Two years after the fact, the full effects of the Fukushima meltdown are still being realized, not only in Japan, but on the west coast of the United States. And the mainstream media has been oddly silent about it.
According to recently released studies, children born in affected U.S. States (Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii) in the four months after the March 2011 nuclear disaster were more than 25 percent more likely to be afflicted with a type of thyroid disease that can lead to permanent physical and mental problems.
The specific condition being seen in elevated rates in these states is called congenital hypothyroidism. "Congenital" refers to a condition that is evident from birth; hypothyroidism refers to a missing, underdeveloped, or low-functioning thyroid gland. The thyroid is an important, mufti-functional gland implicated in everything from regulating physical growth and hormones to proper brain development. The typical rate of congenital hypothyroidism worldwide is about 1 in every 3,500 children. The increased rate in west-coast America after the Fukushima disaster would have been around 1 in 2,800.
The heightened risk in Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii-born children in spring 2011 was evident when comparing congenital hypothyroidism numbers from the same period of time in 2010, and also when compared to the rates of congenital hypothyroidism in the rest of the United States.
The believed cause of all this is the radioactive isotope iodine-131. Significant amounts of this isotope were created during the Fukushima meltdown; they gathered in the air and fell across Pacific nations and the west coast of the United States during regular rain and snowfall after the nuclear event in Japan. The existence of iodine-131 was first discovered in the 1930s, by researchers in the United States. Iodine-131 has a half-life of only eight days (compared to iodine-129, which has a half-life of over 15 million years, for example) so the west coast should not see any continued effects.
Ironically, iodine-131 has many useful medical applications--particularly in diagnosing thyroid conditions, and also in radiation therapy.
The sub-story here is the lack of media coverage regarding these findings. To be fair, the health of our children could have easily been buried on the back page. After all, with Justin Bieber fighting paparazzos, President Obama calling an attractive woman attractive, and Amanda Bynes still being awesome as fuck, we just haven't had time to cover the small stuff.
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