[ RadSafe ] Claim - The Japanese Government Is Lying to the International Community: the Radiological Situation in and around Fukushima is NOT Safe

Fri Dec 1 09:29:38 CST 2017

Can we start sending people to Safecast?  This group collects millions of
data points from a massive group of on the ground independent unaffiliated
voluntary individuals in the public who basically provide a massive "open
source" repository of collected readings from anywhere and everywhere which
counter the bulk of the baseless fearmongering cover-up conspiracy claims.

https://blog.safecast.org/about/

Their data is readily available and incredibly transparent, collected by
entirely too many independent and separate individual members of the
general public to be faked in order to pull one over on the masses.  They
currently primarily operate in Japan, but they have an excellent "citizen
scientist" type model which I think could be expanded and exported
globally.  It could help provide a sort of reassurance to a highly
skeptical and nervous public who constantly thinks in terms of "who watches
the watchmen" terms, allowing anyone who worries about cover-ups to
basically become one of those who are helping "watch the watchmen," so to
speak, helping restore some faith in the system.

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 8:43 AM, Roger Helbig <rwhelbig at gmail.com> wrote:

> https://www.nirs.org/japanese-government-lying-international-community-
> radiological-situation-around-fukushima-not-safe/
>
> French Anti-nuclear activist dunrenard posted: " A report from NIRS
> (Nuclear Information and Resource Service, in USA) The Japanese
> government has created foreign language websites which provide the
> information about radiology in general and the radiological situation
> in Fukushima. Journalists aroun"
> Respond to this post by replying above this line
>
> New post on nuclear-news
>
> The Japanese Government Is Lying to the International Community: the
> Radiological Situation in and around Fukushima is NOT Safe
>
> by dunrenard
> A report from NIRS (Nuclear Information and Resource Service, in USA)
> The Japanese government has created foreign language websites which
> provide the information about radiology in general and the
> radiological situation in Fukushima. Journalists around the world, our
> friends and acquaintances living abroad are continually asking us
> whether the information that these Japanese central and local
> government websites present to the international community is correct
> or not. The following is our answer.
>
> Appeal from a Japanese Anti-nuclear Activist Etsuji Watanabe
> Nov.29 2017 Revised (Oct.12 2017)
> Etsuji Watanabe: Member of the Japanese anti-radiation
> citizen-scientist group ACSIR (Association for Citizens and Scientists
> Concerned about Internal Radiation Exposures)
> Special thanks to Mrs Yuko Kato, Mr Ruiwen Song, Ms Nozomi Ishizu, Mrs
> Kurly Burch, Ms Jennifer Alpern, and Mark Bennett Yuko Kato: Evacuee
> from Fukushima, member of the Kansai plaintiff group for compensation
> against TEPCO and government Ruiwen Song: Taiwanese freelance
> journalist.
> The Japanese government has created foreign language websites which
> provide the information about radiology in general and the
> radiological situation in Fukushima. Journalists around the world, our
> friends and acquaintances living abroad are continually asking us
> whether the information that these Japanese central and local
> government websites present to the international community is correct
> or not. The following is our answer.
>
> [Question 1]
> The stories uploaded on these websites give people the impression that
> worrying about radiation is unnecessary. As for this impression, has
> Fukushima now really become a safe place to live or visit?
> [Answer]
> First of all, Japanese anti-nuclear activists and evacuees from
> contaminated areas in Fukushima and Kanto, have been warning people
> all over the world NEVER to trust what the Japanese government is
> saying about both radiology in general and the specific radiological
> health effects caused by the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant
> disaster (hereafter Fukushima accident) following the Great East Japan
> Earthquake and Tsunami on March 11th, 2011.
> Prime-minister Shinzo Abe and the Japanese government as a whole
> including Fukushima prefectural government have repeatedly declared
> that “with regard to health-related problems (of the Fukushima
> accident), I (Abe) will state in the most emphatic and unequivocal
> terms that there have been no problems until now, nor are there any at
> present, nor will there be in the future.” (Abe’s statement at a news
> conference). See the Japanese government website here.
> This claim is completely fabricated and false. In making these claims,
> the Japanese government is blatantly ignoring the vast number of
> studies in radiological sciences and epidemiology that have been
> accumulating historically. By engaging in this behavior, the Japanese
> government has been systematically deceiving the public, both
