The ringworm children affair refers to the irradiation of approximately 100,000 Sephardi Jews immigrant children, primarily from North Africa and also from Yemen, in the early 1950's. They received X-ray radiation treatment for ringworm as soon as they arrived in Israel. The medical autorities thought that ringworm was a uge danger to public health. These treatments caused high rates of infertility, cancer and death. Those facts were hidden for 50 years and exposed in a film in 2003 and also denounced by israeli author Barry Chamish in 2004.