I sounded like you were blaming the Japanese for not taking the correct steps to reduce the impact of radiation… a bit harsh considering even the creator of the secret bomb knew very little about radiation at the time.

No, that is not my point.

For every person that died within hours of the explosions another person died later… weeks or months or years from the radiation. Further people are still effected with higher than average instances of birth defects and rates of cancer.

The years that followed showed a very small increase in cancer rates. The additional dead by cancer are in a magnitude of 1000. I have no information about birth defects.
Data of Tschernobyl showed only little to neglelible increase in cancer, too. The popular opinion that many people died of cancer in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not proven and most probably wrong.