NHK: Thyroid cancer found in 18 Fukushima children

[cprise]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130821_06.html

...

The prefecture is giving medical checkups to all 360,000 children aged 18 or younger at the time of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011.

That's because radioactive substances released in the accident can accumulate in children's thyroid glands, possibly increasing their risk of developing cancer.

Some 210,000 children had been tested by the end of July.
Besides the 18 minors diagnosed with cancer, 25 others are suspected to have the illness.

The incidence rate of thyroid cancer in children is said to be one in hundreds of thousands. In Japan, 46 people under 20 were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2006.

The panel says it cannot determine if the accident has affected the incidence of cancer among children in Fukushima. But it has decided to set up an expert team to look into the situation.
...

[ZombieHorde]

1. Fuck. nt

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. The panel says it cannot determine? FUCK it, of course these are related.

Shit. This is horrifying.

And it's only going to get worse.

[Yo_Mama]

9. Well, no, it's not obvious

I think we can assume that there is a higher risk of thyroid cancer in these kids.

But proving it is another matter and will require years more, because if you grabbed any population of kids and screened them all with high-resolution ultrasounds, you would come up with a much higher incidence of cancers than is normal. And that would be true anywhere for any population.

It's only if you track incidence over years that you can statistically prove the relationship. When you do testing like this, you concentrate diagnoses which would have occurred over a period of years in a very short time span, and you detect abnormalities that would never be picked up at all in some people. Further, most of these cancers are slow-growing. So if you find a large growth in a Fukushima child at this point, the chances are high that the growth began before 3-11.
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-children-thyroid-cancer-783/

Now if you still doubt this, please read this article:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/06/05/national/fukushima-survey-lists-12-confirmed-15-suspected-thyroid-cancer-cases/#.UhZ1Bj9Lils

Note that the first round of testing occurred in 2011. The disaster occurred then too. Seven out of 40,000 kids were found with cancer in that round, but it is just about inconceivable that the cancers could have occurred from the disaster exposure. These seven kids must already have had it before the disaster. It takes time for nodules to form and grow enough to warrant any biopsy or testing. Thyroid nodules are actually very common, but most of them are small and non-cancerous.

Only a rising tide of detections can statistically prove a relationship, which will require years of monitoring. If you multiply 7 times 9 (360,000/40,000) you get 63 cases, so they have not even reached the baseline from the original study. That would be the expected "normal" incidence in this population for this type of screening.

[upaloopa]

3. Not too long ago some nuclear loving DUer

was telling us how glad we should be because we were destroying weapons buy burning nuclear fuel or some shit.
I said nuclear was too dangerous and he/she pointed to Fukushima as a safe outcome of a nuclear accident.

[wtmusic]

26. That was probably me.

41 children died today from coal in America alone.

Though coal isn't as spooky as radiation, it's much more dangerous. Shouldn't we be worrying about the things which can kill people, and not the things which are spooky?

Grow up.

[dixiegrrrrl]

34. . Do you have peer-reviewed evidence of deaths from coal?

Coal deaths takes years to appear.

Do you have the evidence of the "41 children who died today from coal in America alone."?
Since they died today, how did you find the information so quickly?

[wtmusic]

35. Fair enough.

www.aeaweb.org/aea/2013conference/program/retrieve.php?pdfid=291?

Particulate Matter

Particulate matter is, perhaps, the most harmful pollutant produced by coal-fired power plants. While particulate matter is released directly from smokestacks to some extent, a much greater amount of particle pollution is formed from atmospheric reactions of SO2 and NOx. As the source of nearly 60 percent of the nation's total SO2 emissions, coal combustion is one of the most significant contributors to particulate pollution in the U.S. According to the American Lung Association, more than 93 million Americans live in areas where they are exposed to unhealthful short-term levels of particulate matter and more than 54 million people live in regions with harmful year-round levels of particulate matter. Inhaling particulate matter can result a wide range of adverse health effects, including asthma attacks, lung tissue damage, stroke, heart attack and premature death.8 The public health burden of particle pollution is staggering; a recent study estimated that particulate matter from coal plants is responsible for nearly 24,000 deaths each year.

