Top scientists are saying that the workers who are keeping the Fukushima nuclear reactors from going critical should have their blood drawn so that there will be a stored source of their own stem cells in case they get leukemia.

This plan may have merit, but there are news reports that contract workers and employees of the Tokyo Electric Power Company are laboring in terrible and unsafe conditions. Adam Clark Estes at Salon asks why Japan- the robotics leader of the world- is sending human beings into a radioactive disaster zone to wipe down walls and bail water. He suspects that humans are simply cheaper than machines.

It’s unwisdom to look to high-tech medical when basic prevention and protection are not used.