At Chernobyl, the right to evacuate, was from 1 to 5 millisieverts. In Japan its 20

[NNN0LHI]

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/03/fukushima-women-demand-better-protection-for-children-exposed-to-radiation/

Fukushima Women Demand Better Protection for Children Exposed to Radiation

Posted by TIME.com Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 12:24 am

The following is a guest post from TIME contributor Lucy Birmingham.

About 100 women from Fukushima, Japan, have started a week-long sit-in at a government office in Tokyo to demand greater protection for children affected by radiation. “Many children and their families are trapped in Fukushima because they can't afford to move,” explains Ayako Oga, 38, a housewife living in the prefecture and one of the sit-in organizers. “The government has set the accepted radiation exposure rate too high." Japan's standard rate for exposure to radiation is 1 millisievert per year. For Fukushima residents alone the accepted exposure rate is up to 20 millisieverts per year. The International Commission on Radiological Protection considers this rate the top level and says it should not be exceeded over the long term.

National and prefectural governments have determined that until the 20 millisieverts level they are not obligated to offer financial support to residents, certain businesses or schools wanting to relocate outside the irradiated areas. At the heart of the debate is the question of who has a ‘right to evacuate.' “At Chernobyl, the right to evacuate, which means government support, was given from 1 to 5 millisieverts. In Japan it's 20,” says Aileen Mioko Smith, a Japan-based anti-nuclear activist and executive director of NGO Green Action. The standards for evacuation, she says, are way behind the former Soviet Union. “During World War II, all elementary schools were moved to safe locations,” says Oga. “Shouldn't we be getting the same kind of support?”

The women are calling for two things. First, they want to protect children living in highly contaminated areas by giving them the officially sanctioned ‘right to evacuate.' This would include government compensation and support that would enable children and their families to relocate on a voluntary basis. “A lot of children are trapped in the contamination because it's so difficult {for their families} to afford leaving a mortgage or going to a place where there is no job available,” says Smith. “There are families that have done it, but under great hardship.” Secondly, they want to close down all nuclear power plants in Japan. “Fukushima women feel very strongly that there is no safe nuclear power,” says Smith “This is the lesson to be learned from Fukushima.”

[dtexdem]

1. I guess that's inflation for you.

Well, the inflating power of big polluters to get away with what they do.

[truedelphi]

2. Especially given as the fact that the media in Japan has let the Japanese know that

If they just think good thoughts, all will be well.

And here in the USA, Time magazine has paragraphs inserted in the middle of their spiel about Fukushima and nuclear energy that tell us that "no one knows much about radiation and its effects on human beings."

Yeah, RIGHT! Like no one bothered to document the illnesses, especially rare cancers, and deaths recorded from data gathered after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And no one has looked into how so many people died down wind of our atomic tests, in small towns across Utah and Nevada.

Whatever!


<sarcasm meant>