , it’s time to explore them in earnest.
Here’s why: These lava tubes are truly enormous, and might offer safer habitats than the lunar or Martian surfaces.
“The largest lava tubes on Earth are maximum [about] 40 meters [130 feet] of width and height,” said study co-author Riccardo Pozzobon, a geoscientist at the University of Padova, Italy. “So like a very large motorway tunnel.”
An image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a possible lava tube on Mars near the southern flank of the Martian volcano Arsia Mons. (Image credit: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter/NASA)
That’s certainly big enough space for some people to fit inside. But on Mars collapsed lava tubes tend to be about 80 times larger than Earth’s, with diameters of 130 to 1,300 feet (40 to 400 m). Lunar lava tubes seem to be still larger, the researchers found, with collapse sites 300 to 700 times the size of Earth’s. Lunar lava tubes likely range from 1,600 to 3,000 feet (500 to 900 m).
A lava tube on the moon, Pozzobon told Live Science, could easily contain a small city within its walls.
The sheer scale of these extraterrestrial lava tubes is likely a result of low Martian and lunar gravity, as well as differences in how volcanoes operated on those bodies compared to Earth.
To assess the size of lunar and Martian lava tubes, the researchers collected 3D laser scans of their counterparts — both collapsed and intact — on Earth. Then they collected all the available satellite images of collapsed lava tubes on Mars and the moon and modeled the size of the intact tubes based on the relationships between collapsed and intact tunnels on Earth.
Lava tubes make appealing human habitats for a number of reasons, including protection from meteors that don’t burn up as easily in the thin Martian and lunar atmospheres, the researchers wrote. They also likely contain useful chemicals, like water ice and volatile chemicals that can be used to make fuel. A thick layer of rock overhead can also, as Live Science previously reported , offer shielding against solar radiation . And skylights would still offer easy access to the surface.
Science-fiction authors like Kim Stanley Robinson have occasionally imagined pressurizing craters or lava tubes and filling them with air. But Pozzobon said that scenario is unlikely, not least because in the moon’s lava tubes, openings can be as wide as a football field.
“Due to their huge size and the possibility of having leaks due to the fracturing of the rocks, I would see pressurizing them very unlikely,” Pozzobon told Live Science. “What is more likely is to establish settlements within these voids, either to host humans or for storing equipment.”
Even stashing a base inside a lava tube presents challenges, however.
“Although a lava tube could provide a shelter to thermal excursion, radiation and micro impacts, it is not easily accessible and the basaltic rocks of its interior can be razor-like sharp and the terrain very uneven,” he said. “So the engineering challenges of placing inflatable habitats within such impressive caves is not trivial and requires very detailed studies.”
Read more at www.livescience.com
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principiascientificinternational--2020-08-21--Notorious Obelisk Asteroid Isn’t What Scientists Thought

The debate over the origins and molecular structure of ‘ Oumuamua continued today with an announcement in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that despite earlier promising claims , the interstellar object is not made of molecular hydrogen ice after all .
The earlier study , published by Seligman & Laughlin in 2020—after observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope set tight limits on the outgassing of carbon-based molecules—suggested that if ‘ Oumuamua were a hydrogen iceberg , then the pure hydrogen gas that gives it its rocket-like push would have escaped detection .
But scientists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute ( KASI ) were curious whether a hydrogen-based object could actually have made the journey from interstellar space to our solar system .
“ The proposal by Seligman and Laughlin appeared promising because it might explain the extreme elongated shape of ‘ Oumuamua as well as the non-gravitational acceleration .
However , their theory is based on an assumption that H2 ice could form in dense molecular clouds .
If this is true , H2 ice objects could be abundant in the universe , and thus would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also proposed to explain dark matter , a mystery of modern astrophysics , ” said Dr. Thiem Hoang , senior researcher in the theoretical astrophysics group at KASI and lead author on the paper .
“ We wanted to not only test the assumptions in the theory but also the dark matter proposition.
” Dr. Avi Loeb , Frank B. Baird Professor of Science at Harvard and co-author on the paper , added , “ We were suspicious that hydrogen icebergs could not survive the journey—which is likely to take hundreds of millions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and as to whether they could form in molecular clouds.
” Traveling at a blistering speed of 196,000mph in 2017 , ‘ Oumuamua was first classified as an asteroid , and when it later sped up , was found to have properties more akin to comets .
But the 0.2km radius interstellar object didn ’ t fit that category , either , and its point of origin has remained a mystery .
Researchers focused on the giant molecular cloud ( GMC ) W51—one of the closest GMCs to Earth at just 17,000 light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for ‘ Oumuamua , but hypothesize that it simply could not have made the journey intact .
“ The most likely place to make hydrogen icebergs is in the densest environments of the interstellar medium .
These are giant molecular clouds , ” said Loeb , confirming that these environments are both too far away and are not conducive to the development of hydrogen icebergs .
An accepted astrophysical origin for solid objects is growth by sticky collisions of dust , but in the case of a hydrogen iceberg , this theory could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ route to form a km-sized object is first to form grains of micron-size , then such grains grow by sticky collisions , ” said Hoang .
“ However , in regions with high gas density , collisional heating by gas collisions can rapidly sublimate the hydrogen mantle on the grains , preventing them from growing further.
” Although the study explored destruction of H2 ice by multiple mechanisms including interstellar radiation , cosmic rays , and interstellar gas , sublimation due to heating by starlight has the most destructive effect , and according @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collisional heating in GMCs could destroy molecular hydrogen icebergs of ‘ Oumuamua-size before their escape into the interstellar medium.
” This conclusion precludes the theory that ‘ Oumuamua journeyed to our solar system from a GMC , and further precludes the proposition of primordial snowballs as dark matter .
