Outline of Atomic-bomb Afflictions and Messages from the Atomicbomb Survivors

抄録

There are two purposes of the paper. One is to sketch the medical, psychological, and social effects of the atomic bombings learned from previous studies. The other is to examine messages from the Atomic-bomb Survivors.

The most remarkable characteristic of A-bomb damage is the late effects of radiation in humans. An obvious increase in leukemia occurred approximately 5 years after the A-bombings. The following are well known as diseases resulting from exposure to atomic radiation: leukemia, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancer, colon cancer, cataracts, chromosomal aberrations, etc. A-bomb Survivors cannot escape the risk of these diseases. For example, the risk of fatality due to leukemia in those who were exposed to 1 gray is approximately 5 times as large as for unexposed persons. A-bomb Survivors also have to live with anxiety over the onset of these diseases. We can clearly state that one of the most serious A-bomb afflictions at present is anxiety about the condition of their health.

Many A-bomb Survivors continue to suffer from psychological consequences caused by their atomic-bomb experiences in addition to medical afflictions. For example, many A-bomb Survivors still dream of or remember their A-bomb experiences. Causes include deaths of family members, acute symptoms, and social discrimination such as “discrimination against marriage”. Previous studies pointed out that the A-bomb afflictions affect every aspect of human life, socioeconomic and psychological, and each aspect is mutually and dynamically related. This paper shows the same result as with previous studies.

The present paper also examined messages from A-bomb Survivors by using the answers toward open-ended question asking the respondents to write about their A-bomb experiences and their message in the Asahi Newspaper Survey in 2005. The paper analyzed the fifty most common words among their answers using statistical methods called multi-dimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering. The result shows that the core of their message is “the total abolition of nuclear weapons” and “world peace”. Atomic-bomb Survivors promulgated the ideology, “the total abolition of nuclear weapons” due to their tragic experiences and lead the movement for “only one A-bombed country”. We have a responsibility to live up to their efforts.