When Radiation Isn’t the Real Risk

[Bonobo]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html?action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=2


(Evacuated patients at a hospital near the Fukushima power plant after the nuclear accident in 2011. No one has been killed or sickened by the radiation, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. But about 1,600 died of causes related to the evacuation.)

No one has been killed or sickened by the radiation — a point confirmed last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even among Fukushima workers, the number of additional cancer cases in coming years is expected to be so low as to be undetectable, a blip impossible to discern against the statistical background noise.

But about 1,600 people died from the stress of the evacuation — one that some scientists believe was not justified by the relatively moderate radiation levels at the Japanese nuclear plant.

Epidemiologists speak of “stochastic deaths,” those they predict will happen in the future because of radiation or some other risk. With no names attached to the numbers, they remain an abstraction.

But these other deaths were immediate and unequivocally real.

“The government basically panicked,” said Dr. Mohan Doss, a medical physicist who spoke at the Tokyo meeting, when I called him at his office at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. “When you evacuate a hospital intensive care unit, you cannot take patients to a high school and expect them to survive.”

[Art_from_Ark]

1. I disagree that radiation levels at the nuclear plant were "relatively moderate"

During the worst of the crisis, some areas several miles downwind from the nuclear complex had radiation levels that exceeded 5 microsieverts per hour. For comparison, normal ambient radiation levels in this part of Japan are usually around 0.04 to 0.07 microsievert per hour, and almost never exceed 0.10 microsievert per hour. So the ambient radiation levels in some of the worst areas were 100+ times higher than the normal levels. That's hardly "moderate". And it's inconceivable that radiation levels at the nuclear complex were lower than they were several miles away from the complex.

[FBaggins]

2. It isn't really a matter of opinion.

Last edited Thu Sep 24, 2015, 03:41 PM - Edit history (1)

They were "relatively moderate"

During the worst of the crisis, some areas several miles downwind from the nuclear complex had radiation levels that exceeded 5 microsieverts per hour.

That's correct. However, that was from short-lived isotopes. Radiation levels that are 100 times background levels are still not a concern if you'll only be exposed to them for a short time. If, for instance, you were to get an x-ray on a broken arm, the dose rate is millions of times higher than normal background radiation levels... yet the dose you receive is "relatively moderate" because you only receive it for a moment.

Just as importantly, "relatively" has to be "relative" to something. In this case, that could be "relative to other nuclear accidents that involved widespread evacuations (i.e., Chernobyl)" or "relative to the offsetting risks associated with the evacuations" (which seems implied by the rest of the article).

[Art_from_Ark]

3. The 5+ microsivert levels lasted a long time

Quit making stuff up.

The map below shows radiation levels in Fukushima in December 2011, 9 months after the nuclear explosions. The deep red shows areas where levels were 8 microsieverts/hour or greater, 1 meter, or 3+ feet, above the ground surface. That's 200 times the normal background radiation levels for that area, 9 months after the explosions. Constant exposure at that level is far more dangerous to human health than a couple of seconds of exposure to an X-ray that the average healthy person may undergo once every few years. On top of that, dentists use lead bibs to minimize patients' exposure to 2 seconds of X-rays. On the other hand, people in the red areas on the map would constantly be exposed to excessive raditiation levels 24 hours a day, breathing it in, having it on their skin, and perhaps eating contaminated food produced in the area.

At the same time, areas away from the reactors that were considered to be "hot spots", such as the cities of Moriya and Kashiwa 100+ miles south of the reactors, issued orders to remove soil from schoolyards, playgrounds, and other areas where children congregate if the radiation levels 30cm above ground level exceeded 0.5 microsievert/hour, or about 10X normal background radiation.

So please don't try to bullshit me about extended exposure to radiation levels 100~200 times above nornal being nothing to be concerned about.