> nationally and internationally.
> Just think of the amount of radioactivity released during the
> Fukushima accident. As you know, one of the standards used to assess
> the extent of radioactive releases and longtime human health effects
> is the levels of cesium 137 (Cs137) released into the environment.
> Based on the Japanese government data (which is an underestimate), the
> Fukushima accident released 168 times the Cs137 discharged by the
> atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This amount is almost the equivalent
> to the total atmospheric nuclear explosions conducted by the United
> States on the Nevada test ground. The Nevada desert is not designated
> as a residential area, but the Japanese government has recommended
> evacuated residents return to live in areas with radiation levels of
> up to 20 mSv/year. By removing economic support for evacuees, the
> Japanese government has forced many people who had evacuated from
> these areas to return.
> We estimate that in the Fukushima accident approximately 400-600 times
> the Cs137 were released into the atmosphere by the atomic bomb blast
> in Hiroshima. Roughly 20% of the Cs137, or 80-120
> Hiroshima-equivalents, were deposited on Japan. Of this, the
> decontamination efforts have only been able to retrieve five
> Hiroshima-equivalents. The waste from decontamination efforts is
> typically stored all over Fukushima mostly in mountainous heaps of
> large plastic bags. This means that 75-115 Hiroshima-equivalents of
> Cs137 still remain in Fukushima, surrounding prefectures, and all over
> Japan.
> In addition, the Japanese government is now planning to reuse the
> retrieved contaminated soil under 8000Bq/kg in public works projects
> all over Japan. This self-destructive program has now been partially
> started without any announcements as to where the contaminated soil
> are and will be reused, under the pretext of “avoiding damage caused
> by harmful rumors”. This project is tantamount to scattering lethal
> fallout of Cs137 equivalent to about 5 times that of Hiroshima bomb
> all over Japan. The Japanese government is literally behaving like a
> nuclear terrorist.
> Do you really imagine that Fukushima prefecture and surrounding areas,
> contaminated as they are to levels similar to the Nevada test site, is
> really a safe place for people to permanently live, or for foreign
> tourists to visit and go sightseeing?
> Regrettably, we must conclude that it is not, for either residents or
> tourists the situation in Fukushima is not safe.
>
> [Question 2]
> These websites also point out that the international annual dose limit
> for the public is at 1mSv, but this level is easily exceeded by only
> one CT-scan, insinuating that this 1mSv standard is set too low and
> thus not a useful indicator.
> [Answer]
> CT-Scans are often cited as if they had no radiation risks, But this
> is not true. A recent study clearly shows that every CT-scan (about
> 4.5mSv irradiation) increases the risk of cancers in children by 24%.
> See the website here.
> In Fukushima the allowable level of radiation per year for residents
> is now 20mSv. Can you imagine having 4-5 CT-scans every year?
>
> [Question 3]
> One of the websites states: “In Fukushima, the indoor radiation doses
> are now so reduced that no radioactive cesium can be found in the air.
> Therefore, no radioactive particles can invade the human body during
> breathing.” What do you think of this statement?
> [Answer]
> The Japanese government also ignores the long-term peril caused by
> “hot particles” ――micron-and- nano-sized radioactive
> particulates――which, if inhaled or absorbed into the human body, may
> lead to many kinds of cancers and other diseases including cardiac
> failure. We should consider internal irradiation to the cells near the
> radiation sources to be 500 times more dangerous than external
> irradiation because particles inside the body radiates very near or
> even inside cells, causing intensive damage to DNAs and other cell
> organs such as mitochondria.
>
> [Question 4]
> These websites explain that there exists not only artificial but also
> natural radioactivity, thus people are living in an environment
> surrounded by radiation all the time in everyday life.
> [Answer]
> One of the main tactics that the Japanese government often uses to
> propagate the “safety of low level irradiation” is to compare
> artificial radioactivity with natural radioactivity. But this logic is
> a methodological sleight of hand. It is crystal-clear that even
> exposure to natural radioactivity has its own health risks. Cancers
> sickened and killed people long before artificial radioactivity was
> used. For example, Seishu Hanaoka, one of the founders of Japan’s
> medicine, carried out 152 breast cancer surgeries from 1804 to 1836.
> Both kinds of radioactivity have their own health risks. Risks caused
> by artificial radioactivity should not be compared but be added to the
> natural radioactivity risks as they both lead to the accumulation of
> exposure.
