![[11]](https://s.yimg.jp/i/jp/blog/p3/images/paging_for2.gif){kind=small}
Study links Fukushima disaster to spike in infant heart surgeriesTokyo -- As Japan marks the eight-year anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that claimed some 22,000 lives, a new study suggests it could still be having a serious impact on the nation's health. The disaster caused by
the killer wave at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been linked by the research to a significant spike in infant heart surgeries.
While not a single death has been definitively attributed to radiation exposure
from the leaks at the Fukushima plant, the study found the number of surgeries for children under the age of one with complex congenital heart disease, or
CHD, spiked by more than 14 percent.
The study was led by Kaori Murase, an associate professor of natural sciences at Nagoya City University in central Japan, and published on Wednesday by the American Heart Association.
According to Stanford Children's Health, CHD, is the most common birth defect and usually has no identifiable cause. "Complex" CHD involves a combination of heart defects that cause either too much blood, or too little, to flow into the
lungs or other parts of the body.
Even after multiple surgeries, symptoms can afflict a patient throughout their
life. The earlier abnormalities appear during the eight-week process of heart
development in unborn babies, the more severe the damage generally is.
"Our study suggests that a nuclear accident might increase the risk for
complex congenital heart disease," Murase said, noting that the data suggest
a catastrophic release of radiation anywhere in the world could precipitate
similar problems.
For a four-year period beginning in 2011, the number of heart surgeries jumped by 14.2 percent in children under the age of one, compared to the four years
prior to the disaster.
That number remained unusually high throughout 2014. It is unclear if the rise
was triggered by the radiation from the nuclear accident, or the stress of the
tragedy on women of childbearing age.
The panicked and disorganized evacuation following the Fukushima accident,
loss of loved ones and family homes, break up of communities and general
disruption of daily life were cited, as well as a possible rise in diabetes related
to the evacuation.
While her analysis ends in 2014, Murase believes infant CHD remains high even today. The analysis was done using data from the Japanese Association for
Thoracic Surgery, which tracks nearly all CHD surgeries performed nationwide -- in effect, a near-complete patient population survey.
The study lacks breakdowns by location, individual data, and level of radiation
exposure; and since CHD often requires multiple surgeries, the 14 percent rise does not reflect the incidence of CHD, just the actual surgeries performed.
The study found no significant rise in CHD in children older than the age of one. Murase said the Nagoya University findings were consistent with a suspected
rise in CHD after the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986.
She cautioned that the study does not prove radiation caused heart disease in
infants, but it does suggest a link.
The Fukushima disasterOn March 11, 2011, a Magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeast Japan. More
than 22,000 people were killed or left missing. The tsunami flooded the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, damaging three nuclear reactors and triggering multiple meltdowns and explosions that released radiation over a large area.
It was one of the worst nuclear accidents in history.
Japan continues to struggle with decommissioning the crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima, a task expected to take decades. Despite assurances that most
of Fukushima is now safe to live in and radiation levels have dropped to normal, the population of Fukushima prefecture, or state, is still down 8.4 percent from before the disaster.
In the former no-go zones exposed to radiation around the nuclear plant, less
than a quarter of residents have returned.
|
その他の海外メディア
[ リスト | 詳細 ]
|
８月２４日、東京電力ホールディングスは、２０１１年３月の福島第１原発事故発生後の米軍による被災地支援活動、いわゆる「トモダチ作戦」に従事したという米国居住の１５７人が、放射能被ばくによる被害を受けたとして、５０億ドル（約５４５０億円）の基金の創設や損害賠償を求めて米国の裁判所に提訴したと発表した。写真は福島で昨年２月撮影（２０１７年 ロイター／Toru Hanai）
［東京 ２４日 ロイター］ - 東京電力ホールディングス(9501.T)は２４日、２０１１年３月の福島第１原発事故発生後の米軍による被災地支援活動、いわゆる「トモダチ作戦」に従事したという米国居住の１５７人が、放射能被ばくによる被害を受けたとして、５０億ドル（約５４５０億円）の基金の創設や損害賠償を求めて米国の裁判所に提訴したと発表した。 東電によると、１５７人は今月１８日、米カリフォルニア州南部地区連邦裁判所で提訴。損害賠償の請求金額は訴状には記載されていないという。
同社は、２０１３年３月１５日付で米国で同種の提訴（２４日時点の原告数２３９人）を受けており、今回の原告は同訴訟との併合を求めているという。
提訴に対し東電は、「原告の主張、請求内容を精査して適切に対処する」としている。業績への影響は不明だという。 (浜田健太郎) |
|
Research marks 1st examination of the impact of extended exposure to
low-level radiation on large mammals
Keiji Okada, associate professor of veterinary medicine and agriculture
at Iwate University, examines a cow at Ikeda Ranch in Okuma town,
five kilometres west of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
(Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press)
In an abandoned Japanese village, cows grazing in lush green plains begin to
gather when they hear the familiar rumble of the ranch owner's mini-pickup.
This isn't feeding time, though.
Instead, the animals are about to be measured for how they're affected
by living in radiation — radioactivity that is 15 times the safe benchmark.
For these cows' pasture sits near Fukushima, a name now synonymous
with nuclear disaster.
The area was once a haven for agriculture with more than 3,500 cattle
and other livestock. Ranchers who refused a government order to kill their
cows continue to feed and tend about 200 of them.
The herds won't be used as food; now science is their mission.
Researchers visit every three months to test livestock living
within a 20-kilometre radius of the Fukushima plant, where three reactors had
core meltdowns after the facility was swamped by a tsunami in 2011.
It is the first-ever study of the impact on large mammals of extended
exposure to low-level radiation.
The ranchers are breeders, as opposed to those raising cattle to sell for beef,
and tend to be attached to their animals. They treat them almost as if they
were children, even giving them names. The research gives them a reason to
keep their beloved cows alive, and to hope that someday ranching might safely
return here.
Cows stand at Komaru Ranch in Namie town, 12 kilometres north of Japan's
crippled Fukushim nuclear power plant. Ranchers who refused
a government order to kill their cows continue to feed and tend
about 200 of them as part of a study by researchers who formed
the nonprofit Society for Animal Refugee & Environment post Nuclear Disaster. (The Associated Press)
Under a drizzling rain, doctors and volunteers wearing blue Tyvek protective
suits draw the cows into a handmade pen of aluminum pipes. Five to six cows
line up in the cage and are tied with a rope around their head and through
their nose ring for solid support, so they won't be hurt when the needle draws
blood from their neck.
The gentle beasts moo from discomfort. The doctors work swiftly,
drawing blood, collecting urine and checking for lumps or swollen lymph nodes.
The check-up takes five minutes or less per cow.
Giving ranchers hopeNamie, 11 kilometres northwest of the plant, is a ghost town with no prospect
of being habitable for years. But 57-year-old Fumikazu Watanabe comes
every day to a ranch to feed 30 to 40 cows owned by seven farmers.
"What is the meaning of slaughtering the cows?" Watanabe said at a worn-out
barn where healthy cows used to spend the night tending to their calves.
The bones of animals that have died litter the ground outside.
"Keeping the cows alive for research purposes means that we can pass
on the study to our next generation instead of simply leaving a negative l
egacy," he said.
A cow is examined by members of the Society
for Animal Refugee & Environment post Nuclear Disaster
at Komaru Ranch in Namie, Japan. (Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press)
The research team, made up of veterinary and radiation experts
from Iwate University, Tokai University and Kitasato University, was established
a year after the meltdowns. They formed a nonprofit group called Society
for Animal Refugee & Environment post Nuclear Disaster. Members volunteer
to take the blood and urine samples and test them.
In 2012, the Japanese government ordered all livestock in the restricted area
killed for fear that the breeding cows would continue to reproduce,
and that cows exposed to radiation would have no sale value.
Keiji Okada, associate professor of veterinary medicine and agriculture
at Iwate University, said the government considered it pointless to study
the animals, since it couldn't determine how much radiation they were exposed
to immediately after the disaster.
Okada disagrees. He said the data will help researchers learn whether farmers
can eventually work in affected zones.
"There are no precedent studies of animals being exposed to low-dose
radiation, and we have no idea what results we are going to get," he said.
"That is exactly why it needs to be monitored."
Is radiation killing the cows?So far, the animals' internal organs and reproductive functions have shown no
significant abnormality particularly linked to radiation exposure, Okada said,
but it's too early to draw conclusions about thyroid cancer and leukemia.
Radiation could cause leukemia, but so could mosquitoes, which have infected
cattle around the world with bovine leukemia virus.
"Even if we detect leukemia in the cows, we don't know whether it's caused
by radiation or if it's a bovine leukemia from a virus," Okada said.
"It is this year's objective to be able to differentiate the two."
Many cows have died during the study period, but food shortages have played
a role, making it all the more difficult the doctors to determine causes.
The dead cows are dissected and the radiation dosage in their organs is
measured.
Is radiation killing the cows, or making them sick? Okada said the research
team is working toward reaching a conclusion by March. The team worries that
the study results could spark overly broad fears that the region will no longer
be habitable or fit for agriculture.
Reseachers visit every three months to test the livestock living
within a 20-kilometre radius of the Fukushima plant,
where three reactors had core meltdowns
after it was swamped by a tsunami in 2011
(Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press)
Ultimately, Okada said, the team believes that further monitoring of the animals
will show under what conditions it is safe to raise livestock exposed to
low-level radiation, and how best to deal with such a leak should it happen
again.
Yukio Yamamoto, owner of the large Yamamoto Ranch surrounded
by a mountain, a river and a vast plain, travels three hours roundtrip
from his temporary home to feed his remaining cows.
Yamamoto initially followed government orders to kill his cattle. He watched
a mother cow being killed while a calf was still suckling on its milk,
and then the calf following that.
"The cows are my family. How do I dare kill them?" Yamamoto said.
"If there is a God, I'm sure some day we would be rewarded for the sacrifice
we are making."
He hopes one day to see his barn come to life again, filled with a hundred cows
and calves cared for by his children and grandchildren.
|
|
Japan has restarted a nuclear reactor despite a court challenge by local
residents. The atomic plant was one of dozens shut down in wake of the 2011
Fukushima disaster.
Plant operator Shikoku Electric Power said Friday it switched on
the No. 3 reactor at its Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime prefecture,
about 700 kilometers (430 miles) southwest of Tokyo.
Japan ended nearly two years without nuclear power a year ago when Kyushu
Electric Power restarted reactors on the southern island of Kyushu.
The island nation now has three operating reactors despite public skepticism
following the disastrous 2011 Fukushima meltdowns that led to calls for Japan
to phase out nuclear power.
The reactor is expected to start generating electricity on Monday and resume
commercial operation in September in its first use since it was suspended in
April 2011.
But furious local residents vowed to fight on.
"We protest this restart of the Ikata nuclear reactor and are extremely angry,"
the residents' group said in a statement Friday. The statement noted that the
reactor's use of a plutonium-uranium MOX fuel makes it especially unstable.
"We can't have another Fukushima."
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and utility companies have been
pushing to get reactors back in operation despite public worries over the
safety of nuclear power and fears about radiation exposure.
In April, a court ruled that Japan's only two working nuclear reactors could
remain online, rejecting an appeal by residents who said tougher
post-Fukushima safety rules were not adequate.
Two other reactors in central Japan had also been restarted before a court
in March ordered them back offline following a successful legal challenge.
Anti-nuclear protesters chant in front of Ikata Nuclear Power Plant
to protest against the restarting of a nuclear reactor on August 12, 2016.
Earthquake warnings
Kunihiko Shimazaki, a former member of the Nuclear Regulation Authority,
warned earthquake hazards may have been underestimated in the screening
process of Japan's reactors.
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station suffered a triple meltdown after
it was hit by an earthquake and resulting tsunami that killed nearly 20,000
people and rendered entire swathes of coastland radioactive and uninhabitable.
Two reactors were halted in March after a court issued an injunction order
prohibiting operator Kansai Electric Power from running the units at Takahama
Nuclear Power Station on the Sea of Japan coast due to safety issues.
jar/kl (AFP, dpa)
|
|
August 12, 2016 11:18 IST
Operator Shikoku Electric Power said
it switched on the No 3 reactor at its Ikata nuclear power plant.
Tokyo, Japan: Japan restarted a nuclear reactor on Friday despite a court
challenge by local residents, in a boost for Tokyo's faltering post-Fukushima
push to bring back atomic power.
Operator Shikoku Electric Power said it switched on the No 3 reactor at its Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime prefecture, about 700 kilometres (430 miles)
southwest of Tokyo.
The reactor -- shuttered along with dozens of others across Japan in the wake of the March 2011 Fukushima accident -- was expected to be fully operational
by August 22.
The prefecture's governor and the mayor of the plant's host town agreed on the restart in October, in the face of opposition from some local residents who filed
a lawsuit to halt the refiring.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and utility companies have been pushing to
get reactors back in operation after a huge earthquake and tsunami caused a
disastrous meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in northeastern
Japan.
The accident forced all of Japan's dozens of reactors offline in the face of public worries over the safety of nuclear power and fears about radiation
exposure, forcing a move to pricey fossil fuels.
Opposition to nuclear power has seen communities across the country file
lawsuits to prevent restarts, marking a serious challenge for Abe's pro-nuclear
stance.
In April, a court ruled that Japan's only two working nuclear reactors could remain online, rejecting an appeal by residents who said tougher
post-Fukushima safety rules were still inadequate.
Two other reactors in central Japan had also been restarted before a court in March ordered them offline in response to a legal challenge.
Including the reactor restarting on Friday, Japan will have just three operating reactors -- and furious local residents vowed to fight on.
"We protest this restart of the Ikata nuclear reactor and are extremely angry," the residents' group said in a statement on Friday, adding that the reactor's use
of a plutonium-uranium MOX fuel made it especially dangerous.
"We can't have another Fukushima." The utility said it would make "ceaseless efforts" to ensure the plant was safe and to keep residents informed about key details of the restart.
|
