Researchers Say Fukushima Child Cancer Rates 20-50x Higher Than Expected (ap.org)

New submitter JackSpratts writes: According to the Associated Press, "A new study says children living near the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a rate 20 to 50 times that of children elsewhere, a difference the authors contend undermines the government's position that more cases have been discovered in the area only because of stringent monitoring.

Most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima prefecture (state) have been given ultrasound checkups since the March 2011 meltdowns at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The most recent statistics, released in August, show that thyroid cancer is suspected or confirmed in 137 of those children, a number that rose by 25 from a year earlier. Elsewhere, the disease occurs in only about one or two of every million children per year by some estimates."

Comments

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are the usual pro-nuke ppl. here going to trumpet the same old "no injuries from Fukushima" line, over and over again?

Re:So...

[Shatrat]

There's no control for this study. You might as well logically conclude that ultrasounds cause thyroid cancer based on this.

Re:So...

[ColdWetDog]

Are the usual pro-nuke ppl. here going to trumpet the same old "no injuries from Fukushima" line, over and over again?

Probably, but nobody except other wackjobs believes them. The more interesting but infinitely harder to address question is whether or not nuclear power, with all it's warts (Chernobyl, Hanford, Fukishima, bog-knows-what-all-is-left-in-Russia) is more or less dangerous than fossil fuels in general.

My best guess is that it's considerably safer since the data on coal looks pretty bad.

The only real problem for nuclear is that it's too damned expensive compared to fossil fuels and now even solar and wind. It's a horribly complex technology that it's adherents fucked up badly by not carefully and consistently holding to the highest of engineering standards (like naval reactors). They cheaped out and they are paying the price.

Re:Survey bias

[Mr D from 63]

Precisely. There is no control group for what this person claims. When control groups are considered, these kids actually exhibit the same results. They find a lot more potentially cancerous cells when they screen with sensitive tests that have not been used before.

What was done here is to take one set of data from screening and ignore all others. And yet, people actually print this crap.

Re:Stop spreading misinformation.

[Anonymous Coward]

If only epidemiology were so simple. Care to point me to the double blind study showing that cigarettes cause cancer?

Re:Survey bias

[PopeRatzo]

When control groups are considered, these kids actually exhibit the same results.

Really? The child cancer rates are 20-50x higher everywhere than people think?

You should read the article.

Re:Hmm...

[Rei]

Big percentage of small number = slightly bigger small number

Perhaps you should go around hospitals and explain this to the children with the excess cases of thyroid cancer while they're receiving their chemo.

Re:Survey bias

[gweihir]

That is nonsense here and rather obviously so. (The lies of the nuclear-apologists are really staggering and so is their stupidity...)

The ultrasound makes you find it earlier, you know when there is a better chance to treat it. It does not make you find more at all. Cancer has a way it making itself known at some point and it has an extremely low spontaneous remission rate (i.e. it almost never vanishes by itself).