The new study suggests that children who were living near the Fukushima nuclear plant when the meltdown occurred in March 2011 may be developing cancer at a rate that is 20 to 50 times higher than normal.
The study was released online this week in the October issue of Epidemiology, produced by the Herndon, Virginia-based International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. The authors contend the results of this study undermines the Japanese government’s position that the results are due to “better monitoring” of children in the area, something the government says it recommended.
Most of the 370,000 Fukushima children have been given ultrasound examinations since the March 2011 nuclear meltdown, and according to statistics released in August this year, an additional 137 children have been confirmed to have thyroid cancer, up 25 cases from 2014. According to the study, the prevalence of thyroid cancer was 605 per million examinees
The average rate of thyroid cancer in children is estimated to be around one to two cases per one million children elsewhere in the world. “This is more than expected and emerging faster than expected,” lead author Toshihide Tsuda told The Associated Press during a visit to Tokyo. “This is 20 times to 50 times what would be normally expected.”
What is interesting is that studies conducted after the Three-Mile-Island accident in the U.S. and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine clearly showed that childhood thyroid cancers were linked to radiation. The thyroid gland is a target is for cancer because the gland grows quickly in children. If treated, it is rarely fatal, but patients are on medications for the rest of their lives.
Skepticism and questions by other scientists
Not everyone in the medical world agrees fully with the study. The biggest point of contention seems to be a lack of individual data that would accurately measure the individual’s radiation dose. This is what Scott Davis, a professor at the Department of Epidemiology in the Seattle-based School of Public Health, says he would like to know.
According to the Huffington Post, Davis says he believes the studies done by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNSCEAR, or the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Both organizations have carried out reviews on the cancer rates in children following the Fukushima disaster, and they say “predicted” cancer rates will remain stable with no rises in “radiation-caused cancers.”
David J. Brenner, professor of radiation biophysics at Columbia University Medical Center, has a different view of the new study. He says that while individual dose data would be important, in a telephone interview with the AP, he said the “higher thyroid cancer rate in Fukushima is not due to screening. It’s real.”
Many people don’t know that accurate studies on radiation exposure and cancers, as well as the resulting conclusions play heavily on future compensation and government policies. So it is no wonder that the government downplays any negative studies concerning cancer in children.
The Japanese government’s study gives a different picture
On Friday, The Japan Times ran a story on a current study undertaken by three local medical institutions, Hirata Central Hospital, Minamisoma Municipal General Hospital and Tokiwakai Hospital. using a newly developed whole-body scanner designed for scanning small children.
According to the Japan Times, after an extensive study of 2,700 children, up to the age of 11 years old, no radioactive cesium was detected. The story says that most of the children were from Fukushima, and could have been exposed to radiation either before or after the meltdown.
The results were published in the journal Proceedings of the Japan Academy magazine. The news story is full of technical information on cesium levels, and peppered with comments about how incredibly accurate the “babyscan” is at detecting levels of cesium as low as 50 becquerels.
The story quotes Masaharu Tsubokura, a University of Tokyo researcher who examined a few of the children as saying, “the result was quite surprising, given the Babyscan’s high sensitivity. Roughly speaking, the study showed the children weren’t consuming even a becquerel of cesium per day,” said Tsubokura, who co-wrote the report.
But what the researcher says next is astounding. Tsubokura is quoted: “Although overall public interest in radiation exposure has declined in the past four years, anxiety lingers among many parents with small children. Sadly, their understanding of radiation has not deepened much.” He goes on to say several studies have shown that the internal radiation exposure of Fukushima residents is low, but they plan to continue monitoring the children.
White-washing the facts
The latest study published in Epidemiology is not the first of its kind that attempts to show the world what is going on with children exposed to radiation. In August 2014, Digital Journal reported on what was considered by the writer to be a cover-up of the facts surrounding the rate of thyroid cancers in Fukushima children.
At that time, Japanese government officials were saying the 104 actual cases of thyroid cancer diagnosed in children since the 2011 meltdown are not related to the disaster. Joseph Mangano MPH MBA, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project said: “The rising number of thyroid cancer cases in Fukushima area children exposed to the meltdown is disturbing. The 104 cases either confirmed or very likely to be confirmed is far greater than the expected number of seven for a population of children that size over a three year period. Thyroid cancer is only one of the many diseases whose risk increases after a meltdown, and researchers must conduct studies, both in Japan and other affected nations.”
So I have to ask again, how long is it going to take for the world to acknowledge that something terrible is happening right under our noses? I guess I would also have to ask why the positive study was published in the Japan Times and no mention was made of the study showing the alarming increase in cancer rates?