Cancer kills Fukushima manager who stayed at post to prevent a meltdown

The former boss of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, who stayed at his post to try to tame runaway reactors after the 2011 tsunami, died of cancer yesterday, the operator said. Masao Yoshida, 58, was at the power station on March 11, 2011, when waves swamped cooling systems and sparked meltdowns that released plumes of radiation.

Yoshida led the subsequent effort to get the crippled complex under control, as workers battled frequent aftershocks to try to prevent the disaster worsening. Government contingency plans revealed after the event showed how scientists feared a chain reaction if Fukushima spiraled out of control, a scenario that could have meant evacuating Tokyo.

Yoshida’s selfless work is contrasted in the public mind with the attitude of his employers, who seemed willing to abandon the complex and are popularly believed to have shirked their responsibility. “He died of esophageal cancer at 11:32am today at a Tokyo hospital,” said a spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) yesterday. Yoshida left the plant soon after being suddenly hospitalized in late November 2011. TEPCO has said his cancer was unlikely to be linked to radiation exposure in the months after the disaster.

The company has said it would take at least five years and normally 10 years to develop this particular condition if radiation exposure were to blame. Following surgery for cancer, Yoshida suffered a brain hemorrhage and had another operation in July 2012, TEPCO said.

Yoshida was still employed by TEPCO at the time of his death. The disaster saw three reactors go into meltdown, spewing radiation into the air, sea and food chain. No deaths have been directly attributed to the radiation released by the accident, but it has left large areas of land uninhabitable.

The plant itself remains fragile. TEPCO said yesterday radioactive substances in groundwater have rocketed over the past three days and engineers did not know where the leak was coming from.

Scientists say decommissioning the plant could take 40 years.

What a sad story. It's ok TEPCO saying radiation wasn't to blame, but who knows? it might be, it might not be. Nobody can say for sure just how much radiation he was exposed too and we all know that any level of radiation is bad for you. Yoshida stayed behind to get the plant under control, the least he deserves is a nice send off.

Source

Those who worked to try to save others in this deserve medals, and massive compensation too. It makes me so mad that this corporation is basically ignoring all their responsibilities in this. It was their fault that this plant was unsafe, and all those who approved it and allowed it to run without preparing for all eventualities should be serving time.

I have to say honestly and bluntly. This story confuses me. It truly does. Since weeks after this event I've been among the crowd just sick by whats happened and far more aware by hard work on self education for the issues here than I now wish I ever had been. There can be knowing too much about a subject ..and it took THIS one to see how true that could be.

Having said that to explain what may seem an odd position for me to take.....it's because of an odd set of facts which don't precisely fit.

If the Fuku disaster was and is as dangerous as the data indicates and the reading out into rural Japan show it has been (Upwind to various degrees, too, for rural readings) then someone explain to me how it took this man THAT long to die?

The Fukushima 50, as they came to be known 'should' all be dead? I mean, if this was SO dangerous and SO contaminated as to create a serious hazard to North America as so much seems to indicate? This guy was there on site and within hundreds of yards of ground zero for 6 months following the meltdowns. If he survived this long ......Is there a chance we've all been played on how dangerous or NOT dangerous this is in reality vs. conjecture and presented material?

Brave man.

I think this makes the first death related to the Fukushima accident?

reply to post by sarahlm


But radiation is safe, even beneficial. That's what the MSM tells us anyway!

I think it's taking long due to the way it's radiation was leaked. It wasn't as if a bomb went off, it's the radiation from the leaked radiation, and the overheated reactor / meltdown.

Now it may look bad, I mean we saw melted metal so it was bad, but if they were in proper rooms, with proper gear on yes they have bad radiation exposure but it's going to take time, for the decay to happen, for the mutations to take place and the cells to be overrun.

