Children cut their throat - tyroid gland cancer among children -

(oil painting on wood panel, collage. 117×91cm × 3 pieces. 2014)

 

“ As a teacher, I have a pretty big anxiety for my students.

Among my students I teach there is a student who had been judged clearly to be <B>

and went to the second inspection since last week.

My students are already frightened by the papers which had delivered to my school.”

(A man who teaches high school in Koriyama of Fukushima. February 2014)

Ten years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident,

children’s thyroid cancer was the only disease recognized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

as an increasing disease due to radiation exposure.

After the Fukushima nuclear accident,

the government started to conduct a thyroid check under the Environment Ministry for all children under the age of 18

who had resident cards on Fukushima at the time.

Exposure is the electrical disconnection of genes.

The more the effects of the action,

the greater the frequency of cell division during the growth phase,

the greater the impact on children.

Therefore,

the children’s thyroid test is regarded as one guideline for whether the Fukushima nuclear accident affected the health of residents.

In this public tyroid checking doctor put an ultrasonic device on children’s throats,

and if there is not abnormal, it’s categorized as ‘A1’.”

Even if a blood-filled bag ( referred to as a ‘ cyst ‘) is found,

the size of the cyst is not more than 20 mm and nodule got found,

if it is not more than 5　mm, this case is defined ‘A2’.

If cyst‘s size is over 20 mm ore nodule’ size is over 5 mm,

this case will be categorized to <B>,

this categorized <B> children are requested to undergo a secondary examination.

Way of this second survey is by inserting needle into the throat to collect cells to determine the possibility of cancer cells.

If there is a strong possibility of cancer, defined “cancer suspicion”,

and if cancer cell is corrected by surgery this cancer will be determined as cancer actually.

Category <C> is so bad condition desired to conduct surgery quickly.

The quotation I introduced above were made by the high school teacher who had student desired to put the needle in his (or her) throat.

It shows the child’s reaction to this situation in Fukushima.

Prior to the accident,

Japan had the date of morbidity concerning thyroid cancer under 18 years old.

It shows that the morbidity was two or three in maximum among one million children in National Cancer Center statistics.

In the survey conducted by Ministry of the Environment in Fukushima Prefecture about 200 children has been diagnosed with cancer or suspected of cancer.

Also there is no stopping for this trend.

And within six years of the accident,

an civil organization taking distance from Japanese public < 3.11 thyroid cancer children’s fund > has revealed the existence of cancer children,

who are missing from the public checking in Fukushima and from other prefectures.

And these detected cases are only minimal.

The survey which used to name < the Fukushima Health Management Survey >,

was conducted exclusively by Fukushima Medical University

and a panel doctors who involved in this has never consistently recognize the causal relationship with radiation for the development of children’s tyroid cancer.

What has they done is to make public statement by certificated doctors that

“ the health of the children in Fukushima is not abnormal. "

and to spread around this story to Japanese society.

< The three prefectural comparative survey > was also operated by Ministry of the Environment.

They conducted a thyroid survey on children under the age of 18 in three prefecture far from Fukushima.

This comparative survey was done to just only those who wished in Aomori, Yamanashi and Nagasaki prefectures.

Data of these were compared with Fukushima.

In 2013,

the results of this were released, and newspapers and television reported in large quantities that

“ no abnormalities had occurred in children in Fukushima compared to other prefectures “.

But the results which big medias showed were restricted to only the percentages of the cysts and nodules,

the cancer elements that were already increasing at that time just only in Fukushima were not referred.

 

 

At the 2014 stage,

74 children were “cancer suspicion” and cancer in Fukushima,

while studies from three other prefectures found cancer in one child.

Information about from which prefecture one cancered child was found was kept under secret,

But anyway,

in another saying it meant that no cancer children were found in the other two prefectures, wherever they were.

74:(1:0:0).

This was the original conclusion of a thyroid cancer determinant in their comparative study.

But the information that had passed through to Japanese society was:

“There is no abnormality in children in Fukushima compared to other prefectures.”

 

That’s what Japanese mainstream TV media and news papers reported without critic.

It means that behind this many children were thrown off to the shadows.

Currently,

the International Epidemiology academic meeting demanded Japanese government to conduct to this issue correctly

and quickly as frequent occurrence.

Anyway,

needles inserted to many children’s throat and cut throat,

this is one of the things brought by the accident.

This wouldn’t move.

 

( text : Akira Tsuboi )