After seeing countless health scares over the years, it is hard to surprise us here at ACSH with something new. But our jaws dropped upon seeing a report claiming that radiation from the meltdown of Japan s Fukushima nuclear reactor in March somehow caused 14,000 people in the U.S. to drop dead.
We had hoped that such a ridiculous report would receive no attention whatsoever, but when some began to believe that it was true, a host of experts came forward to debunk its baseless claims. One of these experts, ACSH advisor Dr. Robert Brent, makes some particularly cogent points. The authors of this study tried to assert that just because there was a slight increase in the number of deaths in certain U.S. communities in the period following the Fukushima event, this means that the Japanese disaster must have caused it. But Dr. Brent points out, It has to be biologically plausible before you think about linking the two. There is absolutely no evidence suggesting that low doses of radiation could cause nearly immediate death, as this report attempts to claim. As Dr. Brent puts it, there is not even a remote possibility.
This is surely one of the clearest examples we have seen of confusing coincidence with causation, stated ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava. It s hard to believe a peer-reviewed journal would publish such a study.