What We Don't See and Hear...

These are the notes we received from a Japanese physician living in the US. She  has been gathering information from various Japanese sources.

...it seems like an easy decision to evacuate the entire prefecture of Fukushima.  However, it hasn't been done.  Not only that, but the government was telling people to return home in the 20-km zone.  This happened in Minamisoma City, where a large scale decontamination was done and where the city extends from 10- to 40-km zone.
 
So you know it's the nuclear industry which doesn't admit there is anything wrong here and they can go on operating nuclear reactors in other parts of Japan.  People from Fukushima, which is a rural area, have been brain washed by the authorities to believe they can keep living there if they decontaminate.  There was a mother and her children from Kooriyama City, Fukushima, who was staying with my friend here in Portland during the month of August.  The woman told my friend that there is so much pressure on people of Fukushima to just keep going on in status quo.  The vegetables grown in Fukushima are supposed to be consumed within Fukushima, and they are used in school lunches.  Other contaminated food from other regions are often used in school lunches in other prefectures.  Dr. Shunichi Yamashita from Nagasaki, who claims up to 100 mSv/year should be safe, is now living in Fukushima, as the vice president of Fukushima University Medical School and also as a head of Fukushima Radiation Health Agency (not sure about the actual name) which decides the policy there and will be doing health follow-ups of the people there. He was formerly a radiation risk advisor to Fukushima prefecture at the time of 311, and he did not distribute iodine tablets after the explosions. 
 
 
 
By the way, Dr. Yamashita has been just chosen to receive an Asahi cancer award.
 
The celebrities who appear in TV shows are forbidden by sponsors to mention Fukushima daiichi or anything related to radiation.  Most newspaper journalists and media journalists have restrictions on what they can say.  Only freelance journalists are saying what really needs said.
 
Tokyo Shimbun (Newspaper) is struggling to survive but they are trying to bring fair news.  Other big newspapers are all totally under information manipulation.
 
Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato, apparently with strong pro-nuclear backing, is the one who originally ordered the annual limit for children to be raised to 20 mSv/hr.  His uncle, a very powerful politician, Kozo Watanabe, is the person who brought a lot of nuclear reactors to Japan.  Before F1 was built, geologists and seismologists opposed to the plan.  However, Watanabe brought "sweet" deals to unsuspecting people of Fukushima to get them to approve the construction of F1 and F2 to provide power to Tokyo region.  Fukushima doesn't get power from either F1 or F2.  Governor Sato is just being used as a scapegoat, really, and it's possible he doesn't even know it.  Instead of evacuating his prefecture, he is trying to rebuild Fukushima's agriculture.
 
The government, instead of evacuating Fukushima and properly testing people, declared that the cancer hospital and care would be Fukushima's main industry from now on.  They are going to try to focus on early detection of cancer.
 
Fukushima children got tested for thyroid contamination.  I am not exactly sure what instrument they use, but they check the thyroid area 3 times in a row to get the average measurement.  The device isn't digital, so they have to wait for the needle to settle somewhere, which could be hard due to high background level, including the clothing.  The news report was that there was 45% contamination rate in children.  The truth seems to be that in a place of a high background level, it's extremely difficult to get an accurate number.  They could also manipulate the numbers in the process of subtracting background from actual, which apparently has been done.
 
As of April 1, it was determined that all Fukushima children will receive regular health checks every 2 years.  Initial screening would be an ultrasound test, and if there was an abnormality, they will get blood tests, a biopsy, and a urine test.  These are essentially cancer checks.  A question was asked by a well-educated comedian who also belongs to freelance journalist's club if they were going to use simple thyroid blood tests to screen people more frequently, because often thyroid function becomes abnormal before a cancer is detected.  He was told that there was no money for that.  The ultrasound equipment can be a one-time purchase and could be used repeatedly, but blood tests would have to be paid each time.
 
By the way, some time ago, a 4-year-old from Iwaki City was found to have 35 mSv contamination in thyroid, but that news quickly got deleted.  It turns out the information was not even given to the family of this child.
 
It also seems to be that the timing of testing was delayed on purpose to get lower numbers on iodine.  And in the questionnaire of the people in determining their baseline contamination levels, the internal contamination is not being taken into consideration.  They will write down what people ate, but they will not include the oral-source contamination in the total contamination because it's impossible to estimate the amount.  The same thing for inhaled contamination amount. 
 
In the whole body counter measurements, which only measure cesium, they will only take into consideration the iodine exposure if the cesium contamination is found to be massive.  However, at the time of testing, a biological half-life of cesium, which is 44 days in children and 50 to 150 days in adults, might have been passed.
 
As for the testing of river fish, they might test fish in Fukushima, but the same river flows into another prefecture where it's not tested.  So fish from Fukushima may be tested and not sent to the market, but there are other varieties of fish from other places which are not even tested and sent to the market.
 
Also, the decontaminated materials might be buried somewhere, but there is no central agency overseeing that.  So we have no idea where the contamination was buried.
 
There are a handful of politician, including former prime minister Hatoyama, who might raise their voices to protect people, but that is not at all broadcast in main media.
  
In this German TV show, Mr. Osawa, a farmer from Motomiya City, which is 80 Km from F1, had his rice field soil and his potatoes tested for radiation at his own expense.  His potatoes were declared not food but a nuclear waste.
 
 
He also wanted to get tested with a whole body counter to see how much internal contamination he received.  He went to Fukushima University Hospital but was refused.  He looked into getting the test done in other prefectures.  However, all the hospitals refused to test him, saying the Fukushima Governor ordered prohibition of testing of people from Fukushima.
 
OK, I can just go on and on.  What's important is, though, there have already been deaths happening.  Sudden deaths, usually cardiac in origin, in people in their 30's and 40's.  One physician who volunteered in an area of contamination for a week after 311, was found dead in sleep one morning.  Many men have been complaining chest pain and difficulty going up stairs in their office buildings without having chest discomfort and shortness of breaths.  Unstoppable coughs.  Many in Japan are still unaware of the danger they are in, including most in Fukushima, because the government is not bringing attention to the danger.
 
I just read a blog by a female pediatrician who lived in Fukushima who claims that Fukushima children's deaths from future cancers aren't likely, so why put them under stress by scaring them about it?  She claims that her opinion is based on the review of a vast amount of past data and medical articles.  It seems that her "data" lean towards the ICRP guidelines which have ignored the existence of low-dose contamination effects, and indeed she does mention ICRP findings.  I do agree that a psychological stress might be detrimental to the health of children, but should people remain ignorant of the facts?  To her credit, she at least recommends balanced diets, avoidance of cigarettes and an avoidance of reliance on alcohol.
 
I would imagine slowly people will die one by one.  It's terrible.  Even those politicians do not have special protection from radiation.  I think we will begin to see more deaths this fall and winter, with usual cold and flu seasons kicking in.  Some, with the immune system so depressed, might not survive a simple episode of cold.
 
Galina, I think Fukushima situation is different than Chernobyl because there is still an ongoing emission of radioactive material going on.  More than 5 months.  With people living in the contaminated area.  I just don't think the Japanese government will enforce any sort of evacuation.