Fukushima 3/11 breeds cynicism — Robert Hunziker, CounterPunch

” … Meanwhile, in another universe, former PM Koizumi supports the lawsuit of U.S. sailors aboard the USS Ronald Reagan that participated in Operation Tomodachi, providing humanitarian relief after the March 11^th Fukushima meltdowns. Allegedly, they were assured that radiation levels were okay!

“There is no excuse for Tokyo Electric Power Co. not to give the 400 U.S. sailors and marines who are now suing the company the proper facts. Things are looking especially good for the plaintiffs now that former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is backing the lawsuit over the Fukushima radiation,” Support for U.S. Sailor’s Tepco Suit, The Japan Times, June 17, 2016.

“Undoubtedly, Koizumi was convinced to help the sailors because they now suffer from radiation poisoning. He said: ‘Those who gave their all to assist Japan are now suffering from serious illness. I can’t overlook them,” Ibid.

According to lawyers representing the sailors, Charles Bonner & Cabral Bonner & Paul Garner, Esq., Sausalito, CA, seven sailors have already died, including some from leukemia.

With passage of time, the number of plaintiffs and numbers of deaths grows as the latency effect of radiation sets in. Thus, over time, the latency effect works against the pro-nuclear squawk talk that “all’s clear.”

Initially, the lawsuit represented less than 200 sailors but over time, the latency effect brings forward 400 sailors claiming radiation-poison complications, including leukemia, ulcers, gall bladder removal, brain cancer, brain tumors, testicular cancer, uterine bleeding, thyroid illness, stomach ailments, and premature deaths. These are youngsters. … ”

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Fukushima flunks decontamination — Robert Hunziker, CounterPunch

” Japan’s Abe administration is pushing very hard to decontaminate land, roads, and buildings throughout Fukushima Prefecture, 105 cities, towns, and villages. Thousands of workers collect toxic material into enormous black one-ton bags, thereby accumulating gigantic geometric structures of bags throughout the landscape, looking evermore like the foreground of iconic ancient temples.

Here’s the big push: PM Abe committed to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which shall be a crowning achievement in the face of the Fukushima disaster. Hence, all stops are pulled to repopulate Fukushima Prefecture, especially with Olympic events held within Fukushima, where foodstuff will originate for Olympic attendees.

The Abe government is desperately trying to clean up and repopulate as if nothing happened, whereas Chernobyl (1986) determined at the outset it was an impossible task, a lost cause, declaring a 1,000 square mile no-habitation zone, resettling 350,000 people. It’ll take centuries for the land to return to normal.

Still and all, is it really truly possible to cleanse the Fukushima countryside?

Already, workers have accumulated enough one-ton black bags filled with irradiated soil and debris to stretch from Tokyo to LA. But, that only accounts for about one-half of the job yet to be done. Still, in the face of this commendable herculean effort, analysis of decontamination reveals serious missteps and problems.

Even though the Abe government is encouraging evacuees to move back into villages, towns, and cities of Fukushima Prefecture, Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Heinz Smital claims, in a video – Fukushima: Living with Disaster d/d March 2016: “Radiation is so high here that nobody will be able to live here in the coming years.”

Greenpeace has experts on the ground in Fukushima Prefecture March 2016, testing radiation levels. The numbers do not look good at all. Still, at the insistence of the Abe government, people are moving back into partially contaminated areas. In such a case, and assuming Greenpeace is straightforward, it’s a fair statement that if the Abe government can’t do a better job, then something or somebody needs to change. The Olympics are coming.

The Greenpeace report of March 4, 2016: Radiation Reloaded – Impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident 5 Years Later, exposes deeply flawed assumptions by the IAEA and the Abe government in terms of both decontamination and ecosystem risks.

Ever since March 2011, for over 5 years now, Greenpeace has conducted 25 radiological investigations in Fukushima Prefecture, concluding that five years after the Fukushima nuclear accident, it remains clear that the environmental consequences are complex and extensive and hazardous.

A 17-minute video entitled “Fukushima: Living with Disaster,” shows Greenpeace specialists in real time, conducting radiation tests in decontaminated villages and towns of the prefecture. Viewers can see actual real time measurements of radiation on dosimeters.

For example, in the Village of Iitate, 40 kilometers northwest of the Daiichi nuclear plant, Toru Anzai, an evacuee of Iitate, is told decontamination work on his plot of land nearly complete, and he is to rehabitate in 2017. However, Toru has personal doubts about governmental claims. As it happens, Greenpeace tests show abnormally high levels of radiation where decontamination work is already complete.

