YouTube Added: 21.10.2011
Food Safety in Japan: Post-Fukushima
In this video I examine the published results of Japan’s random food testing and visit a grocery store to examine food labeling and discuss staying safe in Japan.
The food situation in Japan is becoming more and more threatening to everyone’s health. Radioactive contamination from the triple melt-down and subsequent explosions of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have contaminated a large swatch of agricultural land. The Japanese government’s response was to raise the “safety” limit of allowable contamination in food more than 3x higher than the limit in the Ukrane (the home of Chernobyl.)
The government and industry have taken the firm position that if contamination in food is under the limit then it is “safe” and is sold without any special markings.
Additionally Strontium, Uranium, and other horrifically poisonous radionuclides are NOT being tested for. Only Cesium 134, 137, and Iodine 131 are being checked. The government has ignorantly and arrogantly claimed that heavier radionuclides wouldn’t fly far from Fukushima. However, private tests seven months after the disaster have revealed radioactive Strontium 90 250km. away from Fukushima Daichi in Yokohama (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111013a3.html)
The reality is continuing to deteriorate despite the government and media’s reassurances of the progress made at the plant.
Links:
Japan’s radiation information portal site (Japanese only)
http://atmc.jp