Evaporative cooling in these situations does not reduce the role of thermal sublimation by starlight in the destruction of H2 ice objects .
‘ Oumuamua first gained notoriety in 2017 when it was discovered screaming through space by observers at Haleakalā Observatory , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ studies .
“ This object is mysterious and difficult to understand because it exhibits peculiar properties we have never seen from comets and asteroids in our solar system , ” said Hoang .
While the nature of the interstellar traveler is currently an unsolved mystery , Loeb suggests it won ’ t remain so for much longer , especially if it ’ s not alone .
“ If ‘ Oumuamua is a member of a population of similar objects on random trajectories , then the Vera C. Rubin Observatory ( VRO ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ light next year , should detect roughly one ‘ Oumuamua-like object per month .
We will all wait with anticipation to see what it will find .
”

Notorious Obelisk Asteroid Isn’t What Scientists Thought
Written by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
The debate over the origins and molecular structure of ‘Oumuamua continued today with an announcement in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that despite earlier promising claims, the interstellar object is not made of molecular hydrogen ice after all.
The earlier study, published by Seligman & Laughlin in 2020—after observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope set tight limits on the outgassing of carbon-based molecules—suggested that if ‘Oumuamua were a hydrogen iceberg, then the pure hydrogen gas that gives it its rocket-like push would have escaped detection. But scientists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) were curious whether a hydrogen-based object could actually have made the journey from interstellar space to our solar system.
“The proposal by Seligman and Laughlin appeared promising because it might explain the extreme elongated shape of ‘Oumuamua as well as the non-gravitational acceleration. However, their theory is based on an assumption that H2 ice could form in dense molecular clouds. If this is true, H2 ice objects could be abundant in the universe, and thus would have far-reaching implications. H2 ice was also proposed to explain dark matter, a mystery of modern astrophysics,” said Dr. Thiem Hoang, senior researcher in the theoretical astrophysics group at KASI and lead author on the paper. “We wanted to not only test the assumptions in the theory but also the dark matter proposition.” Dr. Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird Professor of Science at Harvard and co-author on the paper, added, “We were suspicious that hydrogen icebergs could not survive the journey—which is likely to take hundreds of millions of years—because they evaporate too quickly, and as to whether they could form in molecular clouds.”
Traveling at a blistering speed of 196,000mph in 2017, ‘Oumuamua was first classified as an asteroid, and when it later sped up, was found to have properties more akin to comets. But the 0.2km radius interstellar object didn’t fit that category, either, and its point of origin has remained a mystery. Researchers focused on the giant molecular cloud (GMC) W51—one of the closest GMCs to Earth at just 17,000 light years away—as a potential point of origin for ‘Oumuamua, but hypothesize that it simply could not have made the journey intact.
“The most likely place to make hydrogen icebergs is in the densest environments of the interstellar medium. These are giant molecular clouds,” said Loeb, confirming that these environments are both too far away and are not conducive to the development of hydrogen icebergs.
An accepted astrophysical origin for solid objects is growth by sticky collisions of dust, but in the case of a hydrogen iceberg, this theory could not hold together. “An accepted route to form a km-sized object is first to form grains of micron-size, then such grains grow by sticky collisions,” said Hoang. “However, in regions with high gas density, collisional heating by gas collisions can rapidly sublimate the hydrogen mantle on the grains, preventing them from growing further.”
Although the study explored destruction of H2 ice by multiple mechanisms including interstellar radiation, cosmic rays, and interstellar gas, sublimation due to heating by starlight has the most destructive effect, and according to Loeb, “Thermal sublimation by collisional heating in GMCs could destroy molecular hydrogen icebergs of ‘Oumuamua-size before their escape into the interstellar medium.”
This conclusion precludes the theory that ‘Oumuamua journeyed to our solar system from a GMC, and further precludes the proposition of primordial snowballs as dark matter. Evaporative cooling in these situations does not reduce the role of thermal sublimation by starlight in the destruction of H2 ice objects.
‘Oumuamua first gained notoriety in 2017 when it was discovered screaming through space by observers at Haleakalā Observatory, and has since been the subject of ongoing studies. “This object is mysterious and difficult to understand because it exhibits peculiar properties we have never seen from comets and asteroids in our solar system,” said Hoang.
While the nature of the interstellar traveler is currently an unsolved mystery, Loeb suggests it won’t remain so for much longer, especially if it’s not alone. “If ‘Oumuamua is a member of a population of similar objects on random trajectories, then the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO), which is scheduled to have its first light next year, should detect roughly one ‘Oumuamua-like object per month. We will all wait with anticipation to see what it will find.”
More information: Thiem Hoang et al. Destruction of Molecular Hydrogen Ice and Implications for 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua), The Astrophysical Journal (2020). Thiem Hoang et al. Destruction of Molecular Hydrogen Ice and Implications for 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua),(2020). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/abab0c
****
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principiascientificinternational--2020-08-21--vaccine hysteria could spark totalitarian nightmare

Medical ethics are clear : No one should be forced to undergo a medical treatment without informed consent and without their agreement to the treatment .
We condemn the forced sterilization of the ’ 20s and ’ 30s , the Tuskegee medical experiments infecting black inmates and the Nazi medicine that included involuntary “ Euthanasia , ” experimentation and sterilization .
How can we force vaccination without consent ?
Vaccination is a medical treatment with risks including death .
It is totally antithetical to all ethics in medicine to mandate that risk to others .
Science is never “ concluded.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of disease and treatment are constantly being updated .
Just like Newton ’ s mechanical paradigm of the universe was supplanted by Einsteinian physics , and physicists today modify that view , medical “ truth ” is not the truth for long .
In an attempt to quantify change in medicine , years ago a cardiology journal discussed “ The Half-life of Truth.
