Fukushima: U.S. Sailors Exposed To Reactor Disaster Radiation To Appear At NYC News Conference

The Helen Caldicott Foundation and Physicians for Social Responsibility

In Highlight of First Day of Conference on Medical Consequences of Fukushima Disaster, U.S. Navy Sailors to Tell Story of Cover-up, Lawsuit Against Japanese Utility

NEW YORK, March 8, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Two years after the March 11, 2011 triple meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, two former U.S. Navy sailors who were directly exposed to Fukushima radiation on board the USS Ronald Reagan during the U.S. Navy's rescue effort, will testify to growing medical problems they are experiencing as a result of their exposure.   The sailors will discuss the 115-person lawsuit they have joined with other former and current military personnel against the nuclear plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), for misleading US officials about the extent of radiation released from its stricken reactors.

The event will take place at 1 p.m. Monday (March 11^th) at the New York Academy of Medicine, Fifth Ave at 103rd St, (enter on 103rd St.) The news conference will be a first-day highlight of "The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident" symposium sponsored by the Helen Caldicott Foundation and Physicians for Social Responsibility on the growing medical fallout from the Fukushima reactor crisis.   For more information about the symposium, visit http://www.helencaldicottfoundation.org/.

News event participants will be:

• Helen Caldicott , MD, and founder, Helen Caldicott Foundation;
• Jeff Patterson , DO, and president, Physicians for Social Responsibility;
• Maurice Enis , quartermaster, United States Navy (retired); and
• Jaime Plym , quartermaster, United States Navy (retired).

For background on the U.S. Navy victims of Fukushima, go to http://bit.ly/12dzbLe.

TO PARTICIPATE: Members of the media can attend this press conference at "The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident" symposium, held at the New York Academy of Medicine at 1 p.m. EDT on March 11. (Please arrive by 12:45 p.m.) NOTE: Attendees are welcome to attend the first session of the full symposium, which begins at 9 a.m.

The Helen Caldicott Foundation aims to foster far-reaching public education about the often underestimated and poorly understood medical hazards of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. http://www.helencaldicottfoundation.org.

Physicians for Social Responsibility is the largest physician-led organization in the U.S. working to prevent nuclear war and proliferation and to slow, stop and reverse global warming and toxic degradation of the environment. www.psr.org.