Several Plant Workers Are Ill, but Radiation Risk in Japan Is Seen as Low for Now

[katty]

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14health.html?_r=1&ref=asia

Although several plant workers are ill from radioactive exposure in Japan, the radiation risk to the public appears low so far, experts said.

For Neighbor of Stricken Nuclear Plant, Second Thoughts About a Centerpiece (March 14, 2011) “At least as of now, what we’re looking at is rather more like Three Mile Island than Chernobyl,” said Dr. David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University.

The radiation release from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, where the entire reactor blew up and vaporized its radioactive fuel, was about a million times the amount released from the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, he said. The Chernobyl accident led to an epidemic of thyroid cancer and increases in leukemia, he said.

[Demeter]

1. Oh, I Feel So Much BETTER!

not