Long Shadow of Chernobyl (4): Organic Blueberry Spread Imported from Italy Found with 164 Bq/Kg of Cesium-137

Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Asahi did its own checking on imported blueberry spread being sold in Tokyo and alerted the health authorities, who were reluctant to do anything at first.

Main points from from Shukan Asahi (10/23/2013) article:

• "Fior di frutta organic fruits spread" blueberry imported from Italy

• Place of origin: Bulgaria

• 164Bq/kg of cesium-137 by test commissioned by Shukan Asahi

• 140Bq/kg of cesium-137 by test by the municipal (Tokyo) health authorities

• Shibuya-ku ordered the importer MIE PROJECT on October 18 to recall 5,184 bottles of blueberry spread with the best before date of October 17, 2015.

• Ministry of Health and Welfare initially refused to do anything based on "private" (as opposed to "official" - i.e. by the government) test results.

• The public health centers involved didn't want to move either on just "an article that appeared in a magazine".

• Less than 10 percent of all imported food is tested; it is possible that people are eating contaminated food without knowing.

For articles on "Long Shadow of Chernobyl", go here.

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Long Shadow of Chernobyl (3): Dried Mushrooms from Italy Still Found With 170 Bq/kg of Cesium-137

One of the scientific researchers that I follow who goes by the name of "Tomynyo" on Twitter has been measuring all sorts of things after the Fukushima nuclear accident - soil accumulated on top of his apartment complex in Yokohama City with high levels of radioactive cesium to bamboo shoots and mushrooms served in the kindergarten lunch.

His latest tweets is not about the domestic mushrooms but about mushrooms from Italy:

イタリア製のボルチーニ茸6検体を測定したところ全ての検体からセシウム137が検出されました。 最大は170.3±18.0Bq/kg、最低は31.6±6.2Bq/kgでした。スーパーの乾椎茸はほとんど九州産ですから、普通に買える乾椎茸より汚染されていると思います　(link)

We measured 6 samples of [dried] Italian porcini mushrooms, and all samples were found with cesium-137. Maximum was 170.3±18.0Bq/kg, and minimum was 31.6±6.2Bq/kg. Dried mushroom you buy at a supermarket are almost all grown in Kyushu, so we think these Italian mushrooms are more contaminated than the dried Japanese mushrooms you can buy at a supermarket.

ボルチーニは水戻しした場合セシウム濃度は1/4になるそうです。... 3.11以前からそれなりの汚染された食品食べていた可能性があることは認識すべきです。(link)

If porcini mushrooms get rehydrated, the density of radioactive cesium would be one-fourths, we are told. We should recognize that we may have been eating food with certain levels of contamination even before March 11, 2011.

Just like the wood pellets from trees in Shikoku, Japan tested by one of my Twitter followers, cesium-137 is most likely from the atmospheric testing and the Chernobyl accident.

I happened on this video, supposed to be the raw footage of Chernobyl soon after the accident. I got scared watching workers with scant protection dumping loads of what looks like concrete debris:

Other "Long Shadow of Chernobyl" posts:

Long Shadow of Chernobyl: 224 Bq/kg of Cesium-137 in the Ashes from Burning Wood Pellets Made from Trees in Shikoku

Long Shadow of Chernobyl (2): German and Belarusian Researchers Say 64% of 229 Belarusian Children with High-Risk Thyroid Cancer in Complete Remission, 30% in Near-Complete Remission

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Long Shadow of Chernobyl (2): German and Belarusian Researchers Say 64% of 229 Belarusian Children with High-Risk Thyroid Cancer in Complete Remission, 30% in Near-Complete Remission

For what it's worth, on the anniversary day of the accident.

From Science Daily (4/24/2013; emphasis is mine):

Chernobyl Follow-Up Study Finds High Survival Rate Among Young Thyroid Cancer Patients

Apr. 24, 2013 — More than a quarter of a century after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, many children and teenagers who developed thyroid cancer due to radiation are in complete or near remission, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Following the April 26, 1986 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union, the number of children and teenagers diagnosed with differentiated thyroid cancer spiked in Ukraine, Belarus and western areas of Russia. Most of the patients developed the papillary subtype of differentiated thyroid cancer. Although this cancer tends to be more aggressive in children than adults, nearly all of the patients tracked in the study responded favorably to treatment.

"Even though some patients did not receive optimal treatment initially, the vast majority went into remission after receiving state-of-the-art radiodine treatment and follow-up care," said study lead author Christoph Reiners, MD, of the University of Würzburg, Germany. "Many patients recovered from advanced cancers. Of this group, 97 percent had cancer spread to the lymph nodes, and 43 percent had cancer metastasize in the lungs."

The observational study followed the treatment and outcomes of 229 Belarusian children and adolescents who underwent surgery in Belarus and radioiodine therapy in Germany. The study participants were among the highest-risk young patients exposed to radiation from the accident.

Despite the risk, 64 percent of the patients are in complete remission and 30 percent nearly complete remission of their cancer. One patient died of lung fibrosis, a side effect of cancer treatment. Only two had cancer recurrences.

The findings suggest victims of more recent nuclear accidents like the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan face lower risk of developing advanced-stage thyroid cancer, Reiners said.

