Friday, March 8, 2013

#Radioactive Japan: Thyroid Control Screening Reveals Much Higher Percentages of Cysts and Nodules in Children Far Away from Fukushima


The control screening tests for thyroid abnormalities in children is being carried out by the Ministry of the Environment in Hirosaki City in Aomori Prefecture (distance from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant about 420 kilometers), Kofu City in Yamanashi Prefecture (about 380 kilometers), and Nagasaki City in Nagasaki Prefecture (about 1,480 kilometers).

The preliminary results have been announced by the Ministry of the Environment, and they more or less match the unofficial small-scale screening test results announced by doctors in Kobe City back in November 2012: Children in these far-away areas have higher incidents of nodules and cysts than children in Fukushima Prefecture.

Aomori and Nagasaki hardly had fallout from the accident. Yamanashi had some fallout, but the numbers don't even compare to the prefectures in Kanto, or even to neighboring Shizuoka.

Fallout from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident in these prefectures in March 2011 (Monthly fallout data from the Ministry of Education):

  • Aomori: I-131 1 MBq/km2, Cs-134 0.12 MBq/km2, Cs-137 0.097 MBq/km2

  • Yamanashi: I-131 480 MBq/km2, Cs-134 170 MBq/km2, Cs-137 170 MBq/km2

  • Nagasaki: I-131 9.8 MBq/km2, Cs-134 0.32 MBq/km2, Cs-137 0.35 MBq/km2


Here are the numbers for the thyroid screening, as reported by Fukushima TV on March 8, 2013:

Number of subjects: 4,300 total
Age of subjects: 3 to 18 years
Tests scheduled to run from November 2012 to the end of March 2013
Locations: Hirosaki City, Aomori Prefecture; Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture; Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture
Results:

Percentage of children found with nodules and/or cysts
  • Fukushima Prefecture: 41.2%

  • Nagasaki, Aomori, Yamanashi: 56.6%

Percentage of children in B-category that requires further testing [with nodules larger than 5mm, cysts larger than 20mm]
  • Fukushima Prefecture: 0.6%

  • Nagasaki, Aomori, Yamanashi: 1%

For more on thyroid abnormalities in children, see this togetter if you read Japanese. It seems these thyroid "abnormalities" are quite normally occurring anywhere in Japan.

That's not what many people in Japan and abroad want to hear. The conclusion for people in Japan who believe any bad news and rumors and disbelieves any non-bad news and rumors when it comes to radiation is either that the rest of Japan is so heavily contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear accident that children outside Fukushima have even higher incidents of thyroid abnormalities, or that the government is lying.

The former doesn't make any scientific sense if they want to attribute these abnormalities singularly to the Fukushima nuclear accident (which they do), and the latter doesn't advance any understanding or discussion. But it doesn't seem to matter anyway. Radiation contamination has become almost like a religion, and since the national and local governments and government scientists did such a poor job of informing citizens of the nuclear accident and radiation contamination in the early days of the accident, people heavily discount anything they say or do.

Knowledge hasn't advanced much, with the 2nd anniversary of the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident fast approaching.

For that matter, recovery hasn't happened much either, other than the fake dead tree in Rikuzen Takata (which now has fake branches and leaves).

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

If some one lies to you about something very serious, would you believe him/her the next time when (s)he tells you somthing that suits her/his case very well?

As i understood from a professor, the numbers of the controle group are way to low to make such a statement that the kids in Fukushima are no different than other kids in Japan about their thyriod problems.

As i wrote before, only a fool believes statistics. It's one of the smartest tricks to get YOUR truth being accepted as the truth.

Statistics are considered to be exact and true by many people, but there is nothing easier to fix statistics.
An other good way to fool everyone with statistics is to draw conclusions from the data which are actual speculative, but on first sight looks right or make sense. There are example enough of that. Many people do not really understand statistics, and 'they' know...

Anonymous said...

* by 'they' I mean the illuminati, they want to control you're MIND

Anonymous said...

Here is a fine example what statistics can do with you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Clark

jmdesp said...

It's nothing surprising actually. If you are looking for actual medical data, and not just to reinforce an already help opinion, they are many hints about that.