” cardiologists looked back in their journal at 20-year-old articles to see how much of what was believed then was still believed to be true .
So in cardiology , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ medicine to greater or lesser degree – only half of what we believe now will still be true in 20 or so years .
The last word on vaccination is not in .
It hasn ’ t even begun to be written .
If you believe absolutely in the benefit and protective value of vaccination , why does it matter what others do ?
Or don ’ t do ?
If you believe you need vaccination to be healthy and protected , then by all means vaccinate your child and yourself .
Why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neighbor chooses to do for his child – if vaccination works ?
The idea of herd immunity is still based on the idea that in individual cases vaccines actually are protective .
If you think the government has the right to forcibly vaccinate people – for the good of society – what is to prevent them from forcibly sterilizing people , or forcibly euthanizing people , or forcibly implanting a tracking device – for the good of society ?
You make think those examples are extreme ( although two-thirds have happened ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You are allowing government to have ultimate authority over your body .
So , I ’ ve been asked , “ Why not vaccinate your children ?
Why not take the influenza vaccine ?
” Well , I believe the choice is up to you .
I ’ ve covered my thinking about the influenza vaccine in an article in the Journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons , available online , but here are some facts about childhood vaccines that make me think twice about their use .
I traced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so these are not blindly reprinted from hearsay Internet articles .
In some cases I found public references to be wrong but the data to be correct when I got to the source .
Much of this comes from government reporting .
Anyone can research disease incidence by reading MMWR ( Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report ) from the CDC and accessing the search engine for VAERS ( Vaccine complication reporting site ) at http : //www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/index.php .
• Since 2005 ( and even before that ) , there have been no deaths @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there have been 86 deaths from MMR vaccine – 68 of them in children under 3 years old .
And there were nearly 2,000 disabled , per the aforementioned VAERS data .
• In countries which use BCG vaccinations against tuberculosis , the incidence of Type I diabetes in children under 14 is nearly double .
( “ Infectious Disease in Clinical Practice ” no .
6 pages 449-454 , 1997 ) • As reported in Lancet in 1995 , inflammatory bowel disease ( i.e .
Crohn ’ s and ulcerative colitis ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccinated for measles .
• In a nested case-control study within the General Practice Research Database ( GPRD ) in the United Kingdom , patients who had a first MS ( Multiple Sclerosis ) diagnosis recorded were compared with controls .
The authors concluded that immunization with the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine is associated with a threefold increased risk of developing MS ( Hernan et al.
, 2004 ) .
No increased risk of MS was associated with other vaccines , which included tetanus and influenza vaccinations .
• In 1982 William Torch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Neurologic topics , presented a paper ( later published ) at the American Academy of Neurology reviewing SIDS deaths .
He reported that in 100 consecutive cases , 70 percent of SIDS deaths occurred within three weeks of pertussis vaccination .
In very convincing confirmation , a Japanese prefecture stopped vaccinating after associating SIDS with the pertussis vaccine .
It is worth reading the entire description from Viera Scheibner , PhD : • A mail survey was done of 635 children in the Netherlands in 2004 .
German measles and whooping cough ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unvaccinated children .
However , throat inflammations , ear infections , rheumatologic complaints , seizures and febrile convulsions were much more common in the vaccinated group .
Aggressive behavioral episodes were eight times more frequent in vaccinated children , and sleep disordered more often .
Tonsils were removed in 33 percent of children who had been vaccinated vs. 7.3 percent unvaccinated .
• In 1947 , the first reports of brain inflammation and chronic brain damage , including death , after pertussis vaccination began to be published ( Brody , 1947 ; Byers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1955 , Berg , 1958 ; Strom , 1960 , 1967 ; Dick , 1967 , 1974 ; Kuhlenkampff , 1974 ; Stewart , 1977 , 1979 ) .
But it took more than 40 years of collective evidence before academic medicine decided it was true –1981 National Childhood Encephalopathy Study ( NCES ) and in 1991 and 1994 by the Institute of Medicine , National Academy of Sciences .
In 1991 , after reviewing vaccine safety , the Institute of Medicine admitted , “ In the course of its review , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knowledge bearing directly or indirectly on the safety of vaccines .
These include inadequate understanding of the biologic mechanisms underlying adverse events following natural infection or immunization , insufficient or inconsistent information from case reports and case series , inadequate size or length of followup of many population based epidemiologic studies [ and ] few experimental studies published in relation to the number of epidemiologic studies published.
” So the next question is : Does vaccination work ?
Does it really protect you against disease ?
The answer is variable .
Smallpox vaccine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the very fatal disease of smallpox , and use of vaccine led to the eradication of the disease in the wild .
But the dirty little secret in recent outbreaks of mumps , measles and pertussis is – they are occurring in vaccinated people in highly vaccinated populations !
In 2006 an epidemic of mumps broke out in my state of Iowa .
Ultimately , 11 states reported 2,597 cases of mumps .
The majority of mumps cases ( 1,487 ) were reported from Iowa .
As reported in “ Mumps Epidemic – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ control efforts and a highly vaccinated population , this epidemic has spread across Iowa and potentially to neighboring states.
” According to the CDC , “ During the prevaccine era , nearly everyone in the United States experienced mumps , and 90 percent of cases occurred among children , although 97 percent of children entering school in Iowa had received two doses of MMR vaccine .
” Of note , this outbreak mostly occurred in young adults of college age who had received the vaccine .
Only 6 percent of those affected were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received one dose of MMR vaccine , 51 percent had two doses of MMR vaccine , and 31 percent ( mostly adults ) were not sure of their immunization history .
In 2008-2009 , Australia had epidemics of whooping cough and measles .
Health authorities there must reveal the vaccination status of children in epidemics .