(Full article at the link)

From Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM) (4/24/2013; emphasis is mine):

Twenty-Five Years after Chernobyl: Outcome of Radioiodine Treatment in Children and Adolescents with Very-High-Risk Radiation-Induced Differentiated Thyroid Carcinoma

Christoph Reiners, MD1,
Johannes Biko, MD1,
Heribert Haenscheid, PhD1,
Helge Hebestreit, MD2,
Stalina Kirinjuk, MD3,
Oleg Baranowski, MD3,
Robert J. Marlowe, BA4,
Ewgeni Demidchik, MD5,†,
Valentina Drozd, MD6 and
Yuri Demidchik, MD7

- Author Affiliations

1Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Würzburg, Germany;
2Department of Pediatrics, University of Würzburg, Germany;
3Hospital for Oncology, Thyroid Cancer Center, Minsk, Belarus;
4Spencer-Fountayne Corporation, Jersey City, NJ, USA;
5National Academy of Sciences, Minsk, Belarus;
6International Fund Help for Patients with Radiation Induced Thyroid Cancer “Arnica”, Minsk, Belarus;
7Belarusian Medical Academy of Post-Graduate Education, Minsk, Belarus

Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Prof.Dr.Dr.med.h.c. Christoph Reiners, Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Würzburg, Oberdürrbacherstr. 6, D-97080 Würzburg, Germany, Tel. +49 931 201 55001, Fax. +49 931 201 655001, E-mail: reinersc@klinik.uni-wuerzburg.de.


Abstract

Context: After severe reactor emergencies with release of radioactive iodine, elevated thyroid cancer risk in children and adolescents is considered the main health consequence for the population exposed.

Design: We studied thyroid cancer outcome after 11.3 years' median follow-up in a selected, very high-risk cohort, 234 Chernobyl-exposed Belarusian children and adolescents undergoing post-surgical radioiodine therapy (RIT) in Germany.

Interventions: Cumulatively 100 (134) children with (without) distant metastasis received a median 4 (2) RITs and 16.9 (6.6) GBq, corresponding to 368 (141) MBq/kg iodine-131.

Main Outcome Measures: Outcomes were response to therapy and disease status, mortality, and treatment toxicity.

Results: Of 229 patients evaluable for outcome, 147 (64.2%) attained complete remission (negative iodine-131 whole-body scan and TSH-stimulated serum Tg <1 μ g /L), 69 (30.1%) showed nearly complete remission (complete response, except stimulated Tg 1–10 μ g/L), and 11 (4.8%) had partial remission (Tg >10 μ g/L, decrease from baseline in radioiodine uptake intensity in ≥ 1 focus, in tumour volume, or in Tg). Except two recurrences (0.9%) after partial remission, no recurrences, progression, or disease-specific mortality were noted. One patient died of lung fibrosis 16 years post-therapy, two of apparently thyroid cancer-unrelated causes. The only RIT side effect observed was pulmonary fibrosis in 5/69 patients (7.2%) with disseminated lung metastases undergoing intensive pulmonary surveillance.

Conclusions: Experience of a large, very-high-risk paediatric cohort with radiation-induced differentiated thyroid carcinoma suggests that even when such disease is advanced and initially suboptimally treated, response to subsequent RIT and final outcomes are mostly favourable.

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Long Shadow of Chernobyl: 224 Bq/kg of Cesium-137 in the Ashes from Burning Wood Pellets Made from Trees in Shikoku

And of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons by world nuclear powers, which did not stop until 1980 (China).

One of my twitter followers lives in southwestern Japan. A while ago he sent me the result of the test he had it done with the ashes from burning wood pellets in his stove this winter. The lab test, using the germanium semiconductor detector, found 223.8 Bq/kg of cesium-137.

He was upset, thinking it is from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, until I pointed out to him that there was no cesium-134 found. The cesium in the ashes is most likely from the fallout from atmospheric testing, and the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

He burned 600kg of wood pellets made from cedar trees in Ehime Prefecture in Shikoku Island in southwestern Japan. According to the pellet manufacturer, the concentration factor was about 375, and radioactive cesium (Cs-137) in the pellets was estimated to be about 0.59 Bq/kg.

He said he will "entomb" the ashes with concrete and bury.

The chart plotting the historical monthly fallout in entire Shikoku (4 prefectures, as they didn't start measuring the fallout in Ehime until 1977) shows the spike from the Chernobyl accident was less than that of the atmospheric testing, and larger than that from the Fukushima accident. (The chart was created from data at Japan Chemical Analysis Center. Y-axis in log scale.)

In 2012 he tested the ashes from burning the wood pellets from a different company, and to his great dismay the test found 1,000 Bq/kg of radioactive cesium (Cs-137) in the ashes. He had already spread some of those ashes on his home garden. Those pellets, it turned out, were made from trees from Europe (Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria) that the manufacturer had started to purchase in 1994 . That manufacturer told him that it had never ever occurred to them that the trees were contaminated from the Chernobyl accident, and there was no regulation on importing. The manufacturer told him that they chose European trees because they were cheap, and supply was steady.

April 26 marks the 27th anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant accident.

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