Please eat Fukushima’s veggies, Japan tells radiation-wary nation

[nadinbrzezinski]

y Chico Harlan, Friday, April 15, 6:44 PM
TOKYO


It is part of an unlikely twist in the eat-local movement as the government presses a skeptical public to accept that food from the contaminated northeastern coastline should be purchased, roasted and devoured, not avoided.

“Damage by perception,” reads a poster promoting the revamped menu at Sakuna, located inside a government ministry. “Let’s fight against it.”

When the restaurant opened for business Friday, politicians rushed in, filling a table of 12. Three parliamentarians were there. Same with the foreign minister, Takeaki Matsumoto. Within minutes, waitresses presented the meals. Each curry dish was topped with two button-size cuts of carrot and broccoli, a few mushroom slivers and two silver-dollar slices of purple potato. Cameras clicked, and politicians sampled their lunches and nodded their approval.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/please_eat_the_vegetables_japan_tells_radiation_wary_nation/2011/04/15/AFkOfmkD_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage

My, oh my... we have seen this in the past... funny... no, not really... Mad Cow anyone?

[uppityperson]

1. I feel sorry for farmers of food that is safe. My other thought concerns feeding repubs

contaminated food but it would be below me to post anything like that so I won't.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Most if not all is not safe

that is the problem...

They have found concentrated Iodine and Cesium and other nucleotides.

This is stupid. The government don't want to do what they will have to do... buy these people out and get it over with the exclusion zone.

[jpak]

26. nuclides - nucleotides are building blocks of nucleic acids

nerd police

:hi:

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. Point taken fellow nerd

I'm spending the weekend with a bunch of them too.

[franzia99]

24. Haha. Hey, repubs hate environmental regulation so much they shouldn't mind eating the food.

[angstlessk]

2. hari kari by degree...if we must die...let's die supporting each other

I find that very honorable..

[franzia99]

34. Would they be supporting each other, or helping greedy TEPCO & GE execs?

It's admirable that people want to support the farmers, but I think they're going about it the wrong way. The people should protect themselves by avoiding unsafe food, but support the farmers in demanding compensation from TEPCO and GE for the damaged crops.

Think about it, TEPCO at the very least is liable for ruining their crops because some greedy executives violated safety regulations so they could make more money. Yes, TEPCO probably doesn't have the money to pay for all the destruction they've caused. However, GE is a very rich company that often doesn't even pay taxes on its billions in profits. They for sure have the money to pay and there is some damning information that's come out showing that they knew that the design of the reactor was flawed, so I think they may end up having to pay when this is all over.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-17/japan-s-nuclear-disaster-caps-decades-of-faked-safety-reports-accidents.html

Nuclear engineers and academics who have worked in Japan’s atomic power industry spoke in interviews of a history of accidents, faked reports and inaction by a succession of Liberal Democratic Party governments that ran Japan for nearly all of the postwar period.

Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismology professor at Kobe University, has said Japan’s history of nuclear accidents stems from an overconfidence in plant engineering. In 2006, he resigned from a government panel on reactor safety, saying the review process was rigged and “unscientific.”

Tanaka says the vessel was damaged in the production process. He says he knows because he orchestrated the cover-up. When he brought his accusations to the government more than a decade later, he was ignored, he says.

The accident occurred when Tanaka and his team were strengthening the steel in the pressure vessel, heating it in a furnace to more than 600 degrees Celsius (1,112 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature that melts metal. Braces that should have been inside the vessel during the blasting were either forgotten or fell over. After it cooled, Tanaka found that its walls had warped.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287

Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.

Questions persisted for decades about the ability of the Mark 1 to handle the immense pressures that would result if the reactor lost cooling power, and today that design is being put to the ultimate test in Japan. Five of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which has been wracked since Friday's earthquake with explosions and radiation leaks, are Mark 1s.

"The problems we identified in 1975 were that, in doing the design of the containment, they did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant," Bridenbaugh told ABC News in an interview. "The impact loads the containment would receive by this very rapid release of energy could tear the containment apart and create an uncontrolled release."

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. They should have waved a radiation detector over that before eating

That wouldn't have helped them save face at the expense of their health, though.

[MadHound]

4. I wonder how stoked they were on potassium iodine,

Wonder if they did a forced regurgitation afterwards.

It would be foolish to eat a damn thing from the area surrounding Fukushima, today, tomorrow and decades hence.

This is simply another government stunt in order to try and keep the populace calm.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. +1

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Remember this politico eating meat

BSE to be exact.

And another lovely one from that time, politico forcing daughter to eat burger



History does indeed repeat

[MadHound]

9. AAAGH! Warn me before you start posting gratuitous pictures of the Iron Maiden

Now I've got to go wash my eyes out with lye. God, she looked like she had a poker stuck up her arse even at a young age.

Kidding aside, it is actually rather funny watching politicians dining during political campaigns. They get some godawful crap handed to them, and they have to smile sweetly and pretend that it is just grand stuff.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Yep and with the iron maiden and BSE it was a strange

thing.

