The effects of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima have now become
visible in butterflies. Researchers worry the effects may start to be
felt among human beings.
The butterflies found to be deformed as a result of radiation from the
nuclear meltdown in Fukushima belong to the butterfly family of
gossamer-winged butterflies.
These butterflies can be found throughout the world. They are very sensitive to changes in the environment - to water and air pollution, chemicals and radioactivity. For scientists, gossamer-winged butterflies are thus a good biological indicator of the health of the environment. When they get sick, it means there is a problem somewhere in the ecosystem - even if there don't seem to be any apparent problems, Winfrid Eisenberg, radiation expert and member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), told DW. "The findings of the Japanese scientists don't surprise me. There were similar findings in studies conducted after Chernobyl," he explained. Deformed buts, mice, birds After the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986, deformities similar to the ones recently seen in butterflies in Fukushima were also observed in plant insects. Even today, Eisenberg said researchers continue to find around 100 times more genetic mutations in field mice, now the 52nd generation since the disaster, than in mice in uncontaminated areas. Swallows were also greatly affected. In Chernobyl and its surrounding area, the birds are as good as extinct. The ones that do still exist there have "very small heads and very low success rates in breeding," Eisenberg explained. 
Winfrid Eisenberg fears that people will increasingly see the effects of nuclear radiationDuring that time, the number of deformities and miscarriages was especially high - even outside of Chernobyl. According to a report by the Society for Radiation Protection, there are between 18,000 and 122,000 people who have genetic defects as a result of the Chernobyl disaster throughout Europe. Even small amounts of radiation can be dangerous The minimum dose of radiation cells can be exposed to before mutating is unclear. Peter Jacob, head of the Institute for Radiation Protection at the Helmholz Center in Munich, told DW that even small quantities of radiation was enough to cause damage. But human cells have remarkable defense mechanisms that have evolved throughout time. Should any abnormalities occur during cell division, certain enzymes make sure that most of them are repaired. But a quick repair after short-term exposure to radiation could lead to further mutations, which are then passed on to the next generation of cells. In the long term, that could lead to cancer. And if the mutations happen to be in sperm or egg cells, there is a much higher risk that such disease-causing mutations can be passed down for generations. Fear of diseases A study conducted by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) found that the number of cases of thyroid cancer and leukemia in Japan would not rise significantly as a result of the reactor meltdown in Fukushima. Yet Eisenberg said the deformed butterflies spoke for themselves, even if findings in research on animals and insects could not completely speak for humans. A series of ultrasound examinations conducted on over 40,000 children in Japan found 35 percent of the children to have lumps or cysts. "That is not normal among children," Eisenberg, who is also a retired pediatrician, told DW. He added that the figure was alarming. He, along with some of his colleagues, requested access to Japan's birth statistics for the time since the disaster at the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima. As of now, he is still waiting for access to be granted. Author: Judith Hartl / sb Editor: John Blau |
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| Japan Probes Alleged Nuclear Cover-Up Wall Street Journal TOKYO—Japanese authorities are investigating subcontractors on suspicion of forcing workers at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant to underreport the amount of radiation they were exposed to so they could stay on the job longer. Labor officials said Sunday that ... See all stories on this topic » | ||
| Report: Japan nuclear workers told to hide radiation levels CNN Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is investigating a report that workers at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were told to use lead covers in order to hide unsafe radiation levels, an official said. The alleged ... |
The Asahi Shimbun
TEPCO subcontractor used lead to fake dosimeter readings at Fukushima plant
Workers at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant
were ordered to cover their dosimeters with lead plates to keep
radiation doses low enough to continue working under dangerous
conditions, the Asahi Shimbun has learned.
Some refused the orders. Others raised questions about their safety and the legality of the practice. But the man in charge, a senior official of a subcontractor of Tokyo Electric Power Co., warned them that they would lose their jobs--and any chance of employment at other nuclear plants--if they failed to comply.
The pocket-sized dosimeters sound an alarm when they detect high radiation levels. A worker who has been exposed to an accumulated dose of 50 millisieverts within a year must stop working and stay away from the area for a certain period of time.
The 54-year-old senior official at Build-Up, a midsize construction company based in Fukushima Prefecture, worked out a system to ensure the dosimeters would not reach the limit, according to the workers. It included having the workers themselves build the lead cover that would prevent the radiation from reaching the dosimeters.
The president of Build-Up acknowledged on July 21 that the senior official had nine people work at the nuclear plant for about three hours on Dec. 1 with their dosimeters shielded by the lead plates.
The senior official, who acted as a site foreman, initially denied giving such instructions. But he later admitted to his actions over the phone to the Build-Up president.
