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Instead of dietary fiber and calories, a retailer in Tokyo is displaying levels of radioactive cesium found in its fruits and vegetables, to alleviate any concerns about radioactive materials on produce. Along with the price, the outlet, run by Cataloghouse Ltd. in Tokyo's Shinbashi district, displays the cesium level found in the fruit or vegetable. If the radiation detection device installed in the outlet detects radioactive iodine or cesium in any produce, the figure is displayed next to the produce. The device can detect radiation levels of at least 10 becquerels per kilogram.

Kunihiko Takeda, a professor of engineering at Chubu University, said displaying the level is good for both the consumer and the retailer. "Just saying 'it's safe' will only create a sense of distrust," Takeda said. "If there is a display, consumers can purchase items even from Fukushima (Prefecture) after they are convinced. That would also be for the benefit of producers." A 37-year-old housewife who purchased grapes that were detected to have 22 becquerels of cesium said, "I am more assured because they conduct testing and display the results."

The outlet has a special corner where it sells produce from Fukushima Prefecture. The area features 22 fruits and vegetables produced by J-Rap Inc., a group of farmers in Fukushima, and sells rice produced by the group from before the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake. Because consumers began avoiding vegetables grown in Fukushima Prefecture after radiation fallout from the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, store officials decided to help the group by selling produce while displaying the radiation levels. Customers are provided with a list of radiation level standards established by various nations. The list includes the figures for the Ukraine, which has established standards much stricter than those in Japan following the Chernobyl accident in 1986. For example, while the radiation levels for fruits and vegetables in Japan are 500 becquerels per kilogram, in the Ukraine the levels are 40 becquerels for vegetables and 70 becquerels for fruits.

Six months after the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima Prefecture, the public's awareness of the threat posed by radiation is entering a new phase: the realization that the biggest danger now and in the future is from contaminated soil.

The iodine-131 ejected into the sky by the Fukushima No. 1 power station disaster was quickly detected in vegetables and tap water — even as far away as Tokyo, 220 km south of the plant. But contamination levels are now so low they are virtually undetectable, thanks to the short half-life of iodine-131 — eight days — and stepped up filtering by water companies.

But cesium is proving to be a tougher foe. The element's various isotopes have half-lives ranging from two to 30 years, generating concern about the food chain in Fukushima Prefecture, a predominantly agricultural region, as the elements wash fallout into the ground. The root of the problem is, well — roots. Cesium-134 and cesium-137 are viewed as potential health threats because vegetables can absorb the isotopes from the soil they're planted in.

Even as thousands of Japanese workers struggle to contain the ongoing nuclear disaster, low levels of radiation from those power plants have been detected in foods in the United States. Milk, fruits and vegetables show trace amounts of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Daichi power plants, and the media appears to be paying scant attention, if any attention at all. It is as if the problem only involves Japan, not the vast Pacific Ocean, into which highly radioactive water has poured by the dozens of tons, and not into air currents and rainwater that carry radiation to U.S. soil and to the rest of the world. And while both Switzerland and Germany have come out against any further nuclear development, the U.S. the nuclear power industry continues as usual, with aging and crumbling power plants receiving extended operating licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as though it can’t happen here. But it is happening here, on your dinner plate.

According to Greenpeace, the ocean around large areas of Japan has been contaminated by toxic radioactive agents including cesium, iodine, plutonium and strontium. These radioactive agents are accumulating in sea life. Fish, shellfish and sea vegetables are absorbing this radiation, while airborne radioactive particles have contaminated land-based crops in Japan, including spinach and tea grown 200 miles south of the damaged nuclear plants. Meanwhile, on U.S. soil, radiation began to show up in samples of milk tested in California, just one month after the plants were damaged. Radiation tests conducted since the nuclear disaster in Japan have detected radioactive iodine and cesium in milk and vegetables produced in California. According to tests conducted by scientists at the UC Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering, milk from grass fed cows in Sonoma County was contaminated with cesium 137 and cesium 134. Milk sold in Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Vermont and Washington has also tested positive for radiation since the accident. 