Eighty-four percent of Australian children who got whooping cough were fully vaccinated , and 78 percent who got measles had record of measles vaccination .
In the 2010 outbreak of whooping cough in California , well over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Whooping cough continuously declined in the U.S. from over 100,000 cases in 1922 to around 1978 when 2,063 cases were reported .
That year , pertussis vaccine became mandated for school attendance .
Beginning around 1995 , when the U.S. had 5,137 cases , the incidence has increased , to 2012 when over 48,000 cases were reported , including 20 deaths .
The majority of deaths were in newborns under three months of age .
Why is this happening ?
It is not because people are not becoming vaccinated .
The CDC says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3 years old have been vaccinated with four doses of pertussis vaccine .
But the current vaccine does not include all strains of pertussis .
And the most vulnerable to the disease – the small infants – are not able to take the vaccine .
Since older children and adults are much less likely to die of whooping cough , the question that must be asked is this : Is vaccination effective in producing antibody transfer from mother to infant ?
Or is it better to allow the natural disease to occur ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and disability from many childhood diseases is preventable by means other than vaccination .
Vitamin A has been known since the 1930s to reduce mortality from measles by 60 percent .
Vitamin D is protective against viral illness .
And numerous authors and studies have shown the damaging effects of chemical antipyretics ( fever lowering drugs ) on the natural course of disease – a practice still sadly in widespread use in America .
Better understanding of disease mechanisms , utilizing nutritional support and better scientific care of the sick child are safer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the best perspectives on the whole vaccination paradigm is provided by Dr. Harold Buttram , M.D.
, FAACP : As one of today ’ s senior citizens who grew up in a Midwestern state in the 1930s , and as a doctor who has treated many children , I may have a special vantage point of time and experience in regard to the changes that have taken place in the health of America ’ s children since the relatively innocent times of the 1930s .
At summer camps in the New Mexico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , no boy had allergies , none was on medication , and no boy was ever sick with the common ailments of today .
It was much the same in schools .
I don ’ t recall ever seeing a child with easily recognized behaviors now described as hyperactivity ( ADHD ) or autism .
Today in stark contrast , approximately one-third of our youngsters are afflicted with the 4-A Disorders ( Autism , ADHD , Asthma , and Allergies ) , as described and documented by Dr. Kenneth Bock .
School budgets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in providing special education classes for autistic and learning disabled children .
Allergy problems are proliferating , as indicated by long lines of children at school nursing stations for their noontime medications .
Could today ’ s infant and childhood vaccine programs , with their steadily increasing numbers of vaccines , be a contributory cause of this ominous health trend ?
As reflected in the U.S. Congressional Hearings ( 1999 to December 2004 ) on issues of vaccine safety , in which major deficiencies in vaccine safety testing were disclosed , it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the major , if not the major cause of this trend .
I , too , am old enough to remember these times .
We are changing the pattern of disease , but not necessarily making our children nor ourselves healthier .
We are converting benign childhood disease into more severe adult disease .
Consider the chickenpox vaccine .
We used to have chickenpox parties where small children were purposely exposed to kids sick with chickenpox .
In those days , every mother or grandmother knew it was safer for toddlers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wait until teenage years .
Now we vaccinate , but of course that vaccine is only effective for 15-20 years , so now adults must constantly be revaccinated or run the risk of getting a life-threatening severe form of chickenpox .
The shingles uptick is directly attributable to the lack of re-exposure of older people to the wild chickpox virus .
But not to worry – the drug companies can sell us a shingles vaccine for a disease their previous vaccine created .
We have forgotten that for most normal children , childhood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mumps in the Iowa Department of Public Health Manual , “ it is more common in infants , children and young adults .
Of people who are not immunized , > 85 percent will have mumps by adulthood , but symptoms may have been mild and therefore not recognized.
” At the end of the day , the issue here is one of freedom , and freedom is the freedom to choose – even if we make a bad choice .
The argument that I must vaccinate my children for the good of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it is an unethical precept .
It is the argument all dictators and totalitarians have used .
“ Comrade , you must work tirelessly for the good of the collective .
You must give up your money and property for the good of the collective , and now … you must allow us to inject your children with what we deem is good for the collective.
” If American ’ s don ’ t stand up against this , then we are lost .
Because we have lost ownership of ourselves .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ – we and our children are able to be commandeered for the “ greater good.
” About the author : Lee Hieb , M.D .
is an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in spinal surgery .
She is past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons , a free market medical organization and author of the new book “ Surviving the Medical Meltdown : Your Guide to Living Through the Disaster of Obamacare.
” PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL , legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes .
Head Office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WC1N 3AX .
Please DONATE TODAY To Help Our Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method .

vaccine hysteria could spark totalitarian nightmare
Written by Lee Hieb, M.D.
Medical ethics are clear: No one should be forced to undergo a medical treatment without informed consent and without their agreement to the treatment.
We condemn the forced sterilization of the ’20s and ’30s, the Tuskegee medical experiments infecting black inmates and the Nazi medicine that included involuntary “Euthanasia,” experimentation and sterilization.
How can we force vaccination without consent? Vaccination is a medical treatment with risks including death. It is totally antithetical to all ethics in medicine to mandate that risk to others.
Science is never “concluded.” But the reality is our understanding of disease and treatment are constantly being updated. Just like Newton’s mechanical paradigm of the universe was supplanted by Einsteinian physics, and physicists today modify that view, medical “truth” is not the truth for long.
In an attempt to quantify change in medicine, years ago a cardiology journal discussed “The Half-life of Truth.” cardiologists looked back in their journal at 20-year-old articles to see how much of what was believed then was still believed to be true.
The answer? 50 percent.
