School tells teacher not to warn school children in Fukushima

This is from an article in the Japan Times [excerpts]

Fukushima teacher muzzled over radiation

By TAKAHIKO HYUGA

Bloomberg

As temperatures soared above 100 degrees on a recent July morning, schoolchildren in Fukushima Prefecture were taking off their masks and running around playgrounds in T-shirts, exposing themselves to a similar amount of annual radiation as a nuclear power plant worker.

Toshinori Shishido, a Japanese literature teacher of 25 years, warned his students two months ago to wear surgical masks and keep their skin covered with long-sleeved shirts. His advice went unheeded, not because of the weather but because his school told him not to alarm students. Shishido quit last week.

"I want to get away from this situation where I'm not even allowed to alert children about radiation exposure," said Shishido, 48, who taught at Fukushima Nishi High School. "Now I'm free to talk about the risks."

After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku region, the central government evacuated as many as 470,000 residents, including 160,000 because of radiation risks from the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 power plant. More than 2 million people, including 271,000 children, remain in Fukushima, the third-biggest prefecture by size.

The government is closely monitoring radiation levels, said Yoshiaki Ishida, an official in the education ministry.

"We don't think we are at a stage to tell Fukushima people to evacuate at the moment," Ishida said.

Kiyoharu Furukawa, 57, assistant principal at Fukushima Nishi High, said the school told Shishido not to spend too much time talking about radiation during his classes because some students and parents had complained. He confirmed Shishido resigned.

Radiation can damage human cells and DNA, with prolonged exposure causing leukemia and other forms of cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association. Children are more susceptible as their cells grow at a faster rate.

"It's all invisible. The trees are still trees, people are shopping, the birds are singing and dogs are walking in the street," said Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster's school of biomedical sciences, who visited Fukushima recently to provide information on health risks. "When you bring out the (Geiger) machines, you can see everything is sparkling and everyone is being bitten by invisible snakes that will eventually kill them."

Shishido will leave Fukushima for Sapporo on Aug. 8 to join his wife and two children, aged 13 and 10, he said. The teacher aims to create a network there to help the 3,000 evacuees from Fukushima find jobs.

Shishido said he was instructed by school officials not to tell his students that they should wear masks or about how radiation would affect their health. He deleted some comments from his blog after receiving those orders in May.

"I saw little boys playing baseball in a cloud of dust, and I wondered who can protect their future," said Kanako Nishikata, a 33-year-old housewife with a son, aged 11, and daughter, aged 8. "It's shocking to learn a teacher is quitting because he can't protect the students."

A group of parents and children from Fukushima plan to visit education minister Yoshiaki Takaki on Aug. 17 to ask him to evacuate children from the prefecture, she said.

Fukushima Nishi High, which has 873 students, had readings of 0.07 microsieverts per hour in the school building and 1.5 microsieverts per hour in the playground on July 14, still within the safety limits set by the prefecture and central government, said Furukawa, the assistant principal.

The school continues to hold gym classes and sports club activities outside, he said.

"I don't think the children are safe either, and I know the radiation level is still high," Furukawa said. "These days, they are wearing short sleeves and no masks."

More than three-quarters of the schools receive radiation readings of 0.6 microsievert per hour, said the network, a group comprising 700 parents. That's 10 times more than the readings in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, on average.

Miyuki Sato, a 36-year-old housewife who evacuated to Kyoto last week with her two children, attended a town hall meeting with government officials in Fukushima on July 19. She said that even after leaving her home, she still has a ¥120,000 monthly mortgage to pay off.

"You may say we should keep children at home if we think it's dangerous, but kids need to play outside if they want to pick flowers or collect beetles," said the mother of a 9-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter.

"Please get all the children out of Fukushima. Please offer financial aid for us."