by Michael Kelley
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Jul. 16, 2012, 1:28 PM
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| There are about 360,000 Fukushima residents who were 18 or younger in March 2011. |
Of more than 38,000 children tested from the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, 36 percent have abnormal growths – cysts or nodules – on their thyroids a year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, as reported by ENENews.
The shocking numbers come from the thyroid examination section of the "Sixth Report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey," published by Fukushima Radioactive Contamination Symptoms Research (FRCSR) and translated by the blog Fukushima Voice.
Shunichi Yamashita, M.D., president of the Japan Thyroid Association, sent a letter to members in January that outlined what guidelines to follow for thyroid abnormalities. In 2001 Yamashita co-authored a study that found normal children in Nagasaki to have 0 percent nodules and 0.8 percent cysts.
The introduction of the letter, written by Fukushima Voice,
states that the results in Fukushima show a "much faster progression
compared to Chernobyl" as research done around Chernobyl showed the rate
of thyroid nodules in children 5 to 10 years after the accident to be
1.74 percent.
In March 2011 a massive earthquake triggered a tsunami that led to series of nuclear meltdowns and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, leading to the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
The introduction of the letter notes that Australian pediatrician
Helen Caldicott said that it's not normal for children to have any
thyroid nodules or cysts and that the results mean that Fukushima
children received a very high dose of radiation.
ENENews also reported a specific case
in which three children in a family who lived 60 miles from the
Fukushima nuclear plant were found to have multiple cysts on their
thyroids.
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