Thanks to the jet stream air currents that flow across the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. is receiving a steady flow of radiation from Fukushima Daichi. And while many scientists say that the levels of contamination in food pose no significant threat to health, scientists are unable to establish any actual safe limit for radiation in food. Detection of radioactive iodine 131, which degrades rapidly, in California milk samples shows that the fallout from Japan is reaching the U.S. quickly

Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan’s food chain as unsafe levels of cesium found in beef on supermarket shelves were also detected in more vegetables and the ocean. More than 2,600 cattle have been contaminated, Kyodo News reported July 23 [...] Japan has no centralized system to check for radiation contamination of food, leaving local authorities and farmers conducting voluntary tests. Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers from Dai-Ichi. [...]

From the tweets by @s_kiyoe, who set up a summer camp (in Shizuoka Prefecture, I think, judging by the town's name but I could be wrong) for children in Fukushima Prefecture. The original tweets are in Japanese:https://twitter.com/#!/s_kiyoe/status/100535288274763776Our fun-filled summer camp was finally over. We all cried at parting, because they didn't want to go back, and we didn't want them to go back to Fukushima under the current situation. Many Fukushima children were collecting empty plastic bottles. They said they wanted to fill the bottles with clean, safe water that they drank at the camp and bring them to their parents.

https://twitter.com/#!/s_kiyoe/status/100540605972754432The bus arrived at the temple [where the camp was held] to take the children back to Fukushima. We asked them, "Where would you like to go to buy souvenirs?" They answered "Please take us where we can buy locally-grown vegetables, not supermarkets." Safe vegetables for their families.https://twitter.com/#!/s_kiyoe/status/100592597160046592 　The last day of the camp. A child from Tokyo said to a child from Fukushima, "Now it's my turn to visit you in Fukushima!" The child from Fukushima suddenly looked serious and said "You'd better not come to Fukushima right now." How could this be allowed? These children went back to the very place they just told others not to go.

Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant."How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives. "The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant. There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation. Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs" and the amount of uranium released "is equivalent to 20" Hiroshima bombs.

Kodama, along with other scientists, is concerned about the ongoing crisis resulting from the Fukushima situation, as well as what he believes to be inadequate government reaction, and believes the government needs to begin a large-scale response in order to begin decontaminating affected areas.Distrust of the Japanese government's response to the nuclear disaster is now common among people living in the effected prefectures, and people are concerned about their health.Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.When on August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant, Japan's science ministry said that level of dose is fatal to humans, and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure. 10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.

t is an amount 250 per cent higher than levels recorded at the plant in March after it was heavily damaged by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), that took the reading, used equipment to measure radiation from a distance, and was unable to ascertain the exact level because the device's maximum reading is only 10,000 mSv. TEPCO also detected 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) per hour in debris outside the plant, as well as finding 4,000 mSv per hour inside one of the reactor buildings.

While readings of radiation in the air have returned to pre-3/11 levels in most areas of Japan — not including areas close to the plant and the so-called hot spots — the contamination of soil, which affects the food chain, could pose a long-term health risk, experts say. Iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 were released in large quantities by the nuclear plant, and if they are accumulated in the body, they could cause cancer.

Kunikazu Noguchi, lecturer at Nihon University and an often-quoted expert on radiological protection, assures that consumers need not worry too much about any produce on the market, because at present, radiation levels in most vegetables, meat, dairy and other foods, even those from Fukushima Prefecture, are far below the government's safety limits and often undetectable. But for consumers concerned about the few incidents of tainted food slipping through the government checks (such as the beef from cattle that had been fed with tainted straw in Fukushima, which was shipped nationwide in July), or families with small children, Noguchi suggests a simple way to minimize their radiation exposure through food: rinse it.

rinsing the food well before cooking, preferably with hot water, and/or boiling or stewing it, a large portion of radioactive elements can be removed. In his book, published in Japanese in mid-July, "Hoshano Osen kara Kazoku wo Mamoru Tabekata no Anzen Manyuaru" ("The Safety Manual for Protecting Your Family From Radiation Contamination"), Noguchi offers tips on how to prepare food, item by item, so consumers can reduce their radiation intake at home.

