Japan’s ex-leader backs sick U.S. sailors who blame radiation
AP PHOTO/YURI KAGEYAMA
Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi speaks during a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016. Koizumi is raising money for the hundreds of American sailors who say they got sick from radiation after taking part in disaster relief for the 2011 tsunami that set off the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.
TOKYO » Several hundred American service personnel who say they became sick from radiation after participating in relief operations for the 2011 tsunami that set off the Fukushima nuclear disaster are now getting high-profile support in Japan.
Junichiro Koizumi, prime minister from 2001 to 2006, told reporters Wednesday he has set up a special fund to collect private donations for the former service members, with the goal of collecting $1 million by the end of next March, mainly to help with medical bills.
“I felt I had to do something to help those who worked so hard for Japan,” he said at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. “Maybe this isn’t enough, but it will express our gratitude, that Japan is thankful.”
Koizumi, 74, one of Japan’s most popular prime ministers in recent decades, was in San Diego in May to meet with 10 of the former service members, who have joined a class-action lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, the utility that operates the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
The lawsuit, filed in 2012, is ongoing, and a California judge has ruled it will proceed. More Navy personnel and Marines are joining the suit, now numbering about 400, according to Koizumi. Some 70,000 Americans took part in Operation Tomodachi, or Friend, flying in aid from an aircraft carrier and other warships off the coast of northeastern Japan.
Since then, some servicemen and women have become sick with cancers, leukemia, thyroid ailments, brain tumors and other diseases, and they blame radiation. The ships to which they were assigned were in an area of the ocean in the direction of the radioactive plumes spewed from the Fukushima plant.
Don't miss out on what's happening!
Stay in touch with top news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It's FREE!
Aircraft carriers routinely use drinking water from the ocean, which the lawsuit says was contaminated with radiation, and service members showered in and ate food cooked in such water. Some Navy personnel also flew on helicopters to the disaster zone.
TEPCO denies any link between the illnesses and radiation, saying the radiation levels are too low.
Koizumi acknowledged he is not a medical expert, but said he had “common sense.” He questioned why so many healthy young men and women were suddenly sick with symptoms often associated with radiation exposure, such as nosebleeds.
The U.S. command has said it was not told immediately about the reactor meltdowns at Fukushima.
The lawsuit alleges that TEPCO withheld key information and caused the Americans to be sent in harm’s way.
Seven of those who joined the lawsuit have already died.
Koizumi has already raised $400,000 by charging people $100 to attend his lectures, with help from Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
Koizumi said he had been a proponent of nuclear power while prime minister, but living through the Fukushima disaster taught him that what experts said about atomic power being safe, cheap and clean was “all lies.”
Even after the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States and Chernobyl in Ukraine, the experts insisted that Japan’s nuclear plants were different, he recalled.
“I became ashamed how I had believed such lies,” Koizumi said. “They said Japan was safe. And that simply was not true.”
17 responses to “Japan’s ex-leader backs sick U.S. sailors who blame radiation”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Humanitarian actions to mask craving for adulation long forgotten?
What about a conscience and a sincere heartfelt desire toward helping those affected by this disaster?
Yes, he seems to be a man who truly cares. I believe there are many more like him in the world.
cojef is not one of them…
Enjoy your seafood y’all…
This man did “man” up to this disaster and doing everything he can to help all those who got sick. Not too many people can do this others simply would just walk away.
just da beginning….when the documentation of specific individuals withe radiation related illnesses become public, this will highlight the dangers of having nuclear power plants esp in major fault zones and near fresh or salt water that the public relies on for food, drinking…
Notice how Tokyo Electric and Japanese govt have remained silent on these type of problems…
The current Japan leader would be well served to follow in this lead. The secret keeping and unwillingness of the Abe regime to share information is despicable. The Abe regime has also denied the health effects associated with the Fukushima nuclear disaster, despite the evidence of an epidemic of thyroid cancer. Moreover, evacuated people are being sent back into contaminated zones, a decision accompanied by a “risk communication” policy relayed and supported internationally by handpicked UN experts. I say, Give them the middle finger and the two words that usually go with it.
Koizumi is showing why he was so popular when he served as prime minister. Wish we had more like him but unfortunately
this is not the case. The Fukushima reactors continue to spew huge amounts of radiation into the Pacific and yet there is almost
no media coverage about this. It is probably the greatest threat yet to the entire world and the environment.
