AFP - Fukushima City Gov. To Provide 34,000 Dosimeters To Children Living Near Exclusion Zone

[hatrack]

TOKYO — Japan's Fukushima city said on Tuesday it would hand radiation dosimeters to 34,000 children to gauge their exposure from the crippled nuclear power plant about 60 kilometres (40 miles) away.

The city will hand the measuring devices to all children aged between four and 15 for three months from September so that they can wear them around the clock, an official at the city's education board told AFP. The city is outside the government's 20-kilometre (12-mile) evacuation and no-go zone around the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, but many residents are concerned about radiation, he said.

"There have been fixed-spot radiation measurements but parents and citizens are concerned about individual exposure," said the official.

"We also believe the distribution of dosimeters will help ease parents' worries if they confirm their children's exposure does not pose health risks." He added that radiation in the city had been below the official threshold for health risks, and said the children's dosimeters would be read out once a month to assess cumulative radiation exposure.

EDIT

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hTcfz3z7V1EoAW09WHVP8ztRG6Zg?docId=CNG.eca0bdeb0626fbbd85f544eeaf144943.4e1

[SpoonFed]

1. Can a chest-pinned dosimeter...

detect whether or not you've inhaled a hot particle like Plutonium in a dustball?

I don't having anything except casual knowledge of modern dosimetry, are these things measuring Alpha, Beta and Gamma? Error factors?

[kristopher]

2. The stress these communities are under is unimaginable.

Did you know that there is almost nothing as frightening to the average Japanese as cancer? Any cancer diagnosis is viewed as a death sentence. It is so bad that patients are almost universally lied to about the diagnosis because they are prone to committing suicide no matter what they are told the prognosis is.

The family is informed instead and asked to cooperate in the deception.

[Nihil]

3. Fascinating insight ...

> It is so bad that patients are almost universally lied to about the diagnosis
> because they are prone to committing suicide no matter what they are told the
> prognosis is.
>
> The family is informed instead and asked to cooperate in the deception.

:wow:

Moral of the story is "Never trust what a Japanese doctor is telling you" !

Thanks for that.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. What led to this?

Hiroshima/Nagasaki or something else?

[SpoonFed]

6. Yeah, it is incredible in a bad way.

The stress these communities are under is unimaginable.

I kinda wonder at what point does someone or a family decide to leave everything; like it's time to become expats. I can imagine it being somewhere around the local school handing out dosimeters to your kids.

[flamingdem]

4. Aw Shucks my very own dosimeter, says the smiling child nt