Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Experts Chime In To Explain Fukushima Thryoid Cancer Concerns (cancernetwork.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the can't-rule-it-out dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Experts and the lead author of the Fukushima study findings explain what the data really tells us and the flaws in claims that there is a link between the disaster and cancer rates. From the article: "It is too soon to determine the influence of radiation exposure on thyroid cancer risk among children and adolescents who were exposed to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, according to the lead author of findings presented at the 15th International Thyroid Congress (ITC) and 85th Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) this week in Lake Buena Vista, Florida."

13 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Too soon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is too soon to determine the influence of radiation exposure on thyroid cancer risk

    But they'll keep looking until they find something else that can be misinterpreted.

    1. Re:Too soon by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The confirmed thyroid cancers identified in post-disaster screening thus far “appear to have already occurred prior to radiation exposure,”

      Which is exactly what you would expect when you begin thorough sensitive screening that has not been previously performed. It was the initial screenings where a majority of the cases were discovered, then much less in subsequent screenings.

      Unfortunately, this article doesn't get the press that the bullshit study articles did. Our media is in a sad state.

    2. Re:Too soon by trout007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Only if you subscribe to the linear no-threshold model which we know is wrong. We live on a planet bathed in radiation and our biology has evolved to deal with this. The problem is we don't have a better model to use for policy recommendations but don't confuse that with reality.

      --
      I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    3. Re:Too soon by durrr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The LINEAR part is wrong because intracellular coping mechanisms(DNA repair, mopping up reactive oxygen species(which is one of the damage modes of ionizing radiation)) have a range in which they function optimally. Asssuming a fully linear relationship there could no repair or maintenance done at all which is a ridiculous suggestion.

      The NO THRESHOLD part doesn't hold up either as there's no detectable cancer rate curve among radiation worker that correlates to their doses inside the allowed intervals.

        If we compare a radiation worker that only does administrative work and accumulates 1mSv to one that works in a hotlab and accumulates 16mSv we should see a 16 times increase in radiation related cancer according to the LNT, but that's not what we see in the real world.

    4. Re:Too soon by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 2

      No. There is no other research. That 'Study" from Toshihide Tsuda that was put forth that claimed thyroid association with Fukushima actually used the data from the studies these experts are performing, but purposely cherry picked that data and misrepresented it. The experts that conducted this study have very clearly explained why the conclusions of Toshihide Tsuda are bunk and that Tsuda clearly did not know what the data even meant.

      Tsuda has no expertise in these matters. I'll believe the cancer doctors that are doing the work and can actually explain it properly.

  2. Re:At last, some common sense! by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation, people!

    Particularly when you don't even have correlation.

  3. Re:So NOW they say it! by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When it was being claimed in the media that there had been NO effects of radiation on non-employees of the nuclear plant, we did not hear these disclaimers. But now that a study shows the possibility of thyroid cancer in children, the "experts" say it's too early to tell. So why did they not say that when the claim was being made that there was no effect?

    They have not said there can be no effect. Theoretically there can be but statistically it is shown that there probably won't be. Due to uncertainly of impacts at these low levels (due to the fact that the impacts are so small they are hard to measure with any statistical significance) the conservative approach is assume there may be and do the testing/screening. One could make a case that it is unneeded, but due to the public fear mongers and to ease concerns, the testing makes sense. Also, it can provide us with more useful data on the topic.

    So far, it appears they caught some cases of thyroid cancers that existed prior to the accident, and these cases were caught earlier than they normally would have. So those kids are lucky in that sense, as the likelihood of successful treatment for them is now higher.

  4. screening by ssam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you give everyone an ultrasound then you find lots of nodules and cysts. Repeat the study in other parts of japan unaffected by radiation and you get the same.
    http://www.nature.com/articles...

    1. Re:screening by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That was considered and rejected in the study showing elevated levels of thyroid cancer:

      The investigators noted that the approximately 30-fold overall increase in thyroid cancer incidence might be the result of a screening effect, meaning there could be silent thyroid cancer cases among children in the unscreened parts of Japan. They conclude, however, that the magnitude of the IRRs is too large to be explained by such an effect.

      They also compared this to the closest analog event in the history of nuclear power. âoeIn Chernobyl, excesses of thyroid cancer became more remarkable 4 or 5 years after the accident in Belarus and Ukraine, so the observed excess alerts us to prepare for more potential cases within a few years,â the authors wrote.

      This seems to be directly at odds with some of the claims made by this new study. A 30x increase seems difficult to explain away by better screening - especially when you look at the timing. If it was merely due to screening you would expect the higher levels to have been immediately apparent after the accident, rather than taking years to emerge. The new study also notes that the age of the victims does not align with what would normally be expected, but does not offer an explanation as to why.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. Re:So NOW they say it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They said it all along, you just weren't listening, or your chosen media outlets didn't find it news-worthy. Here's an article from March 2012, the year after the disaster;

    "Yogi Berra supposedly said, "It's tough making predictions, especially about the future." He was right. However, there is an out for forecasters trying to predict long-term medical consequences of the Fukushima nuclear facility accident: The final reckoning will take about 50 years; they are unlikely to be around to be judged wrong."

    50 years, got it? Also

    "But there is also good news from Chernobyl. After intensive study of hundreds of thousands of people, there are no convincing data of increased leukemia or other cancers, even among the 500,000 cleanup workers who received the highest doses. It may be too soon for a final call, but so far the situation looks favorable."

    Too soon for a final call on Chernobyl, even after all these years, much less Fukushima.

    Don't talk about "the media" and "experts" as if they are some sort of homogeneous entities.

  6. Re:So NOW they say it! by Hussman32 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Except the clear evidence really isn't that clear, there are differences between men and women in the UK of 3 to 1.5 per 100,000 people, and thyroid cancer is up to 15 per 100,000, the peak of your referenced graph, (with an increasing trend) in the US. As the US was further away from Chernobyl, does that mean it helped people prevent thyroid cancer?

    I'm not sure what the reasonable course of action is, but giving money to everyone isn't it.

    --
    "Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
  7. What happened to the iodine tablets? by ilsaloving · · Score: 2

    Based on current knowledge, there *shouldn't* be any occurrences of thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer caused by these circumstances is a known problem with a known solution: giving everyone iodine tabets for a couple weeks. The solution is so simple and solid that this shouldn't have even need to be discussed.

    Yet for some reason tablets were not dispensed (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201108298140), and now 'experts' are being paraded around to downplay real concerns.

    People like to claim that Fukushima shows the dangers of nuclear energy. It didn't. It showed the dangers of what happens when you hire idiots to run important infrastructure companies. It shows the dangers of electing scientifically ignorant morons to run a country.

    Now Japan is going to blanket the country with coal plants, which is ultimately going to be even worse because of all the radioactive elements that are gonna be spewed into the atmosphere. And that's ignoring the particulate crap and other compounds that will also be spewed from the coal, and the massive consumption of precious land that will now be necessary to hold all these new plants.

  8. Re:Just like for Tchernobyl disaster... by Chikungunya · · Score: 2

    That example was so bad it hurts. The position is "this data is not enough to say that these cancers were caused by radiation" that is completely different and much more rational.