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From the executive summary (for others): > ...its assessment of the exposures and effects due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 great east Japan earthquak

From the executive summary (for others): > ...its assessment of the exposures and effects due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 great east Japan earthquake and tsunami... It had concluded in that report that, in general, doses were low and that therefore associated risks were also expected to be low. A discernible increase in cancer incidence in the adult population of Fukushima Prefecture that could be attributed to radiation exposure from the accident was not expected. Nevertheless, the report noted a possibility that an increased risk of thyroid cancer among those children most exposed to radiation could be theoretically inferred, although the occurrence of a large number of radiation-induced thyroid cancers in Fukushima Prefecture—such as occurred after the Chernobyl accident—could be discounted because absorbed doses to the thyroid after the accident at Fukushima were substantially lower. It had also concluded that no discernible changes in birth defects and hereditary diseases were expected and that any increased incidence of cancer among workers due to their exposure was expected to be indiscernible because of the difficulty of confirming a small increase against the normal statistical fluctuations in cancer incidence. The effects on terrestrial and marine ecosystems were expected to have been transient and localized.

hrktb 8y ago
I’m a bit frustrated by some of these arguments. In particular there is all this “expected” part about low level of radiation that _should_ lead to low effects. That all fine, until we get the numbers of actual cases, which are higher than expected. But then we have something looking like backpedaling, a lot of “yeah it’s higher, but it’s not what you think. Because it should be low”, wich I’d take as a partly circular argument. An extract from this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770131/#!po=41.4286 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770131/#!po=41... > According to the studies reported until now, it is difficult at this point to attribute thyroid cancers in Fukushima to the direct effects of radiation exposure. The reasons are as follows. Exposure doses in Fukushima are significantly lower than those in Chernobyl (65). There are other arguments details further down these lines, but the lower exposure shouldn’t be used to argue the effects of radiation when the whole point of the studies are to mesure these effects. It taints the whole conclusion in a veil of “we don’t want to disown or past predictions”
- mikekchar 8y ago
  That paper has some wording that is hard to understand, so I think this might be what's causing you trouble. The quote you make from the paper is not the only reason. They give 5 reasons. - The exposure rates are significantly lower that Chernobyl (earlier in the paper they explain that in previous studies there is a correlation between exposure and cancer rates -- because the thyroid problem rates here are high while exposure rates were low, it is possible that the high rates are caused by something else) - There is no apparent difference in rates corresponding to proximity to the disaster. Similar to the above, our models would predict that as you get closer to the disaster thyroid problem rates would increase. Because this is not happening, it seems likely that the high rate is due to something else. - The high rate of thyroid problems was detected mostly in older, not younger children. If the thyroid problems were caused by exposure to radiation, our models predict that younger children would be more susceptible. Because we have the opposite, it is likely that the cause is something else (this, to me, seems one of the more convincing arguments). However, they note that it may just be a case that by chance the younger children may not have developed problems yet and so further study is required. - Thyroid problem rates in other prefectures are also high (and, in fact higher than in Fukushima). Again earlier in the paper, they discuss this in much more detail. It was interesting to me that even as far south as Yamanashi, there were very high rates. - The gene mutation and rearrangement rates are different than that of Chernobyl. From those pieces of evidence, they conclude that the high rates of thyroid problems are likely due to some other cause (many possibilities of which they describe in the paper). Like I said, I found the wording in this paper to be difficult to understand. It appears to have been written by non-native English speakers (mostly Japanese), so that's probably why. If you read it again, hopefully it will make more sense.
  - hrktb 8y ago
    My main beef is how in parralel to the pure data and experiments, there’s all this commentary going back to other events (Chernobyl) or expected results (“ours models would predict") to seed the ideas that some of these data is just non significant. To draw a bad analogy, if we had a plane crash and had to study how 5% survived, we wouldn’t be saying ‘previous crashes had everyone dead, we should not pay too much attention to this set of survivors’ or ‘our models predict bulky males to survive, young kids surviving here is just an oddity that has nothing to do with our study’. Also if there’s actual data not matching the model, shouldn’t we think hard and long about the the model ? And if we do, the argument wouldn’t be that data doesn’t matches the model, but that we have additional data explaining the root cause of the oddities. I am not saying we must to tie everything back to a single source, and for instance the fact that having more screening than before actualy affects the rate of detection and changes the statistics is a very valid point among many. But brushing away swaths of oddities because it’s not expected feels lazy. Basically I’m wondering if we would find causes aside from direct radiations that could cause some of the issues. For instance the whole country’s rate of cancer rising shouldn’t be an argument to dismiss Fukushima having something to do with it, hell the gov shipped contaminated soil around the country, there were multiple food mislabeling issues etc. We should pin down an actual cause of the rise of cancers around the country before saying it’s unrelated.

