Press release, June 30th, 2011 (Download pdf)
ACRO has analyzed urine of children living in Fukushima-city located at about 60 km of the Fukushima NPP. There is no ambiguity on the results: all samples are tainted by cesium 134 and cesium 137 at concentrations ranging from 0.4 to 1.3 becquerels per litre.
This means that these children between 6 and 16 years old are all contaminated by cesium 134 and cesium 137. There were also probably contaminated by iodine 131 that disappears quickly and cannot be detected now.
It is difficult to evaluate the contamination of the whole body from these data. It is a strong incitation for the Japanese authorities to systematically measure the internal contamination of the people exposed to the radioactive plumes and of the people living in the contaminated territories. This can be easily done (by anthropogammametry).
The results of the measurement of the internal contamination should then be taken into account in the evaluation of the dose absorbed by the population.
This reinforces our opinion that the evacuation threshold fixed by the Japanese authorities is too high. Many NGO’s, including ACRO, have criticized this limit that is fixed at 20 millisieverts for the first year. It is 2 times larger that limit fixed by the French authorities in case of an accident and 20 times larger than the usual maximum permissible dose for the public.
This internal contamination is due to the exposition to the radioactive plume and/or to the tainted food. It should be added to the other ways of exposition of the population due to the radioactive pollution. The limit of the permissible dose due to these other ways of exposition should be decreased.
Results online here