9 more people in nuclear-affected area in Fukushima

Nine more Fukushima Prefecture people who were aged 18 or under when Japan's worst nuclear crisis began in the northeastern prefecture in March 2011 have been found to have thyroid cancer, it was learned Wednesday.

This was found through a survey by a Fukushima prefectural government committee on health research, Japan's Jiji Press reported.

But the committee said that the nine people's diseases have nothing to with the nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 plant, in light of the levels of their radiation exposure and the usual latency period of the cancer.

The nine are among those who underwent thyroid gland examinations in fiscal 2011 and 2012. Previously, three Fukushima people aged 18 or under at the time of the accident were found to have thyroid cancer.

A further 15 people are suspected of having cancer of the thyroid gland, where radioactive iodine tends to accumulate, according to the committee. In the nuclear crisis, large quantities of radioactive substances, including iodine, were released into the environment.

All of the 27 people were at least nine years old when the crisis began.

For the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the worst nuclear disaster in the world, thyroid cancer began to be found mainly in children aged three or younger about four years after the accident, according to Fukushima Medical University Prof. Shinichi Suzuki.

It is still too early for thyroid cancer from the TEPCO plant accident to develop, and no infants have been found with the disease, Suzuki said, brushing aside any correlation between the nine people's diseases and the accident.

Some 360,000 people aged 18 or under at the time of the accident are subject to the thyroid gland checks. Of them, about 178,000 have had the checks.