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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."

29 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

    1. Re:So... by Shatrat · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

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    2. Re:So... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

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    3. Re:So... by Cyberax · · Score: 2, Informative

      So, how many of these children died from cancer so far? Answer: none.

  2. Re:Survey bias by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Same old trickery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    the spelling error in the title shows how much effort they took...

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

    Reserchers... reserchers.. can someone buy the editor a vowel

  4. Re:Stop spreading misinformation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  5. Re:Same old trickery by Triklyn · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://fukushimavoice-eng2.blo...

    found in the comments of the article.

    some kind of english translation, if you take it at face value, they were real enough to operate on, at least 99 of them were.

  6. Re:Hmm... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2, Funny

    Reminds me of using 6-sigma process on a widget made of 112 parts and 16 widgets/year.

  7. Re:Survey bias by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's called population based screens. We have studied thyroid cancer for decades for obvious reasons. It's actually one of the easier things to (eventually) diagnose. We know what the baseline should be, the studies are getting higher than baseline levels.

    The one criticism from TFA

    Scott Davis, professor at the Department of Epidemiology in the Seattle-based School of Public Health, said the key limitation of Tsuda's study is the lack of individual-level data to estimate actual radiation doses.

    Which apparently is true but does not invalidate the population based frequency data:

    David J. Brenner, professor of radiation biophysics at Columbia University Medical Center, took a different view. While he agreed individual estimates on radiation doses are needed, he said in a telephone interview that the higher thyroid cancer rate in Fukushima is "not due to screening. It's real."

    It is something that should eventually be pretty clear, the issue now is to get as many cancers diagnosed when it's "easy" to treat.

    Now, does anyone actually believe what TEPCO says about how much radioactive material went airborne? I certainly don't. They haven't said anything truthful since the disaster occurred unless they have had to backtrack after somebody else called them on it.

    --
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  8. "Reserchers"? by codeButcher · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Reserchers"? Seems even the words are not immune to mutations.

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  9. Re:old fashined Cold War Nuclear Bunker Remedy? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Informative

    Once it was a standard Item to Equip in your cool backyard or basement buried shelter medical kit.
    Iodine Tablets that protect the thyroid form radiation?
    They knew this in the 50's why aren't the children receiving this now as a precaution? Or is it now considered unsafe?

    They thought about it.

    Dr. Yamashita, former Director of Fukushima Health Mangagement Suryey and a leading figure of thyroid cancer study in the world, has been actively involved in thyroid cancer research in Chernobyl for over 20 years since 1991. Dr. Yamashita was a radiation risk advisor for Fukushima prefecture at the time of the nuclear accident. Despite his experiences in Chernobyl, he assured that distributing iodine tablets to residents in Fukushima, even in the evacuation zones, was unnecessary. However, the distribution of iodine tablets had been discussed within Fukushima Medical University (FMU), especially during the first 1 week after the accident.

    But because no permission was given by the national government and the prefecture, the plan was never carried out. .

    Surprisingly, there was a group of people who took the iodine tablets under the circumstances. They were doctors, nurses, administrative stuff and their children/relatives, and the students of Fukushima Medical University.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  10. Re:Survey bias by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  11. All you fucking nay-sayers out to protect your... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...precious modernistic energy and technology!

    The study was released online this week and is being published in the November issue of Epidemiology, produced by the Herndon, Virginia-based International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. The data comes from tests overseen by Fukushima Medical University

    It sounds like that journal has been around for more than 25 years, and the study was done by a PUBLIC medical university. Why should there be such a great bias there to defeat the nuclear industry?

  12. Re:Same old trickery by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Give the editor a break... he has a vowel obstruction!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  13. Re:Hmm... by Rei · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
  14. Re:Same old trickery by Triklyn · · Score: 2

    checked the pdf linked in the rando article, don't read japanese, but google translate seems to believe that the blog post reflects the pdf reasonably well

    https://www.pref.fukushima.lg....

    which seems like a pretty shitty looking but reasonably legitimate government website.

    so yeah. i'm not bothered enough to question it further.

  15. Re:Survey bias by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, they are not cancer rates at all, they are discovery of potentially cancerous cells, most of which are benign. In any detailed screening using this method, you will discover more cases that would not normally be discovered.

    The cancer rate is not higher than anywhere else. They tricked you into reading it that way.