She knew she should not, but... the body language was as good as that kid.

[franzia99]

36. lol

[JVS]

6. It's like the gulf seafood.

If you want to bail these people out, fine. Pass the hat, I'll give. But tell me "Go ahead, what's a little corexit going to do?" and I must insist that you go take a flying fuck at a doughnut.

[Hugabear]

15. Hey, BP is telling us that the Gulf seafood is okay to eat now

It has to be true, they've been taking out radio ads to let us know.

[Art_from_Ark]

11. Here's the real story

The city of Iwaki, outside the 30km zone, has launched a campaign to get people to buy its farm products THAT PASS RADIATION TESTS to counter the RUMOR MILLS that are saying that everything grown in the prefecture is unsafe. They had a campaign in the Shimbashi district of Tokyo, complete with geiger counters, to show the general public that their farm products were safe. Yukio Edano, the prime minister's press secretary, was there to sample Fukushima produce such as cucumbers and tomatoes. He said that he would help to spread the word about Fukushima produce that is safe.

Here's the video, in Japanese. There is a Japanese transcription of the video below that:
http://www.news24.jp/articles/2011/04/12/07180753.html#

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Glad you posted that.

Unfortunately, after governments have been caught lying to people over and over and over for decades, I hope you can understand the cynicism that so many have. It is fairly earned.

[Art_from_Ark]

16. Speaking of cynicism

Why is it that these news sources such as the Washington Post, which were roundly and justly criticized for getting nearly everything wrong during the bu$h misadministration, have now suddenly become authoritative sources about events in Japan?

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. People here are beginning to distrust WaPo, much like HuffPo and not even reading the link.

It's a start.

[jpak]

27. Geiger counters are worthless when used to measure radioactivity in foodstuffs

Those things would have to be screaming hot to be measured by survey meters.

PR-BS

yup

[Hannah Bell]

32. link?

[uppityperson]

38. link to DU post and article I posted couple days ago that sunk. I thought it very interesting.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-12/geiger-counters-to-find-radiation-in-meals-may-be-meaningless-.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=885492&mesg_id=885492

[uppityperson]

39. mark so can find later, if you reply please do it here as other one glitched, not on My DU

[Hannah Bell]

44. Thanks. confirms my suspicion that talk of "geiger counters" in regard to radioactivity

measurements in fukushima foodstuffs = red herring.

[Art_from_Ark]

45. Is Bloomberg.com an authority on measuring radiation levels

in food?

Personally, I would rather go by the measurements taken by professionals in my prefecture, which is home to numerous research institutes that are involved with measuring radiation

http://www.pref.ibaraki.jp/important/20110311eq/nousanbutsu/20110416_01/

http://www.pref.ibaraki.jp/important/20110311eq/nousanbutsu/20110415_01/files/20110415milk.pdf

http://www.pref.ibaraki.jp/news/2011_04/20110417_01/files/20110417_01a.pdf

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. I'll tell you what, and this is the absolute truth

if this was San Onofre, as I said in a thread, MY GOVERNMENT would be lying to me too. They have a history.

This is not unlike what happened in the Ukraine, and they're still paying for it... or three mile island and we are still paying for it.

Right at the moment it does not seem that way, and Bloomberg (and the rest are reporting from the same dang wire... which is drawing from the same dang sauces. I know it is galling to even think about this, but governments lie, and that includes Japan. Oh and when they do, it is others pointing fingers and laughing... because they would never do that... :sarcasm:

I hope in 20-25 years max, you were correct and all the internationals were wrong... but sadly we will start seeing clusters in five years or so.

[muriel_volestrangler]

48. "go by the measurements taken by professionals" was exactly the message in the Bloomberg piece

Geiger counters are probably ineffective for consumers in detecting hazardous levels of radiation in food and water at home, scientists, professors and device makers said.

Large samples should be tested in laboratory-like settings to obtain results, said Joseph Rotunda, who heads the radiation measurement division at toolmaker Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Determining whether food, water or milk is safe also requires expert knowledge and more sophisticated equipment than the typical devices sold online, said Atsushi Katayama, a member of the Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry.

“Just pointing a measuring device at your food before dinner is pretty much meaningless,” said Katayama, who has a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Hokkaido University. “Tap water and fish, for example, require special handling, isolation and concentration to get meaningful readings.”
...
“Various types of radiation require different kinds of equipment,” said Katayama. “It’s safe to rely on government data” because the findings are closely watched by the international community, he said.

[Art_from_Ark]

49. The three links I gave were from my prefectural food safety dept

Measurements were taken by professionals. All the locally-grown produce has passed inspection with the exception of some spinach from the extreme north. The national government will soon be lifting the restrictions on certain leafy vegetables from this prefecture that had failed the inspection earlier but have now shown three passing readings in a row.

