YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Frustrated Navy families say they are being advised by military medical officials to send their young children out of Japan, but they aren’t getting the straight answers needed to gauge the risks to their children’s health after March 11’s earthquake and tsunami.
U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka is calling parents of children age 5 and under and recommending that they send their children out of the country, several parents told Stars and Stripes. Other parents at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, which has a clinic operated by the hospital, said they were told that children age 2 and under should leave the country.
–The military announced March 17 that it would assist family members to leave voluntarily, but stopped short of declaring a mandatory evacuation.
Then, on March 22, Japanese officials found radioactive iodine in Tokyo tap water at levels deemed unsafe for infants. The military responded by passing out potassium iodide tablets to its personnel.
The tablets flood the thyroid with clean iodine, preventing the body from taking in the radioactive version. The military has warned its personnel not to take the pills unless directed.
That same day, Alex Breuer heard from a friend at Naval Air Facility Atsugi that children under 2 were being advised to leave.
Breuer called the medical clinic at Atsugi and was told by a Navy corpsman that it wasn’t true. But three days later, Breuer’s wife got a call from that same clinic, saying that children under 2 should leave.