Ms. Noro, who lives in Kushiro in Japan’s northern
island of Hokkaido, has been working as a volunteer organizing one-month stays
with host families for Chernobyl children near where she lives for the past 19 years. Over the years, she has learned a lot about
the dangers of radiation and how we can protect children from it. She has
not invited any more
Chernobyl children since the disaster, because she feels unable to
provide them with a safe enough environment in Japan now. Since the disaster, she has been touring around Japan,
giving lectures and sharing her valuable knowledge and experience. She
also organizes occasional ad - hoc clinics with volunteer doctors when possible for worried parents
whose children have developed symptoms such as nosebleeds, headaches, nausea, painful joints,
and diarrhea and so on. If these parents
take their children to their usual doctors, they just say [Don’t worry, it’s nothing
to do with radiation.] and give the children antibiotics to stop diarrhea
if they have it, and then give them more if they come back. She said that most doctors don’t know how to
treat patients with radiation sickness. Antibiotics don’t cure the symptoms. She
suggests that such patients need to stop taking any radioactively polluted food
and drink, eat food full of enzymes such as fermented foods like miso and pickles, and fresh fruit such as bananas and apples, to help to repair the
DNA damaged by the radiation, keep up a healthy immune system in
the body and also rest if they get tired easily. Ideally they should
be evacuated into a safe area, but if they can’t, at least they should regularly
be taken somewhere safe for some time to give their bodies a chance to
repair the damaged DNA. The worried parents found her advice really
helpful. Ms. Noro reported
that some weaker children first got nosebleeds and diarrhea two months
after the disaster, then some children who were normally fine started to
present the same symptoms. These were followed by other symptoms such as
lack of concentration and appropriate body weight gain, getting tired easily,
forgetting things, and having difficulty understanding school lessons. This has been happening not just with
children in Fukushima, but also with some children in the Kanto area, including
Tokyo.
Although the number of children who have developed such symptoms is relatively
small considering how many children there are, Ms. Noro predicts serious consequences in the future if
children are kept in the contaminated area for longer periods.
I have also heard from other reports that 45 per cent
of 1,080 children under 15 in Fukushima prefecture have tested positive for
thyroid exposure to radiation. This result came from a health survey done
by Fukushima prefecture under the guidance of Prof Yamashita. Many
citizens in Fukushima declined take part in this survey, feeling as if they had
been treated as guinea pigs because of his misleading safety campaign
last year, which resulted in many adults and children being exposed to
radiation unnecessarily. Although the
number of children who participated in this survey is relatively small, I think
it is significant enough to say that Fukushima is not safe for children to
stay in. Ms. Noro has suggested that all the children in the affected
area should receive a blood test and an echocardiography examination twice a year to detect signs of illness at the earliest stage. She warns that children living in Fukushima need to be evacuated as soon as possible before it is
too late.
Ms. Noro’s website: チェルノビルのかけ橋 (A bridge to
Chernobyl)
Unbelievable Comment by Mr. Yamashita
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