By Michael Steinberg / OB Rag
A new study indicates that rates of a thyroid disease in California newborn spiked after they were exposed to fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
The peer-reviewed study, “Changes in confirmed and borderline cases of congenital hypothyroidism in California as a function of environmental fallout from Fukushima,” appears in the November 2013 issue of the periodical Open Journal of Pediatrics.
In California all babies are tested at birth for congenital hypothyroidism, a rare disease that nevertheless can cause serious growth problems in children if it remains untreated.
Study authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman of The Radiation and Public Health Project (radiation.org), along with Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary for the European Union Committee on Radiation Risk, obtained information from the state of California related to this issue. [Read more…]