Thyroid Nodules: the Rest of the Story

The news that nearly 36% of Fukushima children have thyroid growths has been going around the panicosphere at the speed of tachyons. This has been compared to an earlier study (seen via Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire) that showed only 0.8% of Japanese children had thyroid growth. So far so bad … except that the 0.8% figure was about growths larger than 5 mm. The figure for large growths (nodules larger than 5 mm or cysts larger than 20 mm) was 0.5%. This figure isn't completely comparable to the 0.8% figure since it does not include medium-size cysts but it is consistent with the earlier figure.

I won't more than mention that it takes years for any actual effect of radiation to show up.