[QUOTE][B]Fifteen more young people in Fukushima Prefecture have received definitive or suspected diagnoses of thyroid cancer, which is often associated with radiation exposure, prefectural officials said Nov. 12.[/B]
That raises to 59 the total number of young people who have been diagnosed with or are suspected of having thyroid cancer.[/QUOTE]
[URL]http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201311130066[/URL]
Alternate source:
[URL]http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/13/national/thyroid-cancers-up-in-fukushima/[/URL]
Didn't we already expect this massive spike?
My grandfather always downplays things like this "Volcanoes produce more radioactive material in one eruption than all the nuclear reactors on earth in a thousand years" Then again he is also the kind of person who said that people who are suing for lead poisoning from paint and mesothelioma are just parasites trying to make a free buck.
"I worked around asbestos when I was young, and I'm not sick so clearly it can't make anyone else sick ever"
[QUOTE=pentium;42868416]Didn't we already expect this massive spike?[/QUOTE]
That's what I thought, but both sources I was using explicitly mention this:
[QUOTE]A panel of experts at the prefecture concluded Tuesday that it is too early to link the cases to the nuclear disaster, given that papillary thyroid cancer — the type found in the 26 people — develops at a very slow pace, according to prefectural officials. Following the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe, it took about four to five years for thyroid cancers in significant number to be detected.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]It is difficult to make a simple comparison, however. Thyroid cancer usually goes undetected in children unless they develop pronounced symptoms. The thyroid testing now being done in Fukushima Prefecture covers all healthy children and is designed for early detection of minor symptoms associated with the cancer.
Prefectural officials said it is unlikely there is a link between the young people’s exposure to radiation and the increased number of suspected and confirmed cancer cases to date.[/QUOTE]
I was going to chalk it out them being in damage-control mode and a bias, but at the same time they're not wrong either - perhaps even at this early stage the number of cases presented do not represent a statistically significant number to be correlated with the disaster. It is unlikely, but not improbable.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.