  16. Re:Stop spreading misinformation. by Josef+Meixner · · Score: 2

    So you intend to sign up to a study where you have a 50% chance to receive radiation which has a high likelihood of causing thyroid cancer? No? Why not, as you believe there is no proof it should be harmless, no?

    As you only accept one standard of proof, care to show me a setup to proof the existence of gravitation. I mean you just have to do the same experiment, one time with and the other without it, as obviously only a double blind test can show that there really is an effect.

  17. Re:Hmm... by ilguido · · Score: 2

    I don't think that early diagnosed thyroid cancer is treated with chemotherapy.

  18. Re:Same old trickery by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 2

    Well, if one kid's cancer is discovered early and treated due to the enhanced screening started after the Fukushima event, that kid may be lucky that Fukushima took place, otherwise it may have been too late when discovered.

  19. Re:Survey bias by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    benign forms of cancer

    No there are not. And yes I am a doctor. Cancer is by definition NOT benign. Now you may be referring to less aggressive cancers and yes there are plenty of those. Basal cell carcinoma for example. Some prostate cancers. Cervical cancers. All of those are very slow in the growing and spreading. However thyroid cancers, due to their location, are obvious pretty quickly. People tend to wonder about that lump sticking out of their throat.

    Still all of that is besides the point. When autopsies are performed, any cancers are noted even when the patient dies of unrelated conditions. For example almost ALL men over age 80 and ALL men above 90 have prostate cancer, although most of them die from something else. So yes you're right in that cancer can go undetected. But you are wrong in thinking we don't know exactly what the "normal" amount of cancer is in a population.

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  20. Re:Survey bias by gweihir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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).
     

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  21. Re:Survey bias by gweihir · · Score: 2

    On the other hand, hairline fractures heal and vanish by themselves and many do not cause problems. Both not true for cancer. And for the _rate_ it does not matter at what time it has been detected. Really, how stupid are you people?

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  22. Re:Survey bias by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    Just so.

    In the rest of the world, children do not routinely get several ultrasounds per year to check for thyroid cancer. Is it really suprising that we'd find much more of something we're looking Really Hard to Find?

    So what you are saying is that if a child does not get tested for thyroid cancer, the child will cure themselves of it?

    Seriuoosly cancer does not work like that most of the time. As in the really rare cases of spontaneous remission.

    If in a normal population, of say 100,000 children let's say 5 get thyroid cancer

    If these children in Fukushima get 25 cases for everty 100,000 children, and that is survey bias, and there is no statistical difference, Your thesis is that either testing causes thyroid cancer, or that the 20 extra children in teh unexposed set miraculously got better.

    Christ man - get you ass back to infowars - because that's the craziest shit I ever heard.

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  23. Re:Survey bias by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 2

    You don't understand what a control set is. They need to conduct the same screenings on control populations to determine if there is any statistical difference from the Fukushima population. And to this point, when that has been done, the findings of the Fukushima group are consistent and even lower than other groups. But this person intentionally ignores that data and rather uses a comparison against historical unscreened populations, which of course are going to be much lower because they haven not been screened.

    Its is simple scientific methodology, and it is completely ignored here in pursuit of a FUD driven agenda.

  24. Re:All you fucking nay-sayers out to protect your. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The screening data is from Fukushima Medical University. They are not making these claims. Their data is being used by the "environmental" society you referenced in a biased manner. They used the guise for the Fukushima Medical University to try and claim a peer review, however society study was not. I see they fooled you as well. They are good at that.

  25. Re:Hmm... by TheRealHocusLocus · · Score: 2

    Reminds me of using 6-sigma process on a widget made of 112 parts and 16 widgets/year.

    Or using Critical Path Management for programming projects when you are the only programmer in the organization.

    Boss: [interrupting work] "I need to see a CPM chart with tasks and personnel."
    Programmer: "Okay." [produces chart with a horizontal row of connected boxes] "See? There's only one path, it's all critical, and it's all me."
    Boss: "Better get on it then."

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    <blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
  26. Re:Survey bias by delt0r · · Score: 4, Informative

    It not a higher rate of cancer. It is a higher rate of *potentially* cancerous cells. But that is how screening works. Rather high false positive rates but generally much less invasive or cheaper than the more expensive test that has a low false positive rate.

    Here is the test. I test 400,000 children for a cancer that has a prevalence rate of 1 in a million. The test has a .1% false positive rate. If my child tests positive what is the probability my child really has the cancer. Note most doctors get this wrong.

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