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Around 2,000 Fukushima Workers At Risk of Thyroid Cancer
mdsolar writes "Around 2,000 people who have worked at Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant face a heightened risk of thyroid cancer, its operator said Friday. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said 1,973 people — around 10 percent of those employed in emergency crews involved in the clean-up since the meltdowns — were believed to have been exposed to enough radiation to cause potential problems. The figure is a 10-fold increase on TEPCO's previous estimate of the number of possible thyroid cancer victims and comes after the utility was told its figures were too conservative. Each worker in this group was exposed to at least 100 millisieverts of radiation, projections show."
If you keep profit out of the equation. But with 30 year life cycles I don't know how to do that. Sooner or later someone is going to clamor to privatize it and make it more 'efficient'.
Chernobyl was not privately owned.
were believed to have been exposed to enough radiation to cause potential problems. The figure is a 10-fold increase on TEPCO's previous estimate
Well, yeah. The original estimates were made during a crisis situation and based on limited data. Let's all act shocked now that more comprehensive data is available and the estimate has been revised by an order of magnitude. And yet people act shocked when they take their car into the mechanic for a "strange noise" and demand a quote on the spot, then get irritated when the number goes up because "strange noise" turned out to be something more serious than a loose fitting.
Sigh. This isn't exactly news. We knew that as time went on and more eyeballs were put on Fukushima we were going to find more problems, and more accurate data. That's nothing more than the result of an application of scientific process... it's been doing the same thing the world over for thousands of years.
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I don't want to talk about risk etc. but can we please get accurate statistics on this one? Because the risk that it is possible that radiation can cause thyriod cancer is good to know, but I am interested how many workers in Fukushima actually got or might get cancer incompare to the unbelievable low numbers in Chernobyl.
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I thought the main reason for the increase in Thyroid cancer came from exposure to radioactive Iodine which is stored and concentrated in thyroid to be released as needed. Evolutionarily this makes since Iodine is a important chemical for the body but is rare in my places so holding on to it when it is available was quite advantages. If the Thyroid has enough Iodine it passes on newer sources(I believe), so am wondering if the majority of people today don't enough Iodine from salt to greatly reduce they Thyroid risks. I believe iodine in salt was only introduced in japan after WW2?? So we have very little data on how people who get enough Iodine respond to radioactive Iodine in the environment. Also, If the workers where using dust masks, not eating food outside of clean areas, using gloves, etc. Very little Iodine could get absorbed into their systems anyhow. I would hope such precautions where taken because radioactive Iodine isn't even the most dangerous nuclear byproduct. Also, they could have been given extra Iodine supplements to prevent absorption of the Iodine.
I hope things work out well for them but everyone of them who gets cancer will blame the nuclear cleanup effort regardless of if their population has an increase or even decrease in cancer vs the general public. Hell, am sure people in the USA are figuring on how to sue in japan for their cancers.
Oh yeah! As long as there is absolutely no chance of making a profit I'm sure safety will shoot right through the roof!
Just look at the death toll from Three Mile Island! Do you know that since the accident THOUSANDS of people in Pennsylvania have died from cancer! It's a crime!
Now look at Chernobyl where Progressive Soviet Idealism has shown the light that will conquer the corrupt imperialist western scum! Did you know that the death toll from cancer in Pripyat has been ZERO for over twenty years! This shows the superiority of the Soviet system over the profit-seeking scum who intentionally caused Three Mile Island and Fukushima because they made insane fortunes from nuclear accidents! Dear Leader Kim Jong Un will soon deliver us to a new world where there are no profits of any kind except to his ruling elite! Join us or die!
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Just because they are at a "heightened risk of thyroid cancer" doesn't mean that they are going to get cancer. It means that they are more likely to get it than people who weren't exposed to the radiation. Only 2000 people at a heightened risk, as a result of a nuclear power plant being hit by a tsunami? Not bad, I say.
Next time, don't build a nuclear power plant where it can be hit by a tsunami, though. That was just stupid.
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WoW. MOTO article.
Ever person that works at a nuclear power plant knows and understands the risk of thyroid cancer due to exposure to radioactive Iodine. If anything, the workers know that this is true, understand the technicals for why it is mitigated with potassium tablets, and are okay with the increased risk of a very treatable condition. I've worked in the industry for more than 10 years and I KNOW this is true.
