The World Health Organization released its "Preliminary Dose Estimation from the Nuclear Accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami," report on Wednesday, May 23. Chief among its claims is that radiation levels released from the nuclear meltdown were not great enough to cause cancer.
However, the WHO added infants in Namie town in Futaba county, north of the meltdown may be at a greater risk of developing thyroid cancer after expose to radiation.
Towns within 20-30 km from the blast, were subjected to a dose band of 10-50 (mSv or millisieverts), while towns at a further distance within the prefecture of Fukushima were subjected to doses of 1-10 mSv.
In Japan's neighboring countries and other countries around the world the dose band was "estimated to be less than 0.01 mSv."
Common mSv doses, according to the CDC, are as follows: one dental x-ray is .04-.15 mSv; one chest x-ray is .1 mSv; one mammogram is .7 mSv; and one year exposure to natural radiation (e.g. cosmic rays) is 3 mSv.
The experts behind the report add they had made certain assumptions based on limited information, hence its "preliminary" status. The earthquake that hit Japan's northern coast on March 11, 2011 caused a massive tsunami that killed 16,000 people and triggered the meltdown at Fukushima Nuclear Plant.
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