U.S. sailors sue Japanese utility over tsunami radiation
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SAN DIEGO - Eight U.S. sailors who served on a humanitarian mission to Japan in the wake of the tsunami-triggered Fukushima nuclear reactor crisis are suing the utility that operates the power plant.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego last week against Tokyo Electric Power Co., which is owned by the Japanese government. Plaintiffs include the infant daughter of two of the sailors who was born seven months after the March 2011 disaster.
The sailors served on the San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which was carrying out "Operation Tomadachi" ferrying food and water to citizens in the city of Sendai in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami.
The sailors claim the Japanese government repeatedly said there was no danger to the carrier crew "all the while lying through their teeth about the reactor meltdowns" so rescuers would "rush into an unsafe area."
The U.S. Navy, the suit said, relied on information from the Japanese government, which only belatedly admitted that radiation had leaked into the atmosphere from the damaged power plant.
The suit claims the sailors were exposed to harmful levels of radiation that could result in cancer and a shorter lifespan, and they are undergoing considerable mental anguish as a result. The sailors are suing for more than $100 million in damages.
"They have physical problems. One of them is bleeding from from his rectum already. The others have problems with thyroid glands," the sailors' attorney, Paul Garner, told KGTV in San Diego.
Garner says one of the sailors now has cancer and recently had a baby with birth defects.
Some of the sailors experienced symptoms while their ship was in Bremerton, Wash., for maintenance and repairs starting in January 2012, a few months after returning from the humanitarian mission.
All of those traits are associated with radiation poisoning - but confirming that these health problems came from exposure to Fukushima nuclear reactor radiation won't be easy.
"I don't think that you can actually prove that," says San Diego State University professor and nuclear expert Murray Jennex.
Jennex says that determining radiation levels in a person, and the direct effects on that person can easily be argued.
"There is no science I know of that their lives are shortened," said Jennex. "But this is something that is way down the road. If it was an immediate exposure risk, they would have known that."
Garner and the sailors say the Japanese government knew exactly how dangerous the situation was and never told the sailor aboard the ship about the risks until it was too late.
"They put out the word that everything is fine, we got everything under control, and they lulled everybody, the world into a false sense of security," said Garner.
An email seeking response from the Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s corporate office was not immediately returned.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego last week against Tokyo Electric Power Co., which is owned by the Japanese government. Plaintiffs include the infant daughter of two of the sailors who was born seven months after the March 2011 disaster.
The sailors served on the San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which was carrying out "Operation Tomadachi" ferrying food and water to citizens in the city of Sendai in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami.
The sailors claim the Japanese government repeatedly said there was no danger to the carrier crew "all the while lying through their teeth about the reactor meltdowns" so rescuers would "rush into an unsafe area."
The U.S. Navy, the suit said, relied on information from the Japanese government, which only belatedly admitted that radiation had leaked into the atmosphere from the damaged power plant.
The suit claims the sailors were exposed to harmful levels of radiation that could result in cancer and a shorter lifespan, and they are undergoing considerable mental anguish as a result. The sailors are suing for more than $100 million in damages.
"They have physical problems. One of them is bleeding from from his rectum already. The others have problems with thyroid glands," the sailors' attorney, Paul Garner, told KGTV in San Diego.
Garner says one of the sailors now has cancer and recently had a baby with birth defects.
Some of the sailors experienced symptoms while their ship was in Bremerton, Wash., for maintenance and repairs starting in January 2012, a few months after returning from the humanitarian mission.
All of those traits are associated with radiation poisoning - but confirming that these health problems came from exposure to Fukushima nuclear reactor radiation won't be easy.
"I don't think that you can actually prove that," says San Diego State University professor and nuclear expert Murray Jennex.
Jennex says that determining radiation levels in a person, and the direct effects on that person can easily be argued.
"There is no science I know of that their lives are shortened," said Jennex. "But this is something that is way down the road. If it was an immediate exposure risk, they would have known that."
Garner and the sailors say the Japanese government knew exactly how dangerous the situation was and never told the sailor aboard the ship about the risks until it was too late.
"They put out the word that everything is fine, we got everything under control, and they lulled everybody, the world into a false sense of security," said Garner.
An email seeking response from the Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s corporate office was not immediately returned.
If you are in the military, and volunteered to be there, you must know that at some point you might be put in harms way. Â Everyone knew the radiation risk and that was why so many civil volunteer humanitarian agencies did not send their volunteers into the area. Â Sue Japan? Â Sue the US? Â If you don't want to risk being in a situation that might possibly put you in danger then don't join the military/navy and stay at home. Â Next we will see soldiers shot in wars suing the US for placing them somewhere they can be shot at.
I really dislike these experts who claim that they  may not know if the sailor's sickness is a direct result to exposture to radiation. He, our government and the Japanese ALL knew that there would be huge imminent danger to going so soon into that region. Our government should be sued too. All those young soldiers are pawns.
Occupational Hazard I going to have to lookup if those troops at the Manhattan Project did the same thing during the cold war.... I am sorry but somehow I don't think that 100 million dollars is going to happen...didn't the government at the Chernobyl disaster say the same thing when that reactor blew... Don't worry everything is under control... this sounds like a bad movie already, Â
The real problem you will not find out until some 10 years later when everyone onboard get cance. Hopefully not, but since they already discovered deformed butterfly nearby so who knows. google it. you will see.
You can't trust our own Government.Our Government knew what levels of radiation were in the area that they sent our sailors.The ship has the technology to detect what levels are in the area. Â
"One of them is bleeding from from his rectum already."
Â
They're called hemorrhoids.
OK, seeing that the shipmates cannot take their own government to court, they are trying this tactic! They are on a NUCLEAR Carrier, it has radiation all over the ship. There are detectors placed all over the ship and if there was an increase in radiation, the monitors would have notified the Captain and he should have pulled back. When those reactors send out too much radiation, is the crew just going to stand there and do nothing on board? Like WA Mama, the US Navy is more at fault then the Japanese. Those crew members know where to get easy money.
 @asaump48 The sailors families can sue our Government for the same thing.Families suing the Government happens all the time.
 @asaump48 except they were not ON the carrier when exposed to these radiation levels, they were on smaller vessels, which I presume, would not have monitors on them.
@asaump48 Exactly!
I hold the Navy equally if not more responsible. They should have checked out radiation levels and confirmed the info from the Japanese themselves.
 @The WA Mama They did (so they say) After this whole disaster, the Navy got the military family out of there and no one was allowed to return until they knew it was safe. That was about 2 weeks later.Â
Wait.. the baby was born 7 months after the event? Â Was the baby on the ship with the Navy? I don't really understand how they could try and pin that one on the Japanese. Â This isn't very clear at all.Â
 @DT I'm thinking it was a female soldier...
They lied to our troops and their own people about their safety.Why not !?Â