For Immediate Release
July 21, 2008
Website: http://www.childrenoftheatomicbomb.com
Phone: 310-825-2974
Fax: 310-206-9844
Email: rleong@ucla.edu
"Today, an enormous nuclear disaster simmers that must not be allowed to ignite."
-Dr. James N. Yamazaki, UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles - August 6 and August 9 will mark the 63rd anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the history of humankind, Japan and the Japanese people were the only nation to bear the horrific consequences of the atomic bomb; over 100,000 persons died directly, with hundreds of thousands more being exposed directly and indirectly to the bomb. The children, both living and future generations, were especially vulnerable to the genetic effects of the bomb.
To commemorate this event, and to urge humankind to act today upon new medical and scientific knowledge about the long-term effects of the atomic bomb, UCLA's Asian American Studies Center announces the official August 2008 launching of the innovative website "Children of the Atomic Bomb."
The website, found at (http://www.childrenoftheatomicbomb.com), was developed by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center in partnership with Dr. James N. Yamazaki, an emeritus professor of medicine at UCLA. Yamazaki was the lead physician of the 1949 U.S. Atomic Bomb Medical Team, studying the effects of nuclear bombing on children in Nagasaki. The project was funded in part by the Paul I. Terasaki Foundation, along with in-kind funding from the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Additional funding came from Ms. Dodie Danchick.
The "Children of the Atomic Bomb" website provides Dr. Yamazaki's eyewitness accounts of his experiences in post-war Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and the Marshall Islands. According to Dr. Yamazaki: "Their tragedy has left a lifelong impact on meŠToday, an enormous nuclear disaster simmers that must not be allowed to ignite."
The "Children of the Atomic Bomb" website details the Commission's findings on the physical and health consequences of the atomic bombs on the survivors. These include increased incidence of leukemia and other cancers and high rates of birth defects such as malformed brains, caused by radiation injury to developing fetal brain cells. In addition to two video interviews with Dr. Yamazaki, the "Children of the Atomic Bomb" website also features images of drawings and paintings created by survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts.
The organization Physicians for Social Responsibility recently recognized Dr. Yamazaki its 2008 Socially Responsible Medicine Award, together with Lawrence Bender (An Inconvenient Truth), and Dr. Hans Blix, former International Atomic Energy General. At 91, Dr. Yamazaki remains a committed speaker, activist, and activist against nuclear proliferation.
Dr. Yamazaki is the author of Children of the Atomic Bomb: An American Physician's Memoir of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and the Marshall Islands.
"Today," writes Dr. Yamazaki, "six decades into the nuclear year, we of the older generation must convey to younger and future generations the facts about the nuclear threat to the family of man."
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