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The object of this study was to see if there was an increase in tyroid cancer after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. 

Sonja D. Schmid is an assistant professor at Virginia Tech. Her area of expertise is in the history of technology, science and technology policy, and social studies of risk. Specifically, Schmid researches the history and the organization of nuclear industries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. With respect to emergency response, Schmid has studied how agencies and personel have responded to nuclear disasters.

A recent article Schmid has written: Schmid, Sonja D. "What If There's a next Time? Preparedness after Chernobyl and Fukushima - A European-American Response." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. N.p., 01 July 2016. Web. 05 Sept. 2016.

This study was funded by Grants-in-aid for the Cancer Control Policy from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan.

 “safety sometimes gets pitted against profitability”

“Consequently, we see a trend where mitigating the consequences of a nuclear disaster is also increasingly being regarded as an international task.”

“We need to create a credible organization-one that combines the legitimacy of the United Nations agency and the executive vigor of an industry group.”

In addition to this article I looked further into the Chirnoble disaster, the IAEA policies, and where there are nuclear plants in the United States. 

This study looks at subjects who lived in Fukushima at the time of the nuclear disaster. Specifically those who were under the age of 20 in 2015.

One way Schmid supports her argument of unification through her discussion and presentation of data from nuclear organizations that single countries have attempted to establish but could not take authority because the practices of nuclear science were still in question. Schmid also discusses that in order to allow proper emergency response individual companies need to share the types of reactors they are using so responders understand the equipment they will have to deal with. Lastly Schmid discusses how nuclear response needs to be more of an international because when a nuclear disaster does strike it is not just the nation in ownership of the nuclear facility that is affected.

The article’s bibliography is quite long and includes a variety of sources, this suggests the author researched this topic in detail and thoroughly. 

Professionals could use data from this study to further research the affects of nuclear radiation on the human body. 

The main argument of this article is that there needs to be more of a focus on emergency response to nuclear disasters and less directed toward nuclear safety and that safety/emergency response should take a higher priority than company trademarks. She claims that nuclear emergency response should be more of an international response and less of a single nation response.