So in cardiology, at least – and in all of medicine to greater or lesser degree – only half of what we believe now will still be true in 20 or so years. The last word on vaccination is not in. It hasn’t even begun to be written.
If you believe absolutely in the benefit and protective value of vaccination, why does it matter what others do? Or don’t do? If you believe you need vaccination to be healthy and protected, then by all means vaccinate your child and yourself. Why should you even be concerned what your neighbor chooses to do for his child – if vaccination works? The idea of herd immunity is still based on the idea that in individual cases vaccines actually are protective.
If you think the government has the right to forcibly vaccinate people – for the good of society – what is to prevent them from forcibly sterilizing people, or forcibly euthanizing people, or forcibly implanting a tracking device – for the good of society?
You make think those examples are extreme (although two-thirds have happened), but the principle is the same. You are allowing government to have ultimate authority over your body.
So, I’ve been asked, “Why not vaccinate your children? Why not take the influenza vaccine?” Well, I believe the choice is up to you. I’ve covered my thinking about the influenza vaccine in an article in the Journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, available online, but here are some facts about childhood vaccines that make me think twice about their use.
I traced these points back to the source, so these are not blindly reprinted from hearsay Internet articles. In some cases I found public references to be wrong but the data to be correct when I got to the source. Much of this comes from government reporting.
Anyone can research disease incidence by reading MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) from the CDC and accessing the search engine for VAERS (Vaccine complication reporting site) at http://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/index.php.
Since 2005 (and even before that), there have been no deaths in the U.S. from measles, but there have been 86 deaths from MMR vaccine – 68 of them in children under 3 years old. And there were nearly 2,000 disabled, per the aforementioned VAERS data. In countries which use BCG vaccinations against tuberculosis, the incidence of Type I diabetes in children under 14 is nearly double. (“Infectious Disease in Clinical Practice” no. 6 pages 449-454, 1997) As reported in Lancet in 1995, inflammatory bowel disease (i.e. Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis) is 13 times more prevalent in persons vaccinated for measles. In a nested case-control study within the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) in the United Kingdom, patients who had a first MS (Multiple Sclerosis) diagnosis recorded were compared with controls. The authors concluded that immunization with the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine is associated with a threefold increased risk of developing MS (Hernan et al., 2004). No increased risk of MS was associated with other vaccines, which included tetanus and influenza vaccinations. In 1982 William Torch, a prolific researcher and publisher on Neurologic topics, presented a paper (later published) at the American Academy of Neurology reviewing SIDS deaths. He reported that in 100 consecutive cases, 70 percent of SIDS deaths occurred within three weeks of pertussis vaccination. In very convincing confirmation, a Japanese prefecture stopped vaccinating after associating SIDS with the pertussis vaccine. It is worth reading the entire description from Viera Scheibner, PhD:
In 1975, about 37 Crib Sudden Deaths were linked to vaccination in Japan. Doctors in one prefecture boycotted vaccinations, and refused to vaccinate. The Japanese government paid attention and stopped vaccinating children below the age of 2 years. When immunization was delayed until a child was 24 months of age, Sudden Infant Death cases and claims for vaccine related deaths disappeared. Japan zoomed from a high 17th place in infant mortality rate to the lowest infant mortality rate in the world when they stopped vaccinating. Japan didn’t vaccinate any children below the age of 2 years between 1975 and 1988, for 13 years. But then in 1988, Japanese parents were given the choice to start vaccinating anywhere between 3 months and 48 months. The Ministry study group studied 2,720 SIDS cases occurring between 1980 and 1992 and they established that their very low SIDS rate quadrupled.
A mail survey was done of 635 children in the Netherlands in 2004. German measles and whooping cough (pertussis) were twice as common in unvaccinated children. However, throat inflammations, ear infections, rheumatologic complaints, seizures and febrile convulsions were much more common in the vaccinated group. Aggressive behavioral episodes were eight times more frequent in vaccinated children, and sleep disordered more often. Tonsils were removed in 33 percent of children who had been vaccinated vs. 7.3 percent unvaccinated. In 1947, the first reports of brain inflammation and chronic brain damage, including death, after pertussis vaccination began to be published (Brody, 1947; Byers and Moll, 1948, Low, 1955, Berg, 1958; Strom, 1960, 1967; Dick, 1967, 1974; Kuhlenkampff, 1974; Stewart, 1977, 1979). But it took more than 40 years of collective evidence before academic medicine decided it was true –1981 National Childhood Encephalopathy Study (NCES) and in 1991 and 1994 by the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences.
In 1991, after reviewing vaccine safety, the Institute of Medicine admitted, “In the course of its review, the committee encountered many gaps and limitations in knowledge bearing directly or indirectly on the safety of vaccines. These include inadequate understanding of the biologic mechanisms underlying adverse events following natural infection or immunization, insufficient or inconsistent information from case reports and case series, inadequate size or length of followup of many population based epidemiologic studies [and] few experimental studies published in relation to the number of epidemiologic studies published.”
So the next question is: Does vaccination work? Does it really protect you against disease? The answer is variable. Smallpox vaccine seems to be nearly universally protective against the very fatal disease of smallpox, and use of vaccine led to the eradication of the disease in the wild. But the dirty little secret in recent outbreaks of mumps, measles and pertussis is – they are occurring in vaccinated people in highly vaccinated populations!
In 2006 an epidemic of mumps broke out in my state of Iowa. Ultimately, 11 states reported 2,597 cases of mumps. The majority of mumps cases (1,487) were reported from Iowa. As reported in “Mumps Epidemic – Iowa, 2006,” “Despite control efforts and a highly vaccinated population, this epidemic has spread across Iowa and potentially to neighboring states.” According to the CDC, “During the prevaccine era, nearly everyone in the United States experienced mumps, and 90 percent of cases occurred among children, although 97 percent of children entering school in Iowa had received two doses of MMR vaccine. ” Of note, this outbreak mostly occurred in young adults of college age who had received the vaccine. Only 6 percent of those affected were known to be unvaccinated, 12 percent received one dose of MMR vaccine, 51 percent had two doses of MMR vaccine, and 31 percent (mostly adults) were not sure of their immunization history.
