Fukushima Radioactive Iodine Disaster

“Over a third of children in Japan’s Fukushima region could be prone to cancer if medics don’t apply more effort in treating their unusually overgrown thyroid glands.” A report shows that nearly 36% of children in the nuclear-disaster-affected Fukushima Prefecture have abnormal thyroid growths. After examining more than 38,000 children from the area, medics found that more than 13,000 have cysts or nodules as large as 5 millimeters on their thyroids, the Sixth Report of Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey states.

The World Health Organization warns that young people are particularly prone to radiation poisoning in the thyroid gland. Infants face the direst consequences, as their cells divide at a higher rate.

A new study from the Radiation and Public Health Project found that babies born in the western United States as well as other Pacific countries shortly after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011 might be at greater risk for congenital hypothyroidism.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, “If untreated, congenital hypothyroidism can lead to intellectual disability and abnormal growth.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant released an enormous amount of liquid waste of Iodine 129 and other fission isotopes directly into the Pacific Ocean that were subsequently dispersed eastwards.