By Keith Johnson and Peter Landers
The health threat to Japanese from radiation exposure in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident last year is extremely low, even if certain areas near the crippled plant could be rendered off-limits for years to come, according to a panel of American radiation experts who’ve studied the Japanese case for the past year.
- Reuters
- Officials in protective gear check for signs of radiation on evacuated children on March 13, 2011.
“From a radiological perspective, we expect the impact to be really, really minor,” said Kathryn Higley, a professor of nuclear engineering at Oregon State University. She was part of the group that spoke Thursday in Washington D.C.
While Fukushima Daiichi suffered the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986, the health implications of the two events are vastly different, the experts said. Of the first 10,000 people exposed to radioactive plumes in the wake of the Fukushima accident—those assumed to have the highest levels of radiation exposure—only 73 had exposure higher than 10 millisieverts. Even among the workers battling the crippled plant, the average exposure was only about 9 millisieverts.
In comparison, the half-million workers who entombed Chernobyl had average exposures more than ten times as high.
The panel members generally concurred that the levels of radiation emitted after the accident will not measurably raise the risk of getting cancer. The panelists estimated that the risk of getting cancer for those exposed would increase by about 0.002%, and the risk of dying from cancer would rise by 0.001%.
“I received more radiation on my transcontinental flights from Tokyo to Washington than I did at the reactor site,” said John Boice, a professor at Vanderbilt University and the incoming president of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.
Those conclusions drew skepticism from some experts back in Japan. They say that much is still unknown about the effects of radiation on human health. Many people in Fukushima will be exposed to low levels of radiation for very long periods of time, but it’s unclear how much damage such exposure will cause, says Hisako Sakiyama, an anti-nuclear activist and former cancer-cell biologist at the National Institute of Radiology.
The model used to decide what radiation level is safe is based on some squishy assumptions – including the assumption that the same amount of radiation is much less dangerous when it comes over a long period of time than when the exposure is acute, said Ms. Sakiyama. Some academic studies have suggested that assumption may not be right, she said.
“This (radiation standard) is being treated as authoritative, even though we don’t know if it’s really correct or not,” Ms. Sakiyama said.
Members of the Washington panel did agree that while they considered the physical health risks from the exposure too small to measure, the accident will still have an impact. Psychological trauma from the evacuation and months away from home could end up being the biggest health risk from the accident.
Additionally, some areas near the crippled power plant, saw relatively large doses of radioactive cesium deposited on the ground. Some areas can be decontaminated, but there will be large areas around the plant that will not be habitable for years, they said.
One member of the panel, Robert Peter Gale, spoke to JRT earlier in the week. The visiting professor at Imperial College London worked as a medical consultant both in Chernobyl and Fukushima. He said in the interview that he believed the frequent alarms over Fukushima could backfire by making it harder for people there to resume their normal lives and businesses. “Already we see a stigmatization of people from that area or products from that area,” he said. “It’s very hard for them to survive. It’s quite unfortunate.”
Japan has started a program to screen children in Fukushima prefecture with ultrasound exams every two years until they turn 20. Dr. Gale questioned whether that was a good idea, saying the ultrasounds would inevitably find abnormalities and lead to unnecessary biopsies and other tests. “You can imagine a whole cascade of things driven by political considerations,” he said. “It’s meant to do good but it’s likely to cause harm.”
While it does not make great press, the NEI article dated 3/2/12 (un-cited by WSJ, why?) cites measured dose levels and indicates its conclusions are assumptions (would that reporters would do that more often).
http://safetyfirst.nei.org/public-health/experts-say-health-effects-of-fukushima-accident-should-be-very-minor/
Just so it is clear, M. H. is quoted as saying “chances are VERY good that they (Japanese People at Fukishima) will not have any significant bumps to their local cancer rates.
That would mean the Japanese government is not guilty of Crimes against Humanity. Cancer is not a problem after all.
I am thinking we should start buidling even more nuclear plants and some of the plants could be built cheaper because it turns out based on what happened in Japan that it does not cause cancer that easily so we don’t need to spend the money on new reactor designs, lets just use what we got and if an accident happens, not to worry.
Even if Japan has all the earthquakes that they do, they should start back up every one of their nuclear power plants, they already know this radiation stuff based on the accident in Fukishima is not going to cause a spike in Cancer so what is all the fuss about, start them back up and if their is another earthquake then have them clean it and move on.
I said ‘north’ in the latest post. It is ‘south’. sorry.
Japan stopped distribution of dairy products quickly after the accident. I think it was good for health. Amount of radiation in north and west of Fukushima is now 0.20 μSv/H or under. London and Rome are 0.25 μSv/H. So dangerous area is limited in Fukushima.
Ms. Sakiyama clearly has no idea what she is talking about. An acute dose of Radiation is ALWAYS more harmful than low level radiation.
The average day on the beach in Hawaii will give you more radiation from the SAND alone than most people get in a day. The average exposure to these SHORT LIVED particulates was 10 millisieverts.. that is 1 rem. And that was only 73 out of HOW many THOUSAND? Lets face it folks if you want to know what is going on here, you can’t listen to these idiots in the media. Go find yourself a phd in the field of nuclear physics or biology and ask them for their opinion.
Yes… any exposure to ionizing radiation CAN result in cancer. The study that Ms. Sakiyama refers to as a bad measurement, studied 20,000 worker from many different lines of work and the number of them that ACTUALLY got cancer and compared it to the entire history of Nuclear work in the US at that time which feel free to correct me if i’m wrong but was about 20 years of data and many more thousands of workers. It found that only .001% MORE of them had cancer. That ladies and gentleman are what we can say falls in the realm of statistical uncertainty. That means it is not CLEAR that the radation exposure actually MADE them more likely to have cancer than not, but it does not mean it didn’t either.
So chances are VERY good that they will not have any significant bumps to their local cancer rates. Chances are also even better that ANY case of cancer will be reported by our fear mongering media types who prefer ratings to facts.