Statement: Japanese civil society requests that the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee on Fukushima be revised 日本の６４の市民団体が福島事故に関しての国連科学の報告内容を改訂するよう要請

Friday, 1 November 2013
(Source)  www.http://hrn.or.jp/eng/a tivity/area/worldwide/japanese-civil-society-requests-that-the-reports-of-the-united-nations-scientific-committee-on-fukus/
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Joint Statement
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) is about to submit a report on Fukushima to the United Nations General Assembly.
Human Rights Now, along with 63 Japanese civil society organizations, has issued a statement requesting UNSCEAR, and the General Assembly Fourth Committee to revise the report and its finding from a human rights perspective.
The statement outlines the case for a more cautious approach to low level radiation exposure in order to help protect the most vulnerable people after the Fukushima nuclear accident.


UNSCEAR_Statement_Submission (PDF)


24 October 2013
Japanese civil society requests that the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee on Fukushima be revised


1. Concern for the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee
The United Nations Scientific Committee has inserted the results of investigations on the effects of radiation exposure from Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Number 1 into its report, which will be submitted to the 68^th session being held at the moment.
We, the undersigned civil society organizations in Japan  express  serious concern that the results of these investigations contain some problems in terms of objectivity, independence, and accuracy, and that the underestimation of the effects of radiation exposure could have negative effects on the human rights and protection of citizens.
We request that the United Nations Scientific Committee and the United Nations General Assembly Forth Committee revise the reports  from a human rights perspective to protect the most vulnerable people based on careful and sufficient deliberations.
The parts of the reports  which include the foremost concerns of Human Rights Now are outlined as follows:
·         “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.” (para. 39)
·         ”For adults in Fukushima Prefecture, the Committee estimates average lifetime effective doses to be of the order of 10 mSv or less, and first-year doses to be one third to one half of that. While risk models by inference suggest increased cancer risk, cancers induced by radiation are indistinguishable at present from other cancers. Thus, a discernible increase in cancer incidence in this population that could be attributed to radiation exposure from the accident is not expected. An increased risk of thyroid cancer in particular can be inferred for infants and children.” (para. 40)
2. The lack of independent investigation
Firstly, the United Nations Scientific Committee has never officially visited Fukushima prefecture to investigate after the Fukushima nuclear accident. The estimate by the committee of health effects, contamination, and the radiation exposure of workers at the nuclear plant from radioactive substances are based only on data given by the Japanese Government and Fukushima prefecture.
[…]
3. The conclusion of the Committee lacks accuracy
culates that the risk for thyroid cancer for infants needs to be increased, they do not expect an increase in risks for other kinds of cancer. This contradicts the results of current epidemiological research which indicates health effects of low-level radiation. The Radiation Effects Research Foundation has released results of new LSS reports that collect reports from 1950 to 2003 on the atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This research indicates that the excess relative risk for all solid cancer increases with even low-level doses of radiation.
In research conducted by Cardis on six hundred thousand nuclear plant workers in 15 countries, the death rate of nuclear plant workers who are exposed to an average annual dose of 2mSv radiation  is high.
The International Commission of Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, including BEIR, supports the linear no-threshold model, which portrays low dose exposure that is 100 mSv or less as a risk to health and does not negate health effects due to low-level radiation exposure.
The collective reports of approximately six hundred and eight thousand young patients who received computed tomographic scanning in Australia showed that leukemia, brain tumors, thyroid cancer and many other cancers have increased, and the infection rate has increased by an average of 1.24 overall. Also, from a case-control study on natural background radiation level exposure, it seems clear that as accumulated gamma-ray exposure increases, the risk of leukemia increases relatively, and if it exceeds 5mGy, the minimum of 95% confident interval exceeds one share and becomes significant. Moreover, with over 10mGy, the risk of cancer excluding leukemia also [...]
4. Inconsistency with other views
The United Nations Scientific Committee observes that there is little risk to health by radiation in Fukushima. However, this view differs greatly from the prospects which are included in the reports regarding [...]
5. The actual conditions in Fukushima
[...]
Soon after the nuclear plant accident in Fukushima, the Japanese government relaxed the limit on radiation exposure from less than 1mSv to 20 mSv a year and decided to set this limit as a standard for issuing evacuation advisories. As a result, many people, including children, infants and pregnant women, have been forced to live in high level radiation exposure areas with no support to evacuate, migrate or protect themselves from radiation exposure with sufficient health measures.
The’Chernobyl Concept’, which was established by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991 and was followed in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, designated areas where additional exposure is more than 5 mSv/year as an ‘evacuation area’, and it provides the people who lived there with support and compensation for the lives they were forced to abandon in order to evacuate.
[...]
6. The reports by Mr. Anand Grover should be reflected and considered
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7. Conclusion
As stated above, we, the civil society, request that the United Nations Scientific Committee and the United Nations General Assembly Forth Committee revise the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee from a human rights perspective to take a more cautious approach with regards to low level radiation exposure to protect the most vulnerable people based on careful and sufficient deliberations.
 
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Human Rights Now(HRN) is an international human rights NGO based in Japan with ECOSOC special consultative status. HRN works for promotion and protection of human rights worldwide, with special focus in Asia.
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