Media and politicians are silent not to destroy the economy. They all know the people in those regions are all zombies, just a matter of time before they all start dropping dead like flies as cancers/tumors take a few years to develop. The thyroid cancers and radiation deaths are all increasing immensely since 2011 in those around the region and the media now stays silent while the pro-nuclear arm-chair expert imbeciles keep regurgitating completely insane lies they’ve read online while they have never had a single nuclear physics class in their life and have no clue of the true dangers of the nuclear time-bombs scientists built whom are also clueless of how to now contain the immense power and dangers these science experiments have turned out to be.
I do not believe the several hundred American service personnel who say they became sick from radiation after participating in relief operations for the 2011 tsunami that set off the Fukushima nuclear disaster. I also believe that those who are making such claims are doing so in hopes of reaping some financial benefit from TEPCO that operated the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. Ask yourself why the lawsuit is against TEPCO and not the U.S. government who sent the service personnel into the relief operation. Previous claims made by service personnel against the U.S. military were found to be baseless. The U.S. military knew within hours that radiation was spewing into the air and water around the power plant and it was known before any ships were dispatched to the area. Extensive radiation monitoring was conducted of the air, water, ships, aircraft, personnel and materials not only in the disaster are but also at U.S. military bases throughout Japan, and were found by the Department of Defense to have been too low to cause anyone harm. Previous claims of radiation exposure were even made my military personnel who were at their bases several hundred miles from the disaster area. I was in Tokyo at the time and recall one report saying the amount of radiation anyone received was about the same as one might get from a dental x-ray. Case dismissed.
The U.S. DoD always denies any fault or liability!
The Russians denied any nuclear disaster until other countries forced them to admit to it. No sane government agency will dare to tell their voter base that they are incompetent F#$%-ups, not even ours with the choo-choo boondoggle. Expect denials and expect lies non-stop as they try to keep order and control over the situation and to prevent mass destruction to the economy. I was in Japan shortly after the 2011 accident and my personal radiation meter was showing very high radiation levels in Tokyo and vicinity. Stop trusting the government with your life, take action to protect yourself otherwise they’ll send you to an early grave while you believe their BS reports. BTW, the Cesium-137 and other radioactive particles from the plant became airborne after the accident and they got lodged in your tissue every-time it rained, snowed or just fell on it’s own, like your lungs and thyroid and caused damage so unlike a dental x-ray which happens to be a powerful one-time light beam, you now have a permanent micro sized radioactive particles constantly giving off radiation and killing your your cells in your body with a half life of thousands of years so the likelihood of you developing cancer/tumors earlier in life is now exponentially accelerated. Then again, you don’t have to take my word for it, just read the facts: http://www.forbes.com/sites/samlemonick/2016/06/30/scientists-find-new-kind-of-fukushima-fallout/#204695174126
Extracted from the World Health Organization Website:
What are the health implications of the Fukushima Daiichi NPS (FDNPS) nuclear accident?
In 2013, WHO published a health risk assessment from the FDNPS accident. It included an evaluation of the risks of cancers, non-cancer diseases as well as public health considerations. The following year, UNSCEAR published a report on the levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the accident. In 2015, UNSCEAR released a white paper that evaluates new information in the peer-reviewed literature.
There were no acute radiation injuries or deaths among the workers or the public due to exposure to radiation resulting from the FDNPS accident.
From a global health perspective, the health risks directly related to radiation exposure are low in Japan and extremely low in neighbouring countries and the rest of the world.
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/
The devil is is the details and you just pointed it out in the comment you posted “…no acute radiation injuries or deaths…”.
“NO ACUTE” is correct, I never once disputed this, I’ve only pointed out that the death toll from NON ACUTE radiation fallout will be far more significant. Here’s the definition of acute radiation so you’re aware of the lingo they use to throw off the masses reading their findings…
“Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) (sometimes known as radiation toxicity or radiation sickness) is an acute illness caused by irradiation of the entire body (or most of the body) by a high dose of penetrating radiation in a very short period of time (usually a matter of minutes). “
dragoninwater, thank you for your informative posts. Speaking for myself, I appreciate your explanations and furnishing us where to find the facts.
🙂