Stanford team on their experiences in Haiti

1:2:1 - Stanford University School of Medicine

Paul Auerbach, MD, and emergency room nurse Heather Tilson

A team of doctors and nurses from Stanford's emergency medicine division have returned to the Bay Area after spending two weeks in Haiti. During this podcast, Paul Auerbach, MD, and emergency room nurse Heather Tilson, talk about Haiti, their work there under the most dire conditions, and the courage of the nation's people. Length: 30 min.

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Posted: 02/04/10

Greenpeace Radiation Monitoring Team at Work

Japan Radiation Monitoring Team Finds Radiation Limits 'Far Above' Recommended Limits

Radiation levels found by the team are far above internationally recommended limits - people living here would receive the yearly maximum dose of radioactivity within a few days, yet have not yet been evacuated.

“Since the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the authorities have consistently appeared to underestimate both the risks and extent of radioactive contamination. We have come to Fukushima to bear witness to the impacts of this crisis and to provide some independent insight into the resulting radioactive contamination”, said Greenpeace team leader and radioactivity safety advisor Jan van de Putte.

“By providing honest, transparent and independent analysis of the threats to public health, we aim to provide an alternative to the often contradictory information released by nuclear regulators in the two weeks since the Fukushima disaster began unfolding.”

Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture Japan, 27 March 2011 - A Greenpeace team member holds a Geiger counter displaying radiation levels of 7.66 micro Sievert per hour. Radiation levels found by the Greenpeace monitoring team are far above internationally recommended limits - people living here would receive the yearly maximum dose of radioactivity within a few days, yet have not yet been evacuated. The Greenpeace team is continuing to monitor locations around the Fukushima evacuation area in order to assess the true extent of radiation risks to the local population. * City: Itate

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A group of Greenpeace radiation experts today started monitoring locations around the evacuation area that surrounds the crisis-stricken Fukushima/Daiichi nuclear plant, in order to assess the true extent of radiation risks to the local population. Radiation levels found by the team are far above internationally recommended limits - people living here would receive the yearly maximum dose of radioactivity within a few days, yet have not yet been evacuated.

Mobile tech only goes so far in Japan relief efforts

By: Neil Versel | Mar 23, 2011 9:46pm EST

PAMF's Dr. Enoch Choi

Technology has its limits.

At least one American aid team has dispatched to Japan, iPhones and iPads with mobile EMR software and medical reference tools in hand. But they haven’t been able to unleash the power of their handheld computers to help the estimated 261,000 people still living in shelters as of Wednesday—12 days after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.

“They’re desperate for basic food, water, fuel,” says Dr. Enoch Choi, an urgent care physician at Palo Alto (Calif.) Medical Foundation and medical director of Jordan International Aid, a California-based Christian aid organization. “They’re out of medicine.”

There is a particular shortage of potassium iodide pills to counter the effects of radiation from crippled nuclear power plants, Choi says.

Jordan International Aid has sent a team of nine disaster-response veterans, including a physician and a nurse, to help in the coastal city of Ishinomaki, which was all but washed away by the tsunami that followed the 9.0-magnitude quake on March 11. But most couldn’t get transportation from Sendai, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in Japan’s Tohugu region, where the disaster is centered.

“The sad thing is, medical volunteers are all jammed up in Sendai,” Choi reports. While he remains in California, he is in regular contact with the aid team in Japan and is preparing for future relief missions once the situation is more under control.

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eBooks.com - Impacto de los desastres en la salud publica eBook

The third edition of my book "Public Health Consequences of Disasters" is now electronically available in Spanish, French and Japanese at eBooks: The Digital Bookstore at the link below.

Impacto de los desastres en la salud publica

By: Eric K. Noji(ed.)
Published By: Pan American Health Organization

PDF for Digital Editions :	$30.00
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Los desastres naturales - terremotos, inundaciones, erupciones volcánicas, ciclones tropicales, incendios y muchos otros - han cobrado más de 3 millones de vidas durante los últimos 20 años, han afectado adversamente la vida de 800 millones de personas, y han causado más de 50.000 millones de dólares en daños a la propiedad. Tan sólo en la última década, el número de refugiados y personas desplazadas por la guerra, la hambruna y la sequía en sus propios países se ha duplicado a cerca de 45 millones de personas en 1995.

Radiation risk situation for Tokyo | USA & EU actions

Japan update [2] (Tokyo, March 22, 2011)

Radiation risk situation for Tokyo | USA & EU actions

Suffering caused by the Friday March 11, 14:46 earthquake in Japan continues, but we see hope and reconstruction. Tomorrow the new high-speed train line north of the disaster zone is planned to run again between Shin-Aomori and Morioka.
Japan's society has developed over 100s of years coping with similar disasters, and it is already obvious that Japan will overcome this disaster strengthened. In recent years, Japan overcame the Kobe-Earthquake and the Niigata-Earthquake, and Japan will also overcome this earthquake soon. We observe many discussions to learn from this disaster and to strengthen Japan.
In this newsletter we focus on analysis of radiation risks (see below) in Tokyo, and on US and EU response.

Situation in Tokyo:
We see Japanese companies and Japanese workers - including our company Eurotechnology-Japan here in Tokyo - working almost normally throughout the period of after-quakes. A notable exception is the account settlement IT system of Mizuho-Bank which apparently has broken down.
Electricity savings by the population were beyond expectations, so that planned electricity cuts have been largely avoided - most electricity cuts were announced but not implemented - the electricity keeps flowing in most areas, especially in the central areas.
While many long-term foreign residents remained in Tokyo, a large fraction of temporary foreigners left either to Osaka, or left Japan altogether.
The departure of some foreigners (and some Japanese) has not been un-noticed.
One Japanese surgeon (medical doctor), who had stayed at the bedside of patients throughout the quake, broke down in tears telling me about a colleague leaving Tokyo during the after-quakes.

Low Risk for Epidemics after Geophysical Events

With the exceptions being, if the earthquake is accompanied by substantial population displacement and crowding as was seen last year following the earthquake in Haiti, and the tsunami earthquake disaster in South Asia in 2004

Emergent use of social media: A new age of opportunity for disaster resilience

Although we wrote this paper regarding the the use of social media, shared workspaces "in the clouds", VOIP (and video), live an interactive videoconferencing, micro-blogging services, and sophisticated internet search engines in reference to last year's Haiti earthquake, our article serendipitously hit the newsstands today.

Scale of Japanese Disaster Reveals Grim Equation

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