Radiation
Fukushima – Just How Dangerous Is Radiation?

Fukushima – Just How Dangerous Is Radiation?

The situation in Japan is tragic: an earthquake, a tsunami, death, homelessness, and carnage. The grimness is exacerbated by worries about radiation. But should it be? ...
Ed Hiserodt

The situation in Japan is grim. Estimates of the dead or missing — and by now this latter group must be moved into the dead column — is above 25,000 souls. A half-million residents are homeless, with many in danger of starvation since roads and railroads have simply disappeared. Yet the world’s media pays only lip service to the plight of Japanese citizens. It is almost entirely focused on the disabled nuclear reactors and the “leaks” of radiation that have had, and will have, virtually no effect on human health.

In the last few weeks, we have read reports of foreigners scrambling to leave the country, of levels of radioactive iodine in seawater that are seven-and-a-half million times the “legal” limit, and now the news that the recovery of bodies is being hampered because the dead are contaminated by radiation.

Interestingly, many of the expatriates “escaped” to areas where the background radiation was higher, in some cases much higher, than the areas in Japan they were evacuating owing to radioactive releases. An April 1 Bloomberg article by Stuart Biggs and Yuriy Humber gave the current background radiation measurements in Tokyo compared with other areas. Even after the releases in Japan, the amount of background radiation in Tokyo is still below the world average. The article quoted Bob Bury of the UK’s Royal College of Radiologists, “The situation in Japan looks set to follow the pattern of Chernobyl, where fear of radiation did far more damage than the radiation itself.”

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