Wednesday, June 3, 2009

just a little hibakusha

I'm almost surprised no one caught this in the news and reposted it here, then again, it was in FOX news, so I guess I can't be too shocked.

Japan to Give More Victims of Atomic Bomb free Health Care
May 28, 2009
After years of harshly defining "hibakusha" to not include many of the survivors of the atomic blast and it's aftermath, Japan has finally decided to give just a little bit more back to the people that deserve it. "But less than 1 percent of survivors have been officially recognized as suffers of "atomic bomb illness" under the government's criteria, originally established in 1959, public broadcaster NHK said." Haruko Nishimoto, at the young age of 71, one of the winning plaintiffs Thursday, told NHK that she was initially disqualified because she was several hundred yards outside the 2 km required radius from ground zero when the bomb hit. Doctors were later able to link her thyroid deficiency with radiation exposure in Nagasaki.
The Wiki states some of the rules to be hibakusha

The Japanese Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms has been fighting the battle for these people for awhile. The Japanese law currently states that hibakusha covered by law does not include rescue workers, anyone who later entered the scene, or anyone outside of the blast radius. Supposed scientific evidence from the US tests "proved" that anyone within those parameters not covered by law would be unaffected. Fallout from Chernobyl certainly was not contained within one specific area, and neither were the atomic bomb blasts (or the radioactive dust that sprinkled around everything after the hydrogen bomb test)

1 comment:

  1. glad you posted this - yeah, i saw it and hoped someone would put it on the blog. gold star for you.

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