Global Research

The Japanese Nuclear Crisis is the first major nuclear event since the new ICRP 1999 recommendations, which include a 10 mSv action level (regardless of the inhalation and ingestion hazard, which exists as a function of particle numbers, not the external dose rate). Japan has chosen, in its stupidity, to double the action level to 20 mSv and leave people in place during incoming fallout and decontamination and the threat of more emissions from the unresolved risks present in Spent fuel pool number 4. But the Diet sees risks of harm to children and pregnant women. Why leave them there ? What gangsters in the nuclear effects community worldwide are running Japan? This situation may be coming to a nuclear dependent community near you. The threat of internal emitters is well documented. The inhalation is under estimated by the Government of Japan in its industry driven social responses to the nuclear disaster.

Mainichi Daily News, Japan

Editorial: Diet should pass Fukushima child victims’ law and hold gov’t responsible

Lawmakers in both the ruling and opposition parties are in the final stages of composing a draft bill supporting victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, with an emphasis on providing support for children and pregnant women, who are said to be especially sensitive to radiation.

One of the pillars of the proposed legislation is the reduction or exemption of medical expenses for children and expecting mothers living in areas where radiation levels exceed a certain standard.

Many lives, especially those of Fukushima prefectural residents, have been turned upside down due to the nuclear disaster. A large number of people not under government orders to evacuate have done so anyway on their own volition, with many families being torn apart. The anguish of parents with young children, in particular, is immeasurable.

As local residents agonize over the lack of progress in decontamination efforts and any guarantees of health and food safety in the coming years, they face a basic question: will the national government continually enforce the measures and policies they seek?

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TECPO), the operator of the stricken Fukushima power plant, is proceeding with its compensation payments to disaster victims based on guidelines set by the science ministry’s Dispute Reconciliation Committee for Nuclear Damage Compensation. However, payment of damages alone does not compensate for the victims’ true suffering.

The bill currently being drafted aims to spell out the responsibility of the national government for its promotion of nuclear power, and mandate the government’s continuous support of disaster victims. A lifetime guarantee of health exams for children who have lived in designated areas, as well as the provision of opportunities for children actually living in designated areas to spend time in nature far from Fukushima are also expected to be incorporated into the bill.

The Chernobyl Law established in the former Soviet Union in 1991, five years after the nuclear disaster outbreak at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, stipulated that residents in areas with annual radiation exposure of 1 millisievert or higher had “the right to relocation,” and even today, are guaranteed medical care. Furthermore, residents living in such highly contaminated locations are offered long-term rehabilitation in facilities located in non-contaminated areas. Japanese lawmakers seem to have taken the Chernobyl Law into consideration in drafting their own bill.

The government will be required to assist evacuees and those who are returning to their hometowns after a period of evacuation to find school enrollment, employment, and homes, according to the bill. As Article 25 of the Constitution stipulates that “All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living,” it is only natural for the government to take all necessary measures to ensure such lives for all people, whether or not they’ve had to evacuate as a result of the nuclear disaster.

There are, of course, details that still need to be worked out, such as the question of what constitutes “a certain level” of radiation. The degree to which the victims’ medical fees will be reduced also remains unclear, and will depend heavily on the state of government coffers.

However, the establishment of a legal mandate protecting the health and rights of the children of Fukushima is significant. The legislators involved in drafting the bill are considering setting up a non-partisan consultative body to check on the law’s implementation after enactment to ensure that the principles behind it are not watered down.

Local municipalities in Fukushima are pressing hard for legislation like the one currently in the works. Let’s hope that the ruling and opposition parties are able to cooperate toward its enactment in the current session of the Diet.

June 04, 2012(Mainichi Japan)
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If nuclear industry had to pay for the costs, it would never run at a profit. In fact, it never does. It costs and it kills and it destroys entire ways of life, as it has done since Britain directed Australia to remove Aboriginal Australians from their lands in order to make way for the bomb tests.

The radiological dispersal devices which ring Japan must all be permanently closed down. They were facilitated by the United States in order to ensure that the USA had a second source of military plutonium. This aim lies hidden under the Japanese Peace Constitution.

From where I sit this proposed Japanese law reminds me that it took around 50 years of constant legal battles for Australia’s nuclear veterans to win the right to free cancer treatment from the Australian government as a result of the veterans greatly increase incidence of cancer (14 -23 % depending on type of cancer (Source: Australian Government)

It fills me with dread that children living in areas of Japan affected by nuclear industry pollution may now be similarly be covered for treatment. These children and pregnant are not former soldiers. They are civilians who made the mistake of tolerating nuclear industry because they needed to watch TV and boil a kettle, cook food and read at night. Nuclear industry has lied for many, many decades. It says it is clean and non-polluting. This is a lie and shown to be a lie by scientific report after scientific report which shows the nature and extent of radionuclide deposition in Japan.

These substances are the same substances the nations of the world trialled and used as weapons against their own troops. The children of Japan are the new nuclear veterans. I pray and weep for Japan.

contamination check of Japanese civilians due to nuclear plant pollution.
decontamination of Australian troops, nuclear weapon site, 1957. My fear is the fate of the Japanese children will be the same as these men. The children did not sign up for this. Neither actually did these men. They didn’t expect their own government to mow them down. Neither did the children of Japan.

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20120604p2a00m0na014000c.html