E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSA provocative new study released this week suggests as many as 14,000 Americans may have died as a result of exposure to radioactive particles blown here from Japan after the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown in March. But even though the report is gaining some attention, experts say there is no scientific basis for its claims.
The study, published in the International Journal of Health Services, was based on mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and compared death rates before and after the cloud of radioactive air rising out of the crippled reactor hit U.S. shores.
Joseph Mangano, the lead author of the new report, says the number of deaths in the spring of 2011 was 4.46 percent higher than in the previous spring and the most likely cause was the higher levels of radiation.
Mangano also found an increase of 2.34 percent in the winter of 2011 compared to the previous year, but he called that increase “standard,” as opposed to the beginning of a trend. Mangano said he couldn’t prove that the higher than expected death rate was due to radiation, but he said he believed it was the leading contender. He was unable to point to any studies showing how low levels of radiation in the U.S. would cause death.
While U.S. deaths did rise in 2011, radiation doesn't make sense as the cause, experts say.
“There’s nothing in the radiation health effects research to substantiate those claims,” said Bernadette Burden, a spokesperson for the CDC.
Radiation expert Andrew Maidment said that the levels of radiation that blew over the U.S. were too low to have caused any deaths – especially in such a short period of time following the disaster.
“For acute radiation sickness you would need much higher levels of radioactivity,” said Maidment, an associate professor of radiology and chief of the physics section in the department of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania. “The levels they are talking about we see naturally occurring across the country.”
What Maidment means is that normal radiation levels vary from region to region around the nation. And though the levels rose in certain areas as a result of the cloud of particles coming from the reactor, those levels still weren’t the highest measured around the U.S. so, they’re still within the norm for the U.S.
Cancers typically associated with lower levels of radiation take years to develop, Maidment explained. “With leukemia, you’re talking about five to seven years,” he said. “And there’s a 10 to 20 year delay for solid tumors. I know of no mechanism that could get you instantaneous mortality from radiation at lower levels.”
Dr. Robert L. Brent agreed. “The exposure of the USA population was extremely small and could not account for any acute lethal effects of radiation,” said Brent, a member of the National Counsel for Radiation Protection and distinguished professor of pediatrics, radiology and pathology at the Jefferson Medical College and the Dupont Hospital for Children.
"The authors indicated that SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) was increased according to the mortality figures the authors obtained from the CDC," said Brent. "To infer that SIDS can be produced by low or high exposures to protracted radiation is naïve. That is not even a remote possibility."
So, how can you explain the rise in U.S. deaths following the reactor disaster?
There’s something called biological variability, Brent said. “For example, if you look at reports from the CDC on birth defects, you might find in a particular month a single case of Down Syndrome. The next month there might be seven. That’s biological variability.”
You can’t assume that a bump in the death rate was caused by a particular factor just because the timing was right, Brent said. “It has to be biologically plausible before you think about linking the two.”
Some associations are just the result of chance, experts said.
Maidment said it’s always possible that the events in Japan made some people in the U.S. very worried. “One thing we do know is that stress correlates with mortality,” he added. “It might be interesting to see if there was an increase in mortality after other highly stressful events, such as 9/11.”
Read more Vitals. It's good for you!
Deadly shoulder massager relaxes, strangles
Tiny listeria survivor comes home for Christmas
Maggots speedier than surgeons at wound cleaning
Leave a Comment:
R i i i i i ght
But much, much less than 4% of those cases developed and caused mortality in less than three months. So Fukushima didn't *cause* cancers in the US. Those cancers had other causes. Hardly any cancers start and kill people inside of three months.
The only way to die from radiation super fast the subject would have to be subjected to super high doses. Deaths from cancer in 3 months make no sense and only cause a sense of panic with no reason.
Linda Carroll you are one of the most irresponsible writers (not a journalist) to publish this rubbish from that jerk below! Shame on you. There is zero scientific fact involved in what either one of you morons wrote.
Sad that this non-sense was published here.
Ruken said:
"The only way to die from radiation super fast the subject would have to be subjected to super high doses. Deaths from cancer in 3 months make no sense and only cause a sense of panic with no reason."
Ding! Ding! Ding!
This is the correct answer.
Deaths from cancer caused by radiation is a statistic that is measured over decades, not months. To achieve that kind of rapid mutation would require such high doses that death would be from radiation sickness, not cancer. As far as I know, there hasn't been a rash of reported radiation illnesses in the US since the incident.
The established science guys are right on this one.
