I have a mixed feeling about this. Much as I despise some of the top management at TEPCO, I wouldn't cheer for having the employees eat vegetables grown in Fukushima Prefecture, as part of the company's effort to support the prefecture's producers.
From TEPCO's handout for the press in English on July 11 "Support activities for Fukushima:
We actively purchase farm products from Fukushima Prefecture for our company's cafeterias and dormitories. (Purchased since March 28.)
The company has the dormitories for bachelors.
30-Day free trial by following the link.
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15 comments:
but aren't most of the staff currently working at the plant subcontractors? or do they get sth. else to eat and only the tepcos are poisoning themselves... can hardly believe that and was asking me all the time where there food comes from. terrible, as usually.
@doitsujin, TEPCO has over 38,000 employees in Kanto and Tohoku area, and they are being fed with Fukushima produce. TEPCO employees at Fukushima I Nuke Plant are only a small fraction. I don't know how many. 2000 to 3000 workers, with 10 to 20% of them TEPCO, likely. I sure hope those workers aren't fed with Fukushima produce (though may not make much difference at this point). But they will be charged for food shortly.
so it's even worse than i thought first... their handout could need some more specifications sometimes. and yes, i read the twitter posts and really don't have any understanding when it comes to that... seen from the moral point of view, it's completely the worst to do, but what does it really mean, are they already so short on money... it's all still far from over, so next, might the workers have to pay for dormitory/protective clothes/commutes? i really don't get it, food is essential...
Wouldn't it be horrible to be exhausted, working for TEPCO under these terrible conditions - and then your lunch sets off the dosimeter you're wearing?
Hope
I wish all the senior managers of TEPCO get to only eat this as well.
Can TEPCO management get any lower than their current amoeba classification?--placating Fuku farmers by buying radioactive produce from them only to serve it forth and sicken their own employees with it.
It's hard to stomach humans doing this to humans.
@voice in your head, well, Fukushima producers of vegetables and fruits have been going all over Japan, promoting their produce saying they are tasty (I'm sure they are) so they are safe (not so sure). Celebrities join in, politicians join in. The latest to leave Fukushima on the promotion campaign was Miss Peach girls to promote Fukushima peaches.
I wish they stopped doing this...
If no-one's buying Fukushima food, then it should be cheaper (unless the gummint is interfering, and it would never do that, shorely!). Then TEPCO could feed its workers for less, plus look good.
Why not let workers eat what they want? Let them make their own arrangements if they want, and also provide food.
Robbie001 sez:
@ Areva
You might want to mine this August 13, 1995 speech by Dr. Rosalie Bertell for relevant data. It is a detailed history of how radiation standards were decided back in the "good old days" it is full of little nuggets like these.
"GENETIC DAMAGE:
On 6 February 1947, Professor D.G.Catchside, member of the Faculty of Botany at Cambridge University, prepared a memo on: “the genetic effects of irradiation with reference to man”, and sent it to the British Medical Research Council subcommittee on radiation protection standards. He testified that even the smallest dose of ionizing radiation caused genetic effects. His own experiments included doses down to 0.1 rem (1 mSv) per day on mice. All genetic effects from X-ray or gamma rays was cumulative, either additive or proportional to total dose. Even when the dose rate was lowered, genetic effects were additive. He was concerned about doses to human ova and sperm."
"The same caution was echoed by Hermann Muller, who was by that time a member of the ICRP Main Committee. This position is detailed in: “Radiation and Heredity”, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 54 No.1, pp 42-50, 1964, in an article which Muller published"
"Recently the BEIR Reports have used atomic bomb data to support their theory that humans have undetectable genetic damage from the atomic bombs. As early at 1957, the World Health Organization called together a Committee to study the genetic effects of radiation and to recommend protection of the human gene pool. (This was the same year the IAEA took control of the WHO) In the publication by this committee, Kerala, India, was identified as the best place to study the genetic effects of chronic radiation exposure over several generations. To date, the nuclear establishment has not undertaken a serious study of this population, indicating their lack of concern for genetic damage. In one study, undertaken for another purpose, the authors noted that the exposed population of Kerala had an abnormally high rate of Down’s Syndrome. Researchers also found significantly high levels of broken chromosomes in the exposed group. In 1988, with the help of Indian researchers, I agreed to act as scientific advisor to a study of the people of Kerala. Researchers found that they were the first group to interview and examine the population, although the nuclear industry often uses Kerala as its example to “prove” that low level radiation is harmless.
