This is from today’s ‘Fukushima Diaries’ site, linked in the ‘World Issues’ section on the right-hand sidebar. There you will see a lot more about what is probably the worst environmental/health incident ever. Strangely not making news in the mainstream media.
Within the article (also linked here) is their view on the media – “We actually call massmedia “mass gomi”. Gomi means garbage.”
Information about sickness affecting children is disturbing!
Addendum: Not just in Japan! Even in the USA – per TIP, check out the second ‘related article’. From ‘Natural News‘,”Report – US topsoil ……. (significant Cesium contamination).”
Posted by Mochizuki on November 4th, 2011
It’s already too late. These chinese mushrooms were already served to 794 volunteer park keepers who ate it.(258 of them were younger than 12 years old.)
Even from the chinese mushroom taken in mid October,they measured 955 Bq/kg of cesium. (Source)
Ignorance of people make the contamination situation even worse.
In Japanese school, students are banned to talk. No question, no thinking.
This way of discipline might have been useful to sustain the economy based on mass production, but it’s killing ourselves. Moreover, time of mass production was over decades ago.
Leaf mold was banned to sell. However, ignorant companies restarted selling it.
Complete post linked here.
Related articles
- Government response to ongoing Fukushima radiation? Deafening silence (naturalnews.com/)
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You: Fukushima shiitake cesium spikes (japantimes.co.jp)
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Fukushima Radioactive Strontium Found in Yokohama (fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com)
The GOLDEN RULE 
Most of Japan has not been affected by radiation. Often the media (especially the foreign media) run stories big on speculation and low on facts. A good source of information and news regarding what is happening at Fukushima can be found via the NHK website: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/
I am here in Fukuoka, Japan, so if anyone has anyone has questions they can reach me via twitter: @GregAtkinson_jp
Thanks Greg,
It will be really great if there are no, or few, radiation health problems.
I am sorry that I adopt a pessimistic attitude and publish the scary news, believing it to be reliable. What incentive would there be to exaggerate stories of the negative aspects of this situation?
If contamination can be detected in the US and it is resulting from Fukushima NPP, why is this not an indication that the media are covering up the dangers?
Long and sad experience shows that the world news reporting is clearly not reporting the true facts. Neither is the government nor the nuclear industry honest with their information releases.
Being on the spot should be an advantage, but why is it that you are comfortable with the NHK information? Can you find any Japanese sources trying to publish information more likely to be unbiassed?
This post is attracting some attention, yet I feel that there is much unsaid.
My gut-feeling on this issue is that the radiation contamination and poisoning is far worse than just potential. There is ‘blog’ evidence of continuing radiation, above and below ground, of levels of dangerous compounds/elements which should be of great concern to all.
Yet now we have received comments from 2 persons resident in Japan, saying they see no evidence of problems, and they accept the Japanese government and media assurances that all is well.
Many aspects are relevant but the most important has to be whether or not the Japanese public are safe or not? If not, should they be told? Who has the right to decide? If safe, why is there contrary information being published?
I invite any reader to contribute relevant information, preferably first hand evidence of the lack of danger. Not just that people are not seeing or feeling any ill-effects, because radiation poisoning is not visible until it is too late.
If there is a website keeping up to date with this and that seems to be unbiassed, it would be great to hear about it. The subject deserves an intense study and exposure. There have to be others, with this interest and with appropriate expertise. This is the ‘easy way out’ for me, hopefully some one else has done the work. If not I will have a go at assimilating the available data to provide a better overall picture, in one post.
If my suspicions are correct, the truth needs to be exposed much more effectively.
Hi Ken,
This article is from a pro-nuclear power source however the video clip it includes is well worth watching. (no matter what your views are regarding nuclear power)
See: “Radiation is not a big threat to mankind” – Dr. Wade Allison addressing ACCJ – http://atomicinsights.com/2011/10/radiation-is-not-a-big-threat-to-mankind-dr-wade-allison-addressing-accj.html
Hi Greg,
There are contradicting reports, both being believed by the respective ‘supporters’ and, of course being disbelieved, or at least questioned, by the opposite parties.
This video and Dr Allison are certainly pro-nuclear and have significant vested interest. Quote “Dr. Allison is on a mission to reassure people.”
Be that as it may, the general statement “radiation is not a big threat to mankind” is absolutely absurd! Make no mistake, radiation kills! In high doses, quickly. In moderate doses, slowly but surely. In smaller doses it maims and alters genetic material, in minute doses it may not cause significant harm. The defining of these levels should not be the responsibility of the nuclear industry supporters.
Perhaps the statement is intended to mean “mankind as a civilization” is not threatened, fair enough, cannot argue with that. But how many survivors and how many casualties might there be in that case?
The gauntlet is down! I undertake to seriously report on this issue, supplying references and data.
The comments attached to that post/video are worth reading. I offer one response for a bit of balance: (Lengthy but if you are serious, worth reading).
“TOKYO — Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizens’ group to test for radiation near his son’s baseball field in Tokyo after government officials told him they had no plans to check for fallout from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Like Japan’s central government, local officials said there was nothing to fear in the capital, 160 miles from the disaster zone.
