Reply #15: Speculation? No, more like meticulous academic research with citations.

[proverbialwisdom]

http://www.thailandoutlook.tv/tan/ViewData.aspx?DataID=1043397

EXCERPT:
Before the catastrophe ...
According to data published by NISA, in 2009, there were 1,108 regular employees (seisha'in at Fukushima NP1. These were TEPCO employees, but may also include some employees from General Electric or Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi. But the vast majority of those working at Fukushima 1 were 9,195 contract laborers (hiseisha'in).

These contract employees or temporary workers were provided by subcontracting companies: they range from rank and file workers who carry out the dirtiest and most dangerous tasks - the nuclear gypsies described in Horie Kunio's 1979 book Nuclear Gypsy and Higuchi Kenji's photographic reports - to highly qualified technicians who supervise maintenance operations...

Why subcontracting?
As early as the mid-1970s, the use of subcontracting labor in the nuclear industry was well established in Japan. In France, this trend would develop after 1988, reaching a rate of 80% by 1992. According to NISA's data, in 2009, Japan's nuclear industry recruited more than 80,000 contract workers against 10,000 regular employees. The initial goal was not necessarily to hide the collective dose, but to limit labor costs. But the fact is that whether in France or Japan, the nuclear industry nurtures a heavy culture of secrecy concerning the number of irradiated workers.

As far as we can know, based on the figures published by the Ministry of Health and Labor, before Fukushima's catastrophe, only nine former workers received compensation for an occupational cancer linked to their intervention in nuclear plants. <5> This number is probably very far from the reality of the victims, given the number of workers exposed and the numerous opacities of that system beginning with the fact that TEPCO and other electric power companies have always refused to disclose the list of their subcontractors...

The objective of epidemiological surveys
...One problem is that the survey only calculates mortality ratios, ignoring people who might have cancer but are still alive at the time of the survey. Such obvious methodological bias is frequent in this sort of surveys. In France and other countries, another bias is the tendency to ignore contract workers, though they receive the highest cumulative radioactive doses. Therefore, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the very goal of these epidemiological surveys is to minimize the risks of nuclear radiation and encourage the nuclear industry's business as usual.

The same logic has prevailed at the WHO and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in their evaluation of Chernobyl's legacy. Compared to a mere 4,000 in the "definitive" United Nations report published in 2005, <6> the report published in November 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences (based on more than 5,000 articles translated from Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian) evaluated the total number of victims 985,000. <7> Of the 830,000 liquidators mobilized at Chernobyl, the Academy of Sciences report estimated that at least 112,000 had already died, compared to some 50 in the UN report.

While the conclusions of the two reports remain contested, even Nakajima Hiroshi, a former WHO director, has acknowledged that the control of WHO by IAEA on nuclear issues was problematic. <8> Therefore we can anticipate that the survey WHO is planning to conduct on Fukushima may provide the same anodyne conclusions.
Notes
1. In the 1980-90s, Fujita Yuko, then professor of physics at Keio University, distributed leaflets warning day laborers not to accept these dangerous jobs. See Higuchi Kenji's documentary in Kamagasaki.
2. Link.
3. On the decommissioning of nuclear plants, see NHK's recent documentary.
4. See the reaction of the chairman of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations to this decision, and the protest petition online.
5. For more details, see the reports of the Citizen Nuclear Information Center's homepage, mainly written by Watanabe Mikiko, who has provided constant follow up and support for these workers (use the following keywords: workers, worker exposure, Nagao Mitsuaki, Kiyuna Tadashi, Umeda Ryusuke, Shimahashi Nobuyuki.).
6. Link.
7. For a presentation of this survey, see this link. Alexey V. Yablokov (Center for Russian Environmental Policy, Moscow, Russia), Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko (Institute of Radiation Safety, Minsk, Belarus). Consulting Editor Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 2009).
8. See the following reports (French only) on the protests in Switzerland about the control of WHO by AIEA on nuclear issues: 1, 2.