Regarding radiation protection, the United Nations Scientific Committee on Atomic Radiation Effects (UNSCEAR) compiles scientific findings, and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) develops recommendations, which are then incorporated into Japan.
However, there are various problems in the UNSCEAR 2020/21 Fukushima report, including the estimation, the literature review on thyroid cancer, interpretation of statistical power, and so on, which are not known to the public, and there is a widespread impression in Japan and overseas that "radiation-related cancer incidence is not expected to increase."
On the other hand, in 2020, the ICRP published a recommendation entitled "Radiological protection of people and the environment in the event of a large nuclear accident: update of ICRP Publications 109 and 111 (ICRP Publication 146)", a revision of ICRP Publications 109 and 111 based on the experience of nuclear accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima. More than 300 comments were posted on the draft, including fundamental criticis; for example, the draft failed to describe unsystematic radiolodical protection policy of the Japanese government, information undisclosure, recommending "co-expertise" neglecting malpractice by scientists, and so on. ICRP failed to reflect them and published with minor revisions.
In addition, ICRP initiated the revision process of the General Recommendation (ICRP Publ. 103 published in 2007) targeting 203x. ICRP will hold the ICRP 2023 General Meeting in Tokyo from 6-9 November 2023. For this reason, we proposed for the ICRP to establish three sessions: "Harnessing the Experiences of Affected Citizens for Radiation Protection: A Retrospective Review of the ICRP 146 Revision," "Towards the ICRP New Basic Recommendations: Points to Introduce from the Perspective of Citizens," and "Thyroid Cancer in Fukushima." In addition, to promote the participation of citizens, we requested that the sessions mentioned above be held in Fukushima, interpreters be installed, and that the registration fee is waived, but all requests were rejected (see here for details).
We believe that the most severe problem in radiation protection in the Fukushima nuclear disaster is undemocratic decision-making that led to the neglect of human rights. The General Recommendations stress the importance of stakeholder involvement in radiological protection decision-making; ICRP itself rejected the participation of citizens for ICRP Tokyo. Establishing a long-term framework to compete against UNSCEAR and improve the ICRP General Recommendations is necessary.