“Here we have around 0.8 microsieverts (μSv) per hour,” Heinz Smital, nuclear campaigner Greenpeace, “0.23 was the government target for decontamination work.” An adjoining space registers 1.5-2.0 μSv sometimes up to 3.5 μSv. “This is not the kind of count where you can say things are back to normal.”

Throughout the prefecture, decontamination is only partially carried out. For example, decontamination is confined within a 20-meter radius of private plots and along the roads as well as on farmland, leaving vast swaths of hills, valleys, riverbanks, streams, forests, and mountains untouched. Over time, radiation contamination runoff will re-contaminate many previously decontaminated areas.

Alarmingly, Greenpeace found large caches of hidden buried toxic black bags. Over time, it is likely the bags will rot away with radioactivity seeping into groundwater.

At Fukushima City, 60 km from the plant, Greenpeace discovered unacceptable radiation levels with spot readings as high as 4.26, 1.85, 9.06 μSv. According to Greenpeace: “These radiation levels are anything but harmless.”

The government officially informed Miyoko Watanable, an evacuee of Miyakochi, of “radiation eradicated” from her home. But, she says, “I don’t plan to live here again.” Greenpeace confirmed her instincts: “Although work has only recently finished here, we find counts of 1-to-2 μSv per hour… That’s not a satisfactory for the people here in this contaminated area” (Heinz Smital).

Once an area is officially declared “decontaminated,” disaster relief payments for citizens like Miyoko Watanable stop. The government is off the hook.

Without a doubt, the government of Japan is confronted with an extraordinarily difficult challenge, and it may seem unbecoming to ridicule or find fault with the Abe administration in the face of such unprecedented circumstances. But, the issue is much bigger than the weird antics of the Abe government, which passed an absolutely insane secrecy law providing for 10 years in prison to anybody who breathes a secret, undefined.

Rather, whether nuclear power is truly safe is a worldwide issue. In that regard, the nuclear industry has an unfair PR advantage because of the latency effect of radiation. In general, the latency period for cancers is 5-6 years before statistically discernible numbers. People forget.

Consequently, it is important to reflect on key facts:

In a 2014 RT interview, Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, said: “It’s a real shame that the authorities hide the truth from the whole world, from the UN. We need to admit that actually many people are dying. We are not allowed to say that, but TEPCO employees also are dying. But they keep mum about it.”

Alas, two hundred fifty U.S. sailors of the USS Ronald Reagan, on a Fukushima humanitarian rescue mission, have a pending lawsuit against TEPCO, et al claiming they are already experiencing leukemia, ulcers, gall bladder removals, brain cancer, brain tumors, testicular cancer, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, thyroid illness, stomach ailments and other complaints extremely unusual in such young adults. Allegedly, the sailors were led to believe radiation exposure was not a problem.

Theodore Holcomb (38), an aviation mechanic, died from radiation complications, and according to Charles Bonner, attorney for the sailors, at least three sailors have now died from mysterious illnesses (Third US Navy Sailor Dies After Being Exposed to Fukushima Radiation, Natural News, August 24, 2015.) Among the plaintiffs is a sailor who was pregnant during the mission. Her baby was born with multiple genetic mutations.

Reflecting on 30 years ago, Adi Roche, chief executive of Chernobyl Children International, care for 25,000 children so far, says (2014): “The impact of Chernobyl is still very real and very present to the children who must live in an environment poisoned with radioactivity.”

“Children rocking back and forth for hours on end, hitting their heads against walls, grinding their teeth, scraping their faces and putting their hands down their throats… This is what I witnessed when I volunteered at Vesnova Children’s Mental Asylum in Belarus (February 2014),” How my Trip to a Children’s Mental Asylum in Belarus Made me Proud to be Irish, the journal.ie. March 18, 2014 (Cliodhna Russell). Belarus has over 300 institutions like this hidden deep in the backwoods.

Chernobyl is filled with tear-jerking, heart-wrenching stories of deformed, crippled, misshaped, and countless dead because of radiation sickness. It’s enough to turn one’s stomach in the face of any and all apologists for nuclear power.

According to Naoto Kan, Japanese PM 2010-11 during the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant meltdown: “For the good of humanity it is absolutely necessary to shut down all nuclear power plants. That is my firm belief” (source: Greenpeace video, March 2016).

