nuclear revival? lessons for women from three mile island accident

[niyad]

Nuclear Revival? Lessons for Women from the Three Mile Island Accident
by Karen Charman

For the first time in several decades, serious attempts are underway to build new nuclear power reactors. The public is told that nuclear power is a clean energy source needed to combat global warming, which is caused by burning coal and other fossil fuels. But as the nuclear disasters unfolding in Japan in the wake of the devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami are showing, nuclear power can be deadly. These events may well alter the worldwide debate over nuclear power. Whether they do or not, it’s important to look carefully at what happened at Three Mile Island, to date the most serious accident at a commercial nuclear power plant in the United States.
On The Issues Magazine -

Three Mile Island is about 15 miles south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capitol. The first reactor, Unit 1, began operation in September 1974, and a second reactor, Unit 2, started up in December 1978. Before dawn on March 28, 1979, a combination of mechanical malfunctions and human errors resulted in a partial meltdown at Unit 2, which destroyed the reactor, terrorized the community, and led to decades-long legal battles and still unresolved death and injury claims of more than 2,000 people in surrounding communities.

The day of the accident, before the public was alerted, hundreds of residents living near Three Mile Island reported having had symptoms of radiation poisoning identical to those described by U.S. service members and down winders of atomic bomb blasts. These symptoms included a metallic taste in their mouths; skin rashes and instant sunburn of exposed skin; vomiting and/or diarrhea, which in some cases continued for months; hair loss; and intense weakness and flu-like symptoms.

Some also reported an eerie blue density in the air that lasted for days; a grayish-white ash that fell to the ground (also reported in the Marshall Islands immediately following atomic bomb tests in the Pacific, where the U.S. exploded 106 atomic bombs between 1946 and 1962); an unnatural orange glow above the reactor site; and rust-colored residue in their sinks and tubs, indicating radioactive contamination of the water supply. Several area residents reported the metallic taste and other physical symptoms over the next few years at times they later learned happened to coincide with the venting of radioactive krypton gas during the cleanup.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/16-5?nocache=1

[Recursion]

1. The problem is exposure didn't correlate with reporting of symptoms

The only uptick in illnesses was in the low-exposure areas, and itself was so small that it couldn't be verified as something other than noise. Also, residents were told what the symptoms of radiation poisoning were (a sensible thing to tell them), but that also almost always leads to a ton of Type I errors (the episode of House set on an airplane has a good dramatization of what can happen).