hrktb 8y ago

I’m a bit frustrated by some of these arguments. In particular there is all this “expected” part about low level of radiation that _should_ lead to low effects. That all fine, until we get the numbers of actual cases, which are higher than expected. But then we have something looking like backpedaling, a lot of “yeah it’s higher, but it’s not what you think. Because it should be low”, wich I’d take as a partly circular argument. An extract from this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770131/#!po=41.4286 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770131/#!po=41... > According to the studies reported until now, it is difficult at this point to attribute thyroid cancers in Fukushima to the direct effects of radiation exposure. The reasons are as follows. Exposure doses in Fukushima are significantly lower than those in Chernobyl (65). There are other arguments details further down these lines, but the lower exposure shouldn’t be used to argue the effects of radiation when the whole point of the studies are to mesure these effects. It taints the whole conclusion in a veil of “we don’t want to disown or past predictions”

mikekchar 8y ago
That paper has some wording that is hard to understand, so I think this might be what's causing you trouble. The quote you make from the paper is not the only reason. They give 5 reasons. - The exposure rates are significantly lower that Chernobyl (earlier in the paper they explain that in previous studies there is a correlation between exposure and cancer rates -- because the thyroid problem rates here are high while exposure rates were low, it is possible that the high rates are caused by something else) - There is no apparent difference in rates corresponding to proximity to the disaster. Similar to the above, our models would predict that as you get closer to the disaster thyroid problem rates would increase. Because this is not happening, it seems likely that the high rate is due to something else. - The high rate of thyroid problems was detected mostly in older, not younger children. If the thyroid problems were caused by exposure to radiation, our models predict that younger children would be more susceptible. Because we have the opposite, it is likely that the cause is something else (this, to me, seems one of the more convincing arguments). However, they note that it may just be a case that by chance the younger children may not have developed problems yet and so further study is required. - Thyroid problem rates in other prefectures are also high (and, in fact higher than in Fukushima). Again earlier in the paper, they discuss this in much more detail. It was interesting to me that even as far south as Yamanashi, there were very high rates. - The gene mutation and rearrangement rates are different than that of Chernobyl. From those pieces of evidence, they conclude that the high rates of thyroid problems are likely due to some other cause (many possibilities of which they describe in the paper). Like I said, I found the wording in this paper to be difficult to understand. It appears to have been written by non-native English speakers (mostly Japanese), so that's probably why. If you read it again, hopefully it will make more sense.
- hrktb 8y ago
  My main beef is how in parralel to the pure data and experiments, there’s all this commentary going back to other events (Chernobyl) or expected results (“ours models would predict") to seed the ideas that some of these data is just non significant. To draw a bad analogy, if we had a plane crash and had to study how 5% survived, we wouldn’t be saying ‘previous crashes had everyone dead, we should not pay too much attention to this set of survivors’ or ‘our models predict bulky males to survive, young kids surviving here is just an oddity that has nothing to do with our study’. Also if there’s actual data not matching the model, shouldn’t we think hard and long about the the model ? And if we do, the argument wouldn’t be that data doesn’t matches the model, but that we have additional data explaining the root cause of the oddities. I am not saying we must to tie everything back to a single source, and for instance the fact that having more screening than before actualy affects the rate of detection and changes the statistics is a very valid point among many. But brushing away swaths of oddities because it’s not expected feels lazy. Basically I’m wondering if we would find causes aside from direct radiations that could cause some of the issues. For instance the whole country’s rate of cancer rising shouldn’t be an argument to dismiss Fukushima having something to do with it, hell the gov shipped contaminated soil around the country, there were multiple food mislabeling issues etc. We should pin down an actual cause of the rise of cancers around the country before saying it’s unrelated.