A number of the workers explained the process in detail. And one of them provided The Asahi Shimbun with a recording of a meeting the Build-Up foreman had with defiant workers on the night of Dec. 2 at an inn in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, where the workers stayed.
The conversation shows the foreman growing increasingly agitated by the workers’ refusal to rig their dosimeters.
The workers’ job was to wind insulating material around hoses of a treatment system for radioactive water near the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 reactor buildings of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant, assigned the task to Tokyo Energy and Systems Inc., a TEPCO group company, which then subcontracted part of the work to Build-Up.
The 10 or so workers organized for the task included Build-Up employees and others dispatched by brokers from various parts of Japan.
According to workers, about half of the team assembled in an area of the nuclear plant on Nov. 30, where the Build-Up foreman presented a lead plate about 1 square meter in size and several millimeters thick.
He ordered the workers to draw lines on the plate and cut out pieces using special scissors. The workers then used vises and hammers to reshape the pieces so that they would cover the front, sides and bottom of their personal dosimeters.
On Dec. 1, the Build-Up foreman instructed the team members to cover their dosimeters with the lead plates. But three of the workers refused, prompting the boss to hold a meeting with them on Dec. 2.
‘YOU CAN'T MAKE LIVING WHEN THE DOSE RUNS OUT’
The Build-Up foreman denied the conversation took place. But the defiant workers said the recording of the meeting is accurate.
According to the recording, the foreman said, “Everybody who works for nuclear plants know that the limit is 50 millisieverts per year. If you get exposed to a lot of radiation, you will reach that limit in less than a year. It could run out in three or four months."
He continued: "You can't live by nuclear plants around the year unless you take care of your own radiation doses. You simply can't go and work somewhere else when you are not allowed to work for nuclear plants. You can no longer make a living when the dose runs out. Do you understand that? The 50 millisieverts just keeps running out."
One of the workers tried to interject, saying, "As for me, this is something that we shouldn't do ... ."
But the foreman interrupted, saying: "I know only too well that we shouldn't do that. If you don't want to do so, you don't have to."
Another worker gave his opinion: "I think this is almost a crime."
The foreman retorted: "Did I ever coerce you? I am just saying, 'Please do it if you can convince yourself to do it for your own sake.'”
The foreman also supervises work projects at other nuclear plants in Japan. He said in the recording that he could not allow all the doses at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to be used up.
The workers said the foreman likely wanted all of the workers to use the lead shields to prevent wide variations in the readings on the dosimeters.
At the meeting, they continued to demand an explanation on why they had to use the lead covers.
"Unless you use a lead shield, you can no longer work when the dose is up," the foreman emphasized.
"YOU ARE NOT CUT OUT FOR WORKING AT NUCLEAR PLANTS"
The foreman also recalled a preliminary inspection made in late November by Build-Up staff near the No. 1 through No. 4 reactor buildings. The area was still littered with debris from the hydrogen explosions of March last year, and the foreman said his personal dosimeter began beeping.
"I realized at once that (the radiation levels) were high. I decided, at my own discretion, that we should do that when we work in that area."
The workers said they were convinced that "do that" meant rigging the dosimeters.
The foreman also indicated he had faked his own radiation dose readings in the past. "I have done so before in order to take care of my doses," he said.
His words were still not enough to persuade the workers, so he adopted a tougher tone.
"Perhaps you are not cut out for working at nuclear plants," he said. "Go back to your hometown and do some other job."
Both sides remained far apart during the one-hour talk. The three workers quit their jobs and returned to their hometowns the following day.
But the other workers complied.
‘MAKE SURE NOBODY SEES WHAT YOU ARE DOING’
TEPCO records show that one Build-Up worker was exposed to more than 10 millisieverts of radiation in December alone, placing him near the top percentile among the approximately 5,000 people who worked at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant at the time. However, he was believed to have used a lead shield over his dosimeter, meaning he was likely exposed to even larger doses of radiation.
According to the Build-Up workers, on Dec. 1, they changed into protective suits at the J-Village, a soccer stadium 20 kilometers south of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant that is used as a relay base for workers. They said the Build-Up foreman then issued instructions.
"Today, we will enter areas of high radiation levels. We will wear the lead boxes," he said.
The foreman told the workers to take a bus to the Main Anti-Earthquake Building on the premises of the nuclear plant, where they would receive TEPCO's dosimeters. They were to put the devices in their breast pockets beneath their protection suits and change into a vehicle for exclusive use by Build-Up staff.
Once inside the Build-Up vehicle, each worker would be given a lead cover. The workers were to rip their protection suits, cover their personal dosimeters with the lead sheaths and cover the tears in their protective suits with tape.