A baseball stadium in Tokyo was found to be contaminated with radioactive cesium. There have been calls for broader testing.
Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son, Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some contaminated areas around Chernobyl.
The patch of ground was one of more than 20 spots in and around the nation’s capital that the citizens’ group, and the respected nuclear research center they worked with, found were contaminated with potentially harmful levels of radioactive cesium.
It has been clear since the early days of the nuclear accident, the world’s second worst after Chernobyl, that that the vagaries of wind and rain had scattered worrisome amounts of radioactive materials in unexpected patterns far outside the evacuation zone 12 miles around the stricken plant. But reports that substantial amounts of cesium had accumulated as far away as Tokyo have raised new concerns about how far the contamination had spread, possibly settling in areas where the government has not even considered looking.
The government’s failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan’s leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens’ groups that conduct testing on their own.
“Radioactive substances are entering people’s bodies from the air, from the food. It’s everywhere,” said Kiyoshi Toda, a radiation expert at Nagasaki University’s faculty of environmental studies and a medical doctor. “But the government doesn’t even try to inform the public how much radiation they’re exposed to.”
The reports of hot spots do not indicate how widespread contamination is in the capital; more sampling would be needed to determine that. But they raise the prospect that people living near concentrated amounts of cesium are being exposed to levels of radiation above accepted international standards meant to protect people from cancer and other illnesses.
Japanese nuclear experts and activists have begun agitating for more comprehensive testing in Tokyo and elsewhere, and a cleanup if necessary. Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert and a former special assistant to the United States secretary of energy, echoed those calls, saying the citizens’ groups’ measurements “raise major and unprecedented concerns about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.”
The government has not ignored citizens’ pleas entirely; it recently completed aerial testing in eastern Japan, including Tokyo. But several experts and activists say the tests are unlikely to be sensitive enough to be useful in finding micro hot spots such as those found by the citizens’ group.
Kaoru Noguchi, head of Tokyo’s health and safety section, however, argues that the testing already done is sufficient. Because Tokyo is so developed, she says, radioactive material was much more likely to have fallen on concrete, then washed away. She also said exposure was likely to be limited.
“Nobody stands in one spot all day,” she said. “And nobody eats dirt.”
Tokyo residents knew soon after the March 11 accident, when a tsunami knocked out the crucial cooling systems at the Fukushima plant, that they were being exposed to radioactive materials. Researchers detected a spike in radiation levels on March 15. Then as rain drizzled down on the evening of March 21, radioactive material again fell on the city.
In the following week, however, radioactivity in the air and water dropped rapidly. Most in the city put aside their jitters, some openly scornful of those — mostly foreigners — who had fled Tokyo in the early days of the disaster.
But not everyone was convinced. Some Tokyo residents bought dosimeters. The Tokyo citizens’ group, the Radiation Defense Project, which grew out of a Facebook discussion page, decided to be more proactive. In consultation with the Yokohama-based Isotope Research Institute, members collected soil samples from near their own homes and submitted them for testing.
Some of the results were shocking: the sample that Mr. Hayashida collected under shrubs near his neighborhood baseball field in the Edogawa ward measured nearly 138,000 becquerels per square meter of radioactive cesium 137, which can damage cells and lead to an increased risk of cancer.
Of the 132 areas tested, 22 were above 37,000 becquerels per square meter, the level at which zones were considered contaminated at Chernobyl.
Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, said most residents near Chernobyl were undoubtedly much worse off, surrounded by widespread contamination rather than isolated hot spots. But he said the 37,000 figure remained a good reference point for mandatory cleanup because regular exposure to such contamination could result in a dosage of more than one millisievert per year, the maximum recommended for the public by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
The most contaminated spot in the Radiation Defense survey, near a church, was well above the level of the 1.5 million becquerels per square meter that required mandatory resettlement at Chernobyl. The level is so much higher than other results in the study that it raises the possibility of testing error, but micro hot spots are not unheard of after nuclear disasters.
Japan’s relatively tame mainstream media, which is more likely to report on government pronouncements than grass-roots movements, mainly ignored the citizens’ group’s findings.
“Everybody just wants to believe that this is Fukushima’s problem,” said Kota Kinoshita, one of the group’s leaders and a former television journalist. “But if the government is not serious about finding out, how can we trust them?”
Hideo Yamazaki, an expert in environmental analysis at Kinki University in western Japan, did his own survey of the city and said he, too, discovered high levels in the area where the baseball field is located.
“These results are highly localized, so there is no cause for panic,” he said. “Still, there are steps the government could be taking, like decontaminating the highest spots.”
Since then, there have been other suggestions that hot spots were more widespread than originally imagined.
Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan’s legally permissible level for compost.
And on Wednesday, civilians who tested the roof of an apartment building in the nearby city of Yokohama — farther from Fukushima than Tokyo — found high quantities of radioactive strontium. (There was also one false alarm this week when sky-high readings were reported in the Setagaya ward in Tokyo; the government later said they were probably caused by bottles of radium, once widely used to make paint.)
