母乳の放射能調査と母子支援について／Significance of research on breast milk and support for mothers and children affected by radiation exposure

[From http://bonyuutyousa.net/?p=185]


Significance of research on breast milk and support for mothers and children affected by radiation exposure


The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant catastrophe, a disaster of yet unknown proportions, has been sending large amounts of radioactivity into the environment since March 11 2011 causing widespread contamination throughout the northern half of Japan. For over two months after the accident, the residents in the vast areas have been forced to face constant exposure to radiation.

Despite the widespread contamination of radioactivity, internal exposure is not under serious consideration. The legal limits of food and water still remain high, creating a situation where residents in the affected areas are not able to protect themselves from potential internal exposure.

Even five years after the Chernobyl accident, about 20% of 206 breast milk samples from BRYANSK of the Russian Federation found to be contaminated with cesium-137 over the legal limit of 37 Bq/l. The survey that took place in Belarus in 2007 shows that even 21 years after the accident, contamination levels of 2-3 times the legal limit were identified in breast milk. We should not repeat the tragedy of Chernobyl that has still been affecting the people for a quarter century.

Under these circumstances, we founded the Support Network for mothers and children and started investigation on breast milk.

Initially, we examined nine samples that mothers in Fukushima, Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures offered and four of them were found to be contaminated with iodine. Unfortunately, our concerns were confirmed.

Following the test, we published the result in the press conference at the Ministry of Health/Labor/Welfare on April 21. We also called on mothers in Fukushima/Irabaki/Chiba for more support for the testing.

On May 18, we published the results of 49 samples including the first 9 samples. We called on the affiliated government and private institutions as well as the citizens for support. On June 2, we updated the data with additional results. On June 11, we published about 100 updated results. (See the figure at the bottom)

It is crucial to run research on breast milk contamination because:

1. It is an indication for possible internal exposure among infants.

Due to the fact that infants are said to be 3-10 times susceptible to radiation compared to adults and there is said to be no threshold for internal exposure, we consider the data of radioactive substances in breast milk to be crucial information for measuring internal exposure of infants.

2. It offers important information to know internal exposure of mothers

Along with other measurements such as blood/urine tests and whole body counts, it also can be an important indication for internal exposure among the residents of the affected areas.

3 It is effective for prevention of further internal exposure

It can also be possible to make assumption how they were affected by combining personal information of mothers such as their lifestyle and what they have eaten and where they went. It leads to avoidance of further risk, along with the other monitoring of air, soil, water and foodstuffs.

4 It builds important data for potential health problems among children and adults, offering useful information for identification of the cause and providing better treatments

*Breast milk plays a great role for infants’ immune system. Therefore we’d like to confirm safety of breast milk.

We, the Support Network for mothers and children for the breast milk testing, are calling for nursing mothers in the affected areas to join the test. We also ask people across the country to donate and support. (currently, the cost of testing is 15,000yen/sample)

Donate to: Japan Postal Bank(Yucho Bank)
Account Holder Name : 母乳調査・母子支援ネットワーク

Bank name : Yucho Bank
Branch:218
Account Number: 12170-7008999

【写真展のお知らせ】6/8～11「広河隆一 チェルノブイリの子どもたち」＠早稲田 Photo Exhibition "Children of Chernobyl"

早稲田でチェルノブイリの子どもたちの写真展を開催します。会期が短いですが、ぜひお越しください。

*************

広河隆一写真展

チェルノブイリの子どもたち

放射能は見えないから、なんとなく大丈夫、と思いがち。いま再び、チェルノブイリの子どもたちの写真を通して、これが放射能の現実で、いまわたしたちにも起こっていることなのだということを伝えたい。チェルノブイリの子どもたちが命をかけて訴えている、その彼ら / 彼女らの身体を、もう一度、われわれは想起し、そして子どもたちの悲劇を、今こそ語り継ぎ、受け止めなければ、悲劇は止まりません。

■期 間:2011 年 6 月 8 日(水)～ 11 日(土)

■時 間:10 時から 19 時(最終日は 16 時まで)

■入場料:500 円(高校生は 200 円、中学生以下は無料)

■場 所:日本キリスト教会館 1 階 11 号室
東京都新宿区西早稲田 2-3-18(アバコブライダルホールと同じ敷地)
最寄り駅 東西線 早稲田駅 新宿副都心線 西早稲田駅

共催:キリスト教事業所連帯合同労働組合、アハリー・アラブ病院を支援する会 MAIL:le_bois_de_hanyu@yahoo.co.jp FAX:03-3207-1273(留守電あり)

配布用ビラはこちら

Fear for contaminated breast milk

[From 母乳調査・母子支援ネットワーク the Support Network for mothers and children for the breast milk testing   http://bonyuutyousa.net/?p=13 ]

 

Fear for contaminated breast milk

There is fear for contaminated breast milk caused by the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster.

