How safe are African people from radioactive contamination in the wake of the Fukushima disaster?

The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster has been described as "the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind" by Arnold Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants in the US. Fallout from the disaster, estimated to be 20 times bigger than Cernobyl whose effects are still being felt as far afield as Germany where radioactive wild boar can still be found, has spread as far as America where, according to a published essay by physician Jannette Sherman, the 35% spike in infant mortality that occurred in north-western cities after the event was caused by radioactive fallout from the plant. There have even been reports of dangerous levels of radiation detected in Australia that was traced back to the Japanese disaster. About two weeks ago, Tokyo Electric Power Company recorded its highest radiation readings.

An increasing number of countries around the world are halting or tightening control of food imports from Japan. India halted all food imports after fish imported from Japan was found to have excess radioactivity. The US's FDA, Russia, South Korea, the EU, all have halted or restricted food imports from the region. What is worrying is the fact, apart from Nigeria and South Africa, I have not heard mention of the position of African governments on the import of food products from this country. Considering the history of this continent where disasters of the kind are concerned, and especially the care taken to prevent contamination of the living environment with toxic substances, Africans should be very Afraid where their rice, frozen chickens, tinned fish, etc. is coming from.

Let me digress to clear up a statement that may have caused some to question my knowledge of international trade. Japanese exports a lot of consumer electronics and other non-food products to the third world. It is best known for its car exports, of which Toyota is undoubtedly the most bought. But, though food only makes up 1% of Japanese exports, an amount does make it to Africa. With the number of countries banning or tightening controls of Japanese imports increasing as we speak, I see nothing stopping unscrupulous Japanese business men from settling for lower prices that could be fetched in Africa. They must be very aware ours is a continent known not to care what it hauls onto its shores. Japanese traders are known to have done this very thing before with defective cars. Africa is a continent with a record for accepting all manner of toxic substances that the rest of the world neither want to see buried in their backwards, or may the case be that they would do this but cannot because a primed population would not let them get away with it. .

So far, the Japanese government itself has proven very unscrupulous with its own people. They have sometimes played down the risks and put women and children in harm's way. They have however time and again been caught red handed. They are being watched very closely on the Japanese shores. I doubt those watching, looking out for their welfare, care much for Africa. I doubt there is much they can do to prevent, for example, an unscrupulous fisherman who catches fish in areas that have been marked as contaminated zones from sending the catch to Africa. I doubt they can stop a farmer from diverting a ship-load of rice considered unsafe for human consumption to Africa when Africans are not as vigilant as the Japanese citizenry. The Japanese are looking out for their own interests. It is not their responsibility to look out for the welfare of Africans as well. They have enough problems on their hands as things stand. .

Only Africans can help themselves where this is concerned. The question is whether Africans are able. Going by the record, it can be concluded about the African continent that the advanced world, especially the technological, is quite dangerous for the place, and this because the precautions required to be safe in dealings with advanced cultures, with the creations of advanced cultures, are largely unknown. Africa is in many respects like a toddler that needs to be watched, protected from injury and kept away from cooking plates and other electronic gadgets. Battery disposal systems do not exist in much of Africa. There was a time in the past in my country when a regime did take efforts to separate waste, but even then I remember that the most common thing one found at waste dumps were batteries. They were everywhere. It was usual to find young children using them as makeshift bowling pins. That our ground water is as contaminated as it gets with acids and heavy metals is a well known fact.

People in Africa eager to make a quick buck are known to import toxic waste that ends up in our backyards, while others take advantage when countries desperate to get rid of products deemed unsafe for local consumption lower the prices, without regard for the health of their citizens.

I was in the former Czechoslovakia when the Cernobyl disaster happened. I remember that some Russian farmers in the vicinity of the disaster exported milk to Ghana that they could not sell at local and foreign, mainly European markets. Radioactive beef from a former eastern bloc country found its way to Zambia and was definitely enjoyed with the local staple foofoo.

Producers in the west are known to have exported soap and creams that have skin lightening effects, mainly to South Africa, and other countries on the continent, after it was discovered the substances were laden with health hazardous mercury. These soaps and creams are still being sold in markets on the continent.

Pharmaceutical companies still export Quinacrine to Africa even when the WHO declared it unfit for human consumption about a decade ago. Nevirapine and AZT continue to be the main drugs used to control HIV infection even when countries where these drugs are produced outright stopped the use of the latter about two decades ago, and considered the former a drug of last resort, on account of toxicity, on account of adverse side effects that can be genetic in the case of the former. Despite the information out there, many African countries still allow the use of asbestos in roofing, and other construction purposes. Houses that were constructed with asbestos roofing at a time when the whole world was non the wiser are inhabited by the majority, and still, to this day, nobody has as much as raised the issue in some representative house.

The issues I have outlined above may seen like much to one not familiar with the ways of Africa, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. We are just getting started.

So far, there has not been a single report of foodstuffs coming from the affected area in Japan that have ended up in Africa. The absence of a report, however, is as comforting in the case of the known dealings of this continent with the outside world as the lack of symptoms of a curable disease one is already infected with, that only shows symptoms when the damage done to the body is irreversible, and death.is the only consequence ... which is what will happen to the black race if this failing is not rectified in time. The focus of the task Thabo Mbeki proposed Africans give themselves to know what they were really dying from, rather than heap everything on HIV, may very well lie here.