Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
After all, the government of Japan continued to do so as well despite being caught numerous times doing so. Even in the case of Three Mile Island, the US government was hardly forthright with details concerning the incident until much later.
But I don't think any of these acts can be excused as an attempt to control panic.
In a 2009 article, Gilinsky wrote that it took five weeks to learn that "the reactor operators had measured fuel temperatures near the melting point".[41] He further wrote: "We didn't learn for years—until the reactor vessel was physically opened—that by the time the plant operator called the NRC at about 8 am, roughly ½ of the uranium fuel had already melted."[41]
But I don't think any of these acts can be excused as an attempt to control panic.