I agree. It was so disturbing to see the Japanese take a page from the Soviet playbook (e.g. the way they told the population ‘all is well’ while Chernobyl irradiated the town.) The Soviets ‘didn’t want to alarm’ the public so they let them hold outdoor May Day celebrations a few km from the smoldering reactor. Then they did the math and figured out that, in two weeks, the entire town’s population would be dead at the rate of irradiation they were experiencing. So they abruptly put people on buses, once again lying to them and telling them they could return in two weeks, even though the Soviets knew that the people could never return. The Soviets made it illegal to report any person’s death as radiation related for the first 3 years following Chernobyl. 1.6 million people were forced to continue living in contaminated zones because there was no place to relocate them to.
A few months ago, a rabid pro nuker pointed to an international study that indicated that what the Soviets called ‘mental illness’ was a bigger problem for those who went through Chernobyl and were living in contaminated zones than were the medical problems caused by radiation. This pro nuker was taunting me by saying the hysteria around radiation was more damaging to populations than was actual radiation. It seriously never occurred to him, or he would never admit to it, that the so called ‘mental illness’ was the hopelessness and despair of a population that, though already living under the oppression of communism, had come face to face with their government’s a)control over their survival b) complete betrayal and lying and c) dismissal of all responsibility or regard for their humanity.
You can’t force people to raise their children in radioactive contamination and ‘call it ice cream’ without shattering people’s hope for the future. I NEVER believed that Japan would follow any portion of that same path, until now. They continue to release ‘the truth’ months after decisions to protect human life can be made. They didn’t share projections that showed radioactive plume over Tokyo around March 15 etc. The lies, lies, lies. Bad enough that the Japanese have had the shattering heartbreak of the tsunami and earthquake - but their government/nuke industry is actively working against their attempts to protect themselves. Like that won’t break hearts along with destroying health?