The geiger counters are to allay the fears of consumers. But the produce that had been brought down from Fukushima Prefecture for the campaign in Shimbashi had already passed the inspection.

[Hannah Bell]

13. unrec for misleading story.

[Art_from_Ark]

17. Misleading is right

It seems that most of the stories being posted about Japan on this board these days are just alarmist crap, or junk stories just written to fill a column in a newspaper. :argh:

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Does that include NHK and Kyodo? Just curious

by the way take it with the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/contactus/index.html

[Hannah Bell]

30. nhk & kyodo aren't in the op. the op is misleading. see here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=902662&mesg_id=902914

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

28. Misleading = Not Happy Talk - and reccing

yup

[Hannah Bell]

31. no, misleading = misrepresenting the facts.

[Rage for Order]

14. Life imitating art!!!

[Bonobo]

19. I am disappointed to see such a misleading article.

Selling papers is important, I know. But that is just a rotten, slanderous, misleading article.

Truly a fish-wrapper worthy of tabloid status.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Contact them, I posted the link in-thread

[Junkdrawer]

21. What the Japanese government is doing to the Japanese people is criminal...

but this is what happens when the government provides free disaster insurance to nuclear plants.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. If San ONOFRE goes

Same thing would happen here

[Junkdrawer]

25. And because OUR government insures US nuclear power plants....

you can expect the same minimization of the dangers.

If nuclear power is so safe, why can't they get private insurance like every other industry?

[jpak]

29. Yup

n/t

[Art_from_Ark]

33. What, exactly is the Japanese government doing

that is criminal?

[Junkdrawer]

37. For example....

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think Japan needs to do right now?

THOMAS BREUER: So, there are urgency measures. So, it is now clear that, since we did our field research, we warned the government that there are a lot of cities and villages outside the 20-kilometers evacuation zone where the radiation levels are so high that people need urgently to be evacuated, especially children and pregnant women, because they are the most vulnerable part of the population to radiation. And so, they have to do that now. They have to screen the whole Fukushima area, where there are other hot spots which need to be evacuated.

And then they have to—what they haven’t done so far—really, really explain to people who are still living there what to do, how to behave. So, we were approached from a lot of farmers during our field work, asking us whether we can come to their fields and do food testing, because they have no idea whether they still can eat the food or sell it or whatsoever. So, that’s a very difficult situation. We have been in Fukushima City. That’s a city with 340,000 inhabitants, and we found very high levels of radiation in the city all over again. But life seems to be like, on the surface, like normal life, and it has to do with the fact that the government did not put out information, how to behave, what to do. So people are really left alone with this accident, which wasn’t caused by them.

....

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/12/nuclear_catastrophe_in_japan_not_equal

[Art_from_Ark]

42. So how would you have handled it?

How far would you have made the mandatory evacuation area? Remember that for every 10 km the evacuation zone is extended, the area increases exponentially-- a 20km zone is 4X larger than a 10km zone, a 30km zone is 9X larger than a 10km zone, a 40km zone is 16X larger, and so on. Of course, the greater the evacuation zone becomes, the greater the population that is affected becomes. It was difficult enough to evacuate 100,000 people-- think of the logistics of evacuating a million people or more. Where are they going to go? What if they don't want to go? There have already been people who have committed suicide because they did not want to be forcibly evacuated.

For reference, here is a map of radiation readings that was put out by Fukushima University about a week ago. The blue dots show measuring points. The numbers by the blue dots are microsieverts per hour. Where would you draw the mandatory evacuation zone? And where would you send those people? And remember, a lot of the people who evacuated from the worst-hit areas are now living in areas such as Fukushima City, Iwaki, etc., that would be affected by an extended evacuation zone.

http://www.sss.fukushima-u.ac.jp/FURAD/FURAD/data-map_files/110325-31-RAD-Res-Hosei-sec.pdf

[Art_from_Ark]

43. A few more variables to consider

The most horrible day after March 11 was March 16, when radiation levels spiked for a few hours. On that day, this was the situation in most of Fukushima:

Main train lines (Tokoku Line, Suigun Line, Joban Line) were closed due to earthquake damage
Main expressways (Tohoku, Ban'etsu and Joban expressways) were closed due to damage from the earthquake
Many major non-expressway highways were also closed or severely damaged
Ports were severely damaged
The closest major airport (Sendai) was closed
There were gasoline shortages and electrical power outages
Fukushima Prefecture has much rugged terrain

How are you going to get a million+ people out of that mess?

And then, just as suddenly as they spiked, radiation readings came back down on the 17th.

So now, on the 17th, do you issue a "Get out of Dodge" alert for the whole prefecture, amidst falling radiation readings, and when almost no one can get out even if they tried?

Really, how would you have handled this situation?

[Bluebear]

35. Sounds like when our government proclaimed Gulf seafood safe within days of BP.

[MountainLaurel]

40. That's what I was thinking

Those folks in Japan and the Gulf Coast Seafood Council, or whatever they're called, should get together and write a book about trying to bullshit the public.