Fukushima children have 20 times more cancer

Researchers found that children who lived near the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident in 2011 had a higher, even 50-fold higher risk of thyroid cancer than elsewhere. Japan.

Fukushima children are 20 times more likely to develop cancer

According to the AP, about 370,000 children have been tested regularly since the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant and a recent study found 137 children were diagnosed with or had symptoms of thyroid cancer .

The number of children infected has increased by 25 cases compared to last year and this is a very high rate compared to other regions in Japan. On average each year, there are only 1 to 2 cases of over 1 million children with this disease in Japan.

'More predictable and faster cases of disease' , said Toshihide Tsuda, of Okayama University, the head of the study. 'It increased by 20-50 times the usual'.

Thyroid cancer is thought to be related to nuclear radiation. According to the World Health Organization, the rate of thyroid cancer increased sharply among those who lived in the area where the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred, including Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

Children at Fukushima are tested for radiation levels.(Photo: WSJ).

The cause of children at higher risk of thyroid cancer after nuclear incidents is because the thyroid gland needs iodine to produce hormones for regulating metabolism. The active thyroid absorbs iodine in the blood without distinguishing between normal iodine and radioactive iodine dispersed due to nuclear incidents.

In children, the thyroid gland develops faster in adults. This causes the thyroid gland to become one of the most sensitive parts of the body for radiation. Radioactive iodine, called 131l, is also dangerous for the fetus.

However, even when confirming this, it is still difficult to determine a direct link between radiation and cancer. The AP said, 'it is impossible to conclude a single cancer with radiation on science'.

One of the biggest problems is when people seek to link nuclear radiation and cancer, people start programs to monitor and screen more often in areas where nuclear incidents occur and from there. , they get the so-called 'screening effect'.

This effect occurs when it seems that people living in a certain area are diagnosed with cancer more because they are more screened and screened in other areas. This is what localities in Japan often do. According to doctor Shunichi Yamashita, who led the group of influential research doctors in Fukushima, many times objected to the regulation of thyroid cancer with nuclear incidents.

However, in a recent study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology, Tsuda and colleagues said that not only thyroid cancer in children was confirmed to be related to radiation at Chernobyl, they also indicates that the incidence of thyroid cancer in children in Fukushima is too high, surpassing the screening effect.

Some independent experts criticized Tsuda's study because they lacked a separate estimate of radiation dose, which helped link the radiation and cancer to be confirmed. However, experts also said that this study is the basis for conducting further research.