STUDY: Congenital Hypothyroidism and Fukushima Fallout in t

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Congenital Hypothyroidism and Fukushima Fallout in the US

[ http://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/01/co ... in-the-us/ ]

ENVIRONMENT, 27 January 2014

by Dr Mae-Wan Ho – Institute of Science in Society

Plume of airborne radioactive iodine arrival in the US correlates with increased rates of congenital hypothyroidism among the new born.

A new study finds congenital hypothyroidism in the US rising 28 % in the two and a half months after the arrival of the Fukushima fallout of radioactive iodine (I-131) [1]. Researchers and authors Joe Mangano and Janette Sherman from the Radiation and Public Health Project [2] have done a thorough job based on data from the US government.

Congenital hypothyroidism & prenatal exposure to radioactive iodine

The new born in developed countries have been routinely screened for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) since the 1960s in a simple blood spot test. CH results in stunted growth, lowered intelligence, deafness, and neurological defects, but can be effectively treated if detected early. Increased incidence of CH has been found over the past decades in US, Australia, Italy, UK and Greece. In the US, the rate increased 75.3 % from 1987 to 2002 [1]. One potential risk factor is prenatal exposure to radioactive iodine isotopes, which home in on the susceptible foetal thyroid gland and kill the cells. The thyroid is the first gland to develop in the human embryo and begins concentrating iodine to produce thyroid hormones by the 70th day of gestation. In the mid-1950s during the period of atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, I-131 produced by fission was detected in the adult human thyroid. But I-131 concentrations were about 10 times as high in the human foetal thyroid as in the human adult or pig thyroid, and maximum increases in foetal thyroids were detected approximately one month after nuclear explosions [3]. The main exposure path is via dairy products from radioactive fallout deposition on forage.

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