(Note: 24000/365 = 66 deaths from coal every day. Take your pick of how many of them are children. Does it matter?)

Premature Death
23,600
Heart Attacks
38,200
Asthma Attacks
554,000
Hospital Admissions
21,850
Emergency Room Visits
26,000
Lost Work days
3,186,000

Air Toxics and Mercury

Burning coal also produces millions of pounds of toxic air emissions each year, making coal-fired power plants the largest source of air toxics in the U.S. In EPA smoke stack tests, coal plants were found to release 67 different air toxics, many of which are known or probable human carcinogens and neurotoxins that can harm brain development and irritate the respiratory system. Among the array of air toxics emitted by coal plants, mercury is the pollutant of greatest concern. In 2005, coal plants were responsible for more than 65 percent of all mercury air emissions.

After mercury is released to the air, it is deposited in bodies of water where it is converted to methylmercury (an organic form) that accumulates in fish tissues. Humans are exposed to mercury primarily through the consumption of contaminated fish. Methlymercuryís neurotoxic effects are particularly threatening to fetal and child development. Fetal exposure via the placenta can cause mental retardation and brain damage, while continued exposure in early childhood can result in learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders. Approximately one in six women of childbearing age now have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood and it is estimated that between 300,000 and 600,000 children are at serious risk of severe neurological and developmental impairment from mercury exposure each year. Though mercury poses the greatest threat to children, research shows that mercury exposure may increase the risk of coronary heart disease among men."


U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. EPA Toxics Release Inventory Reporting Year 2005 Public Data Release. Section B. http://epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri05/pdfs/eReport.pdf

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). ToxFAQs for Nitrogen Oxides. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts175.html

American Lung Association, State of the Air: 2007. 2007. http://www.lungusa2.org/embargo/sota07/ALA_SOTA_07.pdf

U.S. EPA, OAQPS Staff Paper: Review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone: Policy Assessment of Scientific and Technical Information (January 2007).

Bell ML, Dominici F, Samet JM. A meta-analysis of time-series ozone and mortality with comparison to the national morbidity, mortality, and air pollution study. Epidemiology 2005; 16: 436-445

Ito K, DeLeon SF, Lippmann M. Associations between ozone and daily mortality: analysis and meta-analysis. Epidemiology 2005; 16: 446-457.

Brook, RD, et al. Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease: A Statement for Healthcare Professionals From the Expert Panel on Population and Prevention Science of the American Heart Association. Circulation, 2004

Hong, Y.-C., Lee J.-T., Kim, H., Ha, E.-H., Schwartz, J., and Christiani, D.C. Effects of Air Pollutants on Acute Stroke Mortality. Environ. Health Perspect 2002; Vol. 110, pp. 187-191

Zanobetti A, Schwartz J. The Effect of Particulate Air Pollution on Emergency Admissions for Myocardial Infarction: A Multicity Case-Crossover Analysis. Environ Health Perspec 2005; 113 78-982.

Abt Associates. The Particulate-Related Health Benefits of Reducing Power Plant Emissions, 2000. http://www.catf.us/publications/reprots/Abt_PM_report.php

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Study of hazardous air pollutant emissions from electric utility steam generating units - final report to Congress. February, 1998.

453/R-98-004a. Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2000.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Blood and hair mercury levels in young children and women of childbearing age - United States, 1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, March 2, 2001

Mahaffey KR, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Methylmercury: Epedimiology Update. Presentation given at the National Forum
on Contaminants in Fish. San Diego, CA. January 26th, 2004. http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/forum/2004/presentations/monday/mahaffey.pdf

U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electric Power in the United States.July 2000. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2emiss.pdf

World Health Organization. The World Health Report 2002: Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2002. http://www.who.int/whr/en

[CreekDog]

36. you're saying it's not so bad then

[FBaggins]

8. There's a reason that it "can't be determined"

Because so far, the rate is no higher than in other Japanese children that were not exposed to the radioiodine from Fukushima.

So if the statistics say that in a given population they should find 15-20 cases of thyroid cancer (absent any nuclear effect) and they find 18... they can't determine whether there are 15 that would have happened anyway and three caused by the accident... or 18 that would have happened anyway and none caused by the accident.

