Radiation : Causes And Effects

That accident was at urban centre in 1986. consistent with the report two-handed down in 2000 by the global organisation X c. Committee on the consequences of Atomic Radiation, twenty eight employees died within the initial 3 months when the incident, nineteen died between 1987 and 2004 of varied causes not essentially related to radiation

Kingdom. All children in both groups were born 8 years after the melt down. “

     About 12 - 14 days after the explosion, Father Kleinsorge, Mrs. Nakamura and Mr. Tanimoto fell ill with general malaise, weakness, tiredness, and fever. They did not know it but they were coming down with a disease that was later to be called radiation sickness. Miss Sasaki lay in

within a two-mile radius of the center of the blast resulted in miscarriage or stillbirth

that followed, a large number of deaths were added to that amount due to radiation sickness, a

Radiation sickness affects people in different ways. Which individual suffers the most? Miss Sasaki from John Hersey’s Hiroshima suffers more than Akira Shinjoh from “Document #12”.

During the 1950s, people were aware of environmental and social problems by several events occurred. For example, the Lucky Dragon Incident that a Japanese crewman contaminated by Castle Bravo thermonuclear device test, he suffered and died by acute radiation syndrome (ARS) in 1954. This event made