The above graphic is a map of radiation measurements of greater Nagasaki in 1946. The populated suburb of Nishiyama remained in 1946 - and still remains - more tainted with medium- and long-lived radioactivity than Nagasaki itself. The same is the case for suburbs west of Hiroshima. The reason is that rains over the bombed cities brought radioactivity from the dispersing mushroom clouds down to the ground via black-colored raindrops, or 'black rain.'

When we think of safe levels of radiation, the source of our understanding is a long-running study of people exposed to instantaneous radiation effects from the A-bomb blast in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This study, however, gives a distorted view of what happens when people are not standing in the vicinity of a nuclear bomb blast but instead are exposed internally over time to the radiation it leaves behind.

For decades, global peoples have been consuming foods and water made radioactive from nuclear tests and accidents. The perfect micro-ecology to serve as a model to estimate our global risk from 'global fallout' is Nishiyama, whose gardens, reservoir and even the residents' own bodies harbor excess radioactive poisons from the 1945 A-bomb attack. But global governments and scientists keep turning a blind eye to it.

As a globe, we are inflicted with a rate of cancer deaths as high as the rate of dying related to the great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. Fukushima's global impacts will undoubtedly increase that rate markedly. As the Eagles song goes: 'So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we had the key.' These chains (our willful ignorance) are now killing us all and we had the key the whole time. It is the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's black-rain areas. But we are no closer now to embracing the key as that dark day when U.S. inspectors arrived in occupied Japan to cover up evidence and knowledge surrounding the 'fallout'. A recent report by a Japanese commission studying overlooked 'black rain' areas in Hiroshima claimed that those areas' residents have not been physically impacted by the fallout but instead are plagued with deteriorating mental health 'presumably attributable to their fear of radioactive exposure.'

Read more in 'Deception, Cover-up and Murder in the Nuclear Age,' our free e-book that chronicles the evolution of this massive cover-up. The book is a work-in-progress and five years in the making. The Table of Contents is the best place to begin.