Further complicating things is the fact that everywhere in the world there are far more cases of thyroid cancer than ever get diagnosed. This has been known for many years. The more they look for it (and the finer the instruments they use), the more cases they find. So they can't tell if they're finding more cases because of radiation... or because they're checking so many tens of thoudsands of kids who wouldn't otherwise have been checked. Because nobody was screening for thyroid cancer with high-resolution ultrasound in Japan prior to Fukushima.

It's important to keep in mind that no health physicist expects any identifiable increase in thyroid cancer this early after Fukushima. the studies that are being done now are really just to establish the baseline so that the future impact can be better identified and studied.

When the higher cancer rates hit the West coast

Radiation levels on the West coast from Fukushima are hundreds/thousands of times too low to cause an identifiable increase in cancer rates.

Cesium leaves an accumulative effect for 180 to 300 years

??? What does that mean? In humans, Cesium has a biological half life of about four months. It can't accumulate beyond a certain level absent much higher exposure levels... and 300 years from now essentially all of the Cesium 134 will be long gone and 99.9% of the Cesium 137 will be as well.

[phantom power]

10. The fact that this result, which demonstrates that there's been no impact...

is being reacted to with alarm, says everything there is to say about how wrong-headed the world's discussion of energy is.

18 cases of thyroid cancer! Compared to a background rate of 15-20! Take that you nuclear apologist shills!

[kristopher]

15. You are comparing a rate to a raw number?

And then scoffing at "wrong-headed discussion"?

That says almost everything there is to say about the approach of nuclear proponents to discussions of the effects of nuclear.

We complete that "almost everything" with the fact that the rate you quoted was a fictional construct by Baggins. The OP says (and I quote) "The incidence rate of thyroid cancer in children is said to be one in hundreds of thousands".

Perhaps you can see why the credibility of those who mindlessly cheer nuclear energy is so low.

[FBaggins]

17. The 15-20 figure is just an example

I have no idea what the real figure should be (nor likely does anyone else since this is the first such baseline)

But yes... as predicted... even unspectacular news is blown badly out of proportion. When a structural analysis shows that a structure is sound and not tilting beyond an imperceptible (within tolerances) amount... yet is "reported" as "about to collapse endangering all life in the northern hemisphere!!!"... we shouldn't be surprised.

[kristopher]

18. Which begs the question of *why* you fabricated such a number...

...when the OP clearly stated, " "The incidence rate of thyroid cancer in children is said to be one in hundreds of thousands".

Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice To Deceive.

[FBaggins]

20. Because, unlike you, I actually understand the facts.

And it wasn't "fabricated"... it was clearly an example and I clearly said that they don't really know how many people get it.

The incidence rate of thyroid cancer in children is said to be one in hundreds of thousands

And that's because until now, the "incidence rate" in children consisted entirely of palpable nodules that were determined to need a biopsy (which then of course had to come back positive). And that's incredibly rare. Which is not the same thing as saying that thyroid cancer is incredibly rare. It's actually now thought to be quite common. In a couple autopsy studies of people who died from other causes, as many as half of them were found to have had thyroid cancer that never went diagnosed (it usually has no symptoms).

You should have learned this lesson years ago... when Caldicott tried to convince people that the thyroid "abnormalities" being found were also caused by Fukushima... because in her decades of experience, she had never found a kid with nodules but now as many as 40% in Fukushima were found with them. This was obviously because her experience was limited to nodules that a pediatrician could feel (usually greater than 20mm) and at that young age it's quite rare. The problem is that the ones they were finding in Japan were much much smaller than what was palpable (and, of course, it was far too early for radiation-induced thyroid cancer to appear)

Then the studies of kids far away from Fukushima came back with a higher rate of thyroid abnormalities - proving that (as with this result), the numbers were entirely within the normal range.

There were only two possible conclusions. One is that (as we've known from the beginning) they haven't seen any thyroid impact so far from Fukushima (which is not to say that there won't be any)... the other is to side with nuts like Busby who insist that the Japanese government is intentionally poisoning the kids in other parts of Japan so that the Fukushima results will look normal by comparison.

Is that really the camp you want to be in?

