A urine analysis performed by a French non-profit organization on ten children after the Fukushima nuclear accident in a nearby city show small levels of radiation contamination in the form of radioactive caesium, even though they live outside the national government’s 30-kilometer evacuation zone. Although it is not clear the harm this will cause, it is well known that children are more sensitive to radiation contamination than adults and caesium 137 is certainly one of the recognised cancer inducing radio nuclides.
During the first days after the accident we reported the emerging reality that in Japan the industry and the regulators were in such intimate cooperation as to make any safety procedures completely unreliable. Worryingly too, it has been disclosed that in the UK the government, fearing that there would be a backlash against nuclear power following the Fukuyima accident, also collaborated with the nuclear industry in order to minimise the true extent of the unfolding disaster.
“Internal emails seen by the Guardian (newspaper) show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/30/british-government-plan-play-down-fukushima.