Over 60 nuclear reactors are currently under construction in 15 countries. China has 400 nuclear power plants on the drawing boards. Russia plans mini-nuclear floating power plants to power oil drill rigs in the Arctic by 2020. Honestly! ”

by David Hunziker

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Ex-Futaba mayor sues state, Tepco over Fukushima nuclear disaster — The Japan Times

” Katsutaka Idogawa, the former mayor of Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, filed a lawsuit against the central government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Wednesday for exposing him to excessive radiation since the March 2011 nuclear disaster.

Seeking ¥148.5 million in damages, Idogawa, 69, claimed that sloppy management by the central government and Tepco caused him to receive radiation over the annual limit during the early phase of the disaster, when hydrogen explosions and the venting of steam from reactor containment vessels took place.

Futaba is one of the two municipalities that host Tepco’s crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the site of the disaster.

At a news conference, Idogawa expressed regrets for his inability to protect local residents from radiation. He also asked Futaba residents to join the lawsuit.

In his petition, Idogawa claimed to have received the excessive radiation between March 11, 2011, when the disaster started, and March 19 that year, when residents evacuated Futaba for Saitama Prefecture.

This was because as Futaba mayor he took part in work to collect information, secure places to which local residents could evacuate, and instruct and guide fleeing locals, according to the petition.

The suit, filed with the Tokyo District Court, is the first seeking compensation for health damage from events early in the nuclear crisis, according to Idogawa’s attorney. ”

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Japan’s Tepco shareholders demand shutdown — SBS

” Shareholders in the company that owns Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power station have protested at its annual meeting, demanding its permanent closure.

Furious shareholders of the company that runs Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power station have joined campaigners to demand the permanent closure of the utility’s atomic plants as it held its annual meeting.

Dozens of demonstrators with loud speakers and banners said on Thursday Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), which wants to restart some of the reactors at the world’s largest nuclear plant, amongst others, must act to not repeat the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

There was pushing and shoving between security guards and demonstrators as they tried to approach shareholders going into the gathering.

Activists from conservation group Greenpeace wore full protective suits and industrial face masks to remind shareholders what families who lived near Fukushima – where three reactors went into meltdown after an earthquake-sparked tsunami – must wear to check on their homes.

Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba town, which hosts the plant, lashed out at supporters of nuclear power, including TEPCO’s management, urging them to put their own ancestral land at risk.

“Why don’t you get exposed to radiation yourself? Why don’t you lose your homeland?” he asked as shareholders filed into Tokyo International Forum for the company’s annual meeting.

His town remains evacuated because of elevated levels of radiation, amid expectations that it will be decades before it is safe to return, if ever.

Idogawa, who bought TEPCO shares last year, said the firm has been slow to offer compensation to those who lost homes, jobs, farms and their communities, and that which has been offered has been inadequate.

“You don’t pay enough compensation and don’t take responsibility (for the accident). I can’t forgive you!” he said.

The sentiment was echoed during the meeting by fellow shareholders whose communities host other nuclear plants.

A woman from Niigata prefecture, where TEPCO hopes to start a major power station, also expressed her desire for the utility to end nuclear energy.

“Are we going to make the same mistake that we had in Fukushima, also in Niigata?” she said.

“Fellow shareholders, please support this proposal of scrapping the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant… and revitalising the site with plans for renewable energy,” she said.

Japan’s entire stable of 48 working reactors is offline, shuttered for safety checks in the months after the 2011 disaster.

The government and electricity companies, like TEPCO, would like to fire them up again, but public unease has so far prevented that, as has a new, toothier watchdog.

TEPCO has argued that restarting selected reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, the world’s largest nuclear power plant, is the key to ensuring the company’s survival as it battles huge costs.

The calls for an end to nuclear power were expected to be rejected by TEPCO, which is majority-owned by a government-backed fund designed to rescue it.

The government has poured billions of dollars into TEPCO to keep afloat a company that supplies electricity to Tokyo and its surrounding area, as it stumps up cash for decommissioning the reactors, cleaning up the mess they have made and paying compensation. “

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**Was I exposed to radiation from Fukushima? The truth about contamination in Japan — My Story via EcoWatch

Recent additions of the Japanese manga (comics) called Oishinbo published in the weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine depict characters suffering from nosebleeds after visiting the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This was part of an attempt by the author Kariya Tetsu to shed light on the grim reality that Fukushima citizens still face.

Despite the author’s sincere intention to tell the truth about the ongoing crisis in Fukushima, the magazine’s publisher, Shogakukan Inc., received a flood of criticism from politicians at the national and local level.

Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara “underscored the importance of keeping unfounded rumors in check [and] that doctors with special knowledge have denied a causal relationship between exposure to radiation after the nuclear accident and nosebleeds,” the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on May 10.

Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of the Fukushima Prefecture town of Futaba, was depicted in the manga as himself, experiencing nosebleeds as a result of radiation exposure. Idogawa said he would not retract his comments in the manga because they are true. He said he suffers from daily nosebleeds, lethargy, muscle weakness and worsened vision since the triple meltdown in March 2011.

In the fall of 2012, I participated in a study abroad program in Kyoto, Japan, for three months. During the penultimate week of my stay in Japan, I spent three days in both Nikko, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) south of Fukushima, and Sendai, about 100 kilometers(62 miles) north of Fukushima.

While in Nikko, where I went hiking through forests of colorful maple leaves, I began experiencing strange headaches and fatigue. At the time, I had not even considered the possibility of radiation exposure in that area. I was ignorant of the ongoing crisis at Fukushima Daiichi and the nuclear fallout from the March 2011 meltdowns that covered areas of land in the prefectures surrounding Fukushima in the northern half of Honshu.

As I traveled by bullet train to Sendai, the train stopped in Fukushima. For the first time, the possibility of radiation exposure crossed my mind. The doors opened to let passengers pass through, and I felt a heavy mood in the air. The passengers around me seemed to be folding downward. Some covered their noses and mouths with their hands or sleeves, and some even tucked their faces into the tops of their jackets. Did they know something that I didn’t?

My headache that was lingering for the past three days suddenly magnified into a piercing migraine. I had experienced migraines in the past, though it had been over six months since the last one. How unusual that something could have triggered a migraine so quickly.

The migraine lasted up to an hour. The pressure in my head eased as the train continued northward. By the time I arrived in Sendai, my pain had completely dissipated. For the next three days, I felt fine.

In mid-November I returned to Kyoto, where I spent my final week in Japan. During the last four days, I experienced a migraine again. On departure day, I flew from Osaka to Tokyo and then from Tokyo to the U.S. During the entire transpacific flight, I felt unexplainable stabbing pains in my stomach, nausea and delirium. The pain was far greater than any kind of food poisoning I had ever experienced.

By the time I arrived back home, I felt relieved that my pain was gone. What I thought was the end of my strange symptoms was actually the beginning. The following morning I woke up with a bloody nose. During the next month, I experienced daily nosebleeds, headaches and dizziness. I felt chronic fatigue and weakness, and my mind was clouded.

During the second week of December, I vomited for two days straight, uncontrollably purging all of the liquids from my body. On those days, I could not consume food. My body became weak and drained of energy. I continued to have nosebleeds halfway into January.

Since mid-January 2013, these symptoms have stopped. I have sought the advice of several doctors of both western and eastern medicine, and they have confirmed that I experienced typical symptoms of radiation exposure. They say there is nothing I can do now to test if I have internal damage or to prevent long-term effects of radiation.

Still now, one and a half years after studying in Japan, I notice a change in my physical health. My muscles are weak, and it seems that exercising and lifting weights three to four times a week does not help me gain strength.

It is not possible for me to attribute my nosebleeds, headaches, nausea and fatigue to radiation exposure, either inhaled or ingested. I am not a scientist, and I do not have the scientific evidence or laboratory test results to prove the causal relationship without a shred of a doubt.

But does the lack of scientific evidence nullify my experience? Like the citizens of Fukushima Prefecture who have suffered from numerous unexplainable symptoms, does the lack of causal proof of radiation sickness justify others to ignore their suffering and simply look the other way?

A number of courageous citizens of Fukushima Prefecture have tried sharing their life stories since March 2011, despite the Act on Protection of Specified Secrets passed last December by the Japanese Diet. The act makes possible up to a 10-year prison sentence for anyone who exposes the truth about Fukushima contamination and nuclear plant mismanagement via the arbitrary definition of “Specified Secrets.”

It is hardly a secret that of a total of 89 confirmed and suspected cases of thyroid cancer in children from Fukushima Prefecture who were under age 18 during the triple meltdowns, 50 are confirmed to have thyroid cancer, an increase of 17 children since the last report on Feb. 7, 2014, according to the Fukushima Prefecture government.

Thyroid cancer, a rare disease in children, began appearing in children affected by the Chernobyl meltdown five years after the disaster. It has only been three years and three months since the Fukushima meltdowns.

