Sadness of being exposed

(oil painting on wood panel,collage. 117×98cm × 3 pieces. 2018)

 

( copy ) “ Certainly,

unless the threshold theory listed on the right and DS86 are applied mechanically,

it is difficult to deny that the current symptoms of the appellant are not caused from radiation and

that there are reasonable questions.

However,

the fact that DS86 has been still an unexplained estimate,

and the ongoing review of the case is a legal decision of the court of prior instance.

By applying DS86 and threshold theory mechanically,

many facts can not be always sufficiently explained. “

(Excerpts from Matsuya Case of Nagasaki Atomic Bomb after deceases, Supreme Court ruling)

( copy ) “ About the method of judgment induced (summary above) “

In general,

various factors are usually associated with the process of disease occurrence in a complex manner,

and it is difficult to find out one by one the mechanism in which a specific disease occurs from a specific factor.

As for radiation,

although a consensus has been established regarding the possible causes of various diseases, including cancer,

there are not any diseases and symptoms specific to radiation.

Therefore,

the presence or absence of radioactive induction is determined by considering the comprehensive scientific knowledge of

pathology, clinical medicine, radiology, and diseases.

However,

there are certain limits in these scientific findings.

Therefore,

to require scientific evidences for plaintiffs too strictly concerning the diseases appearing among them

does not comply with the purpose of the law to save atomic bomb victims.

Ultimately,

there is no choice but to make a judgment,

basing on rational normal people’s recognition

whether does sufficient evidence which can be determined that radiation is the cause of the diseases exist or not. ”

(Collective Action for Recognition of Atomic Bomb Disease on March 22, 2007, Tokyo District Court Decision)

 

This painting was made exclusively in Busan.

From March 2018,

I presented some pictures to the group exhibition “Nuclear Dream 2,”

which was held at the Busan Democracy Memorial Park exhibition hall.

What will happen if a nuclear power plant accident would occur?

What will happen if many people are exposed to radiation and the natural environment including animals are contaminated?

 

What is the sadness of exposure?

 

On September 7th 2013,

a woman at a certain place in Fukushima Prefecture who had been voluntarily measuring food’s radioactive contamination told me the situation around her :

Because of the nature of her activities,

she was in a position to communicate and listen to mothers with children living nearby.

 

“ Now we can see the belly of a pregnant woman with ultrasound.

So mothers can know there is something wrong with her belly or not.

So if there is something wrong with the fetus,

they will abort.

I sometimes hear this kind of stories.

Most of the people who come to my shop are young mothers.

So I asked those mothers to gather and talk to each other in a city.

There too...I heard about such an abnormality.

We can’t say this kind of thing publicly.

So moms who are worried about it come together and talk to each other.”

 

I would like to say thank to the woman who told me about this sensitive issue although it was my first visit.

The second year after the nuclear accident,

Japanese television and newspapers reported that the exposure did not have a significant impact on the health of the residents,

and there were no signs of any abnormalities compared to the central Japan and Kyushu prefectures.

TV shows were also full of commercials to promote Fukushima’s agricultural products

(as it’s sales had decreased sharply after the accident)

and advertisements to encourage people to travel to Fukushima.

( Fukushima is going to recover. )

In this trend led by the public,

mothers were talking quietly about health problems in the shadow of reconstruction.

 

October 3, 2016

Medical Magazine published a study on this issue.

 

( copy ) ” Increases in permanent property in preferences contained by the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan “

‘ This paper is coauthored by Hagen Scherb, who is very well known in this field in Germany, and Kei Hayashi Mori.

It was published in an Internetfocused medical journal

( which is available for free in peripheral property Fukushima medical ).

The following Fig. is from the paper.

< Overview of Contents >

” Perinatal mortality ( from 22 weeks of pregnancy to one week of birth ) has been declining steadily since 2001.

However,

in Fukushima and its neighbouring five prefectures ( Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma ) where radiation exposure has been strong,

the number increased to 15.6% ( about 10 months after the accident ).

And intermediate exposure In Chiba, Tokyo and Saitama, the number increased to 6.8 percent (Fig.4),

which was observed after Chernobyl,

but was not increased throughout the country (Fig.5).

Unlike Chernobyl,

the Great East Japan Earthquake had a direct impact of the earthquake and tsunami on the region.

Similar studies have shown a temporary increase in perinatal mortality immediately after the earthquake.

Therefore,

this time,

we separated Iwate and Miyagi, which were the major victims of the tsunami,

and the other four prefectures, which were relatively few.

As a result,

the increase immediately after the earthquake occurred was marked in Iwate and Miyagi (Fig.7) and was not seen in the other four prefectures (Fig.6).

The limitation is that the increase did not directly prove that it was related to exposure.

However,

other factors that explain the increase have been less likely to be considered,

including the direct impact of earthquakes and tsunamis. “

 

( Copy ) ‘Research Challenge: Challenging Epidemiological Study on Identifying Causes of Thyroid Cancer

Research: Challenging Germination Research

Research Endocrinology: Research Institute Nagasaki University

Research representative: Shunichi Yamashita University of Nagasaki, Medical Research Institute for Post-Bomb Disorder

Research period (fiscal year): from April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2016

Keyword Environment / Radiation / Endocrinology / thyroid cancer

Outline of research results : In addition to the risk of thyroid carcinogenesis due to radiation iodine internal exposure after the Chernobyl nuclear accident,

a cancerous animal model in the nitrosoamine system has been proven and the possibility has been reported.

Therefore,

we focused on regional distribution of thyroid cancer cases in Belarus, radiation iodine exposure conditions,

and water pollution caused by the use of large amounts of organic agricultural chemicals,

and conducted comprehensive data verification and joint research on their relevance.

