Disasters

Ten years after the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11, the nation has spent some $60 billion trying to put together a biodefense program. One reason Americans do not know the scale of the government's failure is the extreme secrecy with which the programs are conducted. Profits, politics, and the manipulation of public fears may be making the nation's vulnerability to the worst public health threats even  worse.

"The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March released far more radiation than the Japanese government has claimed. So concludes a study that combines radioactivity data from across the globe to estimate the scale and fate of emissions from the shattered plant."

"BP won approval from the Interior Department to drill its first exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico since the blowout of its Macondo well a year and a half ago touched off the country's worst offshore environmental disaster."

"The Fukushima Plate is tableware with its own built-in safety mechanism. Underneath the plate is a radiation meter that logs whether your sushi has absorbed too much seaborne radiation from the Fukushima disaster earlier this year."

"TIANJIN, China -- China and Taiwan have agreed to cooperate on nuclear safety in the aftermath of Japan's nuclear crisis."

"CANCUN, Mexico -- Authorities evacuated fishing communities on Mexico's resort-studded Caribbean coast and some tourists began to leave, as Hurricane Rina took aim at Cancun and the island of Cozumel on Wednesday."

"ABUJA -- A Nigerian community from the oil-rich Niger Delta has filed a lawsuit in the United States seeking $1 billion in compensation from Anglo-Dutch oil major Shell for decades of pollution caused by oil spills."

"SAN BRUNO, Calif. -- State regulators have uncovered evidence that suggests Pacific Gas and Electric Co. installed 'salvaged or junked transmission pipe' on its natural-gas system in the 1940s and '50s, raising fears that a problem like the one that caused the San Bruno disaster could be lurking undetected, officials said in a regulatory filing Wednesday.

"Over the past 10 years, chlorine has been involved in hundreds of accidents nationwide, injuring thousands of workers and townspeople, and killing some. In one California town, more than a year after a chemical cloud forced them to run for their lives, the employees of a recycling business are back to work – but not back to normal."

Jane Kay reports for Environmental Health News October 20, 2011.