All 23 districts of Tokyo contaminated with radiation, worse than at
Chernobyl after the accident, and blood cells of children under ten are
showing worrying changes; the WHO, the IAEA & the Japanese
government cannot be trusted.
by Susie Greaves
In July 2014 Dr Shigeru Mita wrote a letter to his fellow doctors to
explain his decision to move his practice from Tokyo to Okayama city in
the West of Japan [1]. In it, he appeals to their sense of duty to
answer the anxieties of parents in Japan who do not believe the
information coming from the authorities. He says “I must state that
the policies of the WHO, the IAEA or the Japanese government cannot be
trusted.” and “if the power to save our citizens and future generations
exists somewhere, it does not lie within the government or any academic
association, but in the hands of individual clinical doctors ourselves.”
Mita claims that all 23 districts of Tokyo are contaminated, with the
eastern area worst affected — up to 4 000 Bq/kg. (The becquerel is a
unit of radioactivity. One Bq is the activity of a quantity of
radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second.) These
findings confirm what the nuclear physicist Arnie Gundersen of
Fairewinds Nuclear Education found in 2012, when he picked up five
random soil samples in Tokyo from between paving stones, in parks and
playgrounds. The levels of contamination were up to 7 000 Bq/kg; in the
US, anything registering these levels would be considered nuclear waste
[2].
While practising in Tokyo, Mita also discovered changes in the white blood cells of children under 10.
Independent science & independent reporting in Japan outlawed
In December 2013, the Japanese parliament passed a bill whereby
public officials and private citizens could face ten years in prison for
divulging “special state secrets”, and journalists, five years, for
seeking to obtain classified information. The bill is widely interpreted
as a way of preventing sensitive information about Fukushima (among
other topics) reaching the Japanese public and by extension the rest of
the world [3].
The independent organisation Reporters without Borders has downgraded
Japan in its world press freedom index from 22nd place in 2012, to 53rd
in 2013 and to 59th in 2014, following the passing of the state secrets
bill. Reporters without Borders say that Japan“has been affected by a
lack of transparency and almost zero respect for access to information
on subjects directly or indirectly related to Fukushima” [4].
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