> For example, potassium 40 (K40) is a typical natural radioactive
> nuclide. According to  the Japanese government, the average internal
> exposure dose for adults from K40 is about 4,000Bq/year or
> 0.17mSv/year. See the website here (in Japanese).
> The ICRP risk model (2007) allows us to estimate the approximate risk
> posed by K40. The calculation shows that K40 is responsible for
> approximately 4,000 cancer cases and 1,000 deaths every year. If the
> same amount of radiation was added to that of K40 in the human body by
> artificial sources, the cancers and mortalities would be doubled to
> 8,000 and 2,000 a year, respectively. Based on the ECRR (2010) model,
> which criticizes the ICRP risk model as a severe underestimate, these
> figures should be multiplied by 40, reaching 320,000 and 80,000,
> respectively.
> The extract you cite from the Fukushima government website is
> completely fake: “In Fukushima, the indoor radiation doses are now so
> reduced that no radioactive cesium can be found in the air. Therefore,
> no radioactive particles can invade the human body during
> respiration”. Reports from civic radiation measurement stations refute
> this claim. For example, dust collecting paper packs of vacuum
> cleaners used in Iwaki City, Fukushima prefecture, are radiologically
> measured and 4,800-53,900Bq/kg radioactive cesium was detected in
> Oct-Dec 2015. See the website here (in Japanese).
>
> [Question 5]
> One of the websites says that the Fukushima prefecture has conducted
> whole-body counter screenings of the 170,000 local population so far
> but cesium was rarely detected.” Does this mean that we can safely
> consume food from Fukushima, and Fukushima residents are no longer
> being exposed internally to radiation?
> [Answer]
> This is a typical example of demagogy by the Japanese government:
> vague expressions lacking specific data, using the words “safe and
> secure” without clear explanation. In reality, the government has not
> publicized any data indicating serious irradiation of the population.
> For example, you mentioned the Fukushima prefectural government
> website saying that whole-body counter screenings of 170,000 members
> of the local population have found radioactive Cs only in very few
> cases. However, the fact that no specific number is given makes the
> statement suspicious.
> These statistics, more than likely, exclude many firefighters or other
> municipal employees who, at the time of accident, helped local
> residents evacuate from a lot of contaminated areas surrounding the
> defunct Fukushima plant. These people were subjected to serious
> radiation doses.
> Civic groups’ efforts for the disclosure of information has recently
> prompted city officials near the defunct plant to disclose the fact
> that it conducted whole-body counter check-ups on about 180
> firefighters, nurses and municipal employees. According to Koichi
> Ohyama, a member of the municipal assembly of Minami Soma, the
> screening conducted in July, 2011, showed almost all of these people
> tested positive in Cs. The maximum Cs137 dose among the firefighters
> was as high as 140,000 Bq. This data reveals a part of the reality of
> irradiation but it is only a tiny part.
>
> [Question 6]
> The government websites suggest that no health effects from
> irradiation have been reported in Fukushima. Is this true? Or have any
> symptoms appeared that indicate an increase in radiation-induced
> diseases in Fukushima?
> [Answer]
> One example is the outbreak of child thyroid cancer, but the Japanese
> government has been denying the relationship with irradiation from
> radioactive iodine released from the Fukushima disaster.
> Japan’s population statistics reflect the health effects from the
> Fukushima disaster radioactivity. The following data clearly show that
> diseases increasing in Fukushima are highly likely to have been
> radiation-induced.
> [Question 7]
> The Fukushima prefecture website says, “After the Fukushima accident,
> the Japanese government has introduced the provisional standards for
> radioactive iodine and cesium. The Fukushima prefectural government
> subsequently strictly regulated distribution and consumption of food
> with levels of radioactivity exceeding the provisional standards. Now
> we have had this new much stricter standard. The distribution and
> consumption  of food exceeding this new standard has been continuously
> regulated; therefore any food on the market is safe to consume.” Is it
> true?
> [Answer]
> As for food contamination, the Japanese government has also tried to
> cover up the real picture. First, the current government standard for
> radioactivity in food, 100Bq/kg, is dangerously high for human health,
> especially for fetuses, infants, children and pregnant women. Even six
> and a half years after the accident, the Agriculture Ministry of Japan
> as well as many civic radioactivity measurement stations all over the
> country have reported many food contamination cases, although the
> frequency is evidently reduced. See the website here.
> The Japanese government has underestimated the danger presented by