[kristopher]

21. You fabricated numbers that grossly skewed the available data.

As evidenced by the phantom's post which followed yours, and knowing your history of playing fast and loose with the truth, I'd say you did it deliberately.

[FBaggins]

29. No rational person could read that post as anything but a hypothetical.

But should I be surprised that you went there rather than deal with reality?

We both know that there's no chance that these cancers can be associated with Fukushima... but you're unwilling to admit it because it's more convenient to let the gullible believe the lies.

* It's too soon after the accident. Even MUCH higher dose rates at Chernobyl didn't pop thyroid cancer rates this soon
* They measured whole-body dose rates for these kids as well as calculated their thyroid dose... and the number is FAR too low to result in thyroid cancer (let alone this early).
* They've shown conclusively that the abnormality rate among Japanese kids that were not exposed to radioiodine are higher than (really the same as) the kids who were.

So there's no question that these 18 kids actually benefitted from the massive baseline screening program, since they can all receive treatment for a condition that very likely would not have been discovered for many years (if at all).

[caraher]

62. Seems like many rational people did read your numbers as data-based estimates

I understand your general points - careful screening will certainly turn up tumors that would otherwise have gone unnoticed, so even an elevated rate doesn't necessarily suggest a causal link exists. But phantom power, for instance, clearly took your numbers to be real, and I didn't see much of a disclaimer when I read the post where you suggested a range of 15-20 for comparison purposes.

Anyway, I looked for some real numbers. (Actual values do matter!) Evidently, thyroid cancer is quite rare among those younger than 10 and picks up in adolescence, which makes it a little tricky to make an estimate that would apply to 360,000 screened "under age 18." The rates in my source are 15.4 per million for ages 15-19 and less than 1 per million for those under age 10. So if these were really young kids, I think 18 confirmed cases could represent a significant difference (though the cause may be obscure - what is the typical latency for a thyroid tumor caused by I-131 ingestion?).

Assuming the 360,000 are distributed equally among ages 0-18 and the rate of 15.4 million for the older end translates can be translated into something vaguely like 5 per million across the whole group (assume it's effectively 0 for the younger 2/3 and 15 per million for the eldest third) you'd still only expect maybe 2 cases from a population of 360,000. So if you ignore all the important disclaimers about the statistics of very small numbers, that's roughly an order of magnitude more than you'd expect.

A good complementary study, of course, would be to pick an unexposed population and see whether they also see an order of magnitude increase when submitted to the same kind of more-intense screening. But that might be a hard study to fund and organize. In any case, it's clear that the 18 cases do represent a spike above the rate one would expect from an ordinary population under no special scrutiny.

[cprise]

22. You're saying most thyroid cancer goes into remission?

Citation please.

[FBaggins]

30. Not as I understand "remission", no.

I'm saying that most cases of thyroid cancer are never diagnosed. A recent study in the journal Thyroid estimated that between 25 and 100 million americans have undiagnosed thyroid cancer.

http://www.hcplive.com/articles/Thyroid-Cancer-Diagnoses-on-the-Rise

Of course... that's an article from this summer... which will cause the nutcases to claim that Fukushima radiation has given millions of americans cancer. So let's head that off proactively by citing similar results pre-Fukushima

http://www.naturalnews.com/028912_thyroid_cancer_treatment.html

http://www.physicianspractice.com/thyroid-cancer/what-optimal-initial-treatment-low-risk-papillary-thyroid-cancer-and-why-it-controversial

[cprise]

31. They would have to be *either* remissive or not cancer at all (benign)

The only thing this high detection rate in autopsies tells me is that elderly people become more susceptible to cancer as they reach end of life.

[FBaggins]

32. Not as the NIH/NCI define it.

Their definition for remission presupposes that cancer is first diagnosed, since it is " A decrease in or disappearance of signs and symptoms of cancer"

If you have an undiagnosed growing thyroid cancer with no symptoms, it obviously can't be said to be benign, but it's also not decreasing or disappearing. There must therfore be a third category.

The only thing this high detection rate in autopsies tells me is that elderly people become more susceptible to cancer as they reach end of life.

The studies clearly do show that thyroid cancer becomes more and more common as the individual ages, but the autopsies were not exclusively of the elderly. The occurance of undiagnosed thyroid cancer specifically (and thyroid nodules in general) was much higher than had been identified through normal clinical checks.