In response to this,

nitric acid and nitrite dynamics in drinking water of different sources of water in Kawauchi Village (Fukushima)

were measured from the analysis results of thyroid ultrasound examinations after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident

as a cause of increase in thyroid cancer detection.

But there was no significant connection.’

 

 

The scholar, Shunichi Yamashita, is a second generation atomic bomb experienced of Nagasaki Prefecture.

At the time of the accident,

he was the head of a Japanese Society for Thyroids.

Five years after the Chernobyl accident,

he arrived there in 1991,

and had studied the health of the area.

Because of this,

he entered Fukushima after the accident as one of the leading figures in the fields of exposure and health damage by radiation in Japan.

He took the lead in Fukushima at the Fukushima Health Management and Research Commission,

including a children’s thyroid cancer study led by the Ministry of the Environment

and started at Fukushima Medical College.

During that time,

he had never once made a statement in front of Japanese media and in front of the public that

he believed that children’s thyroid cancer in Fukushima was a frequent occurrence.

However,

if we look at the public report on his research which I showed above,

we can see the next.

In fact,

he had already recognized and assumed the tendency as frequent occurrence at that time,

and secretly tried to find the cause.

In the field of physics,

if the hypothesis is proved to be true in physics world,

it must be reproduced at a probability of 99.999% .

In other words,

it will be recognized as physically certain only after it has been reproduced 99,999 times over 100,000 times.

From this perspective,

radiation exposure is still an <unknown> area.

Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Chernobyl. Semiparatinsk. And Fukushima Daiich

When many people and nature are exposed to radiation,

scientists begin to study and observe this unknown area.

They start observing nature and living things.

Humans and children begin to be observed by them as observation creatures.

People sometimes cry,

being observed silently by scientists,

and they are becoming a component of the vast amount of data.

I am sad about that.

The excerpts I gave at the beginning of this sentence were extracted from the sentences of the atomic bombing lawsuit in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

whose majority have died because of old age,

have been continuing to file lawsuits against the Japanese government even in 2018.

The term

 

“ 被爆者　Hibakusya：those who experienced atomic bombings explosion ” is used to applicants in this cases,

but the actual state of the case is “被曝者　Hibakusya:exposed person ”.

State-supplying scientists have tried to dismiss Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s complaints,

claiming that the health problems that appear to the victims are unrelated to the exposure, based on a data.

The data was an exposure dose estimation system (DS) developed over a long period of time by

U.S. scientists on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after observing and studies atomic bomb victims.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan argued in court that as long as they depend on the simulation model DS,

disorders of the plaintiffs and exposure to radiation was not related.

They continued to try to deny the need for subsidies and medical aid to individuals with exposure notebook.

Protesting to the Health and Welfare Ministry’s decision caused to court battle.

This was the beginning of a lawsuit for the recognition of atomic bomb after disease.

As an exceptional example of Japan’s administrative litigation,

the central government has continued to defeat in this lawsuits at a rate of about 90 percent.

The Health and Welfare Ministry’s representing Japan loses at a district court,

loses at the next high court in almost all of the cases.

But they continued to appeal to the Supreme Court.

This extendeding tral resulted in the deaths of many atomic bombing victims.

And the Supreme Court ruling,

which came amid the death of many plaintiffs,

contains important social conclusions about the problem of exposure in Japan.

The situation of exposure is still scientifically unknown,

and scientists’ analogies are elaborate but only analogous.

Scientific rigor is to be cruel in this area of exposure,

basing these opinions the Supreme Court sentenced to Japanese government defeating.

If the people of Fukushima had known the ruling,

a different situation would have arisen after the accident.

 

Let me change to another story.

June 2012,

strange news about cherry blossom peach fruit was serialized in a Yamagata prefecture’s local newspapers.

 

( copy ) “ Good luck cherry blossom peach in Takahe “

The cherry blossom peach farmer,

Kinjiro Kikuchi (76) found the cherry blossom peach fruit which was divided into red and white on both sides.

In mid-June,

he harvested it at a park near his home and his family found it during fruits selection.

People around him regarded this as “lucky “ and it became famous.

Kikuchi says,

“I’ve never seen a red and white cherry before.”

According to Yamagata’s horticulture laboratory,

“It’s a phenomenon in which there are two genes for colouring in one individual.

It’s pretty rare that there are clear boundaries.””

 

This online news I saw was accompanied by an image of this strange cherry blossom peach.

It was only a small piece of article.

However,

news similar to this phenomenon,

which a veteran farmer of 76 years old said he had never seen it,

began to appear intermittently in a newspapers in Yamagata Prefecture in 2012.

 

“ Red and black cherry blossom peach harvest Ueyama: Very rare. “ ( Yamagata Shinbun : Yamagata Newspaper 2012, June 18)

”What do you call the four-child cherry-peach? Found in the field. ” ( Yamagata Shinbun : Yamagata Newspaper 2012, June 24)

” The Year of the Olympics,” “The Five Children” and “The Cherry Trees Found in Higashine” ( Yamagata Shinbun : Yamagata Newspaper June 26, 2012)

”Discover Mickey Mouse in the cherry blossom peach fields!? Make a reputation among family and acquaintances.” ( Yamagata Shinbun : Yamagata Newspaper 2012 June 29)

In many parts of Japan,

information about such abnormalities in plants and insects had being reported.

” It’s the first time I’ve seen it, ”

What is reliable as a criterion of judgment is that the words spoken by horticultural or agricultural person who has over decades experience in the region.

In Japan, there is an academic society called the Japan Society for Botanical Morphology,

which directly relates to this issue,

but as far as I can see,

they have not made any mentions strangely until 2018.

 

( text : Akira Tsuboi )