Cancer is a slow killer and unless you are directly exposed to radiation for long enuff to cause burning on skin then you are going to suffer the death from cancer not quickly die off like a melt from inside out or anything. Cells take time to die and even cancer cells take time to grow and go through normal processes to spread and kill off other healthy cells.

Research the Japan Atomic bombings after effects for a better understanding, I mean the generations and location correlation, seems the further you are until that no worry radius the longer and more suffering does the radiation take it's toll on you.

well at least he didn't die of radiation sickness, which shows how low the levels were during the leak, remember some guy on here telling me it was bigger than Chernobyl and had its own fallout cloud, dumbass.
expect more cancer in the area and some funky looking babies for a decade showing up on muchsucko.

takes deep bow to manager we all owe a debt to the brave of japan and russia who gave the ultimate sacrifice .

in the years to come we will remember them for what could have happened at fukushima and chernobyl

Originally posted by geobro
takes deep bow to manager

we all owe a debt to the brave of japan and russia who gave the ultimate sacrifice .

in the years to come we will remember them for what could have happened at fukushima and chernobyl

he was just a lowly worker not manager, ala jack lemon in china syndrome.
russians at chernobyl died due to radiation sickness due to much higher levels of radiation.
fukushima was a low level local tragedy not a global situation like chernobyl,
stop reading internet woo if it scares you/fall for it.
over the years windscale/cellafield irradiated more people.

He recalled in the interview often passing out cigarettes to workers in a heavily used smoking room beside the bunker during the disaster and once joked: “We don’t have the US army fire trucks we need but at least we have got smokes.”

Probably a 4 pack a day type of guy with all the stress he was under.

reply to post by sarahlm


TEPCO has hidden a lot in regard to all of this. My understanding is numerous workers from the criticAL event,are ill.
It's all hush hush .
But within two years of exposure....wow.
Sad.

They never get cancer from smoking .If they did,the entire country would have it.
Most salary men are three pack a day smokers. Cancer rates are very very low in Japan

Originally posted by NateHatred

Originally posted by geobro
takes deep bow to manager

we all owe a debt to the brave of japan and russia who gave the ultimate sacrifice .

in the years to come we will remember them for what could have happened at fukushima and chernobyl

he was just a lowly worker not manager, ala jack lemon in china syndrome.
russians at chernobyl died due to radiation sickness due to much higher levels of radiation.
fukushima was a low level local tragedy not a global situation like chernobyl,
stop reading internet woo if it scares you/fall for it.
over the years windscale/cellafield irradiated more people.

It was such a low level local tragedy that we moved our naval detachment more than 100 miles away to ensure their safety and kept them there.

Yeah, low level.

Derek

Originally posted by PtolemyII

Cancer rates are very very low in Japan

Nonsense. They are roughly the same as elsewhere in the world. Stomach cancer rate is quite high (similar to Korea) because the amount of fermented foods they consume.

reply to post by Alekto


Ummm,no . Their rates are not even close to ours. Maybe certain forms are the same,but many are much lower,and they only started rising in the last 15 year's or so ,since the adopted more western foods and vaccines .
Same with cardiac disease and high blood pressure .
Before they started eating Italian food and cream puffs,and vaccinating their kids ,they had almost no cancer or heart disease ,and no autism .

The only cancer they have a high rate of ,is stomach cancer .If you look at stomach cancer statistically,ALL ASIANS ,have a higher rate .
This is probably a genetic predisposition .
I know for a fact,the Japanese stomach is not shaped the same way as a American or European stomach .
In China ,I suspect part of it is the daily intake of Chinese herbs ,some of which are toxic .

That probably has something to do with it . The fact they smoke as much as they do ,and have such a low lung cancer rate ,is actually something that's studied in the west ,as they want to know why that is.

Over all,north American and some EU countries have the highest cancer rates in the world . Japan doesn't e make the top ten list .

The top four countries for stomach cancer,and only stomach cancer, are all Asian .