Just what sleazy lawyers need for a round of lawsuits. Facts not important news articles are all they need.
gdvegas - MSNBC is first and foremost a business. Headlines that read "Claim of US deaths from Japan radiation in dispute" will get a significant number of views and sell quite a few advertisements. Whether or not the content is true or even correct is secondary.
Dang! Without a doubt, that explains why I've had more headaches than usual this past year...
all those radioactive particles hitting me in the head! I'm suing those Asian nukemonsters!
What a bunch of bull. With the tiniest amount of thought (practically none at all), anyone would know that it's all because of Jersey Shore. Snooki was getting really popular about the same time as the accident, so that obviously explains it.
This is journalistic malpractice, as there is NO reasonable science to support it. It's akin to publishing some nut-job's idea that these people died because O'Bama was elected president. The data supports it as they died afterward, so maybe he secretly killed them!
If 14,000 in the US died of extremely low levels of radiation then we should have seen 1/2 of Japan fall over dead. This is the worst type of correlation report, ranked up there with oxygen is poison and the cause of death because everyone who has died has consumed oxygen.
It's just sad that the ignorant will read this story and think it must be right because a journalist reported it and there's a conspiracy to cover it up. So why the publication of the story, was it politically motivated or just stupidity??
I knew it was because of Snooki!
Another perfect example of people not understanding that correlation =/= causation.... This is unfortunately the biggest hurdle you have to overcome in scientific study....
What a BS claim. It is just as likely that due to the horrible economy people didn't have money for food, medicine, heating, cooling, etc that all had an impact on peoples health.
What a worthless article. (sarcasm) Death rate is up. It must be due to low levels of radiation released on the other side of the planet (/sarcasm.) This is nothing more than an attempt to scare the public. There are literally millions of possibilities why the death rate could be up. I work in a health care area that exposes me to tremendous amounts of radiation. I, nor any of my colleagues, have developed cancer or radiation sickness. (At least not yet) As previously mentioned. It takes years for this type of problem to truly manifest. I'd say it's much more likely that the death rate has increased due to the stress caused by all of the problems domestically and abroad.
The Ethics of Journalism surged briefly in the mid-20th Century... and has flopped under the appeal of the Internet for us who are either stupid enough, ill educated enough, bored enough to read Tabloid Journalism via MSNBC. And I probably lead the bunch. Because when I see some of the intelligence and quality of these posts... I know I lead the stupids at least. Decent education... but never bored here LOL.
Cannot resist engaging with real people. hey.... I was being satiric up there. Although the kind of Journalism from that era ... 40 or 50 and even 60 years ago ... that I read about or even read first-hand during some of my researching forays ... that's really awfully good stuff.
Love the debates and the tearing some of the articles apart... or playing Devil's Advocate for others. Sometimes I wonder if some of the writers ever stop by and read our comments. Some of us are awful at least some of the time. But, sometimes... an article is so well written a large number of us respond positively to it.
But best of all, is reading others' ideas, opinions, and wow every once in a while an expert in what we are discussing who explains the facts behind what we read.
Matchless.
Yea ya'll go ahead and trust a government ran institution. Oh do some research on just how our own country has teste deadly things on us US citzens in the past without telling anyone.
The government has been out of had for a long time, to bad people trust everything they read in the news now, like its 100% true or something, hahahahahahahahah what a joke.
Poboy, Oh I know that the government has tested things on US citizens: Tuskegee, aerial spraying of virus over SF in 1956 to test distribution patterns, use of LSD, I was even given unapproved anthrax and botulism vaccines in Desert Storm, and don't forget the "Atomic Veterans" and agent orange. Need I go on?
But what puzzles me is your last statement about trusting everything in the news as though it is 100% true. What part do you consider 100% true? The part where the article says that the study shows that the increase in cancer could be caused by the radiation from Japan? Or the part where other scientists say that the study is false? Just curious?
Hi Poboy, I'm the editor of the Vitals blog and want to respond to your concern. I don't know if you saw in the post, but we actually didn't just talk to the CDC (a government run institution) but also made sure to interview outside experts as well for their perspective. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment!
@Linda, you just made everyone's point. News stories are supposted to be news based on facts. I can not understand why you would admit to writing fiction.
Right. Let's all listen to you. The guy that is so smart that he lacks basic grammar skills. Get a clue.
Linda didn't write any fiction.... She simply gave two opposing views on a matter. One group is claiming that there are 14k deaths from radiation poison (highly unlikely) and most experts say it's not biologically possible (far more likely). How is that writing fiction? Both of those statements are facts. One group says it's caused by radiation poison. That statement is a fact. Another group says it's not caused by radiation poison. Also a fact. It doesn't matter what actually caused it, both statements are factual. A statement such as "One group claims the deaths are from a meteor the size of Texas hitting the California coastline" would be a fictitious statement unless there is a group claiming that.
jbabbott... you are not exactly correct... well, yes, if "news" were strictly News ... factual reporting of events. A perfectly appropriate comment on your part.