Mako Oshidori, a Japanese freelance journalist and comedian, spoke at an international conference called “Effects of Nuclear Disasters on Natural Environment and Human Health” in March, 2014, near Frankfurt, Germany. She revealed the extent of government censorship of information gathered and research conducted in Fukushima Prefecture and the nuclear power plant.

She interviewed a former nurse at Fukushima Daiichi who worked there in 2012 and quit his job in 2013.

Oshidori said: “As of now, there are multiple Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) workers who have died, but only the ones who died on the job are reported publicly. Some of them have died suddenly while off work, for instance, during the weekend or in their sleep, but none of their deaths are reported. Not only that, they are not included in the worker death count. For example, there are some workers who quit their job after a lot of radiation exposure, such as 50, 60 to 70 mSv, and end up dying a month later, but none of these deaths are either reported, or included in the death toll. This is the reality of the NPP workers.”

Despite the sickness of children and young adults from Fukushima Prefecture, the unknown number of deaths of Fukushima workers, the death of Masao Yoshida, who was the manager of Fukushima Daiichi at the time of the disaster and died of esophageal cancer, the Japanese government still insists that contaminated areas in Fukushima Prefecture are safe to live in.

Radiation monitors near schools and public spaces in Fukushima Prefecture cities show radiation levels below the legal limit of one millisievert per year.

Yet proactive Japanese citizens and independent foreign researchers who are concerned that only the areas near the radiation monitors are decontaminatedhave been taking their own Geiger-counter readings that show radiation levels up to 30 times over the legal limit.

For school lunches for children in Fukushima Prefecture, the local government has insisted upon using only foods produced in Fukushima in order “to appeal the safety of the food,” Oshidori said in her speech in Germany. Mothers who fear that the food is contaminated are collecting petition signatures to appeal to the local government to use food from uncontaminated areas in school lunches.

To add insult to injury, the Fukushima Prefecture government signed an agreement of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a pro-nuclear agency, to help conduct a health survey in Fukushima Prefecture and work on the decontamination effort. Half of the Fukushima residents are opposed to this agreement.

Not only is the health survey conducted by a pro-nuclear entity, but according to a document released in May 2011 by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to universities, academic societies and research institutions all over Japan, “detailed study should not be done without permission for the reason of avoiding burden on the residents,” Oshidori said.

Rather than allowing private institutions to conduct field research in contaminated areas, “a large-scale health survey in Japan is being conducted only at Fukushima Medical University, designated by the Japanese government,” Oshidori said.

Instead of denying the health effects of radiation exposure, the Japanese government must look out for the interests of its people and protect them from the physical suffering that only exacerbates the suffering they have experienced from having their lives uprooted and transplanted from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdowns.

It is time for the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric to take responsibility for the Fukushima crisis by prioritizing the safety of Japanese citizens. There must be full transparency of information regarding the Fukushima Daiichi decommissioning efforts and the risks of radiation exposure. Independent research by private institutions must be allowed and encouraged, with public access to the information readily available. And most important of all, women of child-bearing age and mothers with young children, together with their families, must be given the option of moving away from the Fukushima area at Tokyo Electric and government expense. They and their offspring must not be further victimized by additional exposure to radiation.

Read my editorial on EcoWatch.com

Updated May 20: The Manga saga continues … — multiple sources

“Japan Forced to Talk About Fukushima Radiation After Nosebleed Comic” — read full article at Mashable

” More than three years have passed since the Fukushima disaster, but local officials remain extremely sensitive to any attempts at political satire or even critical commentary regarding the event.

A comic that recently depicted one of its characters as suffering from a chronic nosebleed after a visit to the Fukushima power plant has been suspended indefinitely after outrage from Japanese officials. The illustration, which was published by the long-running Japanese manga called “Oishinbo,” has now renewed discussion around the issue of health and safety as it relates to traveling to Fukushima and consuming products from the region. …

“There is freedom of speech and freedom of expression in Japan,” Suga said.

“But anything that is communicated should be based on facts and accurate information.”

Despite Suga’s comments, the issue of press freedom in Japan has become somewhat complicated in recent months. Late last year, the Japanese government enacted a strict new state secrets law that outlines stiff penalties, including up to 10 years in prison, for public servants and journalists who publish leaked information.

With the potential for possibly valuable leaks about the status of the region now greatly reduced, the official attention now directed toward even comic book commentary on sensitive topics may serve to only heighten the concerns of some already harboring doubts about the region’s relative safety. … ”

“‘Oishinbo’ editor defends manga” — read full article at The Japan Times

” The editor of “Oishinbo” defended on Monday the decision to depict characters in the cooking comic book as potentially hurt by radiation in Fukushima, calling it a “meaningful” attempt to sound the alarm about the grim, and largely overlooked, reality of life in the prefecture.