In 2008-2009, Australia had epidemics of whooping cough and measles. Health authorities there must reveal the vaccination status of children in epidemics. Eighty-four percent of Australian children who got whooping cough were fully vaccinated, and 78 percent who got measles had record of measles vaccination.
In the 2010 outbreak of whooping cough in California, well over half the victims were fully vaccinated.
Whooping cough continuously declined in the U.S. from over 100,000 cases in 1922 to around 1978 when 2,063 cases were reported. That year, pertussis vaccine became mandated for school attendance. Beginning around 1995, when the U.S. had 5,137 cases, the incidence has increased, to 2012 when over 48,000 cases were reported, including 20 deaths. The majority of deaths were in newborns under three months of age. Why is this happening?
It is not because people are not becoming vaccinated. The CDC says more than 84 percent of children under 3 years old have been vaccinated with four doses of pertussis vaccine. But the current vaccine does not include all strains of pertussis. And the most vulnerable to the disease – the small infants – are not able to take the vaccine.
Since older children and adults are much less likely to die of whooping cough, the question that must be asked is this: Is vaccination effective in producing antibody transfer from mother to infant? Or is it better to allow the natural disease to occur?
Finally, it turns out that death and disability from many childhood diseases is preventable by means other than vaccination. Vitamin A has been known since the 1930s to reduce mortality from measles by 60 percent. Vitamin D is protective against viral illness.
And numerous authors and studies have shown the damaging effects of chemical antipyretics (fever lowering drugs) on the natural course of disease – a practice still sadly in widespread use in America. Better understanding of disease mechanisms, utilizing nutritional support and better scientific care of the sick child are safer alternatives to widespread vaccination.
Perhaps one of the best perspectives on the whole vaccination paradigm is provided by Dr. Harold Buttram, M.D., FAACP:
As one of today’s senior citizens who grew up in a Midwestern state in the 1930s, and as a doctor who has treated many children, I may have a special vantage point of time and experience in regard to the changes that have taken place in the health of America’s children since the relatively innocent times of the 1930s. At summer camps in the New Mexico Mountains that I was fortunate to attend, no boy had allergies, none was on medication, and no boy was ever sick with the common ailments of today. It was much the same in schools. I don’t recall ever seeing a child with easily recognized behaviors now described as hyperactivity (ADHD) or autism. Today in stark contrast, approximately one-third of our youngsters are afflicted with the 4-A Disorders (Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies), as described and documented by Dr. Kenneth Bock. School budgets are being strained to the breaking points in providing special education classes for autistic and learning disabled children. Allergy problems are proliferating, as indicated by long lines of children at school nursing stations for their noontime medications. Could today’s infant and childhood vaccine programs, with their steadily increasing numbers of vaccines, be a contributory cause of this ominous health trend? As reflected in the U.S. Congressional Hearings (1999 to December 2004) on issues of vaccine safety, in which major deficiencies in vaccine safety testing were disclosed, it is a real possibility that vaccines may be one of the major, if not the major cause of this trend.
I, too, am old enough to remember these times. We are changing the pattern of disease, but not necessarily making our children nor ourselves healthier. We are converting benign childhood disease into more severe adult disease. Consider the chickenpox vaccine. We used to have chickenpox parties where small children were purposely exposed to kids sick with chickenpox.
In those days, every mother or grandmother knew it was safer for toddlers to get the disease early and not wait until teenage years. Now we vaccinate, but of course that vaccine is only effective for 15-20 years, so now adults must constantly be revaccinated or run the risk of getting a life-threatening severe form of chickenpox.
The shingles uptick is directly attributable to the lack of re-exposure of older people to the wild chickpox virus. But not to worry – the drug companies can sell us a shingles vaccine for a disease their previous vaccine created.
We have forgotten that for most normal children, childhood diseases are benign. As recounted about mumps in the Iowa Department of Public Health Manual, “it is more common in infants, children and young adults. Of people who are not immunized, >85 percent will have mumps by adulthood, but symptoms may have been mild and therefore not recognized.”
At the end of the day, the issue here is one of freedom, and freedom is the freedom to choose – even if we make a bad choice. The argument that I must vaccinate my children for the good of the community is not only scientifically questionable, it is an unethical precept.
It is the argument all dictators and totalitarians have used. “Comrade, you must work tirelessly for the good of the collective. You must give up your money and property for the good of the collective, and now … you must allow us to inject your children with what we deem is good for the collective.”
If American’s don’t stand up against this, then we are lost. Because we have lost ownership of ourselves. Our bodies are no longer solely ours – we and our children are able to be commandeered for the “greater good.”
About the author: Lee Hieb, M.D. is an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in spinal surgery. She is past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a free market medical organization and author of the new book “Surviving the Medical Meltdown: Your Guide to Living Through the Disaster of Obamacare.”
Read more at www.wnd.com
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principiascientificinternational--2020-08-21--Farce: UN PCR Test Reads Any Human DNA as ‘COVID19 Positive’

Independent researcher , Steve Kelly , has identified that the UN World Health Organization ( WHO ) is using a COVID-19 testing protocol that will , in effect , give a positive reading of coronavirus simply from a common sequence of human DNA we all possess .
PCR testing , otherwise called Polymerase chain reaction , is an established method to make millions of copies of a specific DNA sample .
It allows scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it to a large enough amount to study in detail .
