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present my gratitude toTun M and Madam Siti for arranging such a great opportunity and for inviting me here. I am so honoured to be here and speak in front of you about our research work on the psychological fate of the people involved in Nagasaki atomic bomb extent. I am working for the National Centre of Neurology on Psychiatry Japan. It is a very big institute and we have 11 divisions of main researches and 14 divisions of neurology researches and big hospitals. It is a connected to the Japanese Government and Minister of Health and Welfare. The persistent distress after psychological exposure to the Nagasaki atomic bomb explosion,is the topic of which I will be talking a bout. What is the psychological impact? Of course you may know that people were involved are dead or injured by the atomic bomb in Nagasaki City, but some people who were not injured, who were not contaminated or polluted with the radiation, still suffer from psychological fearsof being possible exposed to radiation.
by Prof Dr Yushiharu Kim
- CHILD SURVIVORS OF THE 1945 ATOMIC BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI
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This is the similar situation that happened in Fukushima where atomic power plants accidents happen. Many scientists say that the radioactivity were very low, hence, the effect would be negligible so the people did not have to worry. The people were never relieved. The people would question, “is it safe for my children, is it real safe for my grandfather, grandparents, there is evidence of security?”. Scientists always talk about evidence for harm, but people need evidence for security. In Nagasaki City, our work has been published in scientific journals together with the name of Dr. Atsuro Tsutsumi. The centre of Nagasaki is where the atomic bomb had fallen. The red zone was at first recognised as the “polluted area” by Chinese government. The people who were living in the red zone at the time were recognised as the atomic bomb survivors so they were offered medical services or pensions. Why were all the people in the red zone acknowledged? Why were the people in the blue zone or green zone excluded from the public services? People in those areas protested a lot. Subsequently, the blue and green zones were not included in the area of the service. The people in the yellow area were also excluded from the services. Based upon researches, there is no pollution in these areas but the people were not satisfied because the people who were living on the edge of the red area, quite far from the red centre, were included in the services. However, some part of the yellow zone, were nearer to that centre, so why were they also excluded? Parts of the answers were because there were mountains and the wind was blowing from North to South at the time but this was not the perfect solution for the people. The people in the yellow area continuously made claims to the Japanese government to include them in the Government’s target of services but there is no proof of the contamination radioactive activities in their area.The people claimedthey were suffering from psychological distress from the fear of being possibly pollutedby radioactive activities.
A report was madeand handed to the government. Consequently, the government decided to make a research team to verify whether their psychological state was really impaired by the experience of the atomic bomb. This is the attitude of Japanese Government. It is important to understand the people in the yellow area witnessed the explosion of atomic bomb. It Is a very shocking experience actually but the radioactivity did not reach this yellow area, that is what scientists say but the people actually were exposed and psychologically involved in atomic bomb explosion. When people watch such explosion in the near areas it is very natural for them to be shocked and worried about the possible harmful effects. People try to run away from the atomic bomb and made prayers for their future after the explosion. Limited people were included in the service and the people who were excluded were very angry about it. There so many young people here in the audience. I would like to ask you why cannot we just accept the complaints of the people suffering? Why is the government unable to provide services to the affected people? It wassimply because there were so many complaints from people who were suffering. This is sadly true. Therefore, we were needed to start the research to prove to the Government whether the psychological distress was really related to atomic bomb explosion experiences? How were we able to conduct a research on this? The basic point of a scientific research is to always compare. We compared people in the yellow area who witnessed the atomic bombing explosion to another type of group of people. This method is scientifically called “control people”. So what kind of people should we select? The group of people had to live in the same yellow area because they have had to experience other natural disasters such as typhoon and earthquakes in which they would share with the “subject”.