http://www.iicph.org/can_icrp_be_trusted
Here is a 2009 paper that says, "Although HBR has been repeatedly shown to increase the frequency of chromosome aberrations in the circulating lymphocytes of exposed persons, its carcinogenic effect is still unproven". Dr. Bertell pointed out in 1995 that radiation studies only regard genetic damage in relation to cancer and 10 years later the song remains the same. We certainly have the ability to track and typify genetic aberrations and their future effects but we absolutely don't have the will because most people are ignorant of the facts.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19066487
I would recommend Dr. Bertell's book "No Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth" it is dense with embarrassing data that is lost to the nuclear industry's autobiography of their history.
http://www.amazon.com/No-Immediate-Danger-Prognosis-Radioactive/dp/070433934X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1310438864&sr=8-2
This is like secondary murder to me. Knowing just how little plutnium is enough to kill someone, I don't think that it is possible that any human survives this. There are not only plutonium, but radionuclides that are 200x more toxic all around. It is plain obviously very very dangerous to eat this. This reminds me of the treatment of prisonners of Japanese army in prisons/camps during the 2nd world war. At least, the Chernobyl workers, who got 125msv of radiation on average, did not have to eat the contaminated fod as well. What Tepco is doing should be send to the international court of Justice for genocide, nothing else. They know that is plain too much for anyone to survive.
I seriously can't figure out how this could possibly help TEPCO. Sure they save some money on food because no one else will willingly buy it. But then - well if these are employees it seems like TEPCO will be paying for their medical bills. And then I realized - perhaps TEPCO would rather pay 'death benefits' then treat these men for many illnesses for decades. And if the employees die - they won't be around to talk to reporters or others when the investigations really begin. I know, I know...it's horrible that I think this way but I really can't understand TEPCO unless I entertain these horrible thoughts.
Hope
voice in your head, I agree. These guys are not only evil, they are also stupid. They failed to realize that these workers, the Fukushima 50, were considered national heroes - Beat Takeshi, a few days after the tsunami, I recall, had a list of 10 things that should be done immediately. Giving all the Fukushima 50 medals of honour was one of them. This was a PR opportunity for TEPCO: cut costs anywhere, but throw everything you've got at the clean-up of Fukushima INCLUDING dosimeters, proper equipment, food, everything for the workers there.
They dropped the ball, big time. Even as CEO Shimizu was saying, “The trust between TEPCO and communities hosting nuclear plants has been destroyed.”“I understand how important it is to come up with ways to rebuild these relations”
"And if the employees die - they won't be around to talk to reporters or others when the investigations really begin." radiation sops
http://uk.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20070215&t=2&i=385438&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=385438
" The new symbol was designed after a five-year study involving 1,650 people of varying ages and backgrounds in 11 countries to "ensure that its message of 'danger, stay away' was crystal clear and understood by all." "
"The IAEA said the new symbol would help reduce deaths and injuries from accidental exposure to ionizing radiation."
Crystalline clarity and ioinizing radiation are neutralized by wishful thinking in Japan? ?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/02/15/science-nuclear-symbol-dc-idUKL1573107820070215
All the talk of dirty bomb countermeasures in the U.S., and all it takes to acquire silence from the countermeasure people is to ask the U.S. military for the use of their drones? ?
You should feel free, areva, to be ashamed of the Americans.
TEPCO's top level management better be eating that too.
The Fukushima plant design with the spent fuel in ponds over the reactors and tsunami vulnerability was by United States Nixon's AEC and general electric. There was a small hill where the plant now lies contaminating the world. It would be consistent with the top workers and management getting their training from the same psychopaths that built and sited and designed the reactors. When I think of Japan, I don't think of these insane management people. When I think of racists George HW Bush and sons and the German Nazis and genocide, the picture of who these 'Japanese' managers are becomes more clear.
Japan makes and designs the best consumer goods on earth. It is not logical to think Japan is in charge with this mess unless Bush's CIA stacked the voting like they did in America.
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