"Make sure nobody sees what you are doing," he told each worker. "Did you understand? You'll do so, won't you?"
However, the three workers surprised the foreman by rejecting his orders.
"I am not forcing you. Go back if you don't want to do so," he said. He walked toward the bus bound for the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant with the other workers who agreed to follow his instructions.
The foreman picked one man from the team and told him to drive the defiant workers to the lodging in Iwaki.
"No other company wants to work in areas with high radiation levels," the driver told the workers during the ride. "That's why that kind of work ends up in the hands of Build-Up. But you can make good money that way."
(This article was written by Jun Sato, Chiaki Fujimori, Miki Aoki, Tamiyuki Kihara and Takayuki Kihara.)
Some refused the orders. Others raised questions about their safety and the legality of the practice. But the man in charge, a senior official of a subcontractor of Tokyo Electric Power Co., warned them that they would lose their jobs--and any chance of employment at other nuclear plants--if they failed to comply.
The pocket-sized dosimeters sound an alarm when they detect high radiation levels. A worker who has been exposed to an accumulated dose of 50 millisieverts within a year must stop working and stay away from the area for a certain period of time.
The 54-year-old senior official at Build-Up, a midsize construction company based in Fukushima Prefecture, worked out a system to ensure the dosimeters would not reach the limit, according to the workers. It included having the workers themselves build the lead cover that would prevent the radiation from reaching the dosimeters.
The president of Build-Up acknowledged on July 21 that the senior official had nine people work at the nuclear plant for about three hours on Dec. 1 with their dosimeters shielded by the lead plates.
The senior official, who acted as a site foreman, initially denied giving such instructions. But he later admitted to his actions over the phone to the Build-Up president.
A number of the workers explained the process in detail. And one of them provided The Asahi Shimbun with a recording of a meeting the Build-Up foreman had with defiant workers on the night of Dec. 2 at an inn in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, where the workers stayed.
The conversation shows the foreman growing increasingly agitated by the workers’ refusal to rig their dosimeters.
The workers’ job was to wind insulating material around hoses of a treatment system for radioactive water near the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 reactor buildings of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant, assigned the task to Tokyo Energy and Systems Inc., a TEPCO group company, which then subcontracted part of the work to Build-Up.
The 10 or so workers organized for the task included Build-Up employees and others dispatched by brokers from various parts of Japan.
According to workers, about half of the team assembled in an area of the nuclear plant on Nov. 30, where the Build-Up foreman presented a lead plate about 1 square meter in size and several millimeters thick.
He ordered the workers to draw lines on the plate and cut out pieces using special scissors. The workers then used vises and hammers to reshape the pieces so that they would cover the front, sides and bottom of their personal dosimeters.
On Dec. 1, the Build-Up foreman instructed the team members to cover their dosimeters with the lead plates. But three of the workers refused, prompting the boss to hold a meeting with them on Dec. 2.
‘YOU CAN'T MAKE LIVING WHEN THE DOSE RUNS OUT’
The Build-Up foreman denied the conversation took place. But the defiant workers said the recording of the meeting is accurate.
According to the recording, the foreman said, “Everybody who works for nuclear plants know that the limit is 50 millisieverts per year. If you get exposed to a lot of radiation, you will reach that limit in less than a year. It could run out in three or four months."
He continued: "You can't live by nuclear plants around the year unless you take care of your own radiation doses. You simply can't go and work somewhere else when you are not allowed to work for nuclear plants. You can no longer make a living when the dose runs out. Do you understand that? The 50 millisieverts just keeps running out."
One of the workers tried to interject, saying, "As for me, this is something that we shouldn't do ... ."
But the foreman interrupted, saying: "I know only too well that we shouldn't do that. If you don't want to do so, you don't have to."
Another worker gave his opinion: "I think this is almost a crime."
The foreman retorted: "Did I ever coerce you? I am just saying, 'Please do it if you can convince yourself to do it for your own sake.'”
The foreman also supervises work projects at other nuclear plants in Japan. He said in the recording that he could not allow all the doses at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to be used up.
The workers said the foreman likely wanted all of the workers to use the lead shields to prevent wide variations in the readings on the dosimeters.
At the meeting, they continued to demand an explanation on why they had to use the lead covers.
"Unless you use a lead shield, you can no longer work when the dose is up," the foreman emphasized.
"YOU ARE NOT CUT OUT FOR WORKING AT NUCLEAR PLANTS"
The foreman also recalled a preliminary inspection made in late November by Build-Up staff near the No. 1 through No. 4 reactor buildings. The area was still littered with debris from the hydrogen explosions of March last year, and the foreman said his personal dosimeter began beeping.
