Japan Nuke Disaster Will Kill Up to 1,300 People Worldwide,
Study Estimates TUESDAY, July 17 (HealthDay News) -- Radiation
from last year's disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
plant may eventually cause up to 1,300 deaths and 2,500 cases of
cancer worldwide, according to U.S. researchers who calculated
the global health effects of the incident. Most of those deaths
and cancer cases would occur in Japan, the Stanford University
team said. Although their estimates have a large range of
uncertainty, the findings challenge previous claims that the
radioactivity released by the damaged plant was not likely to
cause any severe health effects. The researchers' calculations
are in addition to the approximately 600 deaths caused by the
evacuation of the area around the nuclear plant after the March
2011 earthquake, tsunami and meltdown. The study, published July
17 in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, is the first
detailed analysis of how the disaster could affect health around
the world. For the