Medical Journal Article: 14,000 US Infant Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout

By John Daly – “Almost nothing to see here, move along.

Eight months after Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s six reactor Daichi Fuskuhima complex was rocked by an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale and subsequent tsunami, both Tokyo and TEPCO maintain that the effects of the disaster have been contained.

Not so, according to a just published peer reviewed medical paper appearing in the U.S., which indicates that Fukushima’s pernicious consequences have traveled across the Pacific.

The figures come from a recently published article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services, a peer reviewed scientific journal, authored by Joseph J. Mangano and Janette D. Sherman, ‘An Unexpected Mortality Increase in the United States Follows Arrival of the Radioactive Plume from Fukushima: is There a Correlation?’

The study is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of the Fukushima disaster.

In earlier research published five months ago on counterpunch.org the authors noted, ‘The recent CDC (Center for Disease Control) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age: 4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 – 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week) 10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 – 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week.)This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster.’

According to the researchers’ data, on 17 March after Fukushima was impacted, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over U.S. territory and subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S.

Janette Sherman, MD, said: ‘Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death. Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults.’ Dr. Sherman is an adjunct professor, Western Michigan University and Joseph Mangano is an epidemiologist, and Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project research group.” Read more.

Flashback: US: Doctors Say 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown May Be the Result of Fukushima Fallout – “As I’ve previously noted, infants are much more vulnerable to radiation than adults. And see this. However, radiation safety standards are set based on the assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s. Now, a physician (Janette D. Sherman, M. D.) and epidemiologist (Joseph Mangano) have penned a short but horrifying essay asking whether a spike in infant deaths in the Northwest are due to Fukushima” Read more.