Is Japan doing enough to protect its citizens?

It’s hard to believe how quickly we forget. It is only five months since one of the worst earthquakes of all time caused colossal tidal waves to obliterate swathes of Japan’s north-east region, leaving human and structural devastation on a vast scale in its wake.

Fukushima Prefecture, which was the worst hit region, is slowly putting the building blocks of life back together. But as everyone knows, there is one complication which could hinder that process for generations – the radiation leak at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
An invisible wave, it is potentially more lethal than the tsunami. So far, the impression being given by the Japanese authorities is that the worst of the radiation has been contained. But there are growing fears that this may not indeed be the case.
Alexis Dudden is an associate professor of history and Director of Humanitarian Studies at the University of Connecticut. She has recently spent time in Japan on a Fulbright Scholarship and is an expert on the region. And she believes that contamination levels are far worse than have been reported by the Japanese government to date.
Alexis was in Japan when the earthquake struck – on the southern island of Kyushu, which was not directly affected.
“I did not feel the earthquake when it happened,” she explains. “I was with my son who was five at the time and we continued to travel. We saw our first wave of refugees as we went north.”

But she quickly became aware of the effects of the ‘quake, which measured 9.0 on the Richter Scale.
“We couldn’t go to Tokyo because of the wind direction on the day we were meant to arrive there. Tokyo got a heavy dose of radiation on March 15 – so we left the country through Osaka.”
At that time, she felt the Japanese government was being open about the extent of the leak at the Fukushima reactor. Not now. Since returning to Japan in June, her outlook has changed. She now believes that a slow-burning catastrophe is unfolding in Japan, especially in relation to the long-term contamination of food.

MAKING THE USSR LOOK GOOD
The initial level of radiation released from the Fukushima plant – where Level 7 meltdowns occurred at three reactors ‑ was thought to be less severe than Chernobyl. That much was encouraging. However, concerns have subsequently arisen that, in the long-term, contamination of soil and water could be just as devastating as was the case in Belarus.
“The mood has shifted,” Alexis says. “I was there in June. The mood was that the food might kill us. Cattle actually started measuring off-the-charts, in terms of radiation, three weeks ago. It wasn’t the six cows that were first reported as being affected. Now cows at 4,000 cattle farms need to be culled. It’s not contained to the north-east of the country either. Beef from Fukushima was distributed to 43 of 47 prefectures.”
The potential consequences are deeply alarming.
“It’s worse than Chernobyl,” she argue. “It has affected an area measuring a 150 mile radius. There are high levels of radiation in the air, the sea and the land. Excessive amounts. The Pacific Ocean has also been poisoned.”
For US citizens, these facts are chilling. Because if the Pacific is carrying the radiation, then it will inevitably make its way across the ocean to the west coast of the Americas.

What Alexis Dudden has found most unsettling, however, is the government’s response to the crisis, and the sinister shadow cast by the large energy corporations like the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
In contrast, Greenpeace have been to the fore in identifying the discrepancies between the official story and the real one that has been emerging on the ground. In April, a Greenpeace field team discovered that levels of radiation in the soil in some areas outside the evacuation zone were almost four times higher than the figures provided by the Japanese government. Although Dudden is reluctant to describe the government’s actions as a cover-up, she is adamant that some of those in authority are putting the economic position of vested interests over the potential human cost.
“The real problem is that it hasn’t been contained,” she says. “The nuclear companies are trying to save the plants instead of completely shutting them down. They are potentially sacrificing a population, covering generations, through food contamination.”
In the early stages of the crisis, disturbing levels of radiation were detected in Tokyo’s water supply as well as in foodstuffs such as tea and spinach. But since then food contamination has received little global coverage. That doesn’t mean that it has gone away as a threat.

“In effect, I believe that the world’s nuclear power companies are all agreeing to contain the story. It seems people high up in these companies are more concerned about their bonuses and pensions than dealing with the situation. It has all been grossly mismanaged.
“The Japanese government are not doing the dirty work,” she adds. “Greenpeace have been great. Two Greenpeace scientists went into one of the affected areas and did soil samples and said ‘get people out of here now’. There had been no change – except changing the topsoil in school playgrounds. There is a complete lack of (anyone) taking control of the situation. It almost makes the Soviet Union look good.”

PROTESTS HAVE BEGUN
In fact, rather than straining every sinew to protect its most vulnerable citizens, the Japanese government has apparently gone the other way, loosening restrictions on the amount of radiation children can be exposed to at school. This move has angered teachers unions like Fukushima Teacher Solidarity. However, so far the authorities have prevailed: a teacher in Fukushima City was sacked recently after complaining about children being allowed to play in potentially contaminated school yards.
The official view is that it is important not to spread panic. While that is understandable, the health advocacy organisation Physicians for Social Responsibility says that schoolchildren in contaminated areas will have a one in 100 chance of developing cancer if exposed to radiation for two years. Bearing this in mind, Dudden, for one, feels that urgent action is needed to save Japan’s young population.
“That’s where indecision doesn’t make sense. Children under 12, if not under 15, within a 100 mile radius should be voluntarily moved in a government sponsored evacuation to safe places within Japan. 100,000 children have been exposed to unhealthy conditions already. Not enough is being done. To knowingly sacrifice the young population in a country with no children to spare, just because they come from a poor area, is terrible.”

Small scale protests have begun to challenge the government and the mainstream media’s view, especially through social media sites like Twitter. As ever, self-interest is playing a part in exposing the real story. On August 3, 350 farmers and members of consumer groups protested outside the offices of TEPCO over the contamination of beef and demanded compensation. Dudden is similarly hopeful that the economic power of Japanese consumers might force the government to begin, at least, to deal with the issue effectively.
“One positive is that the average person is more interested now in holding government stories accountable. Japan has been a flat place for a decade. But now an important argument is going on that will matter for the rest of the world. I hope it gets louder. A problem with the big supermarkets may cause fast action on the issue. When a stay-at-home mom in Tokyo is affected then there will be change. Consumer power could become the crucial factor.”

Alexis Dudden is the author of Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States (Columbia University Press, 2008).