Here's an older study in Finland where as high as 35% of occult tumors were found :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2408737

The rate is very variable, and seems to depend a lot on the location/food/ethnicity.
They are suspicions that Japan has a naturally high occurrence ratio as shown by this study :
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1097-0142%28197412%2934:6%3C2072::AID-CNCR2820340629%3E3.0.CO;2-%23/abstract
A lot of (non-radioactive) iodine seems to heighten the rate of thyroid anomalies, many of which are not actually dangerous (but it's hard to tell a priori).

In Japan, a study in 2007 found 3.5% of latent, non symptomatic thyroid tumors in women over 30 years old :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18035964

On the whole, it's very hard to tell what the "normal" number of non symptomatic thyroid tumors to expect should be. The reassuring factor is that very few of them evolve toward something dangerous.

I hope the best for Japan, and I think that all the rational data suggests there is fortunately very little ground for fearing an outbreak of real thyroid problems.

I also wonder what the true motivation is of those who exclusively do alarmist statements from the safety of a distant place.

People from Japan want the truth and they haven't received it from the government initially. But how is an opinion that will discard any data not saying Japan is in a very dire state better than the government statement that discards any data saying the opposite ?

Nancy said...

Where is the actual study? The methodology matters greatly. The thyroid assn tried to pass off a study to the media a few months ago that was unpublished, not peer reviewed and was a biased cohort. All of the patients in their study were already known to have thyroid concerns. The study was presented as proof normal kids have lots of nodules. It was total BS. You can't call a bunch of sick kids a normal population.
I have plenty of suspicions the same type of slight of hand could be done in this study and wouldn't put much reliance on it until people have actually looked at it.
It is known the iodine exposures were likely much higher for some people than the govt estimated. Even NIRS complained about this.
There are other studies including one in Japan that put the nodules rate closer to 1% of the child population. Another thing important to remember is adult studies are totally different than child studies. Don't compare an adult nodule rate to children. Thyroid nodules in children are quite rare.

arclight said...

Although Shinichi Suzuki, M.D., insisted that these ultrasound findings are “mostly normal” and commonly found in children, the study co-authored by Shunichi Yamashita, M.D., in 2001 revealed that normal children in Nagasaki had 0% nodules and 0.8% cysts on ultrasound.

[Source: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B68f83tqq7QuNTVkOVdrNzlRWUk]

the report talks of dietry changes in young people not leaving them ready for a nuclear accident.. the natural iodine intake was dropping before fukushima.. therefore less protection..

its interesting that they didnt use somewhere like saporo (on the pdf) that came out with a zero of thyroid damage ..

and in 2 years the only proper research has been on a limited amount of children and no adults (that i am aware) and a study on ptsd in dogs from fukushima.. ??

going on the japanese thyroid associaction website last year i checked for new papers on cancer research etc.. nothing on thyroids relevant to the disaster published..

thanks for bringing the study to our attention.. will post that at nuclear-news.net for people to mull over..
many thanks

Cécile Monnier said...

Hi,
I'm really surprised by your analyze... Could you provide some statistics before 2011 please ?
For example, in France, only 1.8% of children have cysts and nodules. Are japanese children so different ?

Anonymous said...

Cecile, probably that study from France you mention was based on clinical examination. meaning, the method used was just doctors checking for lumps touching the skin over the thyroid with their hands. Either that or, like we can see in the study arclight posted, only nodules over certain size were considered.

Cécile Monnier said...

Well, with control screening, it's 3,5% of children...

http://pediatrie.forumactif.com/t229-nodules-thyroidiens-chez-lenfant

Anyway, I don't understand the analyse. The good method would be to compare with statistics before 2011.

VyseLegendaire said...

Personally, I think the thyroid problems in children issue has been a bit of a red herring, and the incidence or prevalence of that one factor says very little about the overall situation.

What about long term outcomes of internal exposure, what about the many unaccounted-for radionuclides that are not household names, what about the real prospects for 'decontamination', decommissioning, etc., and what about restarting nuke plants as a national policy?

I would be much more worried about those issues than the specter of kids with benign thyroid cysts...people on see what is right in front of them I guess.

Anonymous said...

