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Tokyo
Contaminated & Not Fit for Habitation, Doctor Says
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 Graves
25
September, 2014
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].
Nuclear
lobby put in charge
Back
in December 2012, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) whose
mission is to promote the peaceful uses of the atom, signed
agreements with Fukushima Prefecture, Fukushima Medical University
and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. These “Practical
Arrangements” have in effect, handed over the management of the
post-accident situation at Fukushima and its health consequences to
the nuclear lobby. Among other clauses regarding cooperation and
funding, we read that “The Parties will ensure the confidentiality
of information classified by the other Party as restricted or
confidential” [5].
But
this should come as no surprise. Anyone who doubts the heavy hand of
the nuclear lobby in the “management” (i.e. minimisation) of
nuclear accidents should read the account by the physicist Bella
Belbéoch entitled “Western
responsibility regarding the health consequences of the Chernobyl
catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia”
[6]. The initial Soviet cover up of the accident is well known.
Less
well known are the “stages of submission” in which the IAEA
forced the Soviets to accede to their demands to minimise estimates
of the health effects of the accident. In a series of manipulations
and bullying tactics, they forced the Soviet officials to divide
their estimates of the health effects by a factor of 10. One Soviet
delegate, Legassov, committed suicide, a few days after he
capitulated to the IAEA demands, on the 26th April 1988, the second
anniversary of the Chernobyl accident.
A
travesty of reporting on risks and cancers
How
has the nuclear lobby reacted to Fukushima? A preliminary assessment
published in 2012 by the World Health Organisation (but actually
emanating from the IAEA) managed to draw optimistic conclusions,
while ignoring two critical groups, the workers at the TEPCO plant,
and the people who were evacuated from the immediate area (See [7]
WHO
Report on Fukushima a Travesty
SiS 55).
Then in 2013, the UNSCEAR report [8] described the risks of
people developing thyroid cancer, leukaemia and breast cancer as
barely discernible, even though the rates of childhood thyroid cancer
in Fukushima prefecture are already 40 times what would be expected
[9]. The UNSCEAR report has been criticised by the International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War because it consistently
underestimates the radiation dose received, underestimates internal
radiation, ignores the vulnerability of the human embryo to
radiation, ignores hereditary effects, ignores the unreliability of
the dose received by workers at the stricken plant, and only
considers some cancers as potential health effects, whereas the
experience of Chernobyl shows that every vital organ and system of
the body is affected [10].
Raising
the ‘safe’ limit of radiation
The
Japanese people are faced with a government whose response to the
dangers of the radiation was to increase the acceptable limit from 1
mSv/year to 20 mSv/year and who are now encouraging people to move
back into areas that had previously been evacuated. (The millisievert
is a unit of radiation dose.
Before the Fukushima accident, Japan,
like the rest of the world, respected the limit of 1 mSv/year
recommended by the International Commission on Radiological
Protection (ICRP).) Meanwhile, the nuclear lobby wants to see the
resumption of nuclear power in Japan as quickly as possible. This is
not an atmosphere in which doctors are encouraged to report health
effects that could be the result of radiation, and certainly not in
Tokyo, whose residents have been led to believe that they have
nothing to fear.
Changes
in white blood cells in children
Mita
began work as a general practitioner in Tokyo in the 1990s. In the
letter to his colleagues explaining his decision to move his practice
from Tokyo to Okayama City, he claims that contamination in the
eastern part of Tokyo is 1000-4000 Bq/kg and in the western part,
300-1000Bq/kg. He compares these levels with Kiev, in Ukraine, after
the accident at Chernobyl, of 500 Bq/kg, and with measurements taken
before the 2011 Fukushima accident at Shinjuku, the site of the Tokyo
municipal government of 0.5 – 1.5 Bq/kg. He says that
Tokyo
should no longer be inhabited, and that those who insist on living in
Tokyo must take regular breaks in safer areas.
