Viewpoint: We should stop running away from radiation

[Karmadillo]

If the radiation from nuclear reactors is basically a form of preemptive chemotherapy, shouldn't the people of Japan be paying TEPCO for the health benefits extending from Fukushima?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12860842

Viewpoint: We should stop running away from radiation
By Wade Allison
University of Oxford

More than 10,000 people have died in the Japanese tsunami and the survivors are cold and hungry. But the media concentrate on nuclear radiation from which no-one has died - and is unlikely to.

Modern reactors are better designed than those at Fukushima - tomorrow's may be better still Nuclear radiation at very high levels is dangerous, but the scale of concern that it evokes is misplaced. Nuclear technology cures countless cancer patients every day - and a radiation dose given for radiotherapy in hospital is no different in principle to a similar dose received in the environment.

What of Three Mile Island? There were no known deaths there.

And Chernobyl? The latest UN report published on 28 February confirms the known death toll - 28 fatalities among emergency workers, plus 15 fatal cases of child thyroid cancer - which would have been avoided if iodine tablets had been taken (as they have now in Japan). And in each case the numbers are minute compared with the 3,800 at Bhopal in 1984, who died as a result of a leak of chemicals from the Union Carbide pesticide plant.

more...

[cliffordu]

1. Kewell!!!!!

:popcorn:

[Ken Burch]

8. Gives you a glowing feeling inside, doesn't it?

n/t.

[cliffordu]

16. Yep, all warm and runny.

Like a baked frog.

[spanone]

2. yes, let's send all our cancer patients to japan....put them in the healing waters

and this is not the onion?

[Junkdrawer]

3. Wade Allison, have I got a ducha for you....

Cheap and all the privacy you could want....

[wtmusic]

4. I really hate this crap.

"A radiation dose given for radiotherapy in hospital is no different in principle to a similar dose received in the environment."

Ech. Wade should be working at TEP Public Relations.

From someone who is pro-nuclear, this is extremely counterproductive.

[Bjorn Against]

5. I think we should have a fundraiser to buy Wade Allison a vacation to Japan

I am sure he would like to go show us that radiation is good for you by sunbathing at Fukushima.

[Junkdrawer]

7. Chernobyl would be better. Japan doesn't need Wade Allison right now. n/t

[whatchamacallit]

6. WTF?

Wade Allison is an ignorant douchebag!

[Ken Burch]

10. And, undoubtedly, is paid well for that.

:eyes:

[Confusious]

15. suprisingly well educated for one

Wade Allison is a nuclear and medical physicist at the University of Oxford

[Ken Burch]

9. The other good thing is, the next Gojira film will be a documentary.

:sarcasm:

[madinmaryland]

11. "preemptive chemotherapy". What a fucking asshole.

I guess he has been drinking the nuclear industry's kool-aid.

Sorry asshole (not the OP), but I WILL run away from the radiation.

[demosincebirth]

12. It'll keep the population down (not talking about Japan).

[drm604]

13. Being sliced open for surgical therapy

is no different in principle than being sliced open by a street mugger.

Morphine for pain therapy is no different in principle than street heroin.

Necessary surgical amputation is no different in principle than having your leg torn off by a shark.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

[Ken Burch]

18. An autopsy is just really delayed surgery.

n/t.

[Lars39]

14. Wade Allison is an idiot.

[reformist2]

17. OMG, why are they still pushing this propaganda?

I thought this nonsense was only going to be limited to the performance artists like Ann Coulter. (I have to say, when you look at Ann as just an entertainer, as a parody of a right-winger, she's actually quite hilarious.)

[MilesColtrane]

19. Preemptive chemo

A modest proposal of Swiftian proportion, Karmadillo!

:thumbsup:

[Karmadillo]

20. Thanks. The pro-nuke lobby, in its way, is quite the inspiration.

:toast:

[sendero]

21. Receiving a small dose of radiation.

.... is one thing. It is not good, but usually tolerable.

Getting radioactive particles IN YOUR BODY is another kettle of fish and there is no way to spin it good.