The “controls” on the other hand should not have any experiences of such involvement. We decided to select the people who came to the yellow area after the Nagasaki tragedy. This is the “control”. Thosewho migrated from outside within 10 years afterthe atomic bombingsandafterwardscontinued living in the yellow areas so that they were able to share every local events with the actual survivors.The only difference waswhether these people were or not witnesses of the atomic bomb explosion? We majored psychological state and other health variables and so as the family environment, jobs and financial issues, and so on. Allthese variables statistically matched. People may suffer when they do not have enough money. People may suffer when they do not have education. Evidently, all these variables had to be statistically controlled to pick up pure effects of the experience of witnessing the atomic bomb explosion. This statistical work was quite complicating. In 1945, there were 9,800 people in the yellow area who witnessed the bombingswhom were of young individual and some were even children. The witnesses/ survivors were divided into 37
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Photo Credit : wall4all.me
according to the place they are living now, their age and sex. The“control”werechosen from the same districts of age and sex, making them now a similar distribution. The results were divided according to age, sex, those who smoked, those who drink, years of education, job history, family members and so on. There were no significant differences in the said categories except for age and years of education but were statistically controlled afterwards. As for the physical health findings, there was no presence of physical diseases. There were absolutely no difference between the “samples” and “controls”. However, there was a great mental health difference. All the mental health factors were actually worse than the group that witnessedthe atomic bombings compared to “controls”. So what does this mean? In this type of study, researchers are always concerned about the tendency for exaggerating. These questionnaires are based upon what people say about their status. If some were to exaggerate their sufferings, it will affect and jeopardiseentirely the results of the survey. So what was the background of the mental health radiation? We surveyed the knowledge about atomic bomb or radiations with the following questions: 1. Are the lightning and sound of the atomic bombs related to radioactivity? No.
The first question is very, very important. Were people who witnessedthe lightning and heard great sounds of the bombing explosion equally exposed to radioactive activities? The answer is no. Only 25 percentfrom the survey answered correctly. This simplifies that the percentage of 75% of the peoplebelieved that witnessing lighting or hearing the sound of the explosion would cause them to be exposed to radioactivity. Unfortunately, this was a false belief for over 50 years and people were convinced that they were too, exposed to radiation. The people were uninformed and denial of the fact and did not accept the correct information. There is a great lesson that we have to learn from this study. There is a traumatic event very sadly but there are traumatic events that there are information and interpretation of the events. So what actually traumatised the people? Could it be the direct impact of the event itself and the information on or interpretation people add into afterwards? There were no signs of escapism amongst the people. Most responders were diligent workers, they worked for their families and raised their children at their best. No onewas escaping from the real life. The interviewers sympathised for the victims which resulted to a bias report. In order to achieve a fair unbiased report, we employed raters outside in other far possible areas from Nagasaki city.
5. When X-rayed in a hospital, are you exposed to radioactivity?
The implication is firstly, anxiety of radiological pollution can develop independently over substantial pollutions. Even if they are not polluted directly by radioactive activities they have substantial fear. This is a psychological fact.Information provision should be done beyond the boundary of substantial pollution. I interviewed several individuals asking what were their understanding or knowledge of radioactive activities. It was to my shock that most of the survivors were educated through scarce knowledge of radioactive activities solely from the media, not from the government nor the authorities.
6. Are there acute and delayed types of exposure to radioactivity?
Appraisal or selective bias of information should be taken into account, even if knowledge the correct was
2. Radioactivity decreases according to the distance from the blast center. Yes or no? 3. Do radioactivity decrease according to the time of course? 4. There is no exposure to radioactivity in daily life. Yes or no?
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provided, the people would still notaccept it. Not enough sympathy were given at the time and so when the facts of information finally came for the people’s circulation, they rejected it entirely. Any information should haven been based upon humanitarian support and empathy to the people otherwise it would not be accepted.
Thank you
Scientific “safety” is different from psychological “security”. Our purpose is to reduce anxiety of the victims to encourage victims to regain their life again. Providing the people with just knowledge and information was not enough. Humanitarian interactions were to be done to ensure the people’s security psychologically. This research was done 18 years after the atomic power plant accidents by another team of researchers. It was very difficult to conductthe research. The team were very smart in employing the clean up workers whocleaned the affected area after the bombing. These clean up workers were actually polluted to radioactivity to some extent but were not made aware of. Depression and anxiety disorder of PTSD were higher amongst them compared to “controls” who are living in the same city. The radiation affected the clean up workers’ working ability the most. In conclusion, nuclear power plants and atomic
Photo Credit : Slides by Prof Dr Yushiharu Kim
bomb explosions are very harmful not only physically but also from a psychological point of view. It could have had a long lasting inference more than 50 years, that is half a century.Information provisions are very important but basic human interaction and human beliefs should have came first as only providing scientific knowledge to the people were not effective. The people in fukushima continued this Horse Festival for more than 1000 years ago beyond many civil wars and natural disasters with greater hope that they would recover their courage and continue their cultural activities in the future. I hope for the same too.
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