Japan radioactivity could enter food chain
Radioactive materials spewed into the air by Japan’s earthquake-crippled nuclear plant may contaminate food and water resources, with children and unborn babies most at risk of possibly developing cancer. (Reuters)
That would take some enormous exposure – following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
Teratogenic effects on foetuses was severe among those heavily exposed, resulting in birth deformities and stillbirths over the next 9 months. Beyond this, no genetic damage has been detected in survivors’ children, despite careful and continuing investigation by a joint Japanese-US Foundation. (Source)
U.S. to review drug supply after Japan reactor breach
The Obama administration will study distribution policies for a drug to protect against the effects of radiation as part of a review of the implications of Japan’s ongoing nuclear disaster, a government spokeswoman said on Tuesday. (Reuters)
Radiation poses only slight risk to nervous Tokyo: U.S. experts
Dozens of workers battling to control radiation at Japan’s stricken reactors face a far greater risk of developing cancer than normal, but Tokyo residents are within the safe range for exposure, U.S. nuclear experts said. (Reuters)
And what is the risk of radiation induced cancer and leukemia death even in a deliberately nuked population?
To the 103 000 deaths from the blast or acute radiation exposure at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have since been added those due to radiation induced cancers and leukaemia, which amounted to some 400 within 30 years, and which may ultimately reach about 550. (Some 93 000 exposed survivors are still being monitored.) (Source)
Editorial: A Meltdown Of Fearmongers
Posted 03/15/2011 07:07 PM ET
Energy: If we drop oil exploration after Deepwater Horizon, coal mining after Chile and nuclear power after Fukushima, what’s left? A world without nuclear power would not be risk-free or cleaner.
When Navy crewmen returned from disaster-relief missions in Japan to the deck of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, it was breathlessly reported that they’d been contaminated with radioactive particles from the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima.
A scene from the end-of-the-world epic “On The Beach” this was not. They were treated with good old-fashioned soap and water, and their clothes were discarded. According to the Navy, the exposure received “was less than the radiation exposure received from about one month of exposure to natural background radiation from sources such as rocks, soil and the sun.”
What the reports missed was that these sailors were aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a warship designed to sail into combat. These and sailors aboard other ships sail for months on end relatively close to nuclear reactors.
For more than half a century, the Navy has operated for more than 5,800 reactor years and steamed over 136 million miles without accident or radioactive release. (Investors.com)