We’re calling on nursing mothers living in areas  where radiation levels are high to join breast milk testing. We also urge people across the country and the world to support the mothers and their babies for our movement.

Out of fear for breast milk contamination, we conducted tests on breast milk kindly offered by nine mothers: 5 from Ibaraki prefecture, 3 from Fukushima prefecture and one from Miyagi prefecture. Iodine 131 was detected in breast milk of more than one mother from Ibaraki while breast milk from Fukushima and Miyagi came out negative.

We were astonished by the fact that radioactive substance was actually found in breast milk. There can be various reasons for the result but what we are concerned is that the current radiation levels in the air, water, vegetables and the milk in neighboring areas of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant are affecting nursing mothers severely and may pose a risk to their babies health.

The mothers who took courage to offer us their milk did so because they desperately want to protect their babies. We need to support them and pursue to conduct more tests. And in case we get a positive result of contamination, we need to ensure safe evacuation, food, the water and the milk formula as well as substitute breast milk from other mothers for the family. We’d like to build up a network to meet these needs.

The Japanese government has repeatedly announced that there is no immediate threat to human health under the current radiation levels. But is it truly so? It was 10 years after the Chernobyl explosion that leukemia and thyroid cancer peaked in children. That’s why we hope to build our own data on the issue of breast milk contamination with help from the network of civil society. In the past, the official data was always in favor of the government, hurting victims’ causes, as in the Atomic Bomb diseases, the Chisso-Minamata disease, the toxic Kanemi oil disease and drug-related diseases.

Furthermore, the Japanese government has yet to investigate breast milk or published the result, if any. We suspect that it is because they are waiting for the physical evidence of internal contamination to become hard to identify.

The examination of breast milk can be the only measure to make internal exposure visible with the figures. We believe that building up data on food, environment and life-style in regard to radiation will inspire people to think about causes and solutions of internal exposure.

We, the Support Network for mothers and children for the breast milk testing, are calling for nursing mothers in contaminated areas to join the test and ask people across the country to donate for the tests and support.

April 21, 2011

the Support Network for mothers and children for the breast milk testing

Founders:

Kikuko Murakami

Ayako Oga

Saeko Uno

Mitunobu Ohishi

Kazumi Murai

Masaharu Kawada

Yukiko Mukai

Shinichi Kurobe

Chizuko Takahashi

Mai Murakami

Donate to: Japan Postal Bank(Yucho Bank)
Account Holder Name : 母乳調査・母子支援ネットワーク

Bank name : Yucho Bank

Branch:218
Account Number: 12170-70089991

子どもの低線量被曝を放置している問題について【学校・教育関係者関連】

福島県教組が要請 : 放射線による健康被害から子どもたちを守るための具体的措置の要請

http://www.labornetjp.org/news/2011/1303982780641staff01

福島大学原発災害支援フォーラム（福島大学教員有志）

提言「福島大学および県は、低線量被曝リスクについて慎重な立場を」

http://fukugenken.e-contents.biz/proposal

ガンバロウ福大！行政の「結」（福島大学行政政策学類教員有志ブログ）

http://311gyosei.blog39.fc2.com/page-1.html

OPINION: Children of Fukushima need our protection

[ From Kyodo News http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/87835.html ]

OPINION: Children of Fukushima need our protection

By Tilman Ruff
MELBOURNE, April 26, Kyodo

I was dismayed to learn that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology earlier this week increased the allowable dose of ionizing radiation for children in Fukushima Prefecture.

The dose they set, 3.8 microsieverts per hour, equates to more than 33 millisieverts (mSv) over a year. This is to apply to children in kindergartens, nursery, primary and junior high schools. Let me try to put this in perspective.

