Arab News Japan

TOKYO: About 150 Japanese marched this Saturday to support the children who are filing lawsuits at the Sendai High Court and the Tokyo District Court in their battle to receive acknowledgment from the Japanese government that the fallout from the nuclear meltdown of 2011 led the children to develop thyroid cancer.

According to a prefectural epidemiological study carried out among 380,000 people aged 18 and under at the time of the nuclear disaster, more than 300 children present at the time of the nuclear disaster are now suffering from thyroid cancer.

Japanese authorities continue to dispute the cause and effect between exposure to radioactivity and the increasing prevalence of thyroid cancers among the children. These same authorities claim that the link to the radioactive fallout from the nuclear disaster is in fact the result of over diagnosis.

Some demonstrators and victims argue that at the time of the nuclear disaster they were unable to flee the contaminated areas.  There was also a lack of official information on the levels of radioactivity resulting in their lives being ruined by an illness that affects them on a daily basis.

The increase of thyroid cancers in the Japanese population could also prevent the Kishida government from the planned restart of nuclear power plants despite the severe shortage of electrical power facing the country.