Crime by Government --- KI is Kept Away from Japanese People

Crime by Government --- KI is Kept Away from Japanese People



The Japanese electricity companies succeeded in persuading the people living near the sites of projected Japanese nuclear power plants to allow the construction of those plants. They explained at their briefings that there was no risk of a nuclear accident, citing the superiority of Japanese nuclear technology and the safety controls in place. They assured the townspeople that everything would be controlled and monitored by computers. They also assured everyone that even a minor problem at the plant would stop the plant’s operation and that operation would not be resumed until the problem was fixed. They explained that minor problems would be weeded out and that accidents would have no chance to develop.


They were like salesmen selling cars – telling customers that they will never break down. The people bought their tall story in Japan.


Of course there were skeptics and opponents who didn’t buy their story. But those people were in a minority and were often branded as “political nuts” and persecuted as obstructers of “constructive” plans for their town. Actually, “cooperative” towns became “rich” thanks to employment, new public facilities and cash for every household.


The presenter at the local briefing never mentioned the stockpiling of KI which is mandated by the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency. To talk about KI in front of the townspeople would have been suicidal, not only for the presenter but for the whole plan. KI was a taboo subject. KI, Potassium Iodide, is produced mainly as a protective agent against radioactive iodine and is supposed to be used in the event of radiation emergencies. So the topic of KI necessarily implies nuclear accidents. The possibility of nuclear accidents was banished from the presentation because KI was never mentioned.


Avoiding the topic of KI revealed that they were lying by omission. Even after winning the agreement of the townspeople and the subsequent construction of the nuclear power plant in question, the presenter said nothing about KI stockpiling to the townspeople -- except to the mayor, who had to promise not to tell the townspeople.


They managed to make the townspeople swallow a poisonous nuclear power plant without talking about "an antidote."


In this way the concealment of KI became part of the strategy in the development of nuclear power plants in Japan. The less visible KI was the better for the proliferation of nuclear power plants around Japan. It turned out that it would be best to make KI as invisible as possible.


The electricity companies could never get away with this without government complicity. Actually Potassium Iodide was classified as a “powerful drug” and is still unavailable without a doctor’s prescription in Japan. We never see KI on the shelf of pharmacies or drug stores. It is usually behind the curtain in the pharmacy even when available. It is illegal to possess KI or to give KI or to stock KI without a prescription.


The doctors representing the government usually emphasize the existence of side effects of KI and its potential severity when taken excessively, by accident. Such “lab coat bluff” is typical in the case of KI in Japan. Even in “Wikipedia” in the Japanese language, the general public is advised not to use KI without a doctor’s approval and guidance because of its potential danger. The arm of the government and the finger of the Ministry of Health & Labor are very long.


As for KI, the Wall Street Journal says as follows;

“Following the Chernobyl accident in 1986, Poland gave 10.5 million children at least one dose of KI soon after the accident, with very few reports of resulting side effects.” ---The Wall Street Journal Asia: September 29, 2011 “Japan Officials Failed to Hand Out Radiation Pills in Quake's Aftermath”


The general public knew very little about KI in Japan for a long time -- even after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those were the first and second major radiation emergencies that mankind has experienced in history. Only after the third major radiation disaster in the same ill-fated country, the Fukushima nuclear disaster on 3/11, did a handful people become interested in KI. But they are intimidated by “the lab coat bluff.”


So the nation that has suffered three major radiation disasters is systematically kept at a distance from KI, the one substance that protects people from radiation. Unfortunately, the Japanese people are scarcely aware of the clandestine efforts to make KI as unavailable as possible.


It would be useful to cite a part of the following document; “WHO: Guidelines for Iodine Prophylaxis following Nuclear Accidents Update 1999”

“… The latest information on the balance of risks and benefits will also need to be properly considered in the plans for any distribution and storage of stable iodine. It suggests that stockpiling is warranted, when feasible, over much wider areas than normally encompassed by emergency planning zones, and that the opportunity for voluntary purchase be part of national plans.”


It is worthwhile to quote the last sentence again; “… and that the opportunity for voluntary purchase be part of national plans.”

The 3/11 Fukushima nuclear disaster revealed the flagrant neglect of the Japanese government in this respect. This is a serious humanitarian issue. We are witnessing a crime committed by the government. The Japanese government not only took away the opportunity for people to defend themselves against nuclear disaster, they are still unwilling to remove the restrictions around KI.　


The government thinks their crimes have not been discovered. Upon being discovered, perhaps they might respond by saying, “We have our own pharmaceutical laws in Japan.” But the government should know that there are wrong laws as well as right laws. The difference is that right laws are moral and wrong laws are immoral. A government that lets its people suffer needlessly in a nuclear disaster in order to protect its own interests and those of large corporations is acting immorally – and abominably. The fact that this is happening to the Japanese people who suffered the unspeakable consequences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki makes the government’s crime even more abominable.

A government that crafts legislation to protect large corporations and the government itself from culpability – legislation designed to keep out of the hands of the population the one substance that can protect them from radiation -- has committed a moral abomination. It has acted criminally, with malice aforethought, to perpetrate an evil hoax on its own people who are unwittingly destined to suffer untold misery, once again, but this time at the hands of their own government, not at the hands of a foreign power.