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Prefectural governments began approving farmers to ship their harvest if test results showed samples from their produce did not show cesium exceeding the limit. Still, rice millers are concerned about buying new crops from areas near the plant as the current cesium standard, applied to brown rice, doesn’t ensure the safety of its by- products, including bran.

Rice Bran Cesium levels in rice bran, an ingredient used in Japanese compound feed for livestock, is about seven times as high as brown rice, said Ryo Kimura, the chairman of Japan Rice Millers and Distributors Cooperative. Because of this, feed makers are reluctant to buy bran made from brown rice that may contain more than 40 becquerels a kilogram of cesium, he said. Brown rice is polished to produce milled rice for sale to retailers and by-products are shipped to makers of cooking oil, pickles and animal feed.

Demand for this year’s rice crop has also been weakened as consumers hoarded last year’s crop amid radiation concerns, Kimura said. Domestic food-rice inventories, excluding the government’s reserve, fell 16 percent to a three-year low of 1.82 million metric tons in June as consumers boosted purchases after the disaster. The volume is equal to 22 percent of Japanese rice demand in the year ended June 30.

Lower Prices “Consumers who see the current cesium standard as lenient won’t buy rice from polluted areas,” said Nobuyuki Chino, president of Continental Rice Corp. in Tokyo. “Wholesalers are seeking rice that tested negative for cesium as they know grain containing radioactivity, even if the amount is smaller than the official standard, won’t sell well.” Stockpiles may increase by more than 100,000 tons by next June because of a weak demand and a good harvest this year, dragging down prices, said Chino.

Low demand for rice harvested in eastern Japan, affected by radiation fallout from the Fukushima plant, is reflected in a price gap between Tokyo and Osaka grain exchanges, Chino said. Rice for November delivery on the Tokyo Grain Exchange settled at 14,400 yen ($184) a bag on Oct. 12, 4 percent cheaper than the price on the Kansai Commodities Exchange in the western city of Osaka. The Kansai exchange trades rice produced in western Japan, while the Tokyo bourse handles rice grown in the east, including Fukushima prefecture.

Stricter Control The government has been slow to take measures to ease safety concerns as tighter regulation will boost costs for radiation testing, adding troubles to the nation struggling with swelling fiscal deficits, said Naoki Kazama, an upper-house lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. Stricter control may also increase a ban on shipments of local farm products and cause shortages, sending producers out of business and boosting compensation payments by Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

“The government should put a priority on protecting human health, especially of our children,” Kazama said in an interview in Tokyo. “Now they are paying consideration to the interests of various parties evenly.” Kazama has proposed that all foods be tested for radioactive contamination and their radiation levels be labeled. The health ministry, which rejected the proposal as unfeasible, plans to revise cesium standards in food in line with recommendations from the Food Safety Commission.

Health Effects An expert panel on the commission compiled a report in July that said more than 100 millisieverts of cumulative effective doses of radiation over a lifetime could increase the risk of health effects in humans. The amount doesn’t include radiation from nature and medical exposure, it said.

There is another -- the perception that Tepco is not playing fair.Confidence in the authorities is low. The government is seen as having bungled its early response to the crisis and being secretive about what was really happening.Tepco is accused of failing to take sufficient safety measures at the Fukushima plant even though it knew the risks and then deliberately underplaying the extent of the accident.

It is also seen as insensitive.One clause in the original instruction booklet telling victims they would have to agree to waive their right to challenge the compensation amount in order to receive payment provoked a public uproar

Chastised by the government, the company promised to drop the clause, issued a simplified 4-page instruction booklet and assigned 1,000 employees to Fukushima prefecture to help victims with the process."There may be times when the content is difficult to understand or in some cases our employee in charge may not grasp it fully, but we would like to explain and respond as carefully as possible," said Tepco spokesman Naoyuki Matsumoto.A government panel overseeing the compensation scheme estimates claims are likely to reach 3.6 trillion yen ($46.5 billion) in the financial year to next March.FEW CLAIMANTSBut so far just 7,100 individuals have applied to Tepco for compensation out of the 80,000 it send forms to.

And of the 10,000 businesses in the Fukushima area, a mere 300 have submitted claims.The company expects a total of 300,000 claims from businesses given that the impact of the radiation crisis has been so widespread.Victims can sue but that is rare.Junichi Matsumoto, a Tepco official, said the utility faces about 10 lawsuits so far. He declined to disclose details but said some were seeking more than the firm deemed appropriate.

uichi Kaido, an attorney and the secretary-general of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, said lawsuits are considered a last resort in conservative rural northeast Japan."In the end, many lawsuits could take place," he said.