“Thyroid Abnormalities are Precancerous Condition”

“Tens of thousands of cases of cancer”
“Expect more than 100,000 cancer cases”

“4,300 missing children“

“Thyroid cysts and nodes with in more than 55,000 children alone in Fukushima prefecture (only one of the 47 islands)”

“42 percent of children in the prefecture have thyroid abnormalities”

“infant mortality increased by about 4 percent.”

http://tekknorg.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/thyroid-abnormalities-precancerous-condition/

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@Cécile Monnier, there is no statistics before 2011. There was no systematic screening of children for thyroid before the accident. Your link doesn't seem to mention the size of nodules that they consider, but I have to rely on Google translation so I may have missed the info.

Anonymous said...

@teknorg: “More than a hundred thousand Japanese might diagnosed with cancer in the coming years, due to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, experts predict. IPPNW criticizes The World Health Organisation’s dramatic belittlement"
Good to remember! Then regularly check the cancer stats out:
http://ganjoho.jp/public/statistics/backnumber/2012_en.html
As the mega-cancer rise will not occur, that will further discredit these IPPNW charlatans and their clique (Hagen, Scherb, Koerblein, etc.).
A sobering account of their "methods":
http://www.fme.ch/cms2/fileadmin/Webmaster/Dateien/AGKIS_LetterSexOdds_Lausanne_V1__21_Juni_12_.pdf

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@Nancy, even in children in Fukushima, nodules are rare. Of all children tested in 2012 (about 95000), 0.4% had nodules smaller than 5 mm, and 0.6% had nodules larger than 5 mm.

http://www.pref.fukushima.jp/imu/kenkoukanri/250213siryou2.pdf

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

The full study results to be announced at the end of March by the Ministry of the Environment. The screening is still ongoing in March.

Anonymous said...

Tepco get off all compensation liability after 3 years, if I am not mistaken.Ask yourselves WHY?

Feckless!

Anonymous said...

Fkn idiots... Fkn 3rd world know nothing piece of shtt.
P.fkng S, Stop The Fission in the fkng molten cores with neutron poisons ie; "lead & tin" A fkng Holes! I can see that they're fkng fissioning!!!!!
PROVEN
In addendum japan's dead, should've stopped the fission, day 1.
Is 5-10 times "5million to 10 million bq/m2«notice it's not bq's km2, yeah, oh shtt is right"chernoble evacuation zone contamination livable? Well... It's factually proven it isn't.
/also, that 5 to ten million bq's a m2, that's just cesium137, outputs of cesium 134 are nearly double that when reactors and fuel pools spew, not to mention that Americium which turns into plutonium, and plutonium are likely adding another million of 2 million bq's a m2 which everyone is too COWARDLY "yeah, it's the truth, wanna fight about it?" to test for, so do the math = roughly 20-22million bq's m2 200 km's of course not spread evenly, god. The reactors are still adding to that. Staying = DEATH proven/ factually backed up fukushima and surrounding areas» http://enenews.com/all-5000000-bqm2-detected-fukushima-city-video/comment-page-1#comment-331805
Knowing this, if someone in Japan KNOWS THIS OK!!! and stays, well I can say they just don't give a profoundly offensive expletive. Ignorance in this will end in death, no if, and's or but's, you can bet your life on it, I'm factually right according to chernoble's fallout zones human statistics. Save life or kill it, there is no fkng middle ground here, what am I trying to do? What are you trying to do? Stay die, leave maybe live "'cause you have plutonium in you" PROOOOVEN!
No1listens, lalala I can't hear you... You've been effing warned/armed with Factually Valid information, wtf more do you want or need, change your own diaper, all I offer is life saving intelligence. Take it or die, your life is in YOUR HANDS NOT MINE. Your life has been stolen, I'm trying to give you a chance to cheat the cheaters and live it. Lies are not factual life saving/giving intelligence, facts and truth are ffs. But, but, but.... "no but's, it happened, to leave is to live and that is that when in comes to long term wide area dispersal of fissionable nuclear materials through fission and fire." PERIOD. Not your fault,theirs, leave! Stockholm syndrome, you have no allegiance nor owe anything, nor support those who ever try to harm or kill you, you fkng remember that. Fk
I just watched a supposedly democratic nation kill it's civilian population, think about that.
P.S 3 meltdowns/fuel fires in a country the size of california=no more country, disagree? Go Fkn live there, prove it you shtt talkin' snivelkng Lil shtt's. You can't have the equivalent of at least 3 nuclear reactors explode and not have less contamination released and less land contaminated than ckskn Cher effing noble. /DUMB /PROOOOVEN!

