General Discussion

morningfog

(18,115 posts) Sat Mar 2, 2013, 01:47 AM Mar 2013

Cancer Risk From Fukushima Found in Japanese Infants

Infants who were in the Japanese region most affected by radiation after the 2011 tsunami have a slightly elevated lifetime risk of some cancers, according to the World Health Organization.

Baby girls in the region have the greatest relative risk increase – 70 percent for thyroid cancer – the agency said in a 168-page health risk assessment.

But the agency cautioned that's on top a small baseline lifetime risk of 0.75 percent, so that the absolute increase in cases of thyroid cancer is expected to be small.

The assessment also says that male infants exposed at the highest level – between 12 and 25 millisieverts – have about a 7 percent relative risk increase in the lifetime risk of leukemia and that female infants have about a 6 percent increase in the lifetime risk of breast cancer.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/cancer-risk-fukushima-found-japanese-infants/story?id=18631231

2 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Cancer Risk From Fukushima Found in Japanese Infants (Original Post) morningfog Mar 2013 OP

For Christ sake! The statistics are crazy. longship Mar 2013 #1

WHO report is useless? Have to agree, somewhat RobertEarl Mar 2013 #2

longship

(40,416 posts)

1. For Christ sake! The statistics are crazy.

Reply to morningfog (Original post)

Sat Mar 2, 2013, 02:13 AM

Mar 2013

The assessment also says that male infants exposed at the highest level – between 12 and 25 millisieverts – have about a 7 percent relative risk increase in the lifetime risk of leukemia and that female infants have about a 6 percent increase in the lifetime risk of breast cancer.

For all solid tumors combined, infants in the hardest-hit region have about a 4 percent increase in the lifetime relative risk, the agency reported.

This is a trivial increase, not fucking 70%, and not even a 70% increase. (Where does anybody get 70 anything out of this?)

Then there's this:

Baby girls in the region have the greatest relative risk increase – 70 percent for thyroid cancer – the agency said in a 168-page health risk assessment.

A 70% increase could be .01% to .017%, or it could be 10% to 17%. The former is trivial; the latter is likely significant.

Ignoring the discrepancy between male and female -- why in the fuck would that be? -- when one talks about relative percent increases or decreases, the base value becomes very significant. Without that value, the relative percent increase is utterly and fucking meaningless.

The article conveniently omits that particular value, and people in the USA are so ignorant about statistics that this most simple of statistical issues is utterly lost on them.

I don't like nuclear power anymore than anybody. And I am not saying that the disaster at Fukushima doesn't suck. But if one is going to quote something, especially science, get it right.

This article is worthless.

RobertEarl

(13,685 posts)

2. WHO report is useless? Have to agree, somewhat

Reply to longship (Reply #1)

Sat Mar 2, 2013, 03:27 AM

Mar 2013

Although, you have to remember, WHO does not want to make a big deal out of Fukushima.

And one item they left out of the report is that 160,000 people had to evacuate the area, maybe to never return. They are refugees. How many of those have been tracked down and had their exposures calculated?

Here is a snip from the NYT about the same WHO report:

The study’s authors warned, however, that their assessment was based on limited scientific knowledge; much of the scientific data on health effects from radiation is based on acute exposures like those that followed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and not chronic, low-level exposure. In Japan, some densely populated areas are expected to remain contaminated with relatively low levels of radioactive materials for decades.

“Because scientific understanding of the radiation effects, particularly at low doses, may increase in the future, it is possible that further investigation may change our understanding of the risks of this radiation accident,” the report said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/world/asia/who-sees-low-health-risks-from-fukushima-accident.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Reply to this discussion