Eleven new cases of thyroid cancer among young people in Fukushima Prefecture have been confirmed after completion of Stage 2 of the medical monitoring effort there in the wake of the nuclear disaster of 2011. The Asahi Shimbun reported on December 1st that these new cases bring the confirmed number to 115 in a population of ~380,000 in the monitoring program that began in April of 2014, more than two years following the disaster.
For comparison, the 'normal' rate of childhood thyroid cancer in industrialized nations is between 2 and 7 per million per year depending on several factors. The current rate in Fukushima Prefecture works out to a bit more than 67 per million per year.
According to US government statistics, childhood thyroid cancers represent 4% of all childhood cancers diagnosed each year, and WebMD notes that rates have increased 5% in recent years (attributed to obesity and increased radiation exposures). 4% of the 171 childhood cancer diagnoses per million children per year is a 'normal' rate of 6.84 : 1 million/yr here in the US. Fukushima is pushing 10 times that rate.
If a certain kind of cancer suddenly soars to ten times the 'normal' rate, you've got a definite "cancer epidemic" on your hands. EPA and several other dot-gov agencies/departments would be showing up in force to find out what's causing it, because despite what industrial polluters so often claim, cancers generally do have identifiable causes. These are children, FFS. They should be exempt from "the usual" industrialist excuses for premeditated random mass murder.
But alas, children are often the first victims of this sick modern mindset. So we are getting the not unexpected but always disgusting assertions from "the usual" industry apologists that the rate in Fukushima children is somehow 'normal'. They claim childhood thyroid cancer has always been much more common than diagnosis has ever demonstrated, it's just that nobody ever noticed before. By way of accounting for the obvious problem of so much childhood cancer going completely undetected, they even insist that undiagnosed thyroid cancers must just go away by themselves if ignored, since kids aren't dropping dead of undiagnosed thyroid cancer all over the place.
I don't think I need to point out that this assertion is a gross insult to the intelligence of everyone in the world with a 3-digit IQ. But I'm pointing it out anyway.
Fukushima Diary notes that 120 of the already operated-upon 152 cancers were confirmed to be thyroid papillary carcinoma. Per Medscape, Thyroid Papillary Carcinoma is the most common form of well-differentiated thyroid cancer, and the most common form of thyroid cancer to result from exposure to radiation. Worse, these tumors tend to spread easily to lymph glands and organs.
Surgical removal of the thyroid is the definitive treatment for this cancer, sometimes followed up with radioiodine therapy (more I-131) to destroy metastases and/or thyroid tissue missed in the surgery. IOW, this is a notably aggressive form of cancer that readily spreads to lymph glands and organs.
Something is obviously very wrong in Fukushima Province. Blanket denials by involved 'authorities' that the Daiichi disaster cannot be the cause of this very serious epidemic of thyroid cancer in northeastern Japan does NOT mean the Daiichi disaster didn't cause this very serious epidemic. All it means is that the vested interests are denying the disaster caused it. They're lying.