Cancer risk from Fukushima disaster small, report says
People living near the site of Japan's 2011 nuclear disaster face only a slightly greater risk of cancer in their lifetimes as a result, a World Health Organization report concludes.
By Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times
March 1, 2013
Three-year-old Wakana Nemoto is screened for radiation exposure in Fukushima, Japan, in April 2011, a month after the nuclear plant disaster. Infants who lived in the vicinity at the time face the greatest additional cancer risk during their lifetimes, a World Health Organization report said. (Hiro Komae / Associated Press / April 16, 2011)
The 9.0-magnitude Tohoku-Oki earthquake and resulting tsunami that triggered a meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station has resulted in only a small increase in lifetime cancer risks for people living nearby, and an even smaller risk for populations outside of Japan, according to a new report from the World Health Organization.
The uptick in disease resulting from radiation released by the crippled plant is "likely to remain below detectable levels," the study authors concluded in their 166-page report released Thursday. That added risk will probably be drowned out by the choices people make throughout their lives, such as whether to smoke and how much to exercise, they said.
Based on the estimated levels of radiation released into the environment during the Fukushima crisis two years ago, scientists determined that the greatest threat people would probably face would be an increased risk of cancer. The most vulnerable people were infants who lived in close proximity to the plant on Japan's eastern coast.
For instance, baby boys who lived in the area at the time now have a 7% increased risk of developing leukemia during their lifetimes compared with what they would have faced if the meltdown hadn't happened. Baby girls who lived near the plant and were exposed to radiation now have a 6% increased risk of developing breast cancer and a 4% increased risk of developing any type of cancer that forms solid tumors.
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