– Mother forced to flee Tokyo to save daughter from Fukushima fallout, speaks about radioactive contamination of eastern Japan –“the violence called internal radiation exposure”

According to [a doctor’s] examinations after the accident, the number of white blood cells of children living in the [Tokyo] metropolitan area was decreasing. And he added that neutrophils among white blood cells were particularly badly decreasing…Today, the doctor is saying that for every ten children in Tokyo, nine of them have below the standard number of neutrophils.

From Fukushima 311 Voices
August 10, 2018

Reprinted with permission

Comment from Beyond Nuclear International:
On March 11, 2018, we 
profiled a courageous young mother — Yoko Shimosawa — as she stood on a street and spoke with passion, in English and Japanese, about the threats posed by nuclear power. Shimosawa had evacuated from Tokyo to Kansai with her two children, once her daughter became sick. 

Now a relentless campaigner to bring truth to light, she told her full story during a visit to Hiroshima on August 6, marking the 73rd anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on that city. Below, in powerful and moving testimony, she recounts the persistent health threats and risks to populations still living in the region and draws a parallel between the “invisible and quiet nuclear bombing” of the Fukushima and Hiroshima populations across the decades.

73 years ago today, many precious lives were instantly destroyed by the terrible blast and the heat from the atomic bomb. Did you know, however, that the atomic bomb has had another, lasting effects? It’s an invisible, quiet and lasting effects from the nuclear bombing, called “internal radiation exposure.”

7 years ago, Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant had an accident and the nuclear accident developed into a nuclear disaster. Today, we Japanese have to live with this invisible and quiet nuclear bombing.

Continue reading

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– ‘Astronomical amounts of radiation’ in downtown Tokyo; ‘high doses of radiation, usually found in nuclear waste…highly radioactive dust’ in ‘decontaminated’ area; ‘serious internal exposure’ from inhalation into the lungs

Posted on ENE News

August 22, 2016

CCTV (Channel 17 in Burlington, Vermont), published Jun 20, 2016 (emphasis added):

  • Margaret Harrington, host: I know you mentioned Arnie Gundersen, the chief engineer at Fairewinds, and he said that he measured the radiation there, too. Could you talk about that a little bit?
  • Maggie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education founder and CEO: He’s working with some other scientists who are studying — both Japanese scientists, the samples that they took, and the US scientists who are evaluating the samples — and they’re finding astronomical amounts of radiation, even in downtown Tokyo outside of METI’s door. METI is the regulatory agency over nuclear power… When he and others were downtown in Tokyo, they took samples right there in a garden right outside the door and on the front doormat, and these are really, really high samples. Frightening, because people walking in Tokyo will then be inhaling that dust. What was the film we saw from Japan that had the mothers who were in an area where kids play and run from middle school?
  • Caroline Phillips, Fairewinds Energy Education: It’s a fantastic video… it’s a mothers organization, they live in the Fukushima Prefecture and they’re actually using Geiger counters that have been issued by the government. They’re walking along the river [in Fukushima City.]
  • Maggie Gundersen: What’s so tragic about it – kids are running along dirt paths doing gym class and track and things like that and the mothers are right down in areas that are not posted and the kids can go after school and play, and people do nature hikes and stuff. And the radiation readings are horrific.