Anonymous said...

Sorry I forgot: Assholes, I see them fkng FISSIONING!!!1!

Anonymous said...

Isn't it a bit unfair to compare the population of 3 cities with the whole results of Fukushima province - a very rural area?

One wonders why they chose only Nagasaki and not also Hiroshima as their comparative group?

I hope they will show separate results for Nagasaki City, Kofu City and Hirosaki City and not only a sum.

In principle, one does not need to lie about the results of a study, if one has CHOSEN the comparative group WELL (in your favour). One should never forget that most career bureaucrats in Japan are from Tokyo University, thus they are intelligent, but unfortunately, they do not use their intellect and power to serve the Japanese people.

Anonymous said...

Hirosaki and Kofu cities are quite small, though, less than 200,000 population. Nagasaki has a bit less than half a million. For comparison, Fukushima city has around 300,000 and Koriyama and Nihonmatsu cities are both over 300,000.

Anonymous said...

Nihonmatsu is way smaller than that, even if it's called Nihonmatsu City.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

A Japanese medical doctor tweeted that this preliminary result shows that Fukushima is "statistically better" than the three cities, and epidemiologists had better explain what's going on in these three cities, and why Fukushima children seem to have fared "better" than children in these cities. And possibly other places in Japan if private, small-scale survey and anecdotal evidence from the doctors are correct.

Anonymous said...

Population of Fukushima City: 284,000
Koriyama: 328,000
Nihonmatsu: 57,500
Date: 63,650
Iwaki: 330,000
Aizuwakamatsu: 124,500
TOTAL FUKUSHIMA: 1.96 million

Nagasaki City: 438,680
Hirosaki: 181,210
Kofu: 196,000

Anonymous said...

I think the level of nodules and cysts is lower because of the therapeutic effects of low level radiation.

arclight said...

@arevamirpal::laprimavera "...and why Fukushima children seem to have fared "better" than children in these cities..."

good question!
interesting thread of comments.

just thought i might add that this
Japans national institute of radiological studies

"..some people are more inclined towards cancer.."
he says that in the context of a radiation study carried out in rats using 100 and 200 millisievert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUTtphVtPOFUet1kFExGwzLA&feature=player_detailpage&v=TZi2Gu3FwPY#t=1141s

the sake(?) university has done another study on DNA that can trace damage to the DNA helix using electronmicroscope..

at 22.00 mins approx
mentions "golden opportunity but must be done soon.. "as yet, no one from the government has responded to requests for smamples or ACCESS to fukushima..."

so, no studies in this area any time soon.. very efficient of the government to block DNA testing and research AND the thyroid research..

its a funding squeeze on good science... this is to save the corps/government some money.. plain and simple..

"the thyroid study is a red herring"

if not done properly.. that is exactly what it is..

a luminous radioactive herring of science fictioned sized proportion..

lots of people are checking your article out on nuclear-news.net admin..

oh and lady barbara judge, dodgy science, dodgy companies, a mysterious WHO report, lots of money being splashed around by AREVA nuclear, japan agreeing to restart (but not tell anyone).. bloggers being harassed by nuclear connected legal companies, A Nuclear rennasaince and finally another pretend war to distract the japanese nationalist anti nukers.. (did that work?)

err end rant..

hope the url takes you to 20 mins approx
some food for thought there
now im off to JANUK london demo and remembrance demo.

my thoghts and prayers to all those effected by the great earthquake of 2011

peace light and love everyone!

:)

Anonymous said...

Aw crap, it's the copy and paste Finnish troll(5:12 PM) again.

Anonymous said...

According to prof. Takeda thyroid cancers are in the 50-fold range for Fukushima (http://takedanet.com/2013/02/10_6a83-1.html, in Japanese).

He is saying that 3 cases of cancer have been reported and 7 more cases are classified as "almost cancer" after screening 38,000 kids under 18 (26.3 cancers every 100,000 people). He then compares these figures with those expected by the National Cancer Center of 0.6 cases over a population of 100,000.