But the majority is thinking of first speaking with Tokyo Electric or seeking mediation."

And the effects start appearing in 2~3 years. We didn’t understand from the beginning where the hot spots were. But after checking later the areas where a lot of children got sick, in Belarus probably the radioactive substances were easily carried by the wind because the flat level ground, but it became clear that in areas 20~30 km from the plant there were places contaminated about just as much as Chernobyl. Kamakura is about 300 kilos away from Fukushima in a straight line. Based on the results of the investigations made after the nuclear accident in Chernobyl, in Europe the fact of assuming that 800km from the nuclear plant might be contaminated has been made taken into consideration as a basic rule for safety.

In Chernobyl, because contaminated farm products were made served in school lunches, about 70% of the children suffered from various kinds of health damages. Those (health problems) were not limited to their generation, and when those children became parents their problems passed to their children too. Because radioactive substances have similarities with nutrients like calcium, the mammals will feed a lot of them to their babies. Radioactive substances get easily out of their bodies by milk – hence, there were many cases when after giving birth to their first baby, a large quantity of radioactive substances were passed to the (first born) child and the mother’s health improved, but those children had serious congenital disorders (became people with serious disabilities).

She has been visiting Chernobyl for 25 years and help children to accept in Hokkaido for one month etc.. Currently, the radiation levels in some parts of Kanto area are 3 mSv/year. Annotator’s comment: According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the numerical values announced by the local government prove only the emission of gamma rays. The iodine and the cesium decay while emitting beta rays. If we have to deal strictly with gamma rays emissions, the degree of contamination can be understood, but we can’t measure the level of individual external exposure. Besides, the numerical values detected at the monitoring posts are measured at 10m above the ground level or even more.

Besides, there is no country who would buy things from a country that loosens it’s standards. The gov and Tepco spread misinformation (misinform the population). They should think about requesting the farmers give up growing farming products which are contaminated, give them compensation, and provide them new and safe farmlands.

n case of Chernobyl, party members, doctors and a nurses, teachers could afford to evacuate, because they could keep sustaining themselves even if they moved, but the poor people could not afford to evacuate. The symptoms which appeared at children who remained were the following: Headache nosebleed diarrhea thyroid problems not growing taller hard to recover after catching a cold swelling of the lymphatic glands, easily get sick with pneumonia kidney pain renal cancer

[that I have a] (because while radioactivity leaves the body, the urinary tract is affected) pain in the back side of the knee arthralgia wounds that take a long time to cure asthma hair loss problems with their hair growing alteration in visual acuity poor appetite poor concentration fatigability/easily getting tired cardiac pain (cardialgia) low resistance to diseases. The school lessons were shortened to 25 minutes, and because their kidneys became week, there are primary school children who wet their beds.

Even after becoming adults, the following cases were recorded: increase of myocardial infarcts an increase in the nr of sudden deaths death of young people in their 30th Accumulation of cesium in heart – even if eliminate from their bodies it (cesium) enters the body again after eating being exempted from the military service for having small holes in their hearts Regarding their children, the following medical cases were recorded - Brain damage, proved by the fact that they were slow in eating their meals.

Mothers of many children who were different from the other normal children give them to adoption, even if they didn’t have renal surgery or health problems, or a handicap. This kind of things are happening. (Source) German Translation

Eisuke Matsui, a lung cancer specialist who is a former associate professor at Gifu University's School of Medicine, argued in his papers submitted to the conference that the victims of Chernobyl in the neighboring present-day country of Belarus have suffered from a raft of other problems, including congenital malformations, type-1 diabetes and cataracts. Matsui cited a lengthy and detailed report of research by the Russian scientists Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko and Alexey V. Nesterenko that was published in 2007, and republished in English in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences under the title "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment." Matsui stressed that, based on such evidence, the Japanese government should approve group evacuations of children — at the expense of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. — from certain parts of Fukushima Prefecture. He cited some areas of the city of Koriyama, 50 to 60 km from the stricken nuclear plant, where soil contamination by radioactive cesium-137 has reached 5.13 Curies per sq. km. That is the same as in areas of Ukraine where residents were given rights to evacuate, Matsui said. In fact in June, the parents of 14 schoolchildren in Koriyama filed a request for a temporary injunction with the Fukushima District Court, asking it to order the city to send their children to schools in safer areas.