The government’s own aerial testing showed that although almost all of Tokyo had relatively little contamination, two areas showed elevated readings. One was in a mountainous area at the western edge of the Tokyo metropolitan region, and the other was over three wards of the city — including the one where the baseball field is situated.
The metropolitan government said it had started preparations to begin monitoring food products from the nearby mountains, but acknowledged that food had been shipped from that area for months.
Mr. Hayashida, who discovered the high level at the baseball field, said that he was not waiting any longer for government assurances. He moved his family to Okayama, about 370 miles to the southwest.
“Perhaps we could have stayed in Tokyo with no problems,” he said. “But I choose a future with no radiation fears.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/asia/radioactive-hot-spots-in-tokyo-point-to-wider-problems.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss ”
This isuue is of utmost importance. I suggest that you take it lightly at your own risk, especially if you live in Japan.
Hi Ken,
The New York Times has run nothing but anti-nuclear stories since day one and it’s reports rely largely on speculation and little on hard data. They rarely link to any source data and fail to mention that for example that many people out checking for radiation hotspots don’t actually know every much about the equipment they are using or what they are are measuring. Some of the radiation measuring equipment that people purchased has actually been found to be faulty.
Also the New York Times assertion that: “Japan’s relatively tame mainstream media, which is more likely to report on government pronouncements than grass-roots movements, mainly ignored the citizens’ group’s findings.” is false and reports about the radiation issue are frequently in the news. (as the link I provided the NHK earlier proves)
I am not a journalist so I do provide source data. Here is a link to the Toxicological Profile for Cesium http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp.asp?id=578&tid=107
This detailed report is never cited by the New York Times nor have I seen it referred to by the mainstream media. I wonder why? Is it because it contains this passage in Section 3.3.1?
” During and after nuclear accidents, such as the steam explosion that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, significant amounts of 137Cs (and to a lesser extent 134Cs) may be released to the atmosphere in suspended particles and be widely dispersed through the air. Although radioactive cesium, suspended in the air following such accidents or re-suspended later from ground-deposited fallout (USNRC 1998), may be internalized via inhalation, there was no indication that inhalation was a significant route of exposure to radioactive cesium among individuals exposed externally by either being in the vicinity of a release or in areas receiving substantial ground-deposited fallout, or those exposed by ingestion of radioactive cesium-contaminated food following the Chernobyl accident (Balonov 1993).
No reports were located regarding health effects in humans or animals following inhalation exposure to radioactive cesium.”
I guess that sort of information doesn’t quite stir up fear and sell newspapers hey? Why would the media not include this information in their reports? Why don’t reporters do their job and present balanced and factual articles?
A bias perhaps?
Hi Greg,
Being human we all tend to believe what we want to believe. This is not helpful in a debating situation but the important thing is to be aware of this aspect of our thought and decision-making processes..
As you suggest, references are a good idea but if they are not truthful, relevant and complete, they have limited value.
Conversely, a statement made without references may well be true and needs to be respected unless known or strongly suspected to be untrue.
My attitude is to have a healthy suspicion of the mainstream media due to its proven prejudices in favour of the moneyand power giants,
As we are seeing in the global warming scene, this extends even to scientists having rubbery morals and ethics.
I intend a serious look at the radiation danger issue and hope to soon get my ‘Radiation’ page covering the many aspects more completely. It will probably be re-named ‘Radiation Attack’ when there is more to read.
Your source data reference does nothing to alleviate my concerns of radiation dangers. Selecting probably the most serious example from the report is not all that scientifically meaningful but establishes the extreme effects to health of large enough doses:
“A number of individuals in Goiânia, Brazil, who experienced mixed external, dermal, and oral exposure to an opened 137CsCl source, exhibited classic symptoms of acute radiation syndrome including vomiting, diarrhea, and nausea, as well as skin lesions from radiation burns, orofacial lesions, ocular injury, hematological effects (bone marrow aplasia, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, lymphopenia, neutropenia), mild elevations of some liver enzymes, reduced sperm counts, and death (in four cases, attributed to infections resulting from reduced resistance) (Brandão-Mello et al. 1991; Gomes et al. 1990). External exposure was estimated based on frequencies of chromosomal aberrations in lymphocytes of exposed individuals at various times following exposure, while internal doses were estimated based on wholebody radiation counting and excretory levels of 137Cs. The adverse effects were the result of beta and gamma radiation, not cesium per se.”
For me this is a ‘work in progress’ where the hoped-for outcome will be a factual and meaningful picture.
Regards, Ken
Actually Ken I don’t think it is a work in process at all. You have selected one example of an isolated incident in Brazil where people absorbed Cesium in a numbers of ways and ignored the Chernobyl case which is the case the most similar to Fukushima. It seems when people want to spread fear about radiation they use the Chernobyl example but if that doesn’t work they opt for something else.
Anyway I am in Japan and it is safe where I am, so clearly some places (most in fact) are quite safe. Food safety checks are being made and I feel quite confident my health is not at risk.
Hi Greg, You are absolutely entitled to your opinions and you will be published here regardless of my disagreeing with some of them.
However, I think that, for your own benefit, your conclusions bear some deeper thought and consideration, by yourself that is.
Regards, Ken.