The test was invented in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Cetus Corporation .
But Mullis was clear the test was never intended to be used for identifying diseases such as a coronavirus because of the huge inaccuracies that were likely .
Below , highlighted in yellow , Steve Kelly shows the sequence “ CTCCCTTTGTTGTGTTGT ” which is an 18-character primer sequence found in the WHO coronavirus PCR testing protocol document .
It is also common to all the DNA of all humans , whether healthy or sick .
On his blog , Steve Kelly reports that several private companies ( Sigma-Aldrich , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were longer using this insane protocol .
Kary Mullis ( photo , top ) won the Nobel Prize in Science for inventing the PCR .
He died last year before the pandemic and gave this warning about the test : “ The primer sequences are what get amplified by the PCR process in order to be detected and designated a “ positive ” test result .
It just so happens this exact same 18-character sequence , verbatim , is also found on Homo sapiens chromosome 8 !
As far as I can tell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kits should find a positive result in all humans .
Can anyone explain this otherwise ?
I really can not overstate the significance of this finding .
At minimum , it should have a notable impact on test results .
Update : After some effort , I have finally discovered a way to display proof ( beyond my screenshots ) that human chromosome 8 has this exact same 18-character sequence .
Please try the link below .
The sequence is shown at the bottom of the page .
This is very disturbing because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PCR test was never designed for being a test for diseases .
Without an official explanation nor any media advice on this anomaly , it is becoming apparent that WH ) , governments and the media are unethically , perhaps criminally , promoting a COVID-19 test designed to show a positive result anywhere they want to find one .
This is before we factor in that the PCR test process itself is inherently error-prone so that a considerable number will show false negatives .
About the author : John O ’ Sullivan John @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tim Ball ) of Principia Scientific International ( PSI ) .
John is a seasoned science writer and legal analyst who assisted Dr Ball in defeating world leading climate expert , Michael ‘ hockey stick ’ Mann in the ‘ science trial of the century ‘ .
O ’ Sullivan is credited as the visionary who formed the original ‘ Slayers ’ group of scientists in 2010 who then collaborated in creating the world ’ s first full-volume debunk of the greenhouse gas theory plus their new follow-up book .
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a company incorporated for charitable purposes .
Head Office : 27 Old Gloucester Street , London WC1N 3AX .
Please DONATE TODAY To Help Our Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method .

Farce: UN PCR Test Reads Any Human DNA as ‘COVID19 Positive’
Written by John O'Sullivan
Independent researcher identifies that the UN World Health Organization (WHO) is using a COVID-19 testing protocol that will, in effect, give a positive reading of coronavirus simply from a common sequence of human DNA we all possess.
PCR testing, otherwise called Polymerase chain reaction, is an established method to make millions of copies of a specific DNA sample. It allows scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it to a large enough amount to study in detail.
The test was invented in 1984 by the American biochemist Kary Mullis at Cetus Corporation. But Mullis was clear the test was never intended to be used for identifying diseases such as a coronavirus because of the huge inaccuracies that were likely.
Below, highlighted in yellow, blogger Fauxlex shows the sequence “CTCCCTTTGTTGTGTTGT” which is an 18-character primer sequence found in the WHO coronavirus PCR testing protocol document. It is also common to all the DNA of all humans, whether healthy or sick.
Fauxlex reports that several private companies (Sigma-Aldrich, Thermo Fisher) whose PCR primer sequences were longer using this insane protocol.
Kary Mullis (photo, top) won the Nobel Prize in Science for inventing the PCR. He died last year before the pandemic and gave this warning about the test:
“[T]here is a common misimpression that the viral-load tests actually count the number of viruses in the blood, these tests cannot detect free, infectious viruses at all; they can only detect proteins that are believed, in some cases wrongly, to be unique to HIV.”
As Fauxlex laments:
“The primer sequences are what get amplified by the PCR process in order to be detected and designated a “positive” test result. It just so happens this exact same 18-character sequence, verbatim, is also found on Homo sapiens chromosome 8! As far as I can tell, this means that the WHO test kits should find a positive result in all humans. Can anyone explain this otherwise? I really cannot overstate the significance of this finding. At minimum, it should have a notable impact on test results.
Homo sapiens chromosome 8, GRCh38.p12 Primary Assembly
Sequence ID: NC_000008.11 Length: 145138636
Range 1: 63648346 to 63648363 is “CTCCCTTTGTTGTGTTGT”
Update: After some effort, I have finally discovered a way to display proof (beyond my screenshots) that human chromosome 8 has this exact same 18-character sequence. Please try the link below. The sequence is shown at the bottom of the page.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/NC_000008.11?report=genbank&log$=nuclalign&from=63648346&to=63648363
Read the full findings at pieceofmindful.com.
This is very disturbing because the WHO will know full well the PCR test was never designed for being a test for diseases. Without an official explanation nor any media advice on this anomaly, it is becoming apparent that WH), governments and the media are unethically, perhaps criminally, promoting a COVID-19 test designed to show a positive result anywhere they want to find one. This is before we factor in that the PCR test process itself is inherently error-prone so that a considerable number will show false negatives.
About the author: John O’Sullivan John is CEO and co-founder (with Dr Tim Ball) of Principia Scientific International (PSI). John is a seasoned science writer and legal analyst who assisted Dr Ball in defeating world leading climate expert, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann in the ‘science trial of the century‘. O’Sullivan is credited as the visionary who formed the original ‘Slayers’ group of scientists in 2010 who then collaborated in creating the world’s first full-volume debunk of the greenhouse gas theory plus their new follow-up book.
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Please DONATE TODAY To Help Our Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method.
