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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFrom the Humans Suck File: Doctors: Japan nuclear plant workers face stigma
By David Guttenfelder, AP
A growing number of Japanese workers who are risking their health to shut down the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant are suffering from depression, anxiety about the future and a loss of motivation, say two doctors who visit them regularly.
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But their psychological problems are driven less by fears about developing cancer from radiation exposure and more by something immediate and personal: Discrimination from the very community they tried to protect, says Jun Shigemura, who heads a volunteer team of about ten psychiatrists and psychologists from the National Defense Medical College who meet with Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear plant employees.
They tell therapists they have been harangued by residents displaced in Japan's nuclear disaster and threatened with signs on their doors telling them to leave. Some of their children have been taunted at school, and prospective landlords have turned them away.
"They have become targets of people's anger," Shigemura told The Associated Press.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-08-05/japanese-nuclear-workers-backlash/56797596/1
Take it out on the Tepco execs, on the gov't, but the workers going into that hell hole?
longship
(40,416 posts)Where was TEPCO and the government when the damned things blew up?
I am ignorant of Japanese culture. But in this case I think it may have failed them. Any physicist could have told both TEPCO or the government what would happen at those reactors. But not willing to admit that you made a mistake is inexcusable. Whether it was culture or business as usual, I don't know. But there will be hell to pay regardless.
Fukushima isn't going away anytime soon. There is going to be a rather large exclusion zone there for some number of decades, if not centuries.
TEPCO fucked up big time. So did the government; which is why it fell shortly after.
Edweird
(8,570 posts)Last edited Sun Aug 5, 2012, 09:41 AM - Edit history (2)
How Radioactive Contamination Is Spread
People who are externally contaminated with radioactive material can contaminate other people or surfaces that they touch. For example, people who have radioactive dust on their clothing may spread the radioactive dust when they sit in chairs or hug other people.
People who are internally contaminated can expose people near them to radiation from the radioactive material inside their bodies. The body fluids (blood, sweat, urine) of an internally contaminated person can contain radioactive materials. Coming in contact with these body fluids can result in contamination and/or exposure.
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/contamination.asp
That shit is no joke. I still maintain that the Japanese people in that area should have packed their stuff and hauled ass the day it happened.