But this is a Feature story, and frankly it also reports events accurately... a study was written. (That's the event.) The study contained assertions which the feature summarized.
But Feature pieces are not the same as News articles. These are reportage featuring something unusual. the "something" in this case is the study that made an unusual assertion. The assertion may not be accurate in and of itself in terms of its subject matter, but unusual enough to feature.
It is very good Journalism, in fact, because Ms. Dahlstrom did not allow it to stand alone. She went to an expert source, the CDC, asked their opinion of the study, and included their analysis as well.
Thus, Ms. Dahlstrom told it exactly as the interactions occurred: There was a study claiming one thing. She provided a rebuttal of the study as described from a governmental agency. Don't attack the writer. She signed the article and presented it accurately In fact, she did a darn good job, showing both sides of the unusual event of the study itself.
However, we all might have an honest complaint against the MSNBC headline writer. And the person who writes the Feature does not write the headline. That is a whole different ballgame. In my opinion, MSNBC headline writers are dashing into Tabloid-ism, a shoddy shame. Still, that's what the MSNBC editors seem to want.
And what does that say about us?
What I find interesting is that we were all drawn in by that headline... and we are sucked into this discussion where 90% of you are agreeing with the government agency. Fine. BUT. The writer covered the story and submitted it to MSNBC as a peculiarity I think. And MSNBC editors decided to run it. LOL and we decided to read it. And are we all hot and bothered and drawn into it? Sure we are!
Well, it got done what those editors are supposed to do... they got it read.
Quit attacking the writer. Quit attacking the study via the MSNBC article... go read it in the original before you do that, and then if you still think it's off base, write the author of the study.
Or, write MSNBC (ha! lol if they will read it... I can't get a rise out of them about these gosh-awful tabs for "newer" and "older" to the right and the left of all their stuff ... it should be optional at the least! Goodness they get in the way!).
Regarding my (audacity?) about the kinds of Journalism we are seeing here.... my graduate degree is in Journalism including internship at Newsweek Magazine (the B.A. was in English), both from UCLA. I hope that will give my comments some authority, at least.
One thing that is a key factor and seems to be missing from the article is the type of radiation. Background radiation from the sun and radiation from a nuclear reactor, while both radiation, are different types. Not all radiation is the same, some forms of radiation can be far more devastating to the human body that other forms at the same levels.
I'm fairly positive that they are measuring beta, alpha, and gamma emissions, without regards to the source.
radagast.... wasn't it alpha, beta, gamma... and isn't there also a delta.. maybe epsilon, surely a zeta, eta, theta as well...
radiation is, I read, almost like the pi digits ..... infinite. but then, I do not believe everything I read without checking...
Fascinating concept. The scientists are still exploring... no end in sight.
Just wait 'till the ocean currents bring the contaminated water to our shores.
Are you a scientist? Didn't think so. Stop fear-mongering, it's Christmas. Schlong.
Are these scientists in Elementary School? It takes longer then this for someone to develop any type of cancer and the most know cancer caused by radiation is Thyroid Gland. with that said, why isnt everyone in Japan and Hawaii Dead already. If this toxic cloud reach USA soil in minimal amounts. dumb idiots.
Winter Just started Yesterday DECEMBER 21,2011 how did they gather so much information in less thn 24hrs?
Critical times hard to deal with, will be here. 1 Timothy 3:1-5
george... haven't times that are hard to deal with existed virtually continuously since ... the dawn of time... whenever that was?
Now I really wish a physicist or cosmologist would explain that. Is that merely a modern metaphor? There's an incredibly good analysis of the phrase (although it seems to lose the poetry of it)...
I enjoyed this literal approach but still prefer the poets' metaphor as a Beginning... and a joyful one... or perhaps Hope, more like ... as light spills from the darkness.
Amazing that this article was included in a respected publication.....or previously respected publication. Don't they review claims before going to print? This is not science in any degree, its just making stuff up. I would highly recommend to this individual that you get your facts straight before publication, and draw meaningful conclusions from a wealth of information, not a poorly thought out assumption.
The International Journal of Health Services has an impact factor less than 1 making it a rag. It was never a respected publication. Bad science goes here to die. I could probably publish a picture of my foot and write an article on which is my favorite toe and they would publish it.
reads like the script from a Michael Moore movie........
Wait! I think this IS a Michael Moore movie......