Not to mention ,fermented foods PREVENT cancer ,and the Japanese don't eat all that many fermented foods .
We probably eat it as much as they do .Whereas the Koreans live on kimchie

And I have lived there on and off since 1991 ,so yes,I do have a clue .
You tell me you can walk into an izakaya or cafe on friday night ,and there isnt a two foot haze of cigarette smoke hanging down from the ceiling ,so why dont more people have lung cancer ...

The only friends I have in japan that have ended up with cancer,were western ,not japanese .

Originally posted by PtolemyII
reply to post by Alekto

 

Ummm,no . Their rates are not even close to ours. Maybe certain forms are the same,but many are much lower,and they only started rising in the last 15 year's or so ,since the adopted more western foods and vaccines

So Japanese people have only started adopting a Western diet in the past 15 years or so? The things you learn.

Same with cardiac disease and high blood pressure

Interesting. Miso soup (a staple of the Japanese diet) is very high in sodium.

Originally posted by PtolemyII

The only cancer they have a high rate of ,is stomach cancer .If you look at stomach cancer statistically,ALL ASIANS ,have a higher rate .This is probably a genetic predisposition

This study disagrees, and I quote:



"The carcinogenic factor or factors that tip the balance towards dysplasia and carcinoma are not completely understood but in the hypochlorhydric or achlorhydric stomach faecal‐type bacteria proliferate and carcinogenic n‐nitroso compounds may be generated by bacterial metabolism of either dietary nitrate or nitrite derived from endogenously converted nitrate.5,33".

The nitrate content (I.E. fermented foods, Kimchi, Miso soup etc) seems to tip the balance.



Source : www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

reply to post by Alekto


I believe mostly nothing in links that have gov in the url . I can post studies that say the opposite . It's always the case.I didn't bother,knowing how redundant the arguing with opposing studies is .

I've never known a single Japanese person with cancer ,but I can count endless numbers of westerns who've had it ,all person friends . And I mean known personally .
I have as many Japanese friends as I do western ,and a huge portion of Chinese friends .

My ex smoked three packs a day for twenty+ years . He's Japanese ,still living there,and healthy as a horse ,as is all of his family and all of his friends .
www.wcrf.org...

www.medscape.com...

reply to post by Alekto


And that proves ....
They did a study on people who ate excessive amts of miso soup in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped,and the people who ate more miso,had lower instances of bomb disease related cancers than people who ate no miso .

www.muso-intl.com...
There are studies,but they are all PDF files. Google it ,and its all there .

I'm also a health professional . I've studied this stuff for years,given I almost moved to Japan, permanently .

I know a lot of Japanese history ,and I looked into a medical field related job there,if I had moved . I had no desire to teach English

eurheartjsupp.oxfordjournals.org...

The article states,the rates have gone up in recent years ....but they still have much lower rates than the USA .
Want the info on NO CASES OF AUTISM IN JAPAN EVER ,until they began adopting western vaccines ?
As that's also quite true .

Abstract

Lower rates of coronary heart disease (CHD) and other cardiovascular disease in the Japanese population compared with the US and other Western populations suggest the possibility of genetic differences that confer some protection from such disease in Japanese people. However, lifestyle changes in Japan in recent decades have been accompanied by the increasing prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia and diabetes, and recent data indicate an increase in prevalence of ischaemic heart disease. Studies in Japan have indicated a strong relationship between hypercholesterolaemia and CHD. Close attention must be devoted to what appears to be a growing risk for cardiovascular disease in the Japanese population.

reply to post by Alekto


They started eating western foods before that,but they didn't become huge fads until the last two decades or so,which, after two decades,are now taking a toll on their health .

There was no such thing as shu cream places in Japan in the early 90s . I saw maybe one coffee shop there when I first went.
Italian food has become HUGE there in the last decade .
They didn't have shakeys pizza in the 90s ,or subway or outback or cafe du monde .


Japan has changed a lot in the last 20 year's,as have their eating habits .