Many emergency responders that work in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant know this too. I KNOW this is true as I dated someone that was an emergency responder.
So maybe we should publish other articles on Slashdot.
-Higher risk of being shot in Chicago than on a farm in Montana.
-Higher risk of dying in a car accident when traveling faster.
-You are more likely to suffocate if you inhale your pool versus inhaling at your neighborhood park.
Not to discredit how much having cancer sucks. But thyroid cancer is very treatable today. Especially when you have a known group of people that are more susceptible to it and therefore can be tested more thoroughly for early warning signs.
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This article is preposterous. 100 milliseiverts is the lowest level for which there is believed to be an increased risk long term of getting cancer. The increase in rate is believed to be about 2%.
Now for the adult population the rate of thyroid cancer is about 1% of all cancers, or .25% of the population.
Throw in the fact that the cure rate for thyroid cancer is 95% or so and it is apparent that the odds of any of these people dying from this exposure is quite small.
You think it would have gone better if it was?
What it boils down to is that human nature is the problem. We see it again and again in every area. Aircraft safety is a perfect example - extremely safe but somehow human beings still manage to screw it up from time to time.
Unless you plan to staff the plant with angels and fuel it with unicorn farts it's never going to be 100% safe.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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This goes against slashdot doctrine!
Nobody will ever die because of Nuclear Power. Sleeping with your arms around a nuclear rod every night gives you the same exposure to radiation as eating 1 small banana!
100 mSv is the lowest dose linked to an increased risk of cancer (source: http://xkcd.com/radiation/). I imagine the risk would be much less when iodine supplements are taken. Since the Japanese are a generally cautious people, I expect this was the case.
You think it would have gone better if it was?
Yes. The main problem with Chernobyl was not the accident itself, but the design. It had no containment vessel. No government has ever allowed a private company to build a nuke plant so obviously defective. People in both government and industry are the same, and equally likely to be selfish, greedy and incompetent. The difference is that capitalists are accountable, to both regulators and shareholders. The government is accountable to no one.
Fukushima was run by capitalists, and it failed partly due to incompetence and greed, but also because of one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded.
Chernobyl was run by socialists. It failed entirely due to incompetence and greed, on a sunny and calm Ukrainian day.
The GPP's claim that socialism is some sort of silver bullet for nuclear safety is absurd.
Suppose the Fukushima complex had been coal-fired rather than nuclear. For decades, it would have contaminated the air and surrounding land with megatons of toxic emissions, harming the health and shortening the lives of its neighbors. Miners would have died supplying the coal. When the tsunami hit, many workers would have died, since coal plants are much less robust than nuclear. The debris wave from the plant would have killed more. I don't think there can be any doubt that, while not perfectly safe, the use of nuclear technology in this location saved many lives. But coal gets a free ride in the press, which downplays its hazards. Anything nuclear gets the fear treatment.
but the lies were equally ambigious.
Absolute hogwash. TEPCO has slanted the facts, and issued incomplete and inaccurate information. But to compare that to the behavior of the Soviet Union in the aftermath of Chernobyl is ridiculous. The Soviet Union issued NO information for days after the accident. Even immediately adjacent towns were left uninformed, and the denials continued as people showed up at hospitals with rashes and vomiting from radiation sickness. They allowed thousands of their own people to be exposed needlessly. They didn't admit to anything until after it was widely reported in the West, which learned about the accident from radiation blown across international borders, and confirmed it with satellite photos. Even then the Soviets tried to minimize and cover up the story for months afterwards.
Iodine tablet is not like paracetamol, you take some _only_ if you really need it. Especially for people above 40 yo, who are usually advised not to take the pills.
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I will be able to provide you with an unlimited number of unicorn farts for a reasonable fee. You will need to source the angels from someone else.
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Three-mile Island was.
So what's your point? The profit motive is just one more weak point in an already hard-to-contain form of energy. Keeping nuclear energy away from private ownership doesn't guarantee there will never be an accident, it just makes accidents due to insufficient compliance with safety regulations less likely.
Anyway, the only reason private industry wants to own nuke plants is because they are protected from serious liability and external costs by the government. Instead of letting private industry own the plants, let them be owned publicly and contract with private industry to run them, albeit with a very heavy boot on their neck and full liability. Taking care of the 2000 possible thyroid cancer cases, and their families, is not cheap. Instead of having to play games with these peoples' lives and end up with government having to pay for them anyway, let's just skip the charade of private ownership for such plants entirely.
