A new study of the effects of tiny quantities of radioactive
fallout from Fukushima on the health of babies born in California shows a
significant excess of hypothyroidism caused by the radioactive
contamination traveling 5,000 miles across the Pacific. The article
will be published next week in the peer-reviewed journal Open Journal of
Pediatrics.
Congenital hypothyroidism is a rare but serious condition normally
affecting about one child in 2,000, and one that demands clinical
intervention – the growth of children suffering from the condition is
affected if they are left untreated. All babies born in California are
monitored at birth for Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) levels in
blood, since high levels indicate hypothyroidism.
Joe Mangano and Janette Sherman of the Radiation and Public Health
Project in New York, and Christopher Busby, guest researcher at Jacobs
University, Bremen, examined congenital hypothyroidism (CH) rates in
newborns using data obtained from the State of California over the
period of the Fukushima explosions.
Their results are published in their paper
Changes
in confirmed plus borderline cases of congenital hypothyroidism in
California as a function of environmental fallout from the Fukushima
nuclear meltdown. The researchers compared data for babies exposed
to radioactive Iodine-131 and born between March 17th and Dec 31st 2011
with unexposed babies born in 2011 before the exposures plus those born
in 2012.
Confirmed cases of hypothyroidism, defined as those with TSH level
greater than 29 units increased by 21% in the group of babies that were
exposed to excess radioactive Iodine in the womb [*]. The same group of
children had a 27% increase in ‘borderline cases’ [**].
Contrary to many reports, the explosion of the reactors and spent
fuel pools at Fukushima produced levels of radioactive contamination
which were comparable with the Chernobyl releases in 1986. Using
estimates made by the Norwegian Air Laboratory it is possible to
estimate that more than 250PBq (200 x 10
15) Bq of Iodine-131 (half life 8 days) were released at Fukushima.
This is also predicted by comparing the Caesium-137 estimates with
I-131 releases from Chernobyl, quantities which caused the thyroid
cancer epidemic in Byelarus, the Ukraine and parts of the Russian
Republic.
More on this later. At Fukushima, the winds generally blew the
radioactive iodine and other volatile radionuclides out to sea, to the
Pacific Ocean. The journey 5,000 miles to the West Coast of the USA
leaves a lot of time for dispersal and dilution. Nevertheless,
small amounts of I-131 were measured in milk causing widespread concern.
The authorities downplayed any risk on the basis that the “doses”
were very low; far lower than the natural background radiation. The
University of Berkeley measured I-131 in rainwater from 18th to 28th
March 2011 after which levels fell. If we assume that mothers drank 1
litre of rainwater a day for this period (of course they didn’t) the
current radiation risk model of the International Commission on
Radiological Protection (ICRP) calculates an absorbed dose to the adult
thyroid of 23 microSieverts, less than 1/100th the annual background
“dose”. The foetus is more sensitive (by a factor of about 10 according
to ICRP) but is exposed to less as it is perhaps 100 times smaller.
So this finding is one more instance of the fact that the current
radiation risk model, employed by the governments of every nation, is
massively insecure for predicting harm from internal radionuclide
exposures or explaining the clear observations.
The Fukushima catastrophe has been dismissed as a potential cause of
health effects even in Japan, let alone as far away as California. And
on what basis? Because the “dose” is too low.
This is the mantra chanted by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO, largely the same outfit),
and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
Radiation (UNSCEAR). And let’s not forget all the nuclear scientists who
swooped down on Fukushima with their International Conferences and
placatory soothing presentations.
This chant was heard after Chernobyl, after the nuclear site child
leukemias; in the nuclear atmospheric test veterans cases; and in all
the other clear situations which in any unbiased scientific arena would
long ago have blown away the belief that low level internal exposures
are safe.
But this one-size-fits-all concept of “dose” is the nuclear
industry’s sinking ship. It provides essential cover for the use of
uranium weapons, whether fission bombs or depleted uranium munitions;
for the development of nuclear power stations like Hinkley Point; the
burying of radioactive waste in landfills in middle England; releases of
plutonium to the Irish Sea from Sellafield (where it drifts ashore and
causes increases in cancer on the coasts of Wales and Ireland); and most
recently, for the British Governments denial of excess cancers among
nuclear test veterans.
This new study is not the first to draw attention to the sensitivity
of the unborn baby to internal fission products. In 2009 I used data
supplied to me when I was a member of the UK government Committee
Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters (CERRIE) to carry out a
meta-analysis of infant leukemia rates in five countries in Europe:
England and Wales, Germany, Greece, and Byelarus.