Mita
conducts thyroid ultrasound tests for parents who are concerned about
the health of their children but he is now concerned about the
results of another test on children under 10, the differential white
blood cell count. This test is undergone routinely by workers in the
nuclear industry who are exposed to radiation. Blood is produced in
bone marrow, which is one of the organs most vulnerable to radiation.
The white blood cells consist of five different kinds of cells,
neutrophils, lymphocytes, eosinocytes, basophils and monocytes, and
it is the relative numbers of these five cell types that is examined.
Mita has found a decline in neutrophils in children under 10, in
areas that are not considered to be highly contaminated or even
contaminated at all. His patients come from Northern Kanto, the area
around Tokyo and including Tokyo itself [11].
"The
pediatricians’ general textbook says that the reference value of
neutrophils for healthy children (6-12 years old) is between 3000 and
5000. 3000 is considered as the threshold value.” Mita says. “But
the mean value of neutrophils of the children who have visited our
clinics since the accident has decreased to 2500. … It is lower
than the threshold value of 3000. I think this points at a serious
problem."
Mita
explains that although the decrease in neutrophil does not directly
cause lowered immunity, it is “the last bastion of the immunity
system” and could play a role in fatal illnesses such as
septicaemia in the case of aggressive colds. “In the summer of
2011, there were many children with bloodshot eyes; and what we saw
most were children with dark circles under the eyes. We also had
increased occurrence of sinusitis. Previously, these patients got
better soon after they were given proper treatment; however, we are
seeing more cases of sinusitis accompanied with mild case of asthma
continuing for longer periods. And when these children spend some
time in the West, they get better. If at all possible, I would like
them to move away from East Japan.”
In
adults, he has found increased nosebleeds, hair loss, lack of energy,
subcutaneous bleeding, visible urinary haemorrhage, skin
inflammation, and coughs. He has found an increase in infectious
diseases such as influenza, hand, foot and mouth diseases and
shingles. “We also see more patients with diseases that had been
rare before; for example, polymyalgia rheumatica is a disease common
among those above age 50 and contracted by 1.7 people out of every
100,000. Before 3.11, [the date of the accident at Fukushima] we had
one or less patient per year. Now, we treat more than 10 patients at
the same time.” Dr Mita wonders “Could these be the same symptoms
of muscle rheumatism that were recorded in Chernobyl?”
Finally,
Mita says that the radioactive contamination of Tokyo is increasing
because of the Japanese government’s policy of transporting
radioactive waste from the Fukushima zone all over Japan for
incineration or burial. The Japanese government and the nuclear
authorities claimed that filters on the stacks of the incineration
plants would remove most of the radioactivity, but this is not the
case, and in the opinion of many, it is adding to the contamination.
Arnie Gundersen, for instance says, “They are creating 100 to 1000
times more radioactive material by burning debris than keeping it in
concentrated form” [12].
To
conclude
Mita
is talking about his perceptions of the changes in health of a
population living in an area that is not considered contaminated. It
will be all too easy to dismiss his findings. He himself is not
optimistic. He acknowledges that to prove any of his suspicions would
require teams of doctors, and expensive research projects to compare
groups of people, their radioactive contamination and the illnesses
from which they suffer. That’s something simply beyond the reach of
any single physician. In other words, “it’s impossible under the
present state to collect the kind of data that would be printed in a
prestigious science magazine. Still, as long as I know that something
strange is clearly happening, I can’t just sit here doing nothing.”
And
here is Professor Yablokov talking about the difficulties that
doctors and scientists experienced in the Chernobyl territories, to
prove a correlation between radiation and illness [13]: “The demand
by IAEA and WHO experts to require “significant correlation”
between the imprecisely calculated levels of individual radiation […]
and precisely diagnosed illnesses […] is not, in our view,
scientifically valid. […] We believe it is scientifically incorrect
to reject data generated by many thousands of scientists, doctors and
other experts who directly observed the suffering of millions
affected by radioactive fallout in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, as
“mismatching scientific protocols.” It is scientifically valid to
find ways to abstract the valuable information from these data.”
Yablokov goes on to list the ways in which this could be one.
