Nuclear Incident Belgium, radioactive Iodine-131 gas leaking since one week, no fruits

Thyroid Cancer Effects in Children
Staff Report - August 2005

The main consequence of the Chernobyl accident is thyroid cancer in children, some of whom were not yet born at the time of the accident. Following the vapour explosion and fire at the Chernobyl reactor, radioactive iodine was released and spread in the surrounding area. Despite measures taken, children in southern Belarus and northern Ukraine, were exposed to radiation in the weeks following the accident , particularly by consuming milk from pastured cows and leafy vegetables that had been contaminated with radioactive iodine. These children were also relatively more vulnerable because their usual diet, in general, was low in iodine.

The thyroid is a small gland located in the front of the neck. It concentrates iodine from the diet and blood to produce important hormones that help the body function normally. Thyroid cancer is a very rare disease. Since the thyroid gland concentrates iodine, it is highly susceptible to radiation damage from any intake of radioactive isotopes of iodine.

Once ingested or inhaled, the radioactive iodine remains in the thyroid and can cause thyroid cells to become cancerous and tumours to form. According to the Chernobyl Forum, some 4000 cases of thyroid cancers have occurred in about 18 million individuals who were exposed as children or adolescents during the Chernobyl accident.

Thyroid Cancers in the Aftermath of Chernobyl
The Chernobyl reactor accident resulted in massive releases of I-131 and other radioiodines. Beginning approximately 4 years after the accident, a sharp increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer among children and adolescents in Belarus and Ukraine (areas covered by the radioactive plume) was observed. In some regions, for the first 4 years of this striking increase, observed cases of thyroid cancer among children aged 0 through 4 years at the time of the accident exceeded expected number of cases by 30- to 60-fold. During the ensuing years, in the most heavily affected areas, incidence is as much as 100-fold compared to pre-Chernobyl rates (Robbins and Schneider 2000; Gavrilin et al., 1999; Likhtarev et al., 1993; Zvonova and Balonov 1993). The majority of cases occurred in children who apparently received less than 30 cGy to the thyroid (Astakhova et al., 1998). A few cases occurred in children exposed to estimated doses of < 1 cGy.