The crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has heightened fears about the effects of radiation around the world, but experts say the worries are mostly unfounded.
As The New York Times reports, concerns about radiation emissions have spurred a worldwide spike in the sales of radiation detectors and potassium iodide, which fends off radiation-induced thyroid cancer. But experts say the only people truly endangered are in Japan, particularly the clean-up crew workers who have tried to contain the damage at Fukushima ever since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that triggered the partial meltdown.
The increase in radiation in most parts of the world is minuscule, a fraction of the radiation emitted by natural sources under normal circumstances. Rocks and cosmic rays, for example, are far larger generators of radiation than Fukushima.
Other sources of radiation, from drums of nuclear waste in the ocean to the radiation lingering in the atmosphere because of Cold War weapons testing, also dwarf the worldwide impact of Fukushima’s leaky reactors. And medical patients are subjected to significant doses of radiation with X-rays and CT scans on a regular basis.
“Most people don’t have a good handle on the risks,” Dr. Fred A. Mettler Jr., a radiology professor at the University of New Mexico and member of a United Nations panel on radiation assessment, told the Times. “They don’t know the magnitude of the sources, so they don’t know how to put the risks in perspective.”
The Fukushima Daiichi disaster emitted about 10 million curies, the standard unit of radioactive emissions, into the atmosphere. This compares to 100 million for the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, and 70 billion curies from atmospheric weapons tests over the course of the Cold War.
The most likely human health impact is a “tiny increase” in cancer in Japan, according to Dr. Ethel S. Gilbert, a radiation epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute.
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Actually TEPCO admitted to emissions of 154 tera- or trillion- becquerels at one point in March. Whether you measure it in becquerels or curies, this kind of radiation is vastly different from x-rays or cosmic rays. If you compare internal exposure to external exposure, you are comparing two very different things, as health physicists know. The kind of soothing article above does nothing to inform the public. The multiplicity of radionuclides released from Fukushima will contaminate air, water, and food. People will ingest or inhale these radionuclides, thus producing a constant source of irradiation from within their own bodies. Internal and external radiation is like the difference between warming yourself at a fire and eating a hot coal. There are very different effects on the body. The European method of risk estimation indicates closer to 400,000 cancers will results from what has already been emitted from Fukushima. And please don’t forget it is not over yet. Radiation continues to be emitted from the three melted-down reactors, two of which have breached container vessels, according to the plant’s operator, TEPCO. Intermittent criticality continues to be a problem. This is not over yet by a long shot. It is misleading to make people think that. If you use the past tense about what was “emitted” from Fukushima, you are not taking ongoing emissions into consideration.
As a cancer patient who was poisoned from technetium when a clerk prepared and administered a huge bolus of the radioactive element without knowing my weight -
I can attest to the dangers of radiation from Fukishima disaster. I physically become very ill when the plume arrives – I know ahead of time and I check with my Geiger counter
to see what the readings are. Alpha and Beta are reported in counts per minute while
Gamma is reported in mR/hr or in Sieverts. These numbers are always higher than what is reported. Babies and pregnant mothers are warned but the entire world should be alerted.
France reports the dangers – Canada and the US have moved their monitors inland and they state foolishly that we are in no danger. Perhaps those making the announcements would like to bath in the oceans that are full of radioactive elements? Perhaps they would like to drink the milk and eat the food that is radiated?
Lets be honest – wherever the radiation lands it will be dangerous. The radiation does not seek out strawberries, milk o r kale. The failure of the govt to explain the dangers is disappointing but not surprising. The economy is the concern for the governments and the wealthy men who have invested in nuclear energy are not willing to admit it is a huge mistake and will be the ruin of our world. While the govt is concerned with the economy, and realizes we would not be able to maintain a military that is larger than the rest of the world’s defense budget combined, those of us who have common sense recognize that Nuclear must stop. Fukishima radiation is a hint of what is to come if we do not become saavy and put a stop to the nuclear industry. Earth is a planet and not a star. All the money in the world will not keep us safe if we do not wake up to the environmental poisons we have created due to nothing more than GREED.
My suggestion is to VOTE EVERYONE OUT. Everyone in government today is part of this equation. Get rid of them all – make lobbying illegal and only VOTE in people without experience. They would do a much better job than what we have seen so far. The ambitions of the dangerous politicians have ruined our world. If we do not stop it now, we have no one but ourselves to blame when we see only mutants left or even worse, total devastation and the end of life on earth as we know it. It is up to each of us but it is serious now and time to stop.