> internal irradiation. But, we must consider two important factors. (1)
> The wide range of difference in personal radio-sensitivity. According
> to Professor Tadashi Hongyo (Osaka University Medical Faculty), the
> maximum difference is as wide as 100 times in terms of biological
> half-life of Cs137. (2) Recent studies denying that the so-called
> biological half-life decrease curve actually exists. According to the
> new model, daily food contamination can cause concentrations to
> accumulate as time passes. Even a daily 1Bq internal radiation dose
> from food cannot be safe for human health (details below).
> Our recommendation is to be cautious of food or produce from Fukushima
> and the surrounding areas, and, even if contamination levels are said
> to have now generally decreased, to avoid jumping to the conclusion
> that all the food is fit to eat.
>
> [Question 8]
> We would like to ask about the situations in prefectures surrounding
> Fukushima. A television program once reported, “As for the safety of
> Tochigi and Gunma prefectures, few people are raising concern about
> health effects of radiation.” Is it true that the prefectures somewhat
> distant from the Fukushima Daiichi plant are now safe with no human
> risk?
> [Answer]
> Regarding the radioactive contamination in prefectures surrounding
> Fukushima, you can refer to the following website.
> This article examines the contamination in the Tokyo metropolitan
> area, but conditions are the same or more serious in Tochigi or other
> prefectures north of Tokyo, nearer to the defunct Fukushima Daiichi
> plant.
> Another example is the statistics of stillbirth and neonatal mortality
> in Fukushima and the surrounding five prefectures (Tochigi, Gunma,
> Ibaragi, Miyagi, Iwate) shown here.
> Perinatal mortality in not only Fukushima prefecture but also
> neighboring prefectures rose 15.6% just 10 months after the accidents.
> This clearly indicates the existence of some kind of human health
> damage from radiation.
> [Question 9]
> We would like to ask about the decontamination efforts by famers
> living in Fukushima and neighboring prefectures. Should we think
> highly of the farmers measuring the amount of radiation deposited on
> the surface of soil to create radiation maps for farms, or washing the
> radiation from the surface of every single tree off the radiation with
> high-pressure washers? The farmers said that while these methods have
> been shown to be radiologically effective, their produce did not sell
> well, because consumers are still feeling anxious about health risks.
> Does the problem of radioactive food contamination in Japan just end
> up in whether each consumer personally believes it safe or not?
> [Answer]
> We must raise a question that, despite the government’s
> decontamination efforts, a huge amount of radioactive materials
> deposited in mountainous areas remain untouched. Now they are
> re-dispersing and re-depositing over wide areas of Fukushima and
> surrounding prefectures via winds, cars, trains, river water, pollen,
> spores, emissions from incinerators, in the form of radioactive dusts
> and particulates, among many others. For an example, see the following
> website.
> So I regret to say that, although these farmers’ endeavors you
> mentioned are very precious and respectable, they are not sufficient
> to completely eliminate the risk of radiation exposure from food. The
> problem exists objectively in the nuclear materials deposited on and
> in soil, algae, plants, houses, buildings, forests, animal and human
> bodies, not subjectively in the consumers’ sentiment or psychology.
>
> [Question 10]
> Japanese experts have recently pitched a cultivation method that can
> remove cesium by intensive use of potassium fertilizer. Is this method
> effective at all? Do you have any doubt about their claims?
> [Answer]
> They seem to be among those experts who have been criticizing the
> general public’s tendency to demand “zero irradiation risk” as an
> obstacle to Fukushima reconstruction.
> As you know, cesium (Cs) has chemically similar characteristics to
> potassium (K). So it is true that higher levels of application of
> potassium fertilizer lowers the plant’s absorption, and therefore
> concentration, of radioactive Cs, decreasing Cs137/134 concentrations
> in produce, often to below the government standard of 100Bq/kg. But
> the following problems remain: (1) This procedure can prevent Cs
> transfer from the soil to produce only partly, not completely; (2)
> This process raises the potassium concentration in the produce and
> therefore heightens the burdens on certain human organs such as
> kidneys, the heart and the nervous system, causing new health risks;
> (3) Heightened concentration of potassium also leads to the heightened
> concentration of radioactive K40, so the reduced risk of radioactive
> Cs lead to an increased risk of internal irradiation by K40.
>
> [Question 11]
> Even if cesium concentration was reduced by applying more potassium
> fertilizer than usual, strontium contamination would remain. In