There had been an unexpected and statistically significant increase
in infant leukemia (age 0-1) in those children who were in the womb
during the (whole body monitored) increased levels of Caesium-137 from
Chernobyl. The beauty of this study (like the TSH study) is that, unlike
the Sellafield child leukemias, there is really no possible alternative
explanation.
It was the low “dose” of Caesium-137 that caused the leukemias. And the
dose response trend was not a straight line: The effect at the very low
“dose” was greater than at the very high “dose”. Presumably because at
the high doses the babies perished in the womb and could not, therefore,
develop leukemia. I published the results and drew attention to the
failure of the ICRP model in the
International Journal of Environment and Public Health in 2009.
I had published a paper on this infant leukemia proof of the failure of the risk model in
Energy and Environment in
2000, and also presented it in the same year at the World Health
Organisation conference in Kiev. It was there that I first really came
up against the inversion of science deployed by the chiefs of the IAEA
and UNSCEAR. The conference was videofilmed by Wladimir Tchertkoff and
you can see his excellent documentary, which made it to Swiss TV,
Atomic Lies, re-released in 2004 as
Nuclear Controversies (Preview) (link to youtube, 51 minutes).
For what is done by these people is to dismiss any evidence of
increased rates of cancer or any other disease by shouting at it: “the
doses were too low”. In this way, reality is airbrushed away. What is
this quantity “dose”? It is a simple physics-based quantity which
represents the absorption of energy from radiation. One Sievert of gamma
radiation is one Joule per kilogram of living tissue.
This might work for external radiation. But it doesn’t work for
internal exposures to radioactive elements which can produce huge
effects on cellular DNA at low average “doses”. It is like comparing
warming yourself in front of the fire with eating a hot coal. Or
comparing a punch to stabbing. Same dose, same energy. Very different
effects.
This “dose” scam has been used to dismiss real effects since it was
invented in 1952 to deal with the exposures from nuclear weapons
development and testing. For those who want to dig deeper into the
science there is a recent book chapter I wrote in the book
New Research Directions in DNS Repair.
The most scary instances of the sensitivity of the foetus to
radiation are the sex ratio studies of Hagen Scherb, a German
biostatician and member of the
European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR).
With his colleague Christina Voigt he has published a series of papers
showing a sudden change in the sex ratio of newborns after various
radiation exposure incidents.
Sex ratio, the number of boys born to 1,000 girls is a well accepted
indicator of genetic damage and perturbations in the normal ratio of
1,050 (boys to 100 girls) are due to the deaths before birth of
radiation damaged individuals of one sex or the other depending on
whether the father (sperm) or mother (egg) was most exposed.
We found such an effect (more girls) in our study of Fallujah, Iraq,
where there was exposure to Uranium weapons. But Scherb and Voigt have
looked at the major catastrophes, Chernobyl, the weapons tests fallout,
near nuclear sites in data from many countries of the world. Huge
datasets.
They estimate that millions have babies have been killed by these
subtle internal radiation exposures. The nuclear military project is
responsible for an awful lot of deaths. In years to come I believe this
will eventually be seen as the greatest public health scandal in human
history.
Of course, the exposure to radio-Iodine is associated with thyroid
cancer in children. There was a big rise of thyroid cancer in Byelarus,
the Ukraine and the Russian Republic after Chernobyl. The situation at
Fukushima seems set to echo this, despite the reassurances from the
authorities that there will be no effects.
Our paper reports 44 confirmed thyroid cancer cases in 0-18 year olds
in Fukushima prefecture in the last six months (a figure that
has since risen to 53).
In the hypothyroidism paper we discuss the 44 cases relative to the
population and calculate that this represents an 80-fold excess based on
national data prior to the Fukushima Iodine releases.
This presents a severe challenge to Dr Wolfgang Weiss of the UN and
WHO, who stated last year that no thyroid cancers could result from the
Fukushima disaster as the “doses were too low”. How does he explain the
80-fold increase in this normally rare condition?
Or rather, when will he admit that the entire scientific model that
underpins his views is fraudulent? And that nuclear radiation is –
roughly speaking – 1,000 times more dangerous to human health than he is
letting on?
Chris Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk. For details and current CV see www.chrisbusbyexposed.org.
Something else sets Hunter apart.
