Fallout from Nuclear Meltdown Persists
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Shiina, who spoke through as many as four interpreters, is attempting to raise money to open an independent medical clinic, she explained, so the doctors won’t insist so adamantly there’s no connection between the symptoms they witness and the massive quantities of radiation released last year. In fact, she said, they won’t even talk about it. “To talk about radioactive stuff,” she said, “is taboo.” Nurses, she said, will shush patients who suggest there might be a connection. And a high-ranking government medical official, she said, was dispatched to Fukushima in the wake of the disaster to affirmatively dispel concerns about radiation exposure. “The doctor tells them there’s no relationship with radiation at all,” Shiina said. “He said, ‘If you keep laughing, you’re not going to get sick.’”
There are about 5,200 miles separating Fukushima, Japan — site of last year’s massive meltdown at the Daiichi nuclear power plant — and Avila Beach, California, home of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, but for Chieko Shiina, a prematurely retired organic farmer from Fukushima turned anti-nuke activist, the message remains the same. “Please learn from our experience,” she told a small gathering clustered in an airless room Tuesday afternoon. “Stop the nuclear power plants right now.”
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