Japanese Government Raises ‘Safe’ Radiation Limits So Children Can Legally Attend Schools That Have Been Covered in Fallout from Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
May 4th, 2011Via: Guardian:
Furious parents in Fukushima have delivered a bag of radioactive playground earth to education officials in protest at moves to weaken nuclear safety standards in schools.
Children can now be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible. The new regulations have prompted outcry. A senior adviser resigned and the prime minister, Naoto Kan, was criticised by politicians from his own party.
Ministers have defended the increase in the acceptable safety level from 1 to 20 millisieverts per year as a necessary measure to guarantee the education of hundreds of thousands of children in Fukushima prefecture, location of the nuclear plant that suffered a partial meltdown and several explosions after the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March.
It is estimated that 75% of Fukushima’s schools may have radiation levels above the old safety level of 1 millisievert. The local authorities in Koriyama have tried to ease the problem by digging up the top layer of soil in school and day centre playgrounds, but residents near the proposed dump site have objected.
The new standard of 20 millisieverts a year – equivalent to the annual maximum dose for German nuclear workers – will mean those schools remain open, but parents and nuclear opponents are angry that safety concerns are being ignored.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/87835.html
@tochigi
I assume it is illegal to not send your child to school in Japan? In other words, parents will be required to potentially expose their children to these higher levels of radiation?
@Kevin
Any reports in NZ that you find credible of higher than normal radiation levels in air/water/food?
So far, the checks I have made on the east coast of the USA (eastern VA & and PA) have not revealed higher levels. I am a one man crew, so my sampling is limited. I do see higher backround levels of gamma in my area of VA compared to PA because I am 25 miles down wind of an old nuke plant, but it still isn’t significant. Just curious.
funny you should ask that. actually, the school system here is very rigid. so a lot of kids (a few percent) simply refuse to go. and then there are parents who don’t want to send their kids to a conventional school, for various reasons. what happens is, you enroll your child at the local public school and then either home school or send them to a non-acredited (alternative) school. and the authorities turn a blind eye. maybe you have to go and talk to the teachers at their official school a couple of times a year. but there is no compulsion, they don’t harrass or fine you if you do not send your kids to school and there are no truancy officers. it seems to me that because the system is so rigid, this is the only way they can deal with the non-conformists–pretend they don’t exist. but 98% of parents would not dream of keeping their children away from an acredited school. most people see trying to go outside the system as irresponsible and pointless. but what plays out in Fukushima is anyone’s guess. if it were me, i would not have children under 16 living in the places until the radiation levels receded. and the contaminated soil was removed, etc.
This is EXACTLY why I posted the information a month ago about the pacific islanders when Kevin asked the question about ingesting radio isotopes. It’s a foregone conclusion that the Japanese government is going to compromise and force this sort of thing simply because there is such a limited amount of space in Japan to replace the contaminated areas. By the time the fallout gets to the US, enough of it has decayed that the remaining concern is drinking water or milk that is contaminated…until this years crops are harvested, then it’s going to be a problem that the government here will NO DOUBT cover up. The whole thing just makes me sick to think about.
Yes, it is safe to send your kids to school, just as it is to eat the seafood from the Gulf of Mexico that has been marinated in oil and Corexit toxins. Nice scam these folks have got going. Endure our contaminants because we say you MUST, YOU MUST, OR ELSE.
Or ELSE WHAT YOU MORONS? I think MOST HUMANS HAVE HAD IT with You money and power grubbing MORONS around the world who push your pollution agenda on humans and expect us to shut up and swallow your BULLSHIT like THE DOCTOR ORDERED.
If you haven’t been reading the news lately, DOCTORS ARE NOT REALLY POPULAR PERSONS ANYMORE FOR PUSHING PEOPLE ONTO DRUGS THAT ARE POISON.
So cut the CRAP.
The people of Japan have been sucker punched with calamity to the extent to which I CANNOT COMPREHEND.
So all I can say right now to these MORONS and IGNORAMUSES is SHUT the FLuk UP!
You have NO authority anymore. You are SPENT NUCLEAR WASTE that continues to pollute this planet with YOUR BULLSHIT.
I apologize for my RANT by I AM SO ANGRY and am like most other humans on the planet unable TO DO A GOSH DARN FLUCKING THING.
I do not LIKE FEELING this way.
Again, sorry for the rant.