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And it had a positive void coefficient. And instability at low power levels. And a flammable graphite moderator. And the tips of the control rods were made of graphite which actually INCREASED reactor power when they started to enter the reactor. And the reactor building roof was covered with flammable bitumen (counter to regulations). The totality of the dreadfulness of the design is almost impossible to comprehend. Even so it is exceeded by the stupidity of the experiment undertaken by the operators which ended in the catastrophe.
There are still 10 operating RBMK reactors of this awful type in Russia.
You answered exactly what I was planning to ask about, and it is pretty awful journalism that the numbers you quote were omitted from TFA. If I'm interpreting your numbers correctly, that would result in 1973*0.25%*2%*(1-95%) = 0.005 extra thyroid cancer deaths total. Not exactly the picture the article was painting.
Keeping nuclear energy away from private ownership doesn't guarantee there will never be an accident, it just makes accidents due to insufficient compliance with safety regulations less likely.
Nonsense. Under government ownership, the people making the regulations and the people complying with them are the SAME PEOPLE, or at least answer to the same people. This guarantees a conflict of interest, and a lack of accountability. Government owned and run nukes have a far worse safety record than privately run nukes.
Well, when the West German THTR-300 had an problem (a thorium reactor, by the way, since there are a lot of thorium reactor fans around here) and released a lot of radioactive dust into environment, the private operator denied everything and blamed the fallout from the Chernobyl accident a few weeks earlier for the readings. Only after a Protactinium isotope was found, the operator was forced to admit the release of radioactivity. So much for private industry. If they try to cover up minor incidents, I won't trust them with anything major.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
In other news Fukushima daiichi plant chief at the time of the accident died of cancer a few days ago. What a coincidence, maybe it has something to do with radiation.
Link to WSJ article
was a bunch of dumb asses who didn't know what they were doing were left in charge of a nuclear power plant. It's pretty well documented that the accident was caused by an unsafe and unnecessary experiment by junior staff. It has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism. Just good 'ole fashion human arrogance and stupidity.
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Good sources of natural dietary iodine include kelp, and other sea vegetables and fish as well. So the traditional Japanese diet has a helpful side-effect of tending to limit the uptake of Iodine-131 into the Thyroid and other body glands.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Fukushima was run by capitalists, and it failed partly due to incompetence and greed
Where's the evidence? What failure of Fukushima can be attributed to incompetence and greed?
Well, if you're going to play that semantics game, then let us note that the worst, most tyrannical, bloodthirsty corporations just happened to be of the form labeled "government".
Would you say "(oh noes!)" to the families of the 2000 Fukishima workers who are now at risk for thyroid cancer? Do you think those workers were maybe exposed to more radiation than a "coal base load plant"?
And is a comparison to a coal plant really a recommendation?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Putting their health and maybe their lives on the line to make others in Japan safer.
Fukushima was run by capitalists, and it failed partly due to incompetence and greed
Where's the evidence? What failure of Fukushima can be attributed to incompetence and greed?
The failure to strengthen and raise the height of the seawall. It was well known that the seawall was insufficient to contain a tsunami of known historical magnitude. The coast of northern Honshu is hit by big tsunamis about every 300 years, and was "due". They didn't fix the wall in order to save money, and just hoped they would get lucky.
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Chernobyl is a litany of shortcuts, coverups, and bad technology (huge, positive void, graphite moderated cauldrons = blatant stupidity), and it was all publicly funded, from the reactor design work in the 50s, to the construction of the plant in the late 70s/mid 80s. The fact they named it the 'V.I Lenin' NPP is a fitting ironic epitaph because the issue was his politics.. Defending the ideology became more important than the laws of physics. This leads to the same kinds of shortcuts taken for profit motive in a private ownership scenario.
The people who run the reactor should not be financially motivated to cut corners, period, no matter who owns it, be it the public via a corrupt state, or a private profit seeking entity. This is the old, intractable 'who watches the watchers' problem.
That said, we need to do something because nuclear is the only energy dense power source we have that doesn't involve greenhouse gas release. If those hippies want their electric cars, we need nuclear to charge their batteries.