[CreekDog]

37. you're linking to Natural News?

[FBaggins]

39. For treatment advice? Of course not.

As a reference to demonstrate that thyroid cancer was known to dramatically exceed the diagnosis rate well before Fukushima? Sure.

[Yo_Mama]

19. Everyone does not interpret the world numerically

What's blindingly obvious to you or anyone who deals with these types of stats is not to them, and they deserve a respectful explanation.

I grant that you are telling the truth, but please assume that others are also seeking the truth. They may not all be, but most people are.

As to demonstrating that there has been no impact, this study does not do that, because we would not expect to be able to pick up impact in such a study for another couple of years at a minimum, and it will probably take ten.

Right now it's just an unknown.

[wtmusic]

25. Who the hell is Steven Starr

and how is he remotely qualified to comment on this?

Sounds like another antinuke poseur...the place is crawlin' with 'em.

[wtmusic]

42. He's a lab technician.

According to his bio he's never done any research, so apparently his papers are his opinions.

He's not a physician, but has the arrogance to cite his membership in "Physicians for Social Responsibility". He has a 4-year degree in being a lab technician - no advanced degree in radiology, in public health, in anything.

Sounds like he's an expert at teaching subjects in which he's not an expert.

[wtmusic]

46. No, they didn't win a 1985 Nobel Prize for their work.

The organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War won the award. What is IPPNW's position on nuclear power? They don't have one:

IPPNW affiliates are national medical organizations with a common commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons and the prevention of war. Affiliates range in size from a handful of dedicated physicians and medical students to tens of thousands of activists and their supporters. As independent organizations within a global federation, IPPNW affiliates engage in a wide variety of activities related to war, health, social justice, and the environment.

In much the same way Steven Starr "borrows" the credibility of a physician by touting his membership in Physicians for Social Responsibility, that group "borrows" the prestigious Nobel seal for their website - awarded to a different group for reasons that had nothing to do with nuclear power. This is a common tactic of antinuclear activists: without legitimate credentials and research of their own, they glom onto the legit credentials of other groups. In the process, they confuse well-meaning individuals like yourself not only about their work, but about real prospects for nuclear energy to fight global warming.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 1985

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 1985 to the organisation International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

It is the committee's opinion that this organisation has performed a considerable service to mankind by spreading authoritative information and by creating an awareness of the catastrophic consequences of atomic warfare. The committee believes that this in turn contributes to an increase in the pressure of public opposition to the proliferation of atomic weapons and to a redefining of priorities, with greater attention being paid to health and other humanitarian issues. Such an awakening of public opinion, as is now apparent both in the East and in the West, in the North and in the South, can give the present arms limitation negotiations new perspectives and a new seriousness.

In this connection the committee attaches particular importance to the fact that the organisation was formed as a result of a joint initiative by Soviet and American physicians and that it now draws support from physicians in over forty countries all over the world.

It is the committee's intention to invite the organisation's two founders, who now share the title of president – Professor Bernard Lown from the USA and Professor Yevgeny Chazov from the Soviet Union – to receive the Peace Prize on behalf of their organisation.

Oslo, October 5, 1985

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1985/press.html

Every reputable scientist, every real expert - people with advanced degrees in climatology like James Hansen - has said that nuclear power has to be a significant part of the solution to climate change. This conflating of nuclear war with nuclear energy is disingenuous, and without a credible alternative to nuclear energy PSR largely discounts their claim to be fighting global warming.

[wtmusic]

48. It is not the same organization, and it's not an "arm".

They're listed as an "affiliate", which means IPPNW is not an "umbrella" and has no control over their editorial content.

Bottom line: the 1985 Nobel Prize had absolutely nothing to do with nuclear power, and Steven Starr is not a physician. Anyone can call themselves an "expert" but Starr has no qualifications whatsoever beyond those of a lab tech with strong opinions - no basis to challenge a renknowned scientist like James Hansen.

I wouldn't think of disallowing the views of others, nor am I able to. As far as your view, you may disagree with me but you're not presenting good reasons for doing so.

