11 April 2013 (22:42 UTC-07 Tango 10 April 2013)/30 Jumada l-Ula 1434/22 Farvardin 1392/02 Bing-Chen (3rd month) 4711
Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan, have been tracking about 1400 grade school kids in Fukushima Prefecture. They want to track radiation contamination as a result of the melt downs at the GE designed Fukushima Daiichi reactors.
Two years later the researchers report cesium levels in children have dropped, but not because of efforts to contain the disaster reactors, but because the residents have been careful about what they eat.
Almost a year after the nuke melt down, a system was in place for Japanese food sellers to test and report radiation contamination of food. This came at the grass roots level, not at the national government level. It was pushed by consumers demanding to know if the food they were buying was safe. Local governments, and even grocery store chains obliged, and it was discovered that indeed many sources of food stuffs were contaminated, despite the national government telling people everything was OK.
The researchers at the University of Tokyo credit the grass roots efforts to identify and avoid contaminated food to the drop in cesium levels in children still living in Miharumachi, which is only 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Fukushima Daiichi.