BrianO wrote:
I totally disagree. The Chinese in general (and of course there are exceptions) do not have the same regard for intellectual property rights, consumer safety, and workers' protection as most other industrialized nations.
user222 wrote:
I thought of radiation when I saw this too...and it is a very valid concern for any product coming from Japan. From food to cars to cameras. The Fukushima disaster is far from over, with ongoing releases of massive amounts of radiation in to the ocean and atmosphere. With the potential for it to become dramatically worse if the spent fuel pool #4 collapses.
The chart posted by Monito...although I imagine well intentioned. Is very misleading. Normal background radiation does not contain radioactive isotopes like plutonium (a large amount of which was released by Fukushima). If you ingest one of these particles, that is where the trouble lies. These "internal emitters" are what cause all the mutations, cancers and diseases.
Right now they are reporting deformities and mutations of insects in Japan. (It's worth remembering that insects by and large are more resistant to radiation than humans)....Show more →
I don't think it was as massive as you make it sound (other than if you live quite close) but yeah they are seeing an unusually high rate of malformed and diseased butterflies and moths in the general region around the plants this spring and summer.
They don't seem to be carrying it out as well now for sure (although there are starting to uprisings over it so it may slowly start to change) and I don't have a lot of trust in say food coming from over there at the moment, since whatever degree we are bad here now it's order of magnitude worse there.
That said a certain party and side party are constantly trying to undermine all of the laws and regs that have the US currently in better shape in that regard and we have certainly had plenty of companies and army bases spewing out tons of crap here and, in some cases, it is US companies almost demanding prices from Chinese companies that they well know are basically impossible to meet without cutting dangerous corners so some blame can go there too and not just on the Chinese companies. And decades ago before sweat shop and child labor laws and all at the start of our industrial revolution and our earlier years we had some pretty messy things going on and it took the formation of unions and lots of hard battles to fix up our system to the state it has reached today.
skibum5 wrote:
I don't think it was as massive as you make it sound (other than if you live quite close) but yeah they are seeing an unusually high rate of malformed and diseased butterflies and moths in the general region around the plants this spring and summer.
No it actually was and still is quite massive. Japan's own government says that the radiation release is equal to "168 Hiroshimas." That is downplaying the radiation release, for economic reasons.
Non governmental scientists have estimated the release to be 10,000 teraBequerels (10,000 trillion Bequerels) per hour, measured for radioactive Iodine-131. That is significantly more than 168 Hiroshimas every single day!
This is the worst man made environmental disaster ever, and there is no projected end date.
They were catching radioactive tuna off of San Diego as early as August of last year.
Every single tuna in the sample contained fukushima contamination.
It is well known that radiactive contaminants get concentrated by the food chain and will be most easily detectable with sophisticated analysis in top predators like tuna.
Fortunately Canon photographic products are not predatory. Some of the users are.
I'd be more concerned about radiation from standing beside a photographer than a camera. If I had reason to be concerned.
