(Source)
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2164974/fukushima_fallout_damaged_thyroid_glands_of_california_babies.html
A
new study finds that radioactive Iodine from Fukushima has caused a
significant increase in hypothyroidism among babies in California,
5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean.
A
new study of the effects of tiny quantities of radioactive fallout
from Fukushima on the health of babies born in California shows a
significant excess of hypothyroidism caused by the radioactive
contamination travelling 5,000 miles across the Pacific. The article
will be published next week in the peer-reviewed journal Open
Journal of Pediatrics.
Congenital
hypothyroidism is a rare but serious condition normally affecting
about one child in 2,000, and one that demands clinical intervention
- the growth of children suffering from the condition is affected if
they are left untreated. All babies born in California are monitored
at birth for Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) levels in blood, since
high levels indicate hypothyroidism.
Joe
Mangano and Janette Sherman of the Radiation and Public Health
Project in New York, and Christopher Busby, guest researcher at
Jacobs University, Bremen, examined congenital hypothyroidism (CH)
rates in newborns using data obtained from the State of California
over the period of the Fukushima explosions.
Their
results are published in their paper Changes
in confirmed plus borderline cases of congenital hypothyroidism in
California as a function of environmental fallout from the Fukushima
nuclear meltdown.
The researchers compared data for babies exposed to radioactive
Iodine-131 and born between March 17th and Dec 31st 2011 with
unexposed babies born in 2011 before the exposures plus those born in
2012.
Confirmed
cases of hypothyroidism, defined as those with TSH level greater than
29 units increased by 21% in the group of babies that were exposed to
excess radioactive Iodine in the womb [*]. The same group of children
had a 27% increase in 'borderline cases' [**].
Contrary
to many reports, the explosion of the reactors and spent fuel pools
at Fukushima produced levels of radioactive contamination which were
comparable with the Chernobyl releases in 1986. Using estimates made
by the Norwegian Air Laboratory it is possible to estimate that more
than 250PBq (200 x 1015) Bq of Iodine-131 (half life 8
days) were released at Fukushima.
This
is also predicted by comparing the Caesium-137 estimates with I-131
releases from Chernobyl, quantities which caused the thyroid cancer
epidemic in Byelarus, the Ukraine and parts of the Russian Republic.
More
on this later. At Fukushima, the winds generally blew the radioactive
iodine and other volatile radionuclides out to sea, to the Pacific
Ocean. The journey 5,000 miles to the West Coast of the USA leaves a
lot of time for dispersal and dilution. Nevertheless, small
amounts of I-131 were measured in milk causing widespread
concern.
The
authorities downplayed any risk on the basis that the "doses"
were very low; far lower than the natural background radiation. The
University of Berkeley measured I-131 in rainwater from 18th to 28th
March 2011 after which levels fell. If we assume that mothers drank 1
litre of rainwater a day for this period (of course they didn't) the
current radiation risk model of the International Commission on
Radiological Protection (ICRP) calculates an absorbed dose to the
adult thyroid of 23 microSieverts, less than 1/100th the annual
background "dose". The foetus is more sensitive (by a
factor of about 10 according to ICRP) but is exposed to less as it is
perhaps 100 times smaller.
So
this finding is one more instance of the fact that the current
radiation risk model, employed by the governments of every nation, is
massively insecure for predicting harm from internal radionuclide
exposures or explaining the clear observations.
The
Fukushima catastrophe has been dismissed as a potential cause of
health effects even in Japan, let alone as far away as California.
And on what basis? Because the "dose" is too low.
This
is the mantra chanted by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO, largely the same outfit),
and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
Radiation (UNSCEAR). And let's not forget all the nuclear scientists
who swooped down on Fukushima with their International Conferences
and placatory soothing presentations.
[…]
[…]
There
had been an unexpected and statistically significant increase in
infant leukemia (age 0-1) in those children who were in the womb
during the (whole body monitored) increased levels of Caesium-137
from Chernobyl. The beauty of this study (like the TSH study) is
that, unlike the Sellafield child leukemias, there is really no
possible alternative explanation.
It
was the low "dose" of Caesium-137 that caused the
leukemias. And the dose response trend was not a straight line: The
effect at the very low "dose" was greater than at the very
high "dose". Presumably because at the high doses the
babies perished in the womb and could not, therefore, develop
leukemia. I published the results and drew attention to the failure
of the ICRP model in the International
Journal of Environment and Public Health
in
2009.
I
had published a paper on this infant leukemia proof of the failure of
the risk model in Energy
and Environment
in
2000, and also presented it in the same year at the World Health
Organisation conference in Kiev. It was there that I first really
came up against the inversion of science deployed by the chiefs of
the IAEA and UNSCEAR. The conference was videofilmed by Wladimir
Tchertkoff and you can see his excellent documentary, which made it
to Swiss TV, Atomic
Lies,
re-released in 2004 as Nuclear
Controversies (link
to youtube, 51 minutes).
For
what is done by these people is to dismiss any evidence of increased
rates of cancer or any other disease by shouting at it: "the
doses were too low". In this way, reality is airbrushed away.
What is this quantity "dose"? It is a simple physics-based
quantity which represents the absorption of energy from radiation.
One Sievert of gamma radiation is one Joule per kilogram of living
tissue.
This
might work for external radiation. But it doesn't work for internal
exposures to radioactive elements which can produce huge effects on
cellular DNA at low average "doses". It is like comparing
warming yourself in front of the fire with eating a hot coal. Or
comparing a punch to stabbing. Same dose, same energy. Very different
effects.
This
"dose" scam has been used to dismiss real effects since it
was invented in 1952 to deal with the exposures from nuclear weapons
development and testing. For those who want to dig deeper into the
science there is a recent book chapter I wrote in the book New
Research Directions in DNS Repair.
The
most scary instances of the sensitivity of the foetus to radiation
are the sex ratio studies of Hagen Scherb, a German biostatician and
member of the European
Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR).
[...]
Of
course, the exposure to radio-Iodine is associated with thyroid
cancer in children. There was a big rise of thyroid cancer in
Byelarus, the Ukraine and the Russian Republic after Chernobyl. The
situation at Fukushima seems set to echo this, despite the
reassurances from the authorities that there will be no effects.
Our
paper reports 44 confirmed thyroid cancer cases in 0-18 year olds in
Fukushima prefecture in the last six months (a figure that has
since risen to 53). In the hypothyroidism paper we discuss the 44
cases relative to the population and calculate that this represents
an 80-fold excess based on national data prior to the Fukushima
Iodine releases.
This
presents a severe challenge to Dr Wolfgang Weiss of the UN and WHO,
who stated last year that no thyroid cancers could result from the
Fukushima disaster as the "doses were too low". How does he
explain the 80-fold increase in this normally rare condition?
Or
rather, when will he admit that the entire scientific model that
underpins his views is fraudulent? And that nuclear radiation is -
roughly speaking - 1,000 times more dangerous to human health than he
is letting on?
Chris
Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the
European Committee on Radiation Risk. For details and current CV
see www.chrisbusbyexposed.org.
For accounts of his work see www.greeenaudit.org,
www.llrc.org and
www.nuclearjustice.org
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