Widely accepted science tells us that the health risk from radiation is proportional to the dose -- the bigger the dose the greater the risk, and there is no level without risk.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends that all radiation exposure be kept as low as achievable, and for the public, on top of background radiation and any medical procedures, should not exceed 1 mSv per year.

For nuclear industry workers, they recommend a maximum permissible annual dose of 20 mSv averaged over five years, with no more than 50 mSv in any one year.

In Japan the maximum allowed annual dose for workers, 100 mSv, was already higher than international standards. This has been increased in response to the Fukushima disaster to 250 mSv.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII report estimates that each 1 mSv of radiation is associated with an increased risk of solid cancer (cancers other than leukemia) of about 1 in 10,000; an increased risk of leukemia of about 1 in 100,000; and a 1 in 17,500 increased risk of dying from cancer.

But a critical factor is that not everyone faces the same level of risk. For infants (under 1 year of age) the radiation-related cancer risk is 3 to 4 times higher than for adults; and female infants are twice as susceptible as male infants.

Females' overall risk of cancer related to radiation exposure is 40 percent greater than for males. Fetuses in the womb are the most radiation-sensitive of all.

The pioneering Oxford Survey of Childhood Cancer found that X-rays of mothers, involving doses to the fetus of 10-20 mSv, resulted in a 40 percent increase in the cancer rate among children up to age 15.

In Germany, a recent study of 25 years of the national childhood cancer register showed that even the normal operation of nuclear power plants is associated with a more than doubling of the risk of leukemia for children under 5 years old living within 5 kilometers of a nuclear plant.

Increased risk was seen to more than 50 km away. This was much higher than expected, and highlights the particular vulnerability to radiation of children in and outside the womb.

In addition to exposure measured by typical external radiation counters, the children of Fukushima will also receive internal radiation from particles inhaled and lodged in their lungs, and taken in through contaminated food and water.

A number of radioactive substances are concentrated up the food chain and in people. As a parent, as a physician, the decision to allow the children of Fukushima to be exposed to such injurious levels of radiation is an unacceptable abrogation of the responsibility of care and custodianship for our children and future generations.

(Tilman Ruff is chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and associate professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia.)

==Kyodo

Urgent Petition Against 20 millisieverts per year (mSv/y) Radiation Exposure onto Children in Fukushima

[From FoE Japan http://blog.canpan.info/foejapan/daily/201104/24 ]

Please register your opposition to the Japanese Govt decision to expose Fukushima children to 20mSv of radiationOn 19 April, Japan's Education & Science Ministry (MEXT) ordered Fukushima children under radioactive environment of the ongoing nuclear plant crisis to bear annual radiation dose of 20mSv (millisievert), which is equivalent to nuclear plant workers dose limit and is more than 6 times the legal baseline for defining Radiation-Controlled Area where under-18 workers are allowed by law.The annual limit was so far 1 mSv; the Minister officials say that they did not take internal exposure dose into account; and that no relevance of young age risk has been considered, either.Please urgently register your opposition to such an inhumane, unethical and illegal decision of the Japanese Government at http://bit.Ly/20mSvNothx .

For your reference: (English) <http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/Greenpeace-condemns-move-to-raise-radiation-exposure-levels-for-Japanese-children/>http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/Greenpeace-condemns-move-to-raise-radiation-exposure-levels-for-Japanese-children(German) http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,758410,00.html(Spanish) http://tertuliajapon.blogspot.com/2011/04/107gritos-desesperados-de-una.html

こどもの未来・参考サイト

日弁連「福島県内の学校等の校舎・校庭等の利用判断における暫定的考え方について」に関する会長声明
http://www.nichibenren.or.jp/ja/opinion/statement/110422_2.html 

母子調査・母子支援ネットワーク「母乳に放射能汚染の心配があります」
http://bonyuutyousa.net/?p=13 

子供20ミリシーベルト撤回を要求するオンライン署名（グリーン・アクション、グリーンピース・ジャパン、原子力資料情報室、福島老朽原発を考える会、美浜・大飯・高浜原発に反対する大阪の会、国際環境NGO FoE Japan）

http://fukurou.txt-nifty.com/fukurou/2011/04/20-4449.html 

 

福島乳幼児・妊産婦支援プロジェクト 

http://sicpmf.blog55.fc2.com/