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Thyroid cancer in Fukushima children – nothing to worry about?

Life and Death Choices: Radiation, Children, and Japan’s Future, Truth Out, By David McNeill, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 4 June 13 “…….Many parents point to a recent finding that over 40 per cent of nearly 95,000 children checked by Dr Suzuki’s team had thyroid ultrasound “abnormalities”. About 35 per cent had nodules or cysts on their thyroids.  

The cysts and nodules are not cancers but they point to an inevitable spike in future health problems, says Mr Fujimoto – a view contested by the government. “I have absolutely no faith in what the Fukushima government is saying,” he retorts. “They want people to go back and live there so they clearly want to keep a lid on the impact of the disaster.”

Parents accuse government scientists of making their minds up before the survey began – Professor Suzuki’s team said last July that their aim was “to calm the anxiety of the population.”

Iwata Wataru, who heads a non-profit group that measures radiation, believes that’s an abuse of science. “A scientific study is normally designed to detect an effect and lead the investigator to accept or reject a stated hypothesis,” he said. “In this case, they have a strong prior belief that there is no physical effect of exposure.” Iwata wants more independent testing.

In the absence of a consensus on the likely impact of the Fukushima accident, the debate has hardened into two sides: people like Fujimoto an Iwata who say the authorities are playing down or even covering up the disaster, and the increasingly vocal official view that their worries are overblown. Those who stray too far from the official line risk being accused of fear-mongering.

That criticism misses the point, says Mochizuki Iori, author of the blog Fukushima Diary. “I was exposed in the first week,” he writes. “It’s irreversible. Not so many people can share this feeling in the world. I check my thyroid, lymph and symptoms of other things that I don’t even want to mention.”

Doctors say children’s thyroids, which help regulate the body’s metabolism, are especially sensitive to radioactive iodine. The gland is very active during childhood development. A study published last year in the International Journal of Cancer found elevated risks of thyroid cancer in childhood survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 50 years after they were exposed to radiation. The study found over a third of 191 thyroid cancers in adults who were children at the time of the bombing were probably due to exposure. <link>

Whatever the scientists say, Mr. Fujimoto insists he won’t be persuaded by government reassurances that it is safe to return to Fukushima.  “There is so much information not getting out at the moment. It will be too late for my children when it is eventually released.”

http://truth-out.org/news/item/16768-life-and-death-choices-radiation-children-and-japans-future

June 6, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Japan