In the ongoing civil suit, those parents claim that the children's external radiation exposure has already exceeded 1 millisievert according to official data — the upper yearly limit from all sources recommended by the ICRP for members of the public under normal conditions. Following a nuclear incident, however, the ICRP recommends local authorities to set the yearly radiation exposure limit for residents in contaminated areas at between 1 and 20 millisieverts, with the long-term goal of reducing the limit to 1 millisievert per year. Meanwhile, Hisako Sakiyama, former head researcher at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences, delved into the non-cancer risks of exposure to radiation. In her presentation, she referred to a report compiled in April by the German Affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Titled "Health Effects of Chernobyl: 25 years after the reactor catastrophe," this documents an alarmingly high incidence of genetic and teratogenic (fetal malformation) damage observed in many European countries since Chernobyl.

Sakiyama also pointed out that the German report showed that the incidence of thyroid cancer due to radiation exposure was not limited to children. For instance, she cited IPPNW survey findings from the Gomel district in Belarus, a highly-contaminated area, when researchers compared the incidence of thyroid cancer in the 13 years before the Chernobyl explosion and the 13 years after. These findings show that the figures for the latter period were 58 times higher for residents aged 0-18, 5.3 times higher for those aged 19-34, 6 times higher for those aged 35-49, and 5 times higher for those aged 50-64. "In Japan, the government has a policy of not giving out emergency iodine pills to those aged 45 and older (because it considers that the risk of them getting cancer is very low),"' Sakiyama said. "But the (IPPNW) data show that, while less sensitive compared to children, adults' risks go up in correspondence with their exposure to radioactivity."

Further post-Chernobyl data was presented to the conference by Sebastian Pflugbeil, a physicist who is president of the German Society for Radiation Protection. Reporting the results of his independent research into child cancers following the Chernobyl disaster, he said that "in West Germany ... with an exposure of 1 millisievert per year, hundreds of thousands of children were affected." He noted, though, that any official admissions regarding health damage caused by the 1986 disaster in the then Soviet Union came very slowly and insufficiently in Europe. Indeed, he said the authorities denied there were health risks for years afterward. In response, an audience member who said he was a science teacher at a junior high school in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, asked Pflugbeil to exactly identify the level of exposure beyond which residents should be evacuated. While acknowledging that was a very difficult question, the German specialist noted later, however, that he would think pregnant women should probably leave Fukushima — adding, "I have seen many cases over the years, but I come from Germany and it's not easy to judge (about the situation in Japan)."

At a round table discussion later in the day, as well as discussing specific issues many participants made the point that science belongs to the people, not just experts — the very point that underpinned the entire event. As Wataru Iwata, director of the Fukushima-based citizens' group CRMS, one of the forum's organizers (which also conducts independent testing of food from in and around Fukushima Prefecture) put it: "Science is a methodology and not an end itself." In the end, though the citizens' forum — which ran from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. — arrived at no clear-cut conclusions, organizers said that that in itself was a good outcome. And another conference involving citizens and scientists is now being planned for March 2012.

4. Winscale Fire, Great Britain Oct. 10, 1957 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) The uranium core of Britain’s first nuclear facility had been on fire for two days before maintenance workers noticed the rising temperatures. By that time, a radioactive cloud had already spread across the UK and Europe. Plant operators delayed further efforts in fighting the fire, fearing that pouring water on it would cause an explosion. Instead, they tried cooling fan and carbon dioxide. Finally, they applied water and on Oct. 12, the fire was out. British officials, worried about the political ramifications of this incident, suppressed information. One report, however, says that in the long run, as many as 240 may have died from accident related cancers. 5.

Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, US March 28, 1979 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) Failure of a pressure valve resulted in an overheating of the plant’s core and the release of 13 million curies of radioactive gases. A full meltdown was avoided when the plant’s designers and operators were able to stabilize the situation before contaminated water reached the fuel rods. A full investigation by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission suggests that there were no deaths or injuries resulting from the incident.

6. Golania, Brazil Sept, 1987 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) Scavengers at an abandoned radiotherapy institute found a billiard ball sized capsule of radioactive cesium chloride, opened it and then sold it to a junkyard dealer. The deadly material was not identified for more than two year, during which time it had been handled by hundreds, including some who used the glittery blue material for face paint. Of the 130,000 tested, 250 were discovered to be contaminated and 20 required treatment for radiation sickness. Four died, including the two who originally found the capsule, the wife of the junkyard owner and a small girl who used the powder as face paint. 7. Lucens, Switzerland January 1, 1969 INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) When the coolant on a test reactor facility in a cave in Switzerland failed during startup, the system suffered a partial core meltdown and contaminated the cavern with radioactivity. The facility was sealed and later decontaminated. No known deaths or injuries.

