More children are being diagnosed and treated for Thyroid cancer in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture, two and a half years after the Tsunami wave swamped the nuclear power plant leading to the melt-through of radioactive cores in three of the reactors.

Fifteen more young people in Fukushima Prefecture have received definitive or suspected diagnoses of thyroid cancer, which is often associated with radiation exposure.  That raises to 59 the total number of young people who have been diagnosed with or are suspected of having thyroid cancer.  All were younger than 18 years old when the reactors burned through in March of 2011.  26 of the young people have undergone surgery and are reportedly doing well.

It raises Fukushima’s childhood thyroid cancer rate to 12 in 100,000.  Japan’s national average before the nuclear disaster in 2007 was 1.7 patients in 100,000.  And yet, some officials say a link from radiation exposure to the increased number of suspected and confirmed cancer cases to date is “unlikely”.

Papillary thyroid cancer develops at a very slow pace.  Following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, significant numbers of thyroid cancer cases weren’t detected for about four to five years afterwards.  Eventually, 6,000 cases were confirmed, attributed to contaminated milk.