He is also reasoning on small numbers (hence statistically imprecise) but one needs also to consider that 1) radioactive iodine causes cancer 2) Daiichi emitted its fair share of iodine.

Compare this with aviation: 1) when a plane crashes usually all passengers die 2) a certain plane has a tendency to develop fires on board. No one has died yet but you still ground the planes.

Beppe

Anonymous said...

Beppe, Prof Takeda is no doctor.

Anonymous said...

The data from the National Cancer Center is not really comparable with the data they are getting now in Fukushima. During a regular year, thyroid tumors are only detected if they become symptomatic or by chance during another type of test. This is very different from the situation now, in which there are prefecture-scale thyroid tests being conducted on all the kids that were between 1 and 18 at the time.

kintaman said...

Could it be that incineration of radioactive debris all over Japan is playing a part in this?

Anonymous said...

Nah, Iodine-131 was gone 6-8 weeks after the accident.

Anonymous said...

Fukushima children who received the thyroid checks did so from infancy, but the official tests outside Fukushima are starting at age two. The data are not comparable.

Anonymous said...

During the press conference they mentioned the different ages to explain the higher incidence of nodules and cysts detected outside of Fukushima: 県外での数値が大きかったことについて環境省は「(しこりが見つかりにくい)0〜2歳を対象にしていないことなどが原因」と説明した http://mainichi.jp/area/news/20130309ddp012040031000c.html

Anonymous said...

Kintaman, they are not burning debris in those locations. They are not burning all over Japan either. Very limited number of locations. And I-131 is practically gone by now.

Anon at 7:30PM, in those three cities, children aged 2 were the ones who were age zero at the time of the accident. Not clear from the article whether they meant "at the time of the accident" or not.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Anon 8.3(10:57 PM) for listing up the city sizes.

The point is, if you sum up the inhabitant of the major cities in Fukushima (under normal conditions I woudl consider Date and Nihonmatsu already as more rural than city) you will get about 1 million people. In the whole province you have nearly 2 million inhabitants. So in the Fukushima Kids-sample 50% of the kids are form bigger cities (with the usual pollution problem of a city - cars, industry, etc...). In the comparison group you have 100% kids from bigger cities (with the usual pollution problems).

Thus by default the study designers will get the desired result (same amount of abnormalities or more found in the compare group than in Fukushima). No need to fake any doctors examination.

Anonymous said...

City is just an administrative division in this case. Kofu city and Hirosaki city are rural areas.

Anonymous said...

@2:20 It is true that prof. Takeda is not a doctor but this is irrelevant: I am not receiving treatment from him.

@5:28 Well, cancers are bound to become symptomatic anyways so your observation does not apply; it would apply if we were talking of cysts that can not be detected by any of the exams that kids normally undergo when they are not the potential victims of a nuclear accident.

@7:18 hm, depends on your definition of "rural" I suppose.

Anonymous said...

@7:41 they are not burning debris *literally* all over Japan but they are doing it in Tokyo, Osaka, Kita Kyushu and I can't remember where else... that qualifies as a large part of Japan to me, especially population wise

Nelson said...

well if I may add my 2 cents;
None of these surveys mean anything.

Fukushima survey; 42% thyroid abnormalities! That can only be wrong as most of the data released comes out of Fukushima Medical University. Plenty of mothers have gone to have ultrasounds performed on their kids at Dr. Suzuki and Yamashita's hell hole. These worried parents been told that their kids had no nodules. But they seek second opinions from "independent" clinics. Many parents realized they have been duped and found out that their children actually had thyroid abnormalities. This data from the FMU is rigged to its core as far as I know.

As for the survey in Aomori, Yamanashi and Nagasaki; can anyone answer the following questions hereunder?

Where are these children from ?

Where were they at the time of the accident?

Which children were tested ? Were they chosen randomly or were these data collected from cancer clinics ?

Was the methodology of the testing the same as the one performed in the Fukushima survey?

Another interesting point is that according to Marumori town in Miyagi prefecture, they detected nodules or cysts in children's thyroid ; 13.3 %. The survey was implemented on children whom were under 18 years at the time of the accident. Among 1,982 children, they detected cysts from 264.

I do not want to play conspiracy here ... but it seems to me that 13% is closer to reality and is in line much more with other countries similar surveys.

Evacuate Fukushima 福島の子供を守れ

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