(NaturalNews) A Japanese nuclear safety official has now publicly admitted the Japanese government improperly withheld potassium iodide from the public for three days following the Fukushima power plant explosion. Kazuma Yokota says the Japanese government was "caught off guard" by the nuclear catastrophe and didn't realize its people needed potassium iodide until three days later.
Associated Press distributed this statement, which has been carried by hundreds of mainstream news organizations:
"A Japanese nuclear safety official, Kazuma Yokota, acknowledged that the government only belatedly realized the need to give potassium iodide pills that help reduce chances of thyroid cancer to those living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the nuclear complex."This explanation defies logic, of course. How can a person whose job is to assure the safety of the nuclear industry
not realize that an exploding nuclear power plant might be dangerous to its people? This should have been the very first action item made public: Take your potassium iodide! A nuclear plant has just exploded, and radiation is leaking into the environment... what to do?
That the explosion at Fukushima did not trigger an immediate announcement for people to take potassium iodide is yet more
evidence of Japanese government incompetence or perhaps even a cover-up. It's almost as if the government didn't want people to think the explosion was a big deal, so they downplayed the whole scenario and didn't bother to warn people to take action. Encouraging people to take
potassium iodide might have "frightened" them, they probably figured.
If that sounds familiar, it's probably because President Obama has taken exactly the same non-action in the United States, too. Last week, he publicly urged people to
do nothing to prepare against the very real possibility of radioactive fallout reaching California (
http://www.naturalnews.com/031735_Obama_radioactive_fallout.html).
When it comes to taking intelligent action following this
nuclear catastrophe -- which already ranks as the second worst nuclear accident in the history of human civilization --
our governments all earn an "F" grade. Because they failed to warn the citizens to take because precautionary steps, and in doing so, they are setting in motion a sequence of events that will get people killed.
Thousands of cases of future cancers may be attributable to the radiation already emitted from Fukushima. Had the Japanese
government acted sooner, some of those cancers might have been avoided with potassium iodide.
That's what the substance exists for, after all. If you don't use it following a nuclear power plant explosion, then why have it at all?
We will be fortunate, indeed, if the Fukushima nuclear power plant situation is resolved without further radiation leaks. A close brush with nuclear catastrophe, no doubt. One lesson we can all learn from this is that
those who wait for their governments to tell them what to do may pay for their lack of action with their lives.
Sources for this story include:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/some-progress-reported-in-japans-...http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c19ed90e-5328-11e0-86e6-00144feab49a.html#a...
About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate and award-winning journalist with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, and he is well known as the creator of popular downloadable preparedness programs on financial collapse, emergency food storage, wilderness survival and home defense skills. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In mid 2010, Adams produced TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural health video sharing website offering user-generated videos on nutrition, green living, fitness and more. He's also a noted pioneer in the email marketing software industry, having been the first to launch an HTML email newsletter technology that has grown to become a standard in the industry. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds.
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Monday, March 21, 2011
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