Genba Koichiro, foreign minister stated import restriction of Korea, China, Taiwan, Hongkong and US are caused by harmful rumor.
This was stated in 11/16/2011, House of Representatives, budget committee.
Koichiro said “This is because foreign media focuses on people protecting themselves such as wearing mask. My family is actually living in 40km area from Fukushima plant, but radiation level is pretty low, there is nothing to worry about. We will ask foreign people to come back to Japan and spread the “correct rumor” on the internet when they go home.”
Looking at Chernobyl, it takes years for radiation to affect human health. Wearing mask is the only thing we could do to protect ourselves, and foreign media’s reporting those people is very rational.
They try to control foreign media and make us take off the masks to make other countries buy contaminated food from Japan.