Introduced and translated by NORMA FIELD
Director Kamanaka Hitomi
“They keep saying on television that it’s safe, there’s nothing to worry about. I regard this as criminal.” So Kamanaka Hitomi stated on a recent talk show. [“The harm caused by trace amounts of radiation will show up ten years later … Director Kamanaka Hitomi appeals to her fellow citizens to awaken to the threats posed by radiation: ‘Tokyo is now a contaminated area, too.’ Cinema Today, April 17, 2011, link.]
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Are the reports on radiation release issued by such bodies as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology reliable?
Internal contamination occurs when radioactive particles enter the body and continue to release radiation. The reports from the Ministry refer to levels of radioactivity in the air, and only gamma rays are measured. Cesium and iodine, which emit both gamma and beta rays, have already reached the ground, where they continue to emit radiation. Properly speaking, filters should be used to capture the amounts and kinds of radioactive materials as they descend, but there are few research facilities with this capability, and so these measurements have not been made public.
So you think it’s inadequate.
Yes. You need fixed-point observation, too. With internal contamination, it’s important to always be aware of the amounts of exposure. Strontium, which is water soluble and associated with bone cancer, has been found in the soil and in plants.
What about the safety levels?
The government keeps raising the permissible levels. They’re just fooling around with the units of measure, trying to keep the eyes of the public from what’s actually going on. They’re afraid that things would get out of hand if people grasped the severity of the situation. It’s the same thing as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Isn’t it possible they want to minimize the situation in order to avoid a big compensation issue?
Hasn’t this sort of thing happened throughout the history of nuclear power plants?
This certainly isn’t the first time that the promoters of nuclear energy, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have minimized the damages. I’ve been meeting with people who have suffered from the effects of radiation but have been told that their problems cannot be attributed to radiation exposure. The data put out by the government, the IAEA, and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) do not reflect the damages inflicted on the ground.
What should we be doing?
There’s the information provided by the government and the mass media, but I’d like mothers of young children to actively seek out information on the internet and from books. We see both minimization and exaggeration, but you have to look at both and develop the capacity to evaluate. It’s a matter of life and death.
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