FILE - In this March 29, 2011 file photo, children watch their father being screened for radiation at a shelter in Fukushima, northeast of Tokyo. A new study says children living near the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a rate 20 to 50 times that of children elsewhere, a difference the authors contend undermines the government’s position that more cases have been discovered in the area only because of stringent monitoring. Most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima have been given ultrasound checkups since the March 2011 meltdowns at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. Thyroid cancer has been diagnosed in 137 of those children, though more broadly the disease occurs in only about one or two of every million children. (AP Photo/Wally Santana, File)