[wtmusic]

50. There is no such thing as an "argument from science without prejudice".

Any opinion which has already been formed is a prejudice. In Hansen's case, he's come out in favor already ("pre-&quot because he's decided ("-judiced&quot based on an incredible amount of scientific data and knowledge, that this is the way we need to go forward. Maybe you are confusing that with "conflict of interest", and there's nothing to indicate the nuclear industry is compensating Hansen in any way.

I wish nuclear didn't create dangerous waste, but it does. It creates a very small volume of waste which can be easily stored, and will be used again long before it becomes a problem (it will be extremely valuable for creating energy in the future).

There's no doubt Fukushima is a catastrophe, but it's dwarfed by the ongoing catastrophe of the world's coal industry - coal is doing far more harm to the environment and to health. That's a fact.

James Hansen on nuclear:

[wtmusic]

53. Funny you mention, nuclear waste can be reused.

The reactors at Fukushima are 40 years old. Newer designs leave 96% less waste, and can actually burn the waste we already have:

"...Dewan and Massie’s design is fuel-agnostic in the sense that it can run on either uranium or thorium; as the name implies, its signal feature is that it can consume spent fuel from conventional light-water reactors.

<>

Liquid-fuel reactors, such as MSRs, also offer inherent safety advantages: because the fuel is liquid, it expands when heated, thus slowing the rate of nuclear reactions and making the reactor self-governing. Also, they’re built like bathtubs, with a drain in the bottom that’s blocked by a “freeze plug.” If anything goes wrong, the freeze plug melts and the reactor core drains in to a shielded underground container. Essentially, if Transatomic’s design works as advertised, MSRs could solve the two problems that have bedeviled the nuclear power industry: safety and waste."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/pikeresearch/2012/09/27/a-pair-of-mit-scientists-try-to-transform-nuclear-power/

By the way, this reactor design has already been tested and proven to work.

I believe everyone posting here values in the environment, but we have different beliefs as to what is best. I believe strongly that nuclear in general, and MSR reactors in particular, have the potential to solve the world's energy problems in coming decades. Every technology has an associated risk, but IMO the risk of unabated climate change is the greatest of all.

thanks for civil discussion

[wtmusic]

56. The risk exists only because we're short on money and short on time.

Increases in global energy use are outpacing renewable development many times over, and we can't squeeze blood from a rock - there is a limited amount of energy that's available to a solar panel, and even if we could retrieve all of it it wouldn't be enough.

The result is we're going backwards.

By the way I was an early believer in electric cars and now own two, so I know all about the story of the EV1 and the dirty tricks that went down. There are a lot of reasons why safe nuclear is a victim of the same phenomenon, but that's another story.

[wtmusic]

59. No prob, thanks.

The authors of the study posted a message on the online journal of the National Academy of Sciences because of so many people overreacting to its results:

"'Fears regarding environmental radioactivity, often a legacy of Cold War activities and distrust of governmental and scientific authorities, have resulted in perception of risks by the public that are not commensurate with actual risks,' wrote marine biogeochemist Nicholas Fisher of Stony Brook University in New York and his co-authors in Monday's online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

<>

A hypothetical fisherman who consumed about five times as much fish as the average American would get a dose of around 2.8 millisieverts over a year, of which only 4.7 microsieverts would come from cesium, and Fukushima. That's about the same amount of radiation a person receives when getting a dental X-ray, the team wrote. The increased probability of developing a fatal cancer for the hypothetical fisherman was 0.00002%, the equivalent of two additional cancers per 10 million people eating the relatively larger amount of fish.

<>

'This study shows that the committed effective dose received by humans based on a year's average consumption of contaminated Pacific bluefin tuna from the Fukushima accident is comparable to, or less than, the dose we routinely obtain from naturally occuring radionuclides in many food items, medical treatments, air travel and other background sources,' Fisher and his co-authors wrote."