> Japanese government’s international press campaign as to the Fukushima
> accident, almost nothing has been said about strontium. If you have
> any information on strontium contamination, let us know.
> [Answer]
> We regret that the information about strontium that you are asking for
> is very limited and searching for it is also a challenge for us. The
> Japanese government and research institutes under the government have
> reported very limited data regarding strontium contamination. But it
> is important that the Japanese government admits the fact of strontium
> contamination within 80km from the defunct Fukushima plant. See the
> website here.
> Did you know that the US Department of Energy data on the strontium
> contamination of soil in Japan and its visualization (in Japanese)
> can be seen on the websites here?
>
> [Question 12]
> Some Japanese experts say, “the Japanese government has declared that
> no health effects from irradiation below 100mSv (or 100mSv/year) have
> been confirmed.” Some farmers have established a private food standard
> of 20Bq/kg, much lower than the Japanese government standard of
> 100Bq/kg. Do you think that doses under 100mSv or under 20Bq/kg are
> safe and secure?
> [Answer]
> As you mentioned, the Japanese government claims that no scientific
> studies verify that irradiation of 100mSv or less poses a threat to
> human health, suggesting that irradiation under 100mSv has no risk.
> This, however, is false. The government is fabricating this
> information. In fact, very many scientific studies have already
> confirmed and proven health effects induced by irradiation under
> 100mSv. For example, see the websites below.
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24198200
> http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f2360
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22766784
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050947/
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696975/
>
> The Japanese government is using the term “100mSv” in a deliberately
> ambiguous and confusing manner. The expression 100mSv can have three
> meanings: (1) a one-time irradiation dose, (2) cumulative irradiation
> doses, or (3) annual irradiation doses. So 100mSv is not the same as,
> nor equal to the 100mSv/year that you mentioned in parenthesis. The
> latter amounts to a 1Sv in cumulative dose over 10 years (which is an
> up to 10% lethal dose), and 5Sv over 50 years (which is a 50% lethal
> dose). The present government standard for evacuees to return,
> 20mSv/year, means that living there for 5 years leads to a cumulative
> dose of 100mSv, at which the Japanese government admits clear health
> risks.
> Regarding 20Bq/kg as some farmers’ private food standard, it is
> critical to pay serious attention to the extraction process of Cs from
> tissues. Japanese-Canadian non-organic biochemist Eiichiro Ochiai
> points out in his book “Hiroshima to Fukushima, Biohazards of
> Radiation” (2014) that, based on the Leggett model, the Cs
> concentration injected in tissues at one time diminishes relatively
> quickly for about 10 days in most tissues. After that, processes slow
> down, tending to become steady. He writes: the decrease of the overall
> Cs level in the body does not follow an exponential decay curve
> (p.83). This means that consecutive intake of Cs, even in very low
> levels, results in the accumulation of Cs in the body. (Incidentally,
> Ochiai’s book can be downloaded for free from the website below.)
> https://archive.org/details/HiroshimaToFukushima
> Regarding the Leggett model, see the website below.
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14630424
> Yuri Bandazhevsky considers over 10Bq/kg of radioactive Cs
> concentrations in the body to be unsafe because even this low level
> can possibly cause abnormal electrocardiographic pattern in babies,
> metabolic disorders, high blood pressure, cataracts, and so on.
> Therefore, we can conclude unequivocally that neither the irradiation
> under 100mSv nor the privately set 20Bq/kg food standard are safe and
> secure.
> PDF Download
> https://www.nirs.org/japanese-government-lying-international-community-
> radiological-situation-around-fukushima-not-safe/
> dunrenard | December 1, 2017 at 1:08 pm | Tags: Contaminated Foods,
> Contamination, Fukushima, Health Problems, Lies & Cover-up, radiation
> | Categories: Fukushima 2017 | URL: https://wp.me/phgse-yzg
>
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-- 
Thanks,
Jason A Meade, AS, BS, MHSA, RRPT, R.T.(T)
Senior Radiation Safety Specialist
Virginia Commonwealth University

Sanger Hall, B2-016
1101 East Marshall St
PO Box 980112
Richmond, VA 23298-0112

meadeja at vcu.edu

330-347-0271 cell
804-828-0594 office

"A society grows great
when old men plant trees
whose shade they know
they shall never sit in."
-Old Greek proverb

"You call this bad? I'll tell you what bad is....
Bad is passing test depth at 80 feet per second with a thirty degree down
bubble.
Compared to that, this is a walk in the park."
-Carlo Ciliberti