On This Day: U.S. president meets Hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - in Hiroshima - May 27, 2016
(edited from article)
"
President Obama Embraces Hiroshima Survivor During Historic Visit
May 27, 2016
President Barack Obama, the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, Japan, met several survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing during his trip to the nation.
The president laid a wreath at the cenotaph in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and said he visited the historic site to mourn those killed in the bombing. After his remarks he visited with survivors in the audience. He embraced a man named Shigeaki Mori, who created a memorial for American WWII POWs killed at Hiroshima.
Obama said the world must change its mindset about war and focus on diplomacy, signing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum's guest book with the comment: "We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons."
"
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-embraces-hiroshima-survivor-historic-visit/story?id=39427290
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Hibakusha
Hibakusha (lit. "survivor of the bomb" or "person affected by exposure [to radioactivity] " ) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
The word hibakusha is Japanese, originally written in kanji. While the term Hibakusha 被爆者 (hi 被 "affected" + baku 爆 "bomb" + sha 者 "person " ) has been used before in Japanese to designate any victim of bombs, its worldwide democratization led to a definition concerning the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped in Japan by the United States Army Air Forces on the 6 and 9 August 1945.
[People recognized by Japanese law]
The juridic status of hibakusha is allocated to certain people, mainly by the Japanese government.
The Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law defines hibakusha as people who fall into one or more of the following categories: within a few kilometers of the hypocenters of the bombs; within 2 km of the hypocenters within two weeks of the bombings; exposed to radiation from fallout; or not yet born but carried by pregnant women in any of these categories.
The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as hibakusha. As of March 31, 2023, 113,649 were still alive, mostly in Japan, and in 2024 are expected to surpass the number of surviving US World War veterans.
The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the hibakusha who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, as of August 2023, the memorials record the names of 535,000 hibakusha; 339,227 in Hiroshima and 195,607 in Nagasaki.
[Government support and medical allowance]
The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation. Hibakusha are entitled to government support. They receive a certain amount of allowance per month, and the ones certified as suffering from bomb-related diseases receive a special medical allowance.
In 1957, the Japanese Parliament passed a law providing free medical care for hibakusha. During the 1970s, non-Japanese hibakusha who suffered from those atomic attacks began to demand the right to free medical care and the right to stay in Japan for that purpose. In 1978, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled that such persons were entitled to free medical care while staying in Japan.
Japanese-American survivors
It was a common practice before the war for American Issei, or first-generation immigrants, to send their children on extended trips to Japan to study or visit relatives. More Japanese immigrated to the U.S. from Hiroshima than any other prefecture, and Nagasaki also sent many immigrants to Hawai'i and the mainland. There was, therefore, a sizable population of American-born Nisei and Kibei living in their parents' hometowns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombings. The actual number of Japanese Americans affected by the bombings is unknown – although estimates put approximately 11,000 in Hiroshima city alone – but some 3,000 of them are known to have survived and returned to the U.S. after the war.
A second group of hibakusha counted among Japanese American survivors are those who came to the U.S. in a later wave of Japanese immigration during the 1950s and 1960s. Most in this group were born in Japan and migrated to the U.S. in search of educational and work opportunities that were scarce in post-war Japan. Many were "war brides", or Japanese women who had married American men related to the U.S. military's occupation of Japan.
As of 2014, there are about 1,000 recorded Japanese American hibakusha living in the United States. They receive monetary support from the Japanese government and biannual medical checkups with Hiroshima and Nagasaki doctors familiar with the particular concerns of atomic bomb survivors. The U.S. government provides no support to Japanese American hibakusha.
Double survivors
People who suffered the effects of both bombings are known as nijū hibakusha in Japan. These people were in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and within two days managed to reach Nagasaki.
A documentary called Twice Bombed, Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was produced in 2006. The producers found 165 people who were victims of both bombings, and the production was screened at the United Nations.
On March 24, 2009, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916–2010) as a double hibakusha. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was confirmed to be 3 kilometers from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when the bomb was detonated. He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He got back to his home city of Nagasaki on August 8, a day before the bomb in Nagasaki was dropped, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognized survivor of both bombings.[26] Tsutomu Yamaguchi died at the age of 93 on January 4, 2010, of stomach cancer.
Discrimination
Hibakusha and their children were (and still are) victims of severe discrimination when it comes to prospects of marriage or work due to public ignorance about the consequences of radiation sickness, with much of the public believing it to be hereditary or even contagious. This is despite the fact that no statistically demonstrable increase of birth defects/congenital malformations was found among the later conceived children born to survivors of the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or found in the later conceived children of cancer survivors who had previously received radiotherapy.
The surviving women of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who could conceive, and were exposed to substantial amounts of radiation, went on and had children with no higher incidence of abnormalities/birth defects than the rate which is observed in the Japanese average.
Studs Terkel's book The Good War includes a conversation with two hibakusha. The postscript observes:
There is considerable discrimination in Japan against the hibakusha. It is frequently extended toward their children as well: socially as well as economically. "Not only hibakusha but their children, are refused employment," says Mr. Kito. "There are many among them who do not want it known that they are hibakusha."
— Studs Terkel (1984), The Good War.[36]
[In utero exposure]
In the rare cases of survival for individuals who were in utero at the time of the bombing and yet who still were close enough to be exposed to less than or equal to 0.57 Gy, no difference in their cognitive abilities was found, suggesting a threshold dose for pregnancies below which there is no danger.
In 50 or so children who survived the gestational process and were exposed to more than this dose, putting them within about 1000 meters from the hypocenter, microcephaly was observed; this is the only elevated birth defect issue observed in the Hibakusha, occurring in approximately 50 in-utero individuals who were situated less than 1000 meters from the bombings.
Microcephaly
Microcephaly is a medical condition involving a smaller-than-normal head. Microcephaly may be present at birth or it may develop in the first few years of life. Brain development is often affected; people with this disorder often have an intellectual disability, poor motor function, poor speech, abnormal facial features, seizures and dwarfism.
[Cancer]
An epidemiology study by the [Radiation Effects Research Foundation] estimates that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancers, of unspecified lethality, could be due to radiation from the bombs, with the statistical excess being estimated at 200 leukemia deaths and 1,700 solid cancers of undeclared lethality.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcephaly
---------------------------------------------------------
On This Day: Nixon signs ABM treaty; later Bush withdraws amid criticism of a dangerous move - May 26, 1972
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378281
On This Day: Maryland and Pennsylvania agree to exchange prisoners - May 25, 1738
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378239
On This Day: Judgement of Paris catapults California wine industry, changes wine forever - May 24, 1976
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378189
On This Day: Hero anti-mafia judge, wife, police officers, assassinated in massive blast - May 23, 1992
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378138
On This Day: Amnesty for Confederates contributes to "virtual apartheid" for Black Americans - May 22, 1872
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378033