I am guilty of sentimentalizing children. They are literally our future. We must not foresake them.
Yet we do, over and over again. And in so many ways.
In particular, their environmental health should be our priority and by environmental I mean social, biological, and physical environments.
But let's focus here on physical environment.
Children are, of course, much more susceptible to injury from environmental hazards than most adults.
This is an established fact.
Yet, environmental protections for children are being loosened in the US and Japan.
The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is loosening mercury restrictions (
here). Mercury is a potent environmental toxin with well established adverse impacts on children (
here).
In Japan, the government has decided not to uphold expert recommendations that children's exposure to radiation be limited to 1 millisievert.
INTERNATIONAL BACK-TRACKING
Both cases, the US and Japanese, demonstrate back-tracking when it comes to protecting our children.
The Japanese case has caused international consternation, as expressed by UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Baskut Tuncak, who contested the decision by the Japanese government to set the exposure level at 20 millisieverts a year:
UN envoy: Halt children's return to Fukushima. (2018, October 26) NHK, https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20181026_30/
...The government set the exposure limit at 20 milisieverts per year as a condition for lifting evacuation orders issued for parts of the prefecture after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.
Tuncak criticized the government for not taking into account the council's recommendation that the limit be one milisievert.
The article notes that a Japanese delegate responded to the criticism by saying that the limit of 20 millisieverts was derived from a "2007 recommendation by the International Commission on Radiological Protection."
The delegate also accused Tuncak of slandering Fukushima's reputation.
Japan's efforts to redress international criticism against raising its permissible exposure level for children include making children a "priority" for iodine tablets:
Children to be given priority for iodine tablets against radiation (2018, November 21). The Mainichi,
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181121/p2g/00m/0dm/078000c
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's nuclear regulation body decided Wednesday to review the nation's prior distribution system of iodine tablets against radiation exposure, with an eye on giving priority to children. Current rules say iodine tablets should be in principle distributed in advance to all residents living within a 5-kilometer radius of 16 nuclear plants in 13 prefectures, where doing so is deemed difficult under emergency situations. But some municipal governments have yet to hand out the tablets to all residents, including children who are more vulnerable to radiation exposure.
Iodine tablets help prevent absorption of radioiodine but do nothing to prevent absorption of other radionuclides, such as radioactive strontium.
Fukushima reportedly produced 1,000 different radioactive isotopes. There are 36 radioactive isotopes that undergo radioactive decay according to Wikipedia (
here ). There are 31 known radioactive isotopes of strontium (
here). Strontium bioaccumulates in bones (like calcium) and in the brain (strontium confused again with calcium). There are hundreds of other radioactive isotopes in the environment now because of the 3 reactor meltdowns at Daiichi.
Children in Japan will now be exposed to radiation levels 20X times what was previously acceptable. This is a major step backwards in Japan.
In the US little attention is afforded to the impacts on children from mercury and other contaminants.
Indeed, while the radiation monitoring of NETC (which includes EPA radnet data sources) indicates elevated radiation levels in the US -- probably coming from California's fires (especially from
Woolsey Fire ) -- NO warnings or provisions are being made to my knowledge regarding protection against contamination:
Are children homo sacer (i.e., without rights?
Agamben here)?
RELATED POSTS
Majia's Blog: Fukushima Children