The one and continuing underlying factor in this mega disaster, and the two featured stories, has to be the woefully inadequate, if not criminally complicit performance of the Japanese Government.
What should be noted in the report from Fairewinds Associates, is that the data published was as a result of samples collected and submitted by ordinary citizens.
Arnie Gunderson: The data in Mr. Kaltofen's paper came from citizens. It came from farmers. It came from scientists. It came from bloggers. It was an effort by individuals and not government. I think if we had relied on the government to get us this information, we never would have gotten it. So it is an important achievement for all of us, to recognize that together, using the internet, we can all provide information for scientists to use, to come to rational decisions on public policy.
Staying with government and seemingly its willingness to accept whatever it is told by the nuclear industry, this from the second article,
Women Fight to Save Fukushima's Children.The announcement followed approvals from the government given on the basis that the company had taken sufficient measures after the reactor automatically shut down on Oct. 4, due to procedural errors in repair work.
And I have to make mention, this is the same government that has allocated twenty seven million dollars extra, to assist the Japanese whaling fleet in its endeavour to slaughter whales this coming season in the South Atlantic.
4 min videoThe meat from which, they can't sell because nobody wants the wretched stuff. The only reason for this is that the Japanese government doesn't want to loose face by conceding defeat to
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
One might have thought the government had more urgent priorities, starting with doing everything imaginable to safeguard the most vulnerable, the next generation, today's children.
Scientist Marco Kaltofen Presents Data Confirming Hot Particles from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
Washington, DC - October 31, 2011 – Today Scientist Marco Kaltofen of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) presented his analysis of radioactive isotopic releases from the Fukushima accidents at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Mr. Kaltofen’s analysis confirms the detection of hot particles in the US and the extensive airborne and ground contamination in northern Japan due to the four nuclear power plant accidents at TEPCO’s Fukushima reactors. Fairewinds believes that this is a personal health issue in Japan and a public health issue in the United States and Canada.
Transcript:
Hi, I'm Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds.
It is October 31st, 2011. This is a video that contains scientific information that we have been wanting to share with you for a long time. Today, in Washington D.C. at 8:30 in the morning, scientist Marco Kaltofen gave a presentation to some doctors who are part of the American Public Health Association. The paper is now on our website, next to this video.
To summarize the paper, citizens, some doctors and scientists, some bloggers, some farmers, around the world provided samples to Mr. Kaltofen who analyzed them for Fukushima radiation. An example of what he found is a slide that contains air filters from cars in Japan and in the United States. Cars in the United States hardly have any radiation in their air filters. Cars in Tokyo had quite a lot, way too much. Cars in Fukushima Prefecture were incredibly radioactive.
Now I think it is important because the nuclear industry will say, well everything is radioactive and therefore we should not worry. Well, the Seattle data shows that not everything is radioactive. And it shows that the people in Japan received enormous exposures of particles into their lungs and into their digestive systems, during the course of the accident.
Another piece of information is that Fairewinds viewers were able to send in children's shoes from Japan. Mr. Kaltofen has data that clearly show that the concentration of cesium on the kid's shoelaces was astronomically high, around 80 disintegrations per second. What does that mean? Kids tie their shoes, their hands get radioactive and it goes into their G.I. tract. If it is on the ground, it is in the dust in the playground and it is in their lungs. I think that between the two, the air filters and the children's shoes, it shows that there is a severe personal health problem in Japan that will manifest itself in cancers over the next 10 or 20 years.
Now Mr. Kaltofen did not just look at Japan. He set up monitoring stations in the United States as well. Two of the three monitoring stations in the United States did show hot particles in the air in April. Since then, there have not been any hot particles. But in April, it is clear that, at the worst of the accident, hot particles were wafted across the Pacific and deposited in Seattle and in Boston at least. There is also data that indicates contamination on the ground in the Cascades, which are a mountain range right up against the Pacific Ocean.
So I think we have two problems here. In Japan, there is a personal health issue and what that means is that individuals have received enough radiation that there is going to be a statistically meaningful increase in cancers in Tokyo and especially in Fukushima Prefecture.
In the United States, it is a different story. It is a public health issue and not a personal health issue. What that means is that we will never know who is the individual who got cancer from Fukushima. But we can be sure that the radiation did reach here and that there will be an increase in cancers, especially on the West Coast where the Rocky Mountains stopped most of the radiation and deposited it on the ground.
So, this paper was given to the American Public Health Association. And here it is a public health issue. We cannot run and we cannot hide. But the radiation is up and down the West Coast and then also scattered about the rest of the United States.
In Japan, it is a different story. They need to aggressively go after the contamination that has been discovered. It is so obvious on these air filters and on children's shoes. It takes a concerted national effort, not a haphazard effort of chasing hot spots, in order to reduce the amount of radioactivity that is on the soil and in the air in Japan right now.