8. Chalk River, Canada INES Rating: 5 (accident with wider consequences) May 24, 1958 Inadequate cooling lead to a fuel rod fire, contaminating the plant and surrounding labs. 9. Tokaimura,Japan Sept. 30, 1999 INES Rating: 4 (accident with local consequences) The nuclear plant near Tokai had not been used for three years when a group of unqualified workers attempted to put more highly enriched uranium in a precipitation tank than was permitted. A critical reaction occurred and two of the workers eventually died of radiation exposure. Fifty six plant workers and 21 others also received high doses of radiation. Residents within a thousand feet of the plant were evacuated.

10. National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho Falls, Idaho January 3, 1961 INES Rating: 4 (accident with local consequences) Improper withdrawal of a control rod led to a steam explosion and partial meltdown at this Army facility. Three operators were killed in what is the only known US nuclear facility accident with casualties. In addition to these, there have been a number of deadly medical radiotherapy accidents, many of which killed more people than the more commonly feared nuclear plant accidents: 17 fatalities – Instituto Oncologico Nacional of Panama, August 2000 -March 2001. patients receiving treatment for prostate cancer and cancer of the cervix receive lethal doses of radiation.[7][8] 13 fatalities – Radiotherapy accident in Costa Rica, 1996. 114 patients received an overdose of radiation from a Cobalt-60 source that was being used for radiotherapy.[9]

11 fatalities – Radiotherapy accident in Zaragoza, Spain, December 1990. Cancer patients receiving radiotherapy; 27 patients were injured.[10] 10 fatalities – Columbus radiotherapy accident, 1974–1976, 88 injuries from Cobalt-60 source. 7 fatalities – Houston radiotherapy accident, 1980.Alamos National Laboratory.[18] 1 fatality – Malfunction INES level 4 at RA2 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, operator Osvaldo Rogulich dies days later.

In the email he sent me, he combined local press reports with his own observations. The Japanese Red Cross can’t accept the food he is trying to donate for the refugees because there is no gasoline to get it into the stricken areas. Vehicles cannot get through to the affected areas, and Japan’s military, called the Self Defense Force, was forced to travel to the Tohoku region, in the country’s northeast, in a civilian ferry. People ordered to stay in their homes to shelter from radioactive emissions have neither food nor heat and venture out on foot into maximum danger to look for food.

Here’s a personal look at the situation in Japan today.“This is all the information we’re getting from the Japanese press: I’m giving it to you in bullet points.

1. There is no fuel for heating.

No FuelBecause the government did not ease the regulation on the stocks of fossil fuels, there is a severe lack of fuel in all of Tokyo and the Tohoku area.

2. Food and medicine are not arriving at the refugee centers.

5. Due to the lack of fuel, elderly people are dying of cold, stress, malnutrition, and lack of medicine. Twenty-four of them have died so far.

7. Medical doctors cannot go into the region because there is nowhere to get gasoline.

Slow Decision MakingThe U.S. government immediately sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, after the earthquake. It arrived in the Tohoku area on March 13 at 4 a.m. Japanese time. Last night, on March 16, I learned that the Japanese Self Defense Force from Hokkaido had just left for the Tohoku area. The force was traveling to Tohoku on a civilian ferry and had planned to arrive today, March 17.Just today the government decided to send fuel to the region in need.

People Around the Nuclear FacilitiesWithin a 30-kilometer radius around the plants, the government has instructed the refugees to stay sealed indoors. However, the government is not sending in food and fuel to these households and these refugee centers. As food and/or fuel run out, the refugees are walking away from their houses and being exposed to radiation.

Public Sentiment Is Inhibiting PressureCurrently no press is in the mood to criticize the government. The general public believes that criticism should come later. The opposition parties are also quiet. There is no pressure on the bureaucrats and government to improve the situation.

He says that “inhaling 910 becquerels or more of plutonium-238 is believed to slightly raise the possibility of cancer.” He adds that this will equal a cumulative radiation exposure of 100 millisieverts in 50 years… just from the plutonium-238. “Even if one were to have inhaled plutonium soon after the explosions took place, it’s hard to think that the amount was enough to have any effects health-wise.” Even the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan disagrees, saying “We do not take the position that plutonium is safe in amounts up to 910 becquerels.” Read More: Unknowns about radioactive materials warrant vigilance amid delayed gov’t action