Nuke accident-linked cancer may be impossible to detect

[xchrom]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111125f1.html

FUKUSHIMA — Even if the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years results in many people developing cancer, we may never find out.

Looking back on the early days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, that may sound implausible.

But the ordinary rate of cancer is so high, and our understanding of the effects of radiation exposure so limited, that any increase in cases following the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant may go undetected.

Several experts inside and outside Japan said that cancers caused by the massive amounts of radiation the plant emitted may be too few to show up in large population studies, such as the long-term survey of the 2 million residents in Fukushima Prefecture just getting under way.

That could mean thousands of cancers will slip under the radar in a study covering millions of people. Some of the dozen experts interviewed said they believe the radiation doses most people in Japan have been exposed to fall in the "low-dose" range, where the link to cancer remains unclear.

[Tesha]

1. And that's just as it should be so the Nuclear Industry can maintain its "perfect" safety record...

...with regard to loss of life.

(Where *ARE* all of our nuclear defenders these days?)

Tesha

[newfie11]

2. I would put money on Leukemia showing up in lots of children!

When America was testing bombs, the rate of leukemia soared in some places (down-winders) especially among children. I remember many kids developing and dying in Albuquerque in the early 60's of leukemia. Then of course there the thyroid cancers caused by cesium. Granted they grow slow but hypothyroid can and will be the result of that exposure.

[Tesha]

3. Re thyroid, I think you meant iodine, not cesium. (NT)

[Warpy]

4. Just as there were spikes in cancer cases clustered around survivors

of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so there will be cancer spikes clustered around survivors of cities close to the Fukushima disaster.

The impossibility lies in tying any single cancer to that accident since many of the cancers would have developed without it. The overall numbers will increase, though.