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76114986/

[kristopher]

52. Top UK Climate Scientist says Coal with CCS is the ONLY solution to global warming

If you want to learn about climate science, look to climate scientists, I always say. But if you want to learn about climate policy and energy technology, well, you might try looking elsewhere. - J. Romm

Climatologist Myles Allen Says We’re ‘Doomed’ If We Keep Burning Carbon, Then Embraces Dubious Silver Bullet
BY JOE ROMM ON MAY 29, 2013 AT 7:33 PM
Why carbon capture and storage isn’t “the solution” to our climate problems

If you want to learn about climate science, look to climate scientists, I always say. But if you want to learn about climate policy and energy technology, well, you might try looking elsewhere.
A case in point is British climate scientist, Myles Allen. He noted in the Daily Mail On Sunday (MoS) that “we’re doomed to disastrous warming” if we keep burning carbon — even if a recent paper he coauthored about a low climate sensitivity turns out to be true. But then he went on to argue that the only solution — and he does mean only solution — is to mandate that companies capture and store the carbon they release.


Actual caption in MoS: “Futile: Subsidising windfarms, like Whitelee on the outskirts of Glasgow, is a pointless policy, argues Professor Allen.”


Allen’s policy discussion is precisely the kind of nonsense you’d expect in the Mail, whose climate coverage is so atavastic, it makes the Wall Street Journal editorial page look like Climate Central. It is simply head-exploding that any serious climate scientist would publish a piece in publication discredited by so many climate scientists.

Back in 2010, two top climate scientists and the National Snow and Ice Data Center accused the Daily Mail of misquoting and misrepresenting them or their work. Last year, the UK’s Met Office, part of its Defence Ministry, took the unusual step of releasing a statement utterly debunking David Rose’s assertions in the paper as “entirely misleading” — and pointing out that they spoke to Rose before the piece came out but he chose to ignore what they had to say.

And so we’re subjected to this cranium-destroying headline and sub-head:

Why I think we’re wasting billions on global warming, by top British climate scientist
The MoS has campaigned tirelessly against the folly of Britain’s eco-obsessed energy policy. Now comes a game-changing intervention…. from an expert respected by the green fanatics themselves

Ahh, those green fanatics. How much wiser our climate policy would be if not for their obsession with clean energy policy!! Seriously....

More at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/29/2066701/climatologist-myles-allen-says-were-doomed-if-we-keep-burning-carbon-then-embraces-dubious-silver-bullet/

[FBaggins]

43. Actually... it doesn't.

You have to be careful when an anti-nuke advocacy group labels someone an "engineer" or "scientist" (senior or otherwise).

He's really neither (unless we extend the definition of "scientist" to anyone who works in a lab)... nor is he a "physician". There's nothing in his resume that makes him qualified to talk about the radiation effects of Fukushima... and watching his presentation at Caldicott's sideshow only reinforces that conclusion. You certainly can't refer to it as a "study" in any credible sense.

[bananas]

5. 18 so far ... more will develop it later ... nt

[Hydra]

6. Incoming n/t

[Mnemosyne]

7. I'm sure the local nuclear apologists will be along in 3...2...1 nt

[phantom power]

11. errr...

you get that these stats reinforce our nasty, mean apologist point, right?

[kristopher]

16. errrr.... Post #15 might give you food for thought. nt

[FBaggins]

33. Only if he's entirely ignorant re: what "incidence rate" means. nt

[Mnemosyne]

28. I said nothing about nasty or mean. There is more to come, tell me that in five, ten years. nt

[kestrel91316]

13. I see one of our resident nuke worshippers is already here mocking the very idea that

Fukushima has anything to do with this.

[wtmusic]

24. It doesn't.

Cancer from radiation takes years to develop. But we see connections where we want to.

[CreekDog]

38. in children it does?

wow.

when did you become a physician?

[FBaggins]

40. It always has before

Or did you think that Fukushima radiation had magical powers?

You don't have to be a health physicist in order to read what they conclude.

[wtmusic]

23. The page has been taken down.

Maybe it was another Greenpeace prank.

[kristopher]

27. More likely NHK is censoring it.

The UltraConservative Abe government wants to restart the nuclear program, and they are firmly in control of NHK, which is Japanese Public Television.

[bananas]

61. The TV news video is still on youtube

Thyroid cancer found in 18 Fukushima children NHK WORLD English

nhkasianews

Published on Aug 21, 2013

[Nihil]

60. There certainly seems to have been an awful lot of self-deleting on this subject ...