The Tokyo metropolitan government has not checked imported foods for radiation since April, citing differences in the safety standards for domestic products after the accident at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. But since the suspension, the metropolitan government's four units of radiation check equipment have not been used even for domestic food examinations--and even when the nation was confronted with the pressing issue of locating cesium-contaminated beef this summer.

The Tokyo government started checking imported foods for radiation shortly after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. However, after the nuclear accident started at the Fukushima plant in March, the central government set provisional safety standards for domestically produced foods, including meats and vegetables, at 500 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram. The figure is 130 becquerels higher than the 370-becquerel standards for imported foods.

"We would not know how to deal with this issue if we found an imported food containing radiation levels between the two standards," a Tokyo government official in charge of this matter said. If a food item with 400 becquerels of radioactive cesium was detected, it would be allowed to stay in the market if it was produced in Japan. But it would be recalled if it had been imported. This could cause serious confusion among consumers, the government official said.

Prof Hayakawa from Gunma university got served a written warning by the president of Gunma university. Though Gunma university is almost meaningless for the world ,Prof Hayakawa has been doing the great job by making the detailed radiation map. He is an expert of volcanic ash. He used his knowledge ,he estimated the flow of the plume and made the map which is more accurate than the one of the government. He also warned about eating vegetables from eastern Japan based on his own map ,which is very rational.

Stakeholder of the farmers or Tepco complained to Gunma university and had the president warn Prof Hayakawa. It’s becoming harder and harder to tell the truth. (Source)

Radioactive fallout from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has caused widespread fear, prompting the government in August to adopt basic targets for decontamination efforts in and around Fukushima Prefecture.

But the government's plan falls short and efforts should focus in particular on residential areas with more aggressive decontamination measures and goals, including reducing current radiation levels by 90 percent, two radiation experts said when interviewed by The Japan Times. "I really doubt their seriousness (about decontamination)," said radiation expert Tomoya Yamauchi, a professor at the Graduate School of Maritime Sciences at Kobe University.

Areas with radiation exposure readings representing more than 20 millisieverts per year have been declared no-go zones, and the government has shifted the focus of its decontamination plan to areas with radiation readings, based on an annual accumulative amount, of between 20 millisieverts and more than 1 millisievert, with the goal of reducing the contamination by 50 to 60 percent over two years. Decontamination efforts by humans, however, are expected to only yield a reduction of 10 to 20 percent. Nature, including the impact of rain, wind and the normal degradation of the radioactivity of cesium-134, whose half-life is roughly two years, is assumed to do the rest, thus reaching the best-case scenario of cutting the contamination by 60 percent.

The U.S. military is preparing to lift a ban on some Japanese foods, imposed after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear scare.The Japan District Veterinary Command, which is responsible for food safety on U.S. bases, said Thursday that, within a month, products from 26 Japanese processing plants will once again be sold on U.S. installations.

Food deliveries from those factories were suspended due to a range of health concerns, including the proximity of some of them to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, which was severely damaged by the quake and tsunami, said Lt. Col. Margery Hanfelt, commander of the veterinary command.The suspended plants — among 60 that deliver to U.S. bases — produce a variety of foods ranging from baked goods and eggs to fresh fruit, vegetables and processed items. Some of the facilities, which Hanfelt declined to identify, were damaged by the earthquake while others had supplies of basic ingredients cut. For example, a farm supplying grain to one plant was destroyed by the tsunami, she said.

