#Radioactive Japan: One of the Most Contaminated Villages and Towns in #Fukushima Lures Children Back with $100 Book Coupons

Meanwhile in one of the most contaminated towns and villages in Fukushima after the nuclear accident more than two years ago, officials have just launched a new program to encourage children to receive annual health checkups.

If a child undergoes one annual health checkup, he/she will receive 10,000 yen (these days it's close to US$100) worth of book coupons (gift certificates for books).

If a child happens to have evacuated from the village and does not go to the village schools (temporarily re-located to Fukushima City and Kawamata-machi, both contaminated to lesser degrees than this particular village), oh well that's too bad, his/her coupon value will be only 5,000 yen.

The officials openly admit the scheme is to incentivize people with children to come back to the village.

What's the name of the village?

Iitate-mura, with extremely high levels of iodine-131 and several thousand becquerels/kg of neptunium right after the March 2011 accident, and which, thanks to the very politically savvy mayor, has managed to keep the businesses and factories inside the village operating despite the village having been designated as "planned evacuation zone".

From Fukushima Minpo reporting as if it's a good thing (4/18/2013; part):

スタンプで受診率向上へ　飯舘村　内部被ばく、甲状腺検査　中学生以下図書カードに交換

Collect the stamps: Iitate-mura to give book coupons to children in middle schools and younger to boost the participation rate for internal radiation exposure [WBC] tests and thyroid tests

東京電力福島第一原発事故で全村避難した飯舘村は１７日、村の幼稚園児から中学生までの子ども全員に毎年、内部被ばく検査と甲状腺検査を受けることを促す「全までいっ子内部被ばく・甲状腺検査事業」を開始した。受診するとスタンプがたまり、図書カードと交換できる。受診率の低下が背景にあり、園児や児童・生徒に受診を習慣化させたい考えだ。

Iitate-mura, whose residents have evacuated from the village because of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident, started a new program on April 17 to urge children in the village from kindergarteners to middle schoolers to get tested for internal radiation exposure and thyroid every year. If children get tested, they will be given a stamp, which will be exchanged with book coupons. The project is in response to the lower participation rate, and [the village officials] want these children to make it a habit to be tested.

村が打ち出した内部被ばく・甲状腺検査事業は、福島市のあづま脳神経外科病院で年１回、両検査を受けるとスタンプが１個もらえる。スタンプは１個１万円分の図書カードに交換でき、卒園・卒業時にスタンプ数に応じた図書カードが交付される。幼稚園や学校が病院での検査を学校行事として計画する。

The program will give one stamp to a child if the child receives both internal radiation check and thyroid test once a year at Azuma Neurosurgical Hospital in Fukushima City. One stamp can be exchanged for book coupons worth 10,000 yen, and at graduation from kindergartens and schools children will be given the book coupons depending on the number of stamps they will have accumulated. [The village] kindergarten and schools will plan the tests at the hospital as school events.

避難のため村の幼稚園や学校から転校した子どもも対象だが、１スタンプで交換できるのは５千円分の図書カード。福島市飯野町にある村の幼稚園と中学校、川俣町にある村の小学校に戻ってもらう狙いもある。

The program also covers children who have transferred to other schools after they evacuated from the village. However, for them, one stamp is exchangeable for book coupons worth 5,000 yen. One of the program's aims is to have them come back to the village kindergarten and middle school in Iino-machi in Fukushima City, and the village elementary school in Kawamata-machi.

村は子どもの健康管理のため、年１回の内部被ばくと甲状腺の検査受診を求めているが、一度受診するとその後は受診しない子どもが増えている。受診者のほとんどが問題のない数値だったため、定期的な受診に結び付いていない、と村は分析している。

The village officials want children to undergo annual internal radiation testing and thyroid testing, but an increasing number of children have stopped taking these tests after the initial tests. The officials believe that since the initial test results for most children were not in the range that would cause alarm they haven't led to regular checkups.

Testing at a neurosurgical hospital? I checked the website of Azuma Neurosurgical Hospital. They do have pediatrics as one of their specialties but the doctor in charge of the pediatrics section is a surgeon specialized in cardiology. There is no thyroid specialist, or for that matter, radiation specialist.

The hospital has Fastscan by Camberra.

From Camberra's website about Fastscan:

The Fastscan whole body counter is designed to quickly and accurately monitor people for internal contamination of radionuclides with energies between 300 keV to 1.8 MeV. The FASTSCAN system uses large area sodium iodide detectors and CANBERRA's Apex-InVivo™ and Genie™ software to achieve low minimum detectable activities with count times as fast as one minute. It is intended for use in power plants and other facilities where the possible contamination spectra are well known and uncomplicated.

That doesn't seem to fit the situation in Fukushima and Tohoku/Kanto regions affected by the nuclear accident.