"I realized at once that (the radiation levels) were high. I decided, at my own discretion, that we should do that when we work in that area."
The workers said they were convinced that "do that" meant rigging the dosimeters.
The foreman also indicated he had faked his own radiation dose readings in the past. "I have done so before in order to take care of my doses," he said.
His words were still not enough to persuade the workers, so he adopted a tougher tone.
"Perhaps you are not cut out for working at nuclear plants," he said. "Go back to your hometown and do some other job."
Both sides remained far apart during the one-hour talk. The three workers quit their jobs and returned to their hometowns the following day.
But the other workers complied.
‘MAKE SURE NOBODY SEES WHAT YOU ARE DOING’
TEPCO records show that one Build-Up worker was exposed to more than 10 millisieverts of radiation in December alone, placing him near the top percentile among the approximately 5,000 people who worked at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant at the time. However, he was believed to have used a lead shield over his dosimeter, meaning he was likely exposed to even larger doses of radiation.
According to the Build-Up workers, on Dec. 1, they changed into protective suits at the J-Village, a soccer stadium 20 kilometers south of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant that is used as a relay base for workers. They said the Build-Up foreman then issued instructions.
"Today, we will enter areas of high radiation levels. We will wear the lead boxes," he said.
The foreman told the workers to take a bus to the Main Anti-Earthquake Building on the premises of the nuclear plant, where they would receive TEPCO's dosimeters. They were to put the devices in their breast pockets beneath their protection suits and change into a vehicle for exclusive use by Build-Up staff.
Once inside the Build-Up vehicle, each worker would be given a lead cover. The workers were to rip their protection suits, cover their personal dosimeters with the lead sheaths and cover the tears in their protective suits with tape.
"Make sure nobody sees what you are doing," he told each worker. "Did you understand? You'll do so, won't you?"
However, the three workers surprised the foreman by rejecting his orders.
"I am not forcing you. Go back if you don't want to do so," he said. He walked toward the bus bound for the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant with the other workers who agreed to follow his instructions.
The foreman picked one man from the team and told him to drive the defiant workers to the lodging in Iwaki.
"No other company wants to work in areas with high radiation levels," the driver told the workers during the ride. "That's why that kind of work ends up in the hands of Build-Up. But you can make good money that way."
(This article was written by Jun Sato, Chiaki Fujimori, Miki Aoki, Tamiyuki Kihara and Takayuki Kihara.)
Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012
Fukushima lays bare Japanese media's ties to top
Special to The Japan Times
Is the ongoing crisis surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant being accurately reported in the Japanese media?
 |
| Official lines: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano on April 17, 2011, during his first visit to Fukushima after the disasters triggered by March 11's Great East Japan Earthquake. KYODO PHOTO |
No, says independent journalist Shigeo Abe, who claims the authorities, and many journalists, have done a poor job of informing people about nuclear power in Japan both before and during the crisis — and that the clean-up costs are now being massively underestimated and underreported.
"The government says that as long as the radioactive leak can be dammed from the sides it can be stopped, but that's wrong," Abe insists. "They're going to have to build a huge trench underneath the plant to contain the radiation — a giant diaper. That is a huge-scale construction and will cost a fortune. The government knows that but won't reveal it."
The disaster at the Fukushima plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) again revealed one of the major fault lines of Japanese journalism — that between the mainstream media and the mass-selling weeklies and their ranks of freelancers.
The mainstream media has long been part of the press-club system, which funnels information from official Japan to the public. Critics say the system locks the country's most influential journalists into a symbiotic relationship with their sources, and discourages them from investigation or independent lines of analysis.
Once the crisis began, it was weekly Japanese magazines that sank their teeth into the guardians of the so-called nuclear village — the cozy ranks of polititicians, bureaucrats, academics, corporate players and the media who promote nuclear power in this country.
Shukan Shincho dubbed Tepco's management "war criminals." Shukan Gendai named and shamed the most culpable of Japan's goyō gakusha (unquestioning pronuclear scientists; aka academic flunkies).
Meanwhile, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper's well-respected weekly magazine AERA revealed that local governments manipulated public opinion in support of reopening nuclear plants. The same magazine's now-famous March 19, 2011, cover story showing a masked nuclear worker and the headline "Radiation is coming to Tokyo" was controversial enough to force an apology and the resignation of at least one columnist (though the headline was in fact correct).
Others explored claims of structural bias in the mainstream press.
Japan's power-supply industry, collectively, is Japan's biggest advertiser, spending ¥88 billion (more than $1 billion) a year, according to the Nikkei Advertising Research Institute. Tepco's ¥24.4 billion alone is roughly half what a global firm as large as Toyota spends in a year.