Gendai Business Online (article in Japanese here), Jun 14, 2016: [J]ust before the 5th anniversary of the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, a group of young girls in the city of Minami-Soma rode their bikes to school past a shocked and saddened pedestrian. That upset observer was Arnie Gundersen, nuclear reactor expert… “What surprised me at this visit to Japan… is that the decontaminated area is contaminated again,” Mr. Gundersen said while explaining why it was such as sad shock to witness the girls on their bicycles. “This was not what I had expected. I had thought that we would not find such high doses of radiation in the decontaminated area. But, sadly, our results prove otherwise.”… Gundersen collected samples of dust [though] the official data cannot be released before the publication of formal scientific papers, it is evident that high doses of radiation, usually found in nuclear waste, was detected from these samples. “This means that highly radioactive dust is flying around the city. In other words, the decontaminated land is contaminated again. Little girls are affected by the radiation 20 times as much as adult men. The Japanese government’s standard of 20 mSv is based on exposure assessments for adult men. The girls on their bicycles are actually being affected by a radiation dose equivalent to as much as 400 mSv.” Mr. Gundersen also pointed out that human lungs are heavily affected by internal exposures to radiation. “At this visit, I wore a radiation proof mask that can filter out 99.98% of radiation for six hours. I sent my filter to the lab, and they found a high dose of Cesium. But, unfortunately, the Japanese government only cares about the number on a Geiger counter and does not consider the internal exposure. This has resulted in a hazardous downplay of this kind of data and human lungs are affected by the serious internal exposure.”… [T]he radiation from the mountains are coming back to the city by way of wind and rain. Mr. Gundersen noted the extreme radioactive contamination of the mountains… vegetables grown in that area exceed the government’s standard by 1500 Bq. These vegetables were sold at the MichinoEki in Tochigi prefecture, and the bamboo shoot grown in this contaminated region was used for elementary school lunches in Utsunomiya. These school lunches contained more than twice as much radiation as the government’s standard… However, the government continues to push for the end of people’s relocation and force the return to recontaminated areas… Mr. Gundersen also found that Tokyo remains contaminated. He measured dust… and found a high dose of radiation. That dust is in the air that will be inhaled by the visitors and athletes of the 2020 Olympic Games. Needless to say, the current residents are inhaling it every day…

Watch the CCTV Channel 17 interview here

http://enenews.com/tv-astronomical-amounts-radiation-found-downtown-tokyo-horrific-readings-detected-children-playing-fukushima-extreme-contamination-found-food-grown-school-lunches-nuclear-expert-shocked-upsettin

Petition: Don’t send Olympic athletes to Fukushima (or Japan)

Add the message to relocate the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics entirely and stop them from going forward in Japan. This is an international disgrace that further compounds this tragedy. International officials are cowards.

From

Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network
Children are our most beloved and cherished gift and they are also the most vulnerable to the generational damage of man-made radiation in air, food, soil and water.  Around the world children who are currently adolescent and possibly younger are in training to compete at the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Japan.  Their parents most likely have no idea that some of the venues are near the most devastating and ongoing nuclear and industrial disaster in world history, Fukushima Daiichi.

Source:http://globalnews.ca/news/2571822/japan-olympics-minister-backs-fukushima-as-host-venue-for-2020/

http://in.reuters.com/news/picture/inside-fukushimas-j-village?articleId=INRTR2TVZW

On March 11, 2016, the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima triple nuclear meltdowns, the Japanese Olympic minister Toshiaki Endo stated to the Associated Press that preliminary softball and baseball could be moved from the host city of Tokyo to Fukushima Prefecture.  But it gets worse, now soccer has been added too. This isn’t mere speculation, in fact organizers are developing J Village, only a few miles from Fukushima Daiichi, into a training facility for Japan’s soccer team and possibly more.  J Village was used as a disaster staging and support facility during the early days of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Source:http://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2016/01/30/soccer/j-village-to-serve-as-2020-olympic-soccer-training-center/#.VwWPM32AOko

SO HOW DID WE GO FROM THE WORLD’S WORST NUCLEAR AND INDUSTRIAL DISASTER TO ONE OF THE VENUES FOR THE 2020 GAMES?  In a stunning development in 2013, Japan’s Olympic bid was won by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when he promised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that “it (Fukushima Daiichi) has never done, and will never do, any damage in Tokyo”.  Consequently, the IOC and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) are now left to engage in a dangerous game of bait and switch by using venues not only in Tokyo as originally agreed upon, but also in Fukushima Prefecture, not far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster site.

Source: http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1015905/how-tokyo-2020-won-its-olympics-and-paralympic-bid-despite-fukushima

Holding Olympic games in Fukushima Prefecture will endanger young athletes. To date there is no solution in sight to the ongoing radiation releases leaking into air, soil, food and water not only from Fukushima Daiichi but also from areas around the country that have been used for the open storage and incineration of toxic and radioactive tsunami rubble and garbage.

For the rest of the petition, and to sign:

https://www.change.org/p/ambassador-caroline-kennedy-no-olympics-or-paralympics-in-radioactive-fukushima