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: 2 Workers Exceeded 200 Milli-Sieverts

The number is the total of external and internal exposures, as of the end of March. The reason why TEPCO is now announcing? Well TEPCO didn't know, because they couldn't use the whole-body counters that measure the internal radiation at Fukushima I Nuke Power Plant.

Why couldn't the whole-body counters be used? (There are 4 of them at Fukushima I.)

Another Mainichi article (in Japanese, 4/30/2011) explains that there was no power at the plant until the end of March so the counters couldn't be used. By the time the power was finally restored, the air radiation level at the plant had gotton so high that the measurement was rendered irrelevant; even when the radiation was detected by the whole-body counter, they couldn't distinguish between the internal radiation exposure level and the environmental radiation level. TEPCO finally moved the workers who exceeded 100 milli-sieverts to its Iwaki-City facility and measured the internal radiation there, with the help of Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

If TEPCO was so disorganized and rattled with the on-going crisis at Fukushima I and wasn't paying enough attention for the radiation safety for the workers, wasn't it the government's responsibility to ensure the safety of the workers by arranging for the whole-body counters and doing the testing, much, much sooner?

(Oh I forgot. This is the government who said it was basically TEPCO's problem to find enough food, water and blanket for the workers, while it stood by, saying it regretted the situation.)

So it suddenly occurred to the government and TEPCO after 6 weeks that they could take the workers off-site and have them tested?

Just criminal.

Mainichi Shinbun reports the news, but no other major newspapers like Yomiuri or Asahi do. Or maybe they do but I can't readily find the news as they are busy with the British royal wedding.

From Mainichi Shinbun (4/30/2011; my translation, emphasis is mine):

　東京電力は３０日、福島第１原発事故の復旧作業に当たっていた作業員２人が国の規制の限度に迫る２００ミリシーベルトを超える被ばくをしたと公表 した。３月末時点の外部被ばくと内部被ばくを合計した。東電は「福島第１原発の計測機器（ホールボディーカウンター）が使えなかった」として内部被ばくの 測定が遅れたという。２００ミリシーベルトを超える作業員の確認は初めて。

On April 30, TEPCO disclosed that two workers at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant have suffered the radiation exposure exceeding 200 milli-sieverts, approaching the [emergency] limit set by the national government [250 milli-sieverts/year]. The number is the total of both external and internal radiation exposure as of the end of March. According to TEPCO, "The whole-body counters at Fukushima I Nuke Plant could not be used", and they couldn't measure the internal radiation exposure. It is the first time that any worker has been found to have been exposed above 200 milli-sieverts.

　３月末までに１００ミリシーベルトを超える外部被ばくをした２１人について、優先的に内部被ばくを測定した。２００ミリシーベルトを超えた作業員 は、３月２４日に３号機のタービン建屋で電源復旧作業中に被ばくし、病院に搬送された３人の協力会社社員のうちの２人。最も被ばく線量が高かった作業員 は、外部被ばく２０１．８ミリシーベルト、内部被ばく３９ミリシーベルトで、計２４０．８ミリシーベルトだった。現在、残る１人の作業員と共に同原発での 作業はしていない。

TEPCO measured the internal radiation exposure of the 21 workers whose external radiation exposure exceeded 100 milli-sieverts by the end of March. The two workers whose total radiation exposure exceeded 200 milli-sieverts are two of the three workers from TEPCO's affiliate companies who were irradiated in the Reactor 3 turbine building [in the highly radioactive water] on March 24 as they were performing the electrical work to restore the power and were sent to hospital. One of them suffered 201.8 milli-sieverts external exposure, and 39 milli-sierverts internal exposure, the total 240.8 milli-sieverts. The two workers no longer work at Fukushima I Nuke Plant.

　２１人のうち、合計２００～１５０ミリシーベルトが８人、１５０～１００ミリシーベルトは１１人だった。

Of 21 workers [who exceeded 100 milli-sieverts], 8 had 150 to 200 milli-sieverts, 11 had 100 to 150 milli-sieverts. [And 2 exceeded 200 milli-sieverts.]

　作業員（放射線業務従事者）の被ばく線量は、原子炉等規制法に基づく告示などで、５年間で１００ミリシーベルト、１年間では５０ミリシーベルトと 規定。緊急時には別途１００ミリシーベルトを上限に被ばくが許容されるが、国は特例で福島第１原発の復旧に限り、２５０ミリシーベルトに引き上げている。 【奥山智己、八田浩輔】

By law that governs the nuclear materials, nuclear fuels and nuclear reactors, the radiation exposure level of the radiation workers (workers who work in the radiation environment) is set at 100 milli-sieverts cumulative over 5 years, with 50 milli-sieverts as maximum per year. In an emergency, the exposure level can be raised to 100 milli-sieverts, but the national government has raised this emergency limit to 250 milli-sieverts for the work related to Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

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