BC’s top doc doubtful radiation is linked to newborn ailment

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – As you’re surfing the web, you might come across stories referring to a recent study, suggesting more babies on the West Coast are being born with a serious condition, since the Fukushima disaster in Japan two years ago.

But BC’s chief medical health officer says the studies are not credible.

The study, produced by the Radiation and Public Health Project out of New York, claims there has been an increase in the number of West Coast babies born with congenital hypothyroidism, and says it’s linked to an increase in radioactive iodine in our atmosphere after the disaster.

Congenital hypothyroidism is a thyroid hormone deficiency, that can lead to mental retardation if left untreated.

The study purports higher levels of iodine, or I-131, in California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii after the nuclear meltdown in Japan.

But provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall says no iodine, otherwise known as I-131, was actually measured in those states. He says the study actually collected data for different emissions.

“Where I-131 was measured, it was higher in eastern and southern states than it was in the few western states where it was picked up. So there are a lot of fallacies in this,” he stresses.

Plus, he notes iodine wouldn’t last that long in the atmosphere.  And if it did, then the radiation levels would be higher across North America, as well.

“To think that after crossing thousands of miles, it would adversely affect only the western states but not the rest of north America? It’s fallacious.”

He reserves a lot of his criticism for news media outlets, some of which have exaggerated the findings and failed to provide analysis.