“As they recover, we are going through and re-auditing and re-assessing them,” she said.In the past month, teams of U.S. servicemembers have been inspecting the suspended plants — located in 13 prefectures in northern Honshu — and testing food samples for chemical, microbiological and radiological contamination, she said.

From TV Asahi's "Hodo Station" on July 26, in the segment that discusses the lifetime limit of 100 millisieverts radiation.

A chicken farmer in Kawamata-machi in Fukushima Prefecture has brought his eggs to a volunteer testing station in Fukushima City. After 20 minutes of testing, 60 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium is detected from the eggs.Disappointed, the farmer says, "I don't know what to say to my customers. It's much lower than the provisional safety limit in Japan, but if I compare the number to the safety limit in Ukraine it is extraordinary..."

The reporter asks the farmer, "What is the safety limit in Ukraine?"6 becquerels/kg, he tells the reporter.The man who runs the station says, "For these farmers, the provisional safety limit in Japan is just too loose."

From the press release by Akita prefectural government on July 25:A resident in Akita Prefecture alerted the authorities when the bag of leaf compost that he purchased from a local garden/home center measured high in radiation with his portable survey meter. The authorities tested the content of the bag, and it had 11,000 becquerels/kg of cesium.

At the garden/home center (2 locations) the air radiation 1 meter from the pile of the leaf compost bags measured as high as 0.48 microsievert/hr.

The press release is somewhat misleading, as it says the air radiation 1 meter from one bag of the leaf compost is 0.06 microsievert/hr. If you measure in front of the pile of the same bags, the radiation is as high as 0.48 microsievert/hr. Akita's air radiation level (which the prefectural government measures only at 2 locations) is between 0.04 and 0.06 microsievert/hr.According to Yomiuri Shinbun (7/27/2011), these bags were packed in Tochigi Prefecture, and 20,000 bags have already been sold in Akita Prefecture alone.

The discovery of radiation hotspots well beyond the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant has forced the Japanese government to increase its monitoring from six to 22 prefectures in the east of the country.

Elevated levels of radiation have been found 125 miles from the power plant, which was destroyed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. That is well beyond the 18-mile exclusion zone that has been imposed.Officials in the city of Tokamachi, in northwest Niigata Prefecture, detected 27,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogramme (2.2lbs) of waste in a school compost heap. By law, any waste containing just 8,000 becquerels per kg must be treated as radioactive waste.

Experts and residents say the government should have begun monitoring further afield immediately after the plant began leaking radioactivity."Since the first week of the disaster, authorities have slowly been announcing that they would start checking fish, seaweed, vegetables for radiation," said Tom Gill, a British professor of anthropology at Meiji Gakuin University who is studying communities in the disaster zone.

Not to the extent that may cause "chaos" as Professor Kosako predicted, but the prefectural authorities have tested the early harvest and radioactive cesium has been found in Ibaraki and Chiba. The first to find radioactive rice was Ibaraki Prefecture, but the governor vows to fight the "baseless rumor" to promote rice from his prefecture. From Sankei Shinbun (8/19/2011):

As the brown rice grown in Hokota City in Ibaraki Prefecture was found with radioactive cesium, Governor of Ibaraki Masaru Hashimoto answered the reporters on August 19 and said "There is no problem with safety. After the formal testing is complete by the end of August, we will persuade the consumers that there's nothing to worry about consuming Ibaraki rice", and that he will do his best to counter the "baseless rumor".

Governor Hashimoto emphasized safety by saying "It is not the level to worry, even if you eat [the rice] for one whole year". At the same time, he said "Since radioactive cesium has been detected in vegetables, I wouldn't have been surprised to see it detected in rice".

Unusual form of plants are being found every where in Japan. Today,a Japanese traditional root vegetable “Myoga” was found ,which was four times bigger than usual size. The farmer said ,he has never seen such big Myoga. He has been farming there since his grand parents’ generation. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20110928-OYT1T00324.htm Should we stay here ? The answer is no. and the right question is When should we have evacuated ? Today’s news.