And the last thing the paper shows is that it is wrong to have a 10 mile evacuation planning zone. Clearly, the damage can extend out as far as Tokyo. We need to look at emergency planning and evacuations well beyond the 10 miles that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses here and the 12 miles that the Japanese used during the accident. You may recall that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that Americans needed to evacuate 50 miles from Fukushima at the peak of the accident. Well, if it is good enough for Americans living in Japan, that same criteria should be good enough for Americans living in the United States.
The data in Mr. Kaltofen's paper came from citizens. It came from farmers. It came from scientists. It came from bloggers. It was an effort by individuals and not government. I think if we had relied on the government to get us this information, we never would have gotten it. So it is an important achievement for all of us, to recognize that together, using the internet, we can all provide information for scientists to use, to come to rational decisions on public policy.
This November we are asking for your support so we can continue our scientific analysis and these educational videos. There is a donate button on the Fairewinds site and we would appreciate it if you considered a financial contribution.
Thank you very much. We will keep you informed. Fairewinds
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Women Fight to Save Fukushima's Children
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
06 November 2011
Tokyo - Hundreds of Japanese women have been converging on the Japanese capital demanding better relief for some 30,000 children exposed to nuclear radiation by the Fukushima meltdown.
"Official recovery policy focuses on decontamination rather than protecting the health of those most vulnerable - children and pregnant women," activist Aileen Mioko Smith told IPS.
"Our meetings with officials to force faster evacuation programmes for high-risk groups are only met with promises to clear radioactive waste. This is totally irresponsible," said Smith, who leads the non-government organisation (NGO) Green Action Japan.
Smith criticised the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, for focusing energies on defusing public tension by promising to reduce exposure in affected areas to below one millisieverts (a measure of radiation) per year.
On Wednesday, TEPCO admitted that one of the Fukushima reactors showed presence of radioactive material from a burst of nuclear fission, indicating fresh leakage.
After the meltdown - caused by an earthquake and tsunami on Mar. 11 - the acceptable radiation standard for Fukushima residents was lowered to 20 millisieverts per year, and activists like Smith allege that this was done to minimise the number of evacuees.
Smith said the new standards should, in any case, not have been applied to vulnerable sections such as children and pregnant women.
Some 36,000 people have been evacuated from a 22-km radius of the plant while many more of Fukushima’s two million people may be affected, Smith said.
"We will not give up till the government changes its callous attitude," vowed Smith, participant in a women’s sit-in and protest before the ministry of economic trade and industry that determines Japan’s nuclear policy.
The core of the protestors was made of about 200 women from Fukushima who sat on a three-day sit-in outside the Tokyo office of Japan’s ministry of economy. When that ended on Oct. 30, they appealed to women from all over Japan to join them for week-long protests until Sunday.
Women from 47 prefectures have collected more than 6,000 signatures to support their demands. They have been handing out fliers to passers-by that contain detailed information on the dangers faced by the residents of Fukushima.
Rika Mashiko, an evacuee from Fukushima, explained that she joined the protests along with her seven-year-old daughter to show solidarity and to express her disappointment with the government. Her husband continues working in Fukushima to maintain financial stability.
Mashiko left her organic farm in Miharumachi, 50 km from the damaged nuclear reactor, six months ago. She resides in Tama, a Tokyo suburb and works part-time to support herself and her daughter.
"I receive no financial support from the government because officially I left voluntarily - though I am a nuclear refugee. I do not trust the newly established standards for radioactive exposure in Fukushima and cannot risk the health of my young child," she told IPS..
The women have linked post-disaster recovery with achieving stronger protection measures against radiation, transparency and honesty from government officials. They are pushing for a national pledge to end nuclear power generation in Japan.
Ayako Ooga, a representative of the NGO ‘Fukushima Mothers Against Radiation,’ said the success of the government’s recovery programme is under test.
"The way they are going about dealing with the nuclear crisis is not the recovery we envisage," she said. "The policy is to placate the people, but what we want is honest facts from the government."
Ooga fled on Mar. 11 from her home that fell within 10 km of the accident site. She explained to IPS that the high levels of radiation being reported from her area made it impossible for her to return.
"We want an assurance that a similar accident will never happen again in Japan and that the government will do more to protect our friends and relatives from radiation," she said.
The women know they have a long battle ahead. A rude shock came on Nov. 1 when the Kyushu Electric Power Company announced that it would restart a faulty reactor at the Genkai nuclear power station in Saga prefecture, southwestern Japan.
The announcement followed approvals from the government given on the basis that the company had taken sufficient measures after the reactor automatically shut down on Oct. 4, due to procedural errors in repair work.
The plant is at the heart of a scandal following allegations that the utility had manipulated public opinion and pressurised employees to approve restart of the plant.
Hatsumi Ishimaru, a farmer from Genkai who headed a campaign against the restarting of the plant, is among those who have came to Tokyo to join the women's protest.
Ishimaru, who is party to a lawsuit filed by the locals against the Genkai plant, told IPS that she will not rest until her farming village of 3,000 people is rid of the nuclear power generator.
"Women are, today, at the forefront of the anti-nuclear campaign. We value life more than economic returns," she said. ipsnews
