Iodine 131

Coverage of the nuclear crisis in Japan frequently includes images of people wearing masks--evacuees, mainly. I've also seen special coveralls and sheets being used when people are outside while rain threatens.

These images minimize the perceived threat from radiation because people see them and conclude that, If I can be protected with a surgical mask, it can't be that bad. With the aid of simple technologies such as specialized masks and fabrics, these images tell us, we will be safer. This is one rhetorical component of our technical control over nature.

Our radiation monitors are another component. Gauges and sensors tell us how much danger lurks here. Right now they are out there picking up traces in our milk, our rain water, and our fish. They see the unseen, then tell us what they see, their readings being interpreted by users as numbers and statistics; then the message is passed on to reporters who finally give us articles like yesterday's The New York Times piece "Dangerous Levels of Radioactive Isotope Found 25 Miles From Nuclear Plant". Articles like this also work to minimize the perceived threat from radiation.

According to this article, the discovery of an isotope miles away from the site is "raising questions", but not concerns, not fears. We are then told that the amounts detected would not cause acute radiation illness, and, thus, pose no "immediate danger". A senior scientist's concern is paraphrased, but then he is named as belonging to a group "that is often critical of nuclear safety rules"; in other words, even if nothing was wrong, this guy would be critical.

Moving on, the article gets even more dismissive, going so far as to claim that risks from the contaminated environment could be further minimized in ways such as paving over radioactive dirt and banning fishing in the radioactive sea. This is the tone and message I detect in most articles coming from major news outlets.

Coverage repeatedly assures us the low levels are safe. The idea of a safe threshold is the product of PR. The National Academy of Sciences, among others, says that no threshold is safe.

Article discussed: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/world/asia/31japan.html?src=twrhp