Tuesday, March 15, 2011

White House communications people at it again. Last week (Mar. 11, 2011) a terrible tragedy hit Japan with a 9.0 scale earthquake in the NE part of the country almost immediately followed by perhaps the worst tsunami in recorded history of Japan destroyed much of the NE Coast. Importantly, it knocked out the cooling system of the Fukushima Daiichi Atomic Power Plant leading to multiple explosions and meltdowns with radiation spillage and leakage. As of today (4 days later) the extent of the potential disaster is still not known, i.e. how much radiation exposure will occur. Thus, we (NIH and me personally) are getting the expected calls from the press regarding the medical aspects of acute radiation syndrome (ARS) – what it is and how you treat it. The White House is not granting any clearances for me or anyone at this point to talk to the Press. Amazing!! Same as with the Pandemic Flu early on.