You must be a fan of the war criminals from the previous administration. Keep crying, it's hilarious to watch.
And just about as factual as a Michael Moore movie.
Somebody looking for research money. Seems to be happening more and more, someone trying to create a fear, helped by the media, to generate money for themselves and the American public gets sucked right into it.
I guarantee publishing this paper in that journal will not impress upon any granting agency the need to give these researchers even a nickel.
No, this type of research is far more likely to impress those already against nuclear power. They will fund whichever group says things like this regardless of the science backing such claims.
Not sure why my post did not work, but: In a stat calls I took one year, we "learned" that in 1957 there was a world-wide increase in suicides. That same year saw a commensurate increase in the consuption of bananas, thus "proving" that banana consuption is responsible for suicides. Same logic as applied here.
This story has been simmering ever since the quake because the media and the government have tried to keep it from getting into the wild. This is not to say that any radiation caused US deaths or illnesses, but when there is a purposeful effort to silence any topic, it only serves to magnify it in the long term.
Incorrect.
This story was published in a tiny, poorly reviewed journal, with a less than 1 impact factor, that desperately needs authors to fill out its pages. That is the reason nobody has heard of it. It resides in a backwater of pointless articles. There has been no effort to suppress this paper, as it can't even be called research. This paper was probably written by someone who read some internet rumor about a terrible plague of radiation, then went out and counted how many people died in the few weeks following. That isn't science and it isn't a story worth suppressing. It is a sophomoric joke and a poor attempt at reason.
What nonsense....this guy is an idiot, but he gets funding. Good story today in the Washington Post about Kansas' governor downsizing Kansas government and wasteful spending. That should happen to this guy...and the rag that published his tripe.....
Sorry old-timer, but if you think that what is taking place in KS is a good thing, then you are a miserable @#$% that needs to die. You think that its ok for Domestic Abuse to no longer be a priority for Kansas law enforcement? That is exactly what they are doing. If anything happens to anyone I know in KS, and the police fail to act, I will act for them and/or against them.
My God, junk science has come a long way since I left college. I guess you can easily scare the millions of scientifically illiterate people with junk like this.
This blog reads like a well oiled nuclear machine. Good job folks...But you know next to nothing about Fukushima, radiation or its effects apparently. I would rather err on the side of caution than to be in the palm of the nuclear monster like you.
Ok, if it is true that there were more deaths... Could it be plausible that the warming trend is causing more mold and supporting more allergens that may be affecting different people groups? What other age group is affected besides the mention of sids? maybe Elderly / baby boomers? I am in no way disparaging a baby's death or the distinguished persons that may be reading this; I would be curious to if there were more supportive information.
Sounds like a front man for class action attorneys.
I checked the census bureau and found that the baby boomer generation is now aged 47 to 65. They are now in an age group that has an exponentially growing mortality rate.
http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=587
This story was written only to "create" news, not report on it. For shame!
There's no basis for Joseph Mangano's conclusions. Who is Joseph Mangano that we should listen to his theories?
Incredible. Looks like someone was just trying to get publicity. Many people live much closer to Fukushima than stateside people do. The U.S. Navy was just off shore and several ships had a much greater exposure to the Fukushima emissions than anyone in the U.S. I live about 200 miles away from Fukushima (hint, I'm still alive). To the best of my knowledge, not a single person has died (yet) from radiation exposure (one death is a possible as he was actually in one of the buildings). This "study" appears to be a publicity stunt and certainly isn't worthy of further consideration.
Simple fiction and the arrogance to write it up as fact.
The government is lying again.
Or "we the people" are just as dumb as we've always been.
and the names of the 14,400 are... ?
fact: that level of radioactive release will result in more deaths. mostly in Japan. within the next 10 to 40 years, excepting the reactor technicians trying to bring the plants under control. perhaps not 14,400 all told.
fact: to claim more than maybe two deaths in the 9-10 months since the reactors went wild happened is the researchers' brains on drugs. if this is a numbers-massaging study only, it really should lead to an end to publishing specious numbers-massaging studies in scientific journals.
What about all the radiation that leaked into the ocean. We never get the truth from anyone anymore because most of them are paid to say what they say. If anyone thinks we are not being poisoned by what happened in Japan they are utter morons. Before any plans are made to start building more nuclear reactors here in the US we'd better make sure that the electrical power grids are upgraded to prevent what happened in Fukashima. Our grids are ancient and overtaxed already.
I am concerned about the environment and radiation but this is just plain crazy. The level of radiation that would have made it here would never cause deaths in so short a time. It would take years, many years for any effects to be seen.