But
it was not done in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, and, in this way, the
true health consequences of the Chernobyl accident remain hidden. The
2 million people, including 500,000 children still living in the
worst contaminated areas around Chernobyl suffer a myriad of
illnesses. (According to the Ministry of Health and Sciences in
Belarus in 2000, 85% of the children in the contaminated areas were
ill, whereas that figure was 15% before the accident in 1986 [14].)
Mita
has made a brave decision. The pressure on health professionals and
other citizens in Japan to remain silent about the health
consequences of Fukushima, will lead to a health catastrophe there —
not now, but in the decades to come.
For
more on Fukushima and Chernobyl see [15] Truth
about Fukushima
and other articles in the series (SiS 55) and [16] Fukushima
Crisis Goes Global
(SiS 61).
References:
World
Network for Saving Children from Radiation (2014). A Tokyo doctor who
has moved to western Japan urges fellow doctors to promote radiation
protection: A message from Dr Mita to his colleagues in Kodaira,
Tokyo. Accessed 25 August 2014,
http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2014/07/16/a-tokyo-doctor-who-has-moved-to-western-japan-urges-fellow-doctors-to-promote-radiation-protection-a-message-from-dr-mita-to-his-colleagues-in-kodaira-city-t/
ENENews
(2012). Gunderson: Tokyo soil so hot it should be sent to nuclear
waste dump – Really severe releases hit city. Accessed 25 August
2014,
http://enenews.com/gundersen-tokyo-soil-hot-be-shipped-radioactive-dump).
“Japan
whistleblowers face crackdown under proposed state secrets law.”
Justin McMurray, Guardian, 5 December 2013. Accessed 25 August 2014,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/whistleblowers-japan-crackdown-state-secrets
Reporters
without Borders (2013). Press freedom index 2013: Dashed hopes after
spring. Accessed 25 August 2014,
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html
Practical
Arrangements between Fukushima Medical University and the
International Atomic Energy Agency on Cooperation in the Area of
Human Health. Accessed 25 August 2014,
http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/energy/fukushima_2012/pdfs/fukushima_iaea_en_06.pdf
Belbéoch
B. Responsabilités occidentales dans les conséquences sanitaires de
la catastrophe de Tchernobyl, en Bélorussie, Ukraine et Russie. In
Radioprotection et Droit nucléaire (eds. I Rens, J Jakubec, E
George). Collection SEBES, 1998. English translation: Western
responsibility regarding the health consequences of the Chernobyl
catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia.
http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/western_responsability.html
25/8/14
United
Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.
Sources, Effects and Risks of Ionizing Radiation. United Nations, New
York, 2014. Accessed 25 August 2014,
http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2013/13-85418_Report_2013_Annex_A.pdf
Wasserman
H. Fukushima, the continuing catastrophe. The Ecologist, June
2014.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2433355/fukushima_the_continuing_catastrophe.html
Physicians
for Social Responsibility USA et
al.
Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR Report “Levels and effects of
radiation exposure due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great
East-Japan Earthquake and tsunami.” International Physicians for
the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Berlin, 2014. Accessed 25
August 2014,
http://ippnw-students.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UNSCEAR-Critique.pdf
World
Network for Saving Children from Radiation. Dr Shigeru Mita addresses
the need of blood examination among children in the Kanto area. 2013.
Accessed 25 August 2014,
http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2013/11/11/title-dr-shigeru-mita-addresses-the-need-of-blood-examination-among-children-in-the-kanto-area/
“Radioactive
rubble reaction to haven in Japan.” Arnie Gundersen, Youtube.
Accessed 25 August 2014,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIr-QcsjKxE)
Yablokov
AV, Nesterenko VB and Nesterenko AV. Consequences of the Chernobyl
catastrophe for public health and the environment 23 years later.
Proceedings
of the New York Academy of Sciences
1181, 2009, 318-326.
UN
Human Rights Council. Seventh session. Point 3. A/HRC/7/NGO/33 22
February 2008.
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