Many journalists were tied to the industry in complex ways. A Yomiuri Shimbun science writer was cited in "Daishinsai Genpatsu Jiko to Media" ("The Media and the Nuclear Disaster"; Otsuki Shoten, 2011) as working simultaneously for nuclear-industry watchdogs, including the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (sic). Journalists from the Nikkei and Mainichi Shimbun newspapers have also reportedly gone on to work for pronuclear organizations and publications.
Before the Fukushima crisis began, Tepco's advertising largesse may have helped silence even the most liberal of potential critics. According to Shukan Gendai, the utility spent roughly $26 million on advertising with the Asahi Shimbun. Tepco's quarterly magazine, Sola, was edited by former Asahi writers.
The financial clout of the power-supply industry, combined with the press-club system, surely helped discourage investigative reporting and keep concerns about nuclear power and critics of plants such as the aging Fukushima complex and Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka facility in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, which sits astride numerous faults, well below the media radar.
Throughout the Fukushima crisis, the mainstream media has relied heavily on pronuclear scientists' and Tepco's analyses of what was occurring. After the first hydrogen blast of March 12, the government's top spokesman, Yukio Edano, told a press conference: "Even though the reactor No. 1 building is damaged, the containment vessel is undamaged. ... On the contrary, the outside monitors show that the (radiation) dose rate is declining, so the cooling of the reactor is proceeding."
Any suggestion that the accident would reach Chernobyl level was, he said, "out of the question."
Author and nuclear critic Takashi Hirose noted afterward: "Most of the media believed this. It makes no logical sense to say, as Edano did, that the safety of the containment vessel could be determined by monitoring the radiation dose rate. All he did was repeat the lecture given him by Tepco."
As media critic Toru Takeda later wrote, the overwhelming strategy throughout the crisis, by both the authorities and big media, seems to be to reassure people, not alert them to possible dangers.
By late March, the war in Libya had knocked Japan from the front pages of the world's newspapers, but there was still one story that was very sought after: life inside the 20-km evacuation zone around the Fukushima atomic plant.
Thousands of people had fled and left behind homes, pets and farm animals that would eventually die. A small number of mainly elderly people stayed behind, refusing to leave homes that often had been in their families for generations. Not surprisingly, there was enormous global interest in their story and its disturbing echoes of the Chernobyl catastrophe 25 years earlier.
Yet not a single reporter from Japan's big media filed from inside the evacuation zone — despite the fact that it was not yet illegal to be there. Some would begin reporting from the area much later after receiving government clearance — the Asahi Shimbun newspaper sent its first dispatch on April 25, when its reporters accompanied the commissioner-general of the National Police Agency. Later, they would explain why they stayed away and — with the exception of government-approved excursions — why they continue to stay away.
 |
| Smoke signals: The leaking Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on March 20, 2011. Critics accuse Japan's mainstream media of failing to properly report the ongoing crisis. KYODO PHOTO |
"Journalists are employees and their companies have to protect them from dangers," explained Keiichi Sato, a deputy editor with the News Division of Nippon TV.
"Reporters like myself might want to go into that zone and get the story, and there was internal debate about it, but there isn't much personal freedom inside big media companies. We were told by our superiors that it was dangerous, so going in by ourselves would mean breaking that rule. It would mean nothing less than quitting the company."
The cartel-like behavior of the leading Japanese media companies meant they did not have to fear being trumped by rivals. In particularly dangerous situations, managers of TV networks and newspapers will form agreements (known as hōdō kyōtei) in effect to collectively keep their reporters out of harm's way.
Teddy Jimbo, founder of the pioneering Internet broadcaster Video News Network, explains: "Once the five or six big firms come to an agreement that their competitors will not do anything, they don't have to be worried about being scooped or challenged."
Frustrated by the lack of information from around the plant, Jimbo took his camera and dosimeters into the 20-km zone on April 2 and uploaded a report on YouTube that scored almost 1 million views. He was the first Japanese reporter to present TV images from Futaba and other abandoned towns (though images from the zone, shot during government-approved incursions, later appeared on mainstream TV news programs).
"For freelance journalists, it's not hard to beat the big companies because you quickly learn where their line is," Jimbo said. "As a journalist I needed to go in and find out what was happening. Any real journalist would want to do that." He later sold some of his footage to three of the big Japanese TV networks: NHK, NTV and TBS.
Says Abe: "The government's whole strategy for bringing the plant under control will have to be revised. The evacuees will never be able to return. They can't clean up the radiation. Will the media report this? I'm waiting for that."
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