#Radiation in Japan: Testing of Vegetables Only 0.1%, Government Discourages "Unauthorized" Health Checks in Affected Areas

Japan must be the least suited country in the world to deal with an emergency situation, because it doesn't recognize it is an emergency.

Thanks to the net, though, people are speaking up even in Japan and spreading information. Here are two such examples, tweets in Japanese from Japan. They could be what their government and its apologists call "baseless rumors", but I doubt it although 'm not giving any guarantee that they aren't.

(Then again, as one of my Twitter followers reminded me, "Radiation is rumor; safety is religion; ignorance is strength.")

First, a tweet from @tatsuofujii 藤井　辰雄. He says he became a farmer in Inawashiro, Fukushima Prefecture three years ago. He evacuated after the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident, and says as a responsible producer he wouldn't grow and sell vegetables if there is even a slight possibility that his vegetables may harm children and women capable of becoming pregnant.

His June 14 tweet:

日が経つにつれて危機意識が薄れてる。野菜にこだわって生 産してきた福島の農家として警告します。未だに農産物は出荷量に対し99.9%以上未検査。１市町村１圃場だけのサンプル検査です。自治体が出す安全宣言 などは現時点で非常にいい加減な検査手法により出されています。

I sense that people are getting less vigilant as days go by. But I warn you, as a farmer who has taken much pride in growing the best vegetables possible, that more than 99.9% of the agricultural produce shipped are not tested, even today. The test for radioactive materials is done by sampling in one farm plot per city/town/village. The "safety declaration" by municipalities are being issued, based on this flimsy testing.

So that's how Shizuoka Prefecture may have tested their teas: one bag from one factory per one tea growing region. Unfortunately for the governor of Shizuoka, a Tokyo grocer did the independent testing, and he had to order the testing at all 100 factories in that one particular tea growing region.

Here's a tweet by a medical doctor, @KamiMasahiro 上　昌広. His Twitter profile says he is a doctor in internal medicine, and the site he lists on Twitter goes to the Tokyo University Institute of Medical Science, and he is a professor in the Division of Social Communication System.

His June 13 tweet:　

飯舘村で一緒に健康相談した医師から。何考えているんだろう。　「本日、病院幹部(私もその一人)に文科省と厚労省の連名で通達が書面できました。原発被害を受けた地域への関係学会が認めない健康診断や調査は住民たちの負担を増やすので、許可を得てからやりなさいと」

Message from the doctor I worked with in Iitate-mura [in Fukushima Prefecture], when we gave medical advice to the villagers. I don't know what they [the government ministries] are thinking. "Today, our hospital received a written notice signed by both the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The notice says "The medical checkups and research of the residents in the areas affected by the nuke plant accident are allowed only if the permission to do so is given by the related scientific societies and associations; otherwise it would only increase the burden on the residents.""

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