It was well known that the seawall was insufficient to contain a tsunami of known historical magnitude.
There's no evidence for this assertion, particularly at the time the plant was designed and built, Instead, the first time that TEPCO seems to have considered this was back in 2008.
They didn't fix the wall in order to save money, and just hoped they would get lucky.
Which incidentally is a good strategy for a nuclear plant that was scheduled for decommissioning starting the very month that the earthquake happened!
Would you say "(oh noes!)" to the families of the 2000 Fukishima workers who are now at risk for thyroid cancer? Do you think those workers were maybe exposed to more radiation than a "coal base load plant"?
They were at risk before. So are you. Everyone has a non-zero risk for everything. Quantum mechanics demands that there is, in fact, a vanishingly small probability that you will turn into a jelly doughnut while reading this. Now let's talk actual risk. The quoted figure is 100 millisieverts. That is the lowest figure for which there is a predicted increase in cancer rates. Below that level, we can't plausibly say that there even is a risk. 20 mSv a year is the current international limit for nuclear plant workers.
So what they're saying is, before the risk was so low, it wasn't worth mentioning. Now the risk is so low, that it's equal to having worked in the plant for five years.
And is a comparison to a coal plant really a recommendation?
No, it's a recommendation that you stop going "oh noes! radiation! it must be bad because all the newspapers put it in big scary red letters!" Well, I can drown you with just a glass of water, but nobody considers that particularly dangerous; And it's the same with radiation. Everything is radioactive. Bananas are radioactive especially. Most radioactive food you can eat, in fact. Nobody is running around going "oh fuck! the bananas are going to kill us all." Perspective man, that's what you're lacking here.
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This is both good and bad news.
The babble about thyroid cancer tells me that this is related to the escape of short lived iodine isotopes.
This is vastly better than the same dose from longer lived isotopes which keep on giving and giving.
This was also predictable because these very active alpha emitters are darn hard to measure. Alpha particles are easy to shield and it is mostly the thyroids bio affinity for iodine that makes this a problem. There is data from decades of radioactive iodine uptake tests that can tell us more about the risk.
Many individuals would have been given KI tablets to saturate the thyroid with stable iodine isotopes.... These need to be subtracted from the statistics.
If you are downwind of a reactor (any reactor) and do not have one dose per family member (+1 for guest each) you should. Yes, you should consult your family doctor for advice the next time you visit.
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A very large number of workers died, about 20%. The broader exposure will likely bring about between 30,000 and 60,000 excess cancer deaths, some in countries that never got any electricity from Chernobyl ever. http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary
Clean, safe, inexpensive.
Yep.
I thought it failed because it was hit by a big fucking earthquake and 45ft wall of ocean water. A disaster that killed 18,000 people, but none due to the reactor failure.
How in the world can anyone call spent fuel rods "safe"? Nuclear power plants produce the most toxic waste of any industry in the world...
So, in a comment to a report that demonstrates a U.N. whitewash on Fukushima http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/06/05/2054237/japans-radiation-disaster-toll-none-dead-none-sick this anonymous coward claims there was no whitewash on Chernobyl. Perhaps there is a larger perspective here.
That should have been 0.0987 people corresponding to 0.005%, of course.
Because only TEPCO's NPS failed when the tsumami hit. They already had the studies made in 2008 that the seawall was way below the required height for the recorded tsunami levels in their zone. The nuclear power plant from Tohoku Denryoku, Onagawa, that was in the closest point to the quake's epicenter and was hit by a higher wave didn't fail; to the south of TEPCO's Fukushima II the power plant from Japan Atomic Power Corporation Tokai-2 was hit by a similar wave that hit and damaged Fukushima II and didn't face any emergency because due to the same study that was shown to TEPCO in 2008 instead of doing nothing they built a higher and stronger seawall. The lack of a proper seawall killed 2 workers that drowned at Fukushima I.
To further complicate things, instead of starting the decommissioning of unit 1 of Fukushima I TEPCO requested and got granted a license to keep it working despite it being the oldest unit in service in Japan. Had it been in cold shutdown since February 2011 as scheduled despite the lack of proper countermeasures against tsunami they could have had the manpower and resources available to better deal with the emergency in units 2 and 3. On the other hand, if units 4, 5 and 6 hadn't been in a planned outage at the time of the tsunami the disaster could have been of biblical proportions.
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