Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Amount of Radioactive Cesium in Urine Increased in a Boy Who Remained in Fukushima

From Jiji Tsushin (9/7/2011):

市民団体「福島老朽原発を考える会」などは7日、尿検査で放射性セシウムが検出された福島市などの子ども10人を2カ月後に再調査したところ、他県に避難しなかった1人で数値が減少せず、微増したと発表した。

A citizen's group (福島老朽原発を考える会) announced the result of the second testing of the 10 children in Fukushima City and other locations whose urine had been tested 2 months earlier. In one child who did not evacuate from Fukushima, the amount of radioactive cesium didn't decrease but increased slightly.

 同会などは5月、フランスの放射線計測機関に依頼して6~16歳の男女10人の尿を検査し、全員からセシウムを検出。7月末に再調査した結果、県外に避難した9人は数値が下がったり、検出されなくなったりしたが、福島市に残った16歳の少年はセシウム137が1リットル当たり0.78ベクレルから同0.87ベクレルに増えたという。

In May, the group asked a French laboratory to test the urine samples from 10 children from 6 to 16 years old. Radioactive cesium was detected from all samples. In the second test conducted at the end of July, the amount was lower, or in some cases not detected, in 9 children who evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture. However, from the urine sample of a 16-year-old boy who remained in Fukushima City, cesium-137 increased from 0.78 becquerels/liter in May to 0.87 becquerels/liter.

France's ACRO, who did the testing, has more details and harsh words for the Japanese government (emphasis is original):

Comments :

At the request of Japanese citizens, ACRO analyzed the urine of 18 Japanese children from the prefecture of Fukushima and from Tokyo and its surroundings.

All the 15 children from Fukushima have or had their urine contaminated with radioactive fallout from the nuclear accident located approximately 60 km away. This means that children themselves have been or are contaminated. However, we did not detect any contamination in the urine of the three children from Tokyo and surroundings.

While the tests performed by the Japanese authorities give about one child from Fukushima out two that is contaminated, we get 100%. This reflects the fact that the official measurements are not accurate enough and did not detect all contaminations.

The first 10 children are the same as in our previous measurement campaign (results released June 30). 9 of them have left the province of Fukushima since. Only one remained (U2).
U6 child was evacuated in end of March. U3 and U4 children were evacuated in the end of May. 3 left late June, early July and three others at the beginning of the school holidays from July 22.

Finally, five new children live nearby Fukushima-city. One of them was evacuated in the middle of May (U14).

U11 and U12 attend the same high school where they frequently practice sports on the same playground. The difference in the contamination could be due to food.

More than four months after the massive discharges of radioactivity into the environment, all children still in Fukushima at the time of urine sampling were contaminated, although their parents do their best to reduce this contamination. Evacuation is a way to reduce contamination. Variations in internal contamination between different children might be due to food.

It is important to conduct an accurate, systematic and regular monitoring of internal contamination of children from Fukushima. Families must have access to the measurement of radioactivity to help them reduce this contamination.

(H/T 44de256)

7 comments:

44de256 said...

The testing lab's original analysis tells us more:
http://www.acro.eu.org/OCJ_en#16 http://www.acro.eu.org/OCJ_jp#16

Anonymous said...

No worries.It's all just part of Japan's "No Child Left Uncontaminated" policy. (sarcasm)

Anonymous said...

You mean his dosimter badge didn't protect him like the teachers thought the little amulet would? This just proves what the world already knew about radiation protection.

Time
Distance
Shielding

These are the most important factors everything else is just wishful thinking.

Anonymous said...

Japan's policy is to ignore everything until people forget about it

Anonymous said...

The reason the Japanese Government did not evaculate people in the fallout zones --they knew internal contamination of people would result in discovery of the great radiation coverup. Criminal..

renevers said...

So the radioactivity of cesium found in the kid less than 1 Bq was 1/100 of the normal background radiation of tissue in humans(of 110 Bq/kg).

THAT is Worrying?

It only proves that detection of radiation and measuring is very precise. Nothing more.

renevers said...

BTW Cesium is secreted by the body, it has a biological halflive (6 mnths) much shorter than its radiological halflive (30y) , so it is secreted out of your body before it radiates in most circumstances. That there was a slight increase in Cs means the boy ingested some source of RA Cesium. It could be food or water. This radiation level of 0.78 is very low though. the slight increase could have been measurement error as well, as these very low Bq counts are difficult to measure precisely and secretion could be dependent on biological conditions in the body like salt level of different salts in the blood. So some variability is to expected. Just measure the boy again in 2 year and check if it is in the same range. But by then it should be 1/4 of this level. It stays negligible.

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