OCEAN CITY – The public is invited to a special event with acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Hideaki Ito from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, July 21, at the Ocean City Free Public Library.
Director Ito will be screening his film, “Silent Fallout,” followed by a question and answer session.
“Silent Fallout” addresses one of the world’s largest environmental problems, often overlooked in daily lives – the fallout from above-ground nuclear testing that took place in the United States from the 1940s through the early 1960s.
The Q&A session will feature the film’s director; Ocean City resident Joseph Mangano, president of the Radiation and Public Health Project; and Dr. Lewis Cuthbert, president of the Alliance for a Clean Environment.
Mangano and Cuthbert are dedicated scientists and environmental activists working to address the hazards posed by nuclear waste and other environmental toxins. Mangano’s work was the initial motivation for Ito to create this film.
“Silent Fallout” was the topic of a group of stories that appeared in the Sentinel on June 4.
The stories featured comments from Ito and a recap of the film, which focused on the Baby Tooth Project begun in the late 1950s. The project collected more than 100,000 baby teeth to check the levels of strontium-90, a toxic byproduct of nuclear tests.
A related story featured Mangano, who is doing new research on the baby teeth.
In addition, there was an interview with local resident Shiho Kikuzaki Burke, whose family was in Hiroshima when the U.S. military dropped the atomic bomb there to end World War II.
The stories are availabe online at ocnjsentinel.com.