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principiascientificinternational--2020-08-22--Expert: Compulsory face masks in public is ‘very dangerous’

Sweden ‘ s top coronavirus expert is refusing to force people to wear face masks in public , arguing that donning them is ‘ very dangerous ’ because it gives the impression it is safe to be in crowded rooms or on public transport .
Anders Tegnell , chief epidemiologist at Sweden ’ s Public Health Agency , has expressed scepticism that face masks will control Covid-19 outbreaks .
The infectious diseases expert , who refused to follow European governments in locking down in March , also noted that countries with widespread mask compliance , such as Belgium and Spain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid .
In an interview with the Financial Times , Dr Tegnell said : ‘ It is very dangerous to believe face masks would change the game when it comes to Covid-19 .
‘ Face masks can be a complement to other things when other things are safely in place .
But to start with having face masks and then think you can crowd your buses or your shopping malls – that ’ s definitely a mistake.
’ Dr Tegnell previously brushed off the prospect of compelling Swedes to wear face masks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ astonishingly weak ’ .
Sweden , which has stood out among European countries for its low-key approach to fighting the coronavirus pandemic , recorded its highest tally of deaths in the first half of 2020 for 150 years , the Statistics Office said on Wednesday .
Covid-19 claimed about 4,500 lives in the period to the end of June – a number which has now risen to 5,800 – a much higher percentage of the population than in other Nordic nations , though lower than in some others including Britain and Spain .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the January to June period , a higher number than any year since 1869 when 55,431 died , partly as a result of a famine .
The population of Sweden was around 4.1 million then , compared to 10.3 million now .
Covid-19 meant that deaths were 10 percent higher than the average for the period over the last five years , the Statistics Office said .
In April the number of deaths was almost 40 % higher than average due to a surge in Covid-related fatalities .
Sweden has taken a different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the pandemic , relying to a greater extent on voluntary measures focused on social distancing and opting against a strict lockdown .
Most schools have remained open and many businesses have been continued to operate to some extent , meaning the economy has fared better than many others .
However , the death toll has been higher than in its Nordic neighbours , which opted for tougher lockdown measures .
Norway , with around half the population , has had only around 260 Covid deaths in total .
Finland ’ s economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quarter , despite a tougher lockdown .
Finland ’ s gross domestic product shrank around 5 per cent against an 8.6 per cent contraction in Sweden from the last three-month period .
Last month Dr Tegnell ’ s public health agency shrugged off claims that people should wear face masks in crowded public spaces during the pandemic .
Speaking to German newspaper Bild , the coronavirus expert described ‘ the belief that masks can solve our problem ’ as ‘ very dangerous ’ .
‘ The findings that have been produced through face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so many people around the world wear them , ’ he said .
‘ I ’ m surprised that we don ’ t have more or better studies showing what effect masks actually have .
Countries such as Spain and Belgium have made their populations wear masks but their infection numbers have still risen .

Expert: Compulsory face masks in public is ‘very dangerous’
Written by Jack Wright
Sweden‘s top coronavirus expert is refusing to force people to wear face masks in public, arguing that donning them is ‘very dangerous’ because it gives the impression it is safe to be in crowded rooms or on public transport.
Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency, has expressed scepticism that face masks will control Covid-19 outbreaks.
The infectious diseases expert, who refused to follow European governments in locking down in March, also noted that countries with widespread mask compliance, such as Belgium and Spain, were still experiencing rising cases of Covid.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Dr Tegnell said: ‘It is very dangerous to believe face masks would change the game when it comes to Covid-19.
‘Face masks can be a complement to other things when other things are safely in place. But to start with having face masks and then think you can crowd your buses or your shopping malls – that’s definitely a mistake.’
Dr Tegnell previously brushed off the prospect of compelling Swedes to wear face masks, and called evidence of their effectiveness ‘astonishingly weak’.
Sweden, which has stood out among European countries for its low-key approach to fighting the coronavirus pandemic, recorded its highest tally of deaths in the first half of 2020 for 150 years, the Statistics Office said on Wednesday.
Covid-19 claimed about 4,500 lives in the period to the end of June – a number which has now risen to 5,800 – a much higher percentage of the population than in other Nordic nations, though lower than in some others including Britain and Spain.
In total, 51,405 Swedes died in the January to June period, a higher number than any year since 1869 when 55,431 died, partly as a result of a famine. The population of Sweden was around 4.1 million then, compared to 10.3 million now.
Covid-19 meant that deaths were 10 percent higher than the average for the period over the last five years, the Statistics Office said. In April the number of deaths was almost 40% higher than average due to a surge in Covid-related fatalities.
Sweden has taken a different approach to most European countries in dealing with the pandemic, relying to a greater extent on voluntary measures focused on social distancing and opting against a strict lockdown.
Most schools have remained open and many businesses have been continued to operate to some extent, meaning the economy has fared better than many others.
However, the death toll has been higher than in its Nordic neighbours, which opted for tougher lockdown measures. Norway, with around half the population, has had only around 260 Covid deaths in total.
Finland’s economy outperformed its larger neighbour in the second quarter, despite a tougher lockdown. Finland’s gross domestic product shrank around 5 per cent against an 8.6 per cent contraction in Sweden from the last three-month period.
Last month Dr Tegnell’s public health agency shrugged off claims that people should wear face masks in crowded public spaces during the pandemic.
Speaking to German newspaper Bild, the coronavirus expert described ‘the belief that masks can solve our problem’ as ‘very dangerous’.
‘The findings that have been produced through face masks are astonishingly weak, even though so many people around the world wear them,’ he said.
‘I’m surprised that we don’t have more or better studies showing what effect masks actually have. Countries such as Spain and Belgium have made their populations wear masks but their infection numbers have still risen.
Read more at www.dailymail.co.uk
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. Please DONATE TODAY To Help Our Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method.
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