nuclear-news

Inadequate radiation checkups for population near Fukushima area

As radiation fears dwindle, so do checkups Doctor wants more residents
to get followup full-body scans, Japan Times, By MIZUHO AOKI, 10 Jan
13, “……..As residents have come to understand more about radiation
and that their internal exposure levels are low, an air of calm has
been noticeable. At the same time, residents’ interest in knowing
their exposure levels has waned.

“I’m surprised to see such a dramatic loss of interest in just about a
year and a half,” said Tsubokura, 30, who works several days a week at
Minamisoma hospital and the rest of the week at the University of
Tokyo. “The biggest issue we have now is finding ways to secure
continuous checkups for internal radiation exposure.”

The city of Minamisoma covers the cost for two checkups. The hospital
there began conducting the second round of internal exposure
examinations in August, but less than 3 percent of residents tested in
the first round turned up that month, Tsubokura said.

“To be honest, local people have almost no worries (about radiation
exposure because of eating contaminated food) these days. . . . They
are satisfied with their results from last year (where many were below
detectable levels),” Tsubokura said.

“Also, there are many people who feel they were being used as human
guinea pigs” in the first round and don’t want to take part in the
followup tests, he added…..
because only about 50 percent of Minamisoma residents have been tested
in the first round, there may be people with higher internal radiation
exposure levels, he said.

Tsubokura has been calling for residents to get checked, holding over
100 briefings and passing notices to neighborhood associations.
However, it has been difficult to get the attention of the remaining
half of the residents, he said.

“I am concerned about the current situation. . . . I have been
involved in a movement to incorporate internal radiation exposure
checkups into regular medical examinations at schools,” Tsubokura
said.

As for the most worrisome internal radiation exposure levels in the
early days of the nuclear disaster, radioactive materials consumed
have already been discharged from bodies and the amount can no longer
be estimated, he said.

“The weakest point of these checkups is that we are not estimating the
internal exposure amount of residents immediately after (the
meltdowns). And we haven’t been able to measure exposure to
radioactive iodine-131” that has a half-life of just eight days,
Tsubokura said. “Those are lost forever. The only way (to guess) is to
use SPEEDI (a government-operated computer simulation system used to
determine or predict dispersions of radioactive substances) data to
calculate using some kind of estimate equation.”

January 11, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2013, health, Japan