Manifest Injustice

Vice on HBO, Season 2 Episode 10, May 24, 2014 (at 5:30 in):

• Dr. Joji Otaki, lead researcher, University of Ryukyus: We collected houseplant leaves from Fukushima, and those leaves are given to [butterfly] larvae collected from Okinawa… Those larvae aresupposed to be healthy. But they ate contaminated food from Fukushima. Then we see what happens.
• Vikram Ghandi, Vice: What happened?
• Otaki: They died.
• Ghandi: Dr. Otaki’s experiments have shown the truly horrifying effects contaminated food can have on living organisms.
• Otaki: You can see wrinkled wings.
• Ghandi: It doesn’t really even look like a butterfly anymore.
• Otaki: We found that mortality rate and abnormality rate of the 2nd generation is much higher — even worse in the 3rd generation.
• Ghandi: The evidence contaminated food has increasingly worse effects over the course of generations is especially scary since one of Fukushima’s primary industries is agriculture.
• Kazuya Tarukawa, farmer in Sukagawa 50 miles from Fukushima Daiichi: We had been growing produce that measured 3,000 [Bq/kg] without even knowing it. Selling such produce to the markets made me feel severely guilty.
• Ghandi: His father was consumed with guilt.
• Tarukawa: He hung himself from the tree.

Watch the HBO broadcast here