In Monday’s installment of the series — now suspended indefinitely — Hiroshi Murayama, who is also managing editor of the weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine the series runs in, includes an afterword in which he writes of feeling a strong pang of responsibility for the outrage caused by recent issues of the manga. …

Murayama said the story line was meant to spotlight the truth that “parts of Fukushima are indeed dangerous and uninhabitable” and “some local people are worried about health problems linked to radioactive fallout.”

Their voices, he said, are rarely heard because they are reluctant to complain of sickness for fear of being branded as “overly squeamish.” …

Monday’s issue devotes 10 pages to laying out the opinions of 13 experts and municipalities.

One of them, Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, says that from a medical point of view the connection between nosebleeds and radiation exposure can’t be entirely ruled out.

Backing Kariya, he adds: “The government is not only indifferent to taking responsibility for the accident, but determined to erase it from people’s memory.” Such irresponsibility, he insists, is “almost criminal.” … “

“Outrage derails manga series ‘Oishinbo’ for Fukushima nuclear crisis depiction” — read full article at Jiji via The Japan Times

“Shogakukan Inc. will suspend its “Oishinbo” manga series after recent installments came under fire for suggesting residents of Fukushima Prefecture had been sickened or hurt by radioactive fallout from nuclear disaster, sources said.

“Oishinbo” will not appear in the publisher’s weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine starting from the May 26 issue, the sources said Saturday. Shogakukan was to announce the decision in Monday’s issue.

Monday’s issue will contain comments by the weekly’s chief editor, Hiroshi Murayama, who is expected to note his responsibility for the criticism, while adding he and other editors will work to better review such depictions in the series.

The upcoming issue will devote 10 pages to the opinions of 13 experts about the scenes in question. It will also run letters of protest from the Fukushima Prefectural Government, the town of Futaba, which cohosts the damaged nuclear plant, and letters from both the city and prefecture of Osaka. … ”

*The following articles were originally posted on May 13, 2014.

The Asahi Shimbun, May 13:

” Politicians at the national and local level have taken offense with depictions of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in a long-running manga series that until now had focused on food and gourmet cooking.

Installments of “Oishinbo” published in the April 28 and May 12 editions of the weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine also touched a nerve among those in Fukushima who felt the representations jarred with reality. … ”

Jiji Press, May 10:

” Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara has criticized a manga story for linking nosebleeds to exposure to radiation […] He underscored the importance of keeping unfounded rumors in check [and] that doctors with special knowledge have denied a causal relationship between exposure to radiation after the nuclear accident and nosebleeds. ”

Mainichi, May 10:

” Katsutaka Idogawa, 67, [Futaba’s] former mayor […] is featured in the popular comic series “Oishinbo.” […] Idogawa says his nose bleeds regularly and that there are many others in Fukushima who have developed similar symptoms. […] Idogawa told a news conference on May 9 in Tokyo […] his nose bleeds every day, especially in the mornings. “There is no way I would retract my comments in the manga,” Idogawa said. Responding to Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara […] Idogawa commented, “The minister has no business with my physical condition.” ”

Author Tetsu Kariya interview, translated by Toshi Nakamura, Jan. 13, 2014:

” […] after I got back [from Fukushima] and was having dinner, I suddenly started bleeding from my nose, and it wouldn’t stop. I thought, “what on Earth?” I’ve rarely ever had a nosebleed so it was quite a shock. After that, I had nosebleeds at night for days after. But when I went to the hospital, they said “there’s currently no medical connection between nosebleeds and radiation” and they severed a capillary in my nose membrane with a laser. Also, after I went, I felt a great deal of fatigue. The staff who went with me and the chief of Futaba-machi suffered from nosebleeds and fatigue. They say the radiation levels are low so there’s no harm, but I wonder about that. ”

Japanese version

Statement from Tetsu Kariya summarized by Yoshihiro Kaneda, May 7:

” It is possible that those who have supported me would walk away from me. I don’t understand why people criticize the truth which I have collected data in Fukushima 2 years and I write it as it is. Do people want to close my eyes against the truth and write something good lies for somebody or other? […] I can only write the truth. I hate self-deceiving. Today’s Japanese society is surrounded by the atmosphere of hating inconvenient truth and desiring lies of feeling good. ”

Energy News source