Regarding the July 9 front-page article "Kan under fire from his own team": Perhaps I'm missing something, but I see no reason why Prime Minister Naoto Kan should apologize to anybody, least of all the nuclear industry, for requiring stress tests of nuclear reactors. It is now a matter of public record that Japan's nuclear industry deceived the public as to the safety of nuclear reactors.
Where I live — the Pacific Northwest of the United States — radiation released from the Fukushima nuclear reactors and from the pools of spent fuel has resulted in radiation in our rain that was 28 to 130 times the limits set for drinking water, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Japan has a duty — not just to its own people but to all the people it has exposed to radiation — to stress-test its reactors, and independently to test all the claims made by the nuclear industry related to operation and safety. As evidenced by the accidents at the Fukushima reactors, this is the very least that must be done.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.
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