The incidence of cancers (particularly thyroid cancer) among those exposed to radiation after a tsunami destroyed the core cooling systems, causing the reactors to explode and release radioactive materials into the environment, has increased markedly in subsequent years.
Now, individuals are suing TEPCO, the owners of the plant, for causing the thyroid cancers they have suffered. Here is an article at about this attempt at redress from these victims of the Fukushima radiation disaster:
The Fukushima taboo
The International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, has recommended that millions of tons of radioactive water from cleanup at the Fukushima nuclear power plant can now be released into the Pacific Ocean and this has been approved by the Japanese government. The IAEA states that this safe, however this decision is based on the false premise that “dilution is the solution to pollution.” While this adage might hold for chemical toxins, it is NOT true for radiological toxins. These toxins have several orders of magnitude more “free energy” than do their chemical counterparts. While there may be a threshold of toxicity for particular chemical concentrations, there is no such threshold for radioactive particles and waves. Even a single radioactive emission has enough energy to cause destruction or havoc in a biological system and therefore cancer and other diseases. Tritium, which is one of the major constituents in this waste water, is particularly dangerous because it is ubiquitous in biology and can exchange with hydrogen in biological compounds without even a chemical reaction, simply through incubation and can concentrate in the ocean food chain. This has been a problem in the Marshall Islands ever since the US conducted nuclear bomb tests there in the 1950s.