Study finds rise in lifetime cancer risk among Fukushima 1-year-old girls

[bananas]

1. The study does have some limitations...

http://www.ibtimes.com/new-fukushima-radiation-study-looks-ahead-future-cancer-risks-1557613

New Fukushima Radiation Study Looks Ahead To Future Cancer Risks
By Roxanne Palmer on February 24 2014 5:02 PM

A new study of Japanese communities near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant shows a lingering risk of radiation exposure remained more than a year after the March 2011 meltdown.

For the study, a group of Japanese scientists led by a team from Kyoto University recruited 483 people living within 20 to 50 kilometers (12 to 31 miles) of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. For two months in 2012, participants wore personal devices called dosimeters that measured their radiation exposure from the ground, air, and food.

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The study does have some limitations.

“This assessment was derived from short-term observation with uncertainties,” the researchers noted.

The study also did not measure exposure to radioactive iodine, or factor in the effect of radiation doses within the first year of the accident. Though radioactive iodine is a serious health hazard, it has a half-life of just eight days, making it much harder to detect a year after the accident (radiocesium, by contrast, has a half-life of about 30 years).

The study population is also relatively small, as Greenpeace nuclear expert Rianne Teule noted.

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