From a survey conducted by the local hospital association, it became clear that 12% of the full time medical doctors who worked at the hospitals in Fukushima Prefecture have retired voluntarily. That means 125 doctors less in Fukushima Prefecture’s hospitals. The number of nurses who retired also rose, 407 of them - which means 5% (form 42 hospitals) - it is believed to have retired because they had to evacuate. As a consequence, a part of the clinical departments and the night emergency medical service in the prefecture’s hospitals are inactive. The survey was made by the end of July to check the conditions in which the doctors work in the prefecture. It was conducted in 127 hospitals - from the total of 139 hospitals -,which are members of the same association. The survey was answered by only 54 hospitals.

The main municipalities in which a high percentage of doctors’ retiring was recorded even before the nuclear accident were: Minamisoma-shi 46% (13 doctors, including one doctor from o hospital located in a danger zone ), Iwaki-shi 5 hospitals, 23% of the doctors (31doctors ), Fukushima city 6 hospitals 9% (41 ) doctors , Kooriyama-shi 4 hospitals 8% (25 ) doctors.

Low levels of radioactivity showed up in rainwater in northern California two weeks after the Japan nuclear disaster in March but soon returned to normal, said a US study out Wednesday. The detected levels of radioactive isotopes cesium, iodine, and tellurium were very small and posed no risk to the public, according to the findings of research funded by the US Departments of Energy and Homeland Security. Rainwater was collected in the San Francisco Bay area cities of Berkeley, Oakland, and Albany from March 16 to 26, said the report in the online journal PloS (Public Library of Science) ONE.

“The first sample that showed elevated radioactivity was collected on March 18th, and levels peaked on March 24th before returning to normal,” said study led by professor Eric Norman in the department of nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. The study also noted that “similar gamma ray counting measurements were performed on samples of weeds collected in Oakland and on vegetables and milk sold commercially in the San Francisco Bay area.”

Some of the same fission products detected in rainwater were found in the milk and produce samples, also at a level that posed no risk to the public, it said. On March 11, a record 9.0 earthquake and tsunami killed about 20,000 people along the coast of Japan and sparked nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima-Daichi plant. The nuclear plant was sent into meltdown after its cooling systems were swamped by the waves, sending radiation into the air, sea and food chain in the world’s worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl. (TerraDaily) Fukushima is battered by Typhoon Roke right now.

Resignation to and responsibility for Fukushima disaster

In an interview in the September issue of the magazine Sekai, Hida says: “If you have already been exposed, you must be prepared. Resign yourself. Tell yourself that you might be unlucky and see horrendous effects several decades down the line. Then, try to build up your immune system as much as you can to fight the hazards of radiation. “But will making the effort to avoid buying vegetables that may be tainted be sufficient in protecting you? It’s better to take precautions than to not take them. But radioactive materials continue to leak from Fukushima, even now. Tainted food has infiltrated the market, so unfortunately, there’s no guaranteed method of protecting yourself from internal exposure. Abolishing nuclear power and cutting off radioactivity at its source is a much faster way of dealing with it.”

After March 11, I stayed up until late every night watching television (a newly formed habit following the disaster). There was a television reporter who went to check in on a house with the lights on in an area that was otherwise dark due to evacuation orders. As it turned out, a horse was in labor and the owner was unable to leave its side. Several days later, the reporter visited the farm once again, and saw the mare and its foal indoors in the dark. Their owner’s expression was gloomy. The foal had not been allowed outside to run around freely because radioactive material-contaminated rain had fallen on the grass. The crisis has taken away lives that many people are still trying to get back. What messages can we deliver to those people and how? I need to hear those words, too, and the person I have turned to for guidance is the physician Shuntaro Hida, who has been speaking about the dangers of internal exposure to radiation since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.