A top nuclear adviser resigns over Japan’s failure to follow the law and instead allow children to be subjected to inhumanely high levels of radiation.The official accuses Japan of taking ad-hoc measures not in accordance to the law and resigned in a tearful protest stating there was no point in maintaining his post if his recommendations and the laws are not being followed.

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It appears that the efforts of many are having an effect. Over 800 organizations and 34,000 individuals have signed the petition and it appears to be having an influence to make Japan reconsider the decision.

Coming across the news wires are several stories informing us that a top Japan top nuclear adviser has resigned his government post in protest of the levels of radiation exposure children are being exposed to.

Japan Nuclear Official Resigns Over Decision To Disobey Law And Subject Children To High Radiation

Government Adviser Quits Post to Protest Japan’s Policy on Radiation Exposure for Fukushima Schools

by Dennis Normile on 29 April 2011, 1:35 PM | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
TOKYO—A prominent Japanese radiation safety specialist has resigned his governmental advisory post in protest over what he calls “inexcusable” standards for school children in Fukushima Prefecture. The Yomiuri Online news web site reported in Japanese this evening that Toshiso Kosako, a radiation safety expert at the University of Tokyo, feels the standards are too lenient and that his advice has been ignored.

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Japan’s education ministry figured that children could spend 8 hours a day in a schoolyard with as much as 3.8 microsieverts per hour of radiation and then 16 hours a day inside a building with 1.52 microsieverts per hour and stay within a 20 mSv per year limit. Some 800 groups and 34,000 individuals have signed a petition demanding the withdrawal of the education ministry’s 20 mSv per year standard, according to a coalition of citizens’ organizations that will present the petition to the government on 2 May.

“Setting this (radiation exposure) number for elementary schools is inexcusable,” says Kosako, according to Yomiuri Online. His resignation is expected to put additional pressure on the government to rethink its decisionJ

Source: Science Insider

Not surprisingly, US corporate media makes no mention of the fact the resignation is over the levels of radiation Japan is allowing children to be subjected to. Instead they simply state the resignation is in protest to Japan’s handling of the disaster response in General.

Japan prime minister’s nuclear adviser resigns

TOKYO — A senior nuclear adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan submitted his resignation on Friday, saying the government had ignored his advice and failed to follow the law.

Toshiso Kosako, a Tokyo University professor who was named last month as an advisor to Kan, said the government had only taken ad hoc measures to contain the crisis at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

In a tearful press conference, he said the government and its commissions had taken “flexible approaches” to existing laws and regulations, and ignored his advice after he was named an advisor on March 16.

“I cannot help but to think (the prime minister’s office and other agencies) are only taking stopgap measures… and delaying the end” of the nuclear crisis, he told reporters.

Tokyo officials had drafted measures to deal with the accident that were not in strict accordance with the law, and the decision-making process had been unclear, he said.

“There is no point for me to be here,” as the Kan administration had failed to listen to him, said Kosako, an expert on radiation safety.

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Source: AFP

Meanwhile in areas where a gradual evacuation zone has been ordered the alarm is being raised that children in those areas are being subject to high levels of radiation as well.

45 children still in town where high levels of radiation have been detected

IITATE, Fukushima — There are 45 children still staying in three areas of this village, where high levels of radiation have been detected following the crisis at the tsunami-hit nuclear power plant, local government officials said.

Local officials have urged the children’s guardians to take them out to less radioactively active areas, but a 41-year-old woman living in Nagadoro said she is hesitant to evacuate her son, a second-year junior high school student.

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The government has designated the entire village as a zone for gradual evacuation, where all residents have been instructed to flee by the end of May. As of April 4, there were 662 infants and elementary and junior high school children in the village, but the number had declined to 467 by April 20 after many parents voluntarily took their children out of the village, according to the municipal board of education.

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The cumulative radiation level in the Nagadoro district from March 23 to April 27 came to 12.84 millisieverts, and by March of next year is estimated to amount to 61.7 millisieverts — far above the 20 millisievert a year guideline for which the government designates zones for gradual evacuation.

Source: Mainichi Daily News

The Wall Street Journal quotes the official as saying they “have ignored the laws and have only dealt with the problem at the moment.”

Japanese Nuclear Adviser Quits

A special advisor to the Japanese government on radiation safety resigned Friday, saying that he was dissatisfied with the handling of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Toshiso Kosako, a professor at the prestigious University of Tokyo, said at a news conference that the prime minister’s office and agencies within the government “have ignored the laws and have only dealt with the problem at the moment.” Holding back tears, he said this approach would only prolong the crisis. […]

Source: The Wall Street Journal