Shunichi Yamashita

Shun'ichi Yamashita (山下 俊一) is a Japanese medical scientist serving as dean and professor at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Nagasaki University.

His mother was a hibakusha who survived the atomic bomb dropped in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

He is a descendant of Kakure Kirishitans in Urakami (present Nagasaki City) who kept their faith clandestinely more than 200 years under severe persecution from the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Yamashita himself is Catholic and belongs to Shiroyama Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Nagasaki.

He is a member of the Japan Catholic Doctor Association and serves as president of its branch in Nagasaki.

From his childhood, Yamashita respected Albert Schweitzer and Paul Takashi Nagai.

His mottos are “Reverence for life” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself”.

According to an interview by the Asahi Shimbun, his respect for Dr. Paul Takashi Nagai (the author of The Bell of Nagasaki) encouraged him to become a medical doctor.

At first, Yamashita was attracted to tropical medicine because he respected Hideyo Noguchi.

He received his education at St. Mary's Elementary and Junior High School run by the Augustinian order from the attached kindergarten to junior high school.

Yamashita later studied at Nagasaki Prefectural Nagasaki Kita High School.

Shin'ichi Yamashita was born in Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, in 1952.

Yamashita graduated from the faculty of medicine at Nagasaki University in 1978.

He finished a doctoral course at the graduate school of the same university in 1984.

With the support of Dr. Shigenobu Nagataki, he studied at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at UCLA in the United States from 1984 to 1987.

After going back to Japan, Yamashita worked under Dr. Nagataki.

He earned a doctoral degree in medicine in 1989 and was installed as a professor of the faculty of medicine at Nagasaki University in the following year.

Later, he was installed as a president of the Nagai Takashi Memorial International Hibakusha Medical Center.

From 1991 onward, Yamashita participated in a health research project supported by the Nippon Foundation.

He visited the affected Chernobyl area 100 times.

According to Yamashita, the communication with the children whose age was the same as his own, and their mothers, made him feel as if the area was next to Nagasaki.

He eventually concluded the effects of radiation in the area as follows: “Apart from the dramatic increase in thyroid cancer incidence among those exposed to radiation at a young age, there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers or leukemia due to radiation in the most affected populations”.

Before the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, Yamashita showed his concern about the radiation dosage to which young people were exposed.

In The Journal of Japan Physicians Association, he writes: “Mainly for the people less than twenty-years-old, if they are exposed to excessive radiation between 10 and 100mSV, the risk of carcinogenesis is undeniable”.

The other report written with other scientists points out, “the lowest doses of X-rays for which reasonably reliable evidence of increased cancer risk exists range from 10 to 50mGy”.

Being Catholic, Yamashita has been involved with activities held in the Catholic Church.

For example, when the first general assembly of the Conference of Japan Catholic Medical Care Associations was held in Nagasaki from October 23 to October 24, 2009, Yamashita said, "As Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only cities in the world that were afflicted with A-bombings, both can claim the moral high ground on A-bomb elimination. No one can deny their claims and international diplomatic endeavors on behalf of peace free of nuclear weapons. U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto referred to this right when he visited Japan last summer."

Even after his appointment to risk management advisor to Fukushima Prefecture, the Church's attitude toward the professor remains unchanged.

From August 8 to August 10, 2010, Soka University Peace Research Institute had a research study in Nagasaki, and Yamashita lectured the participants.

In Saitama Diocese, the diocesan Committee for Justice and Peace led by Sadato Yabuki, a diocesan deacon and professor emeritus at Gunma University, invited Yamashita to lecture on radiation at the cathedral on May 7, 2011.

Later, In the name of Bishop Marcelious Daiji Tani, leaflets based on the lecture were printed in six languages and distributed in the diocese and shelters.

When he was installed as a vice-president of Fukushima Medical University, the diocesan newsletter called Yoki Otozure (Good Visit) in the Nagasaki Archdiocese reported this event.

In November, a symposium, “Radiation Exposure” Which Causes New Damages was held at the Diocesan Catholic Center, he participated as one of the symposiasts.

On May 24, 2011, Yamashita was invited by the Komeito Party's election campaign office of Koriyama City, Fukuhsima Prefecture and lectured there.

After the Fukushima I nuclear accidents, Yamashita and Prof. Noboru Takamura were asked by Fukushima Prefecture governor Yuhei Sato, on March 19, 2011, to serve as radiation risk management advisers to the prefecture.

The letter of appointment as special professor to the president at Fukushima Medical University was given on April 1 of the same year.

As a radiation risk management adviser, Yamashita lectured on radiation mainly in Fukushima Prefecture.

He claims that radiation exposure of 100 mSv/yr is safe.

In an interview with the Fukushima Minyu Shimbun, a local newspaper of the prefecture, Yamashita said, ”When people are exposed to radiation doses of 100mSV or more at a time, the possibility of getting cancer increases one out of every ten-thousand people” and said of the radiation dose that “It is equivalent to the radiation dose of receiving 10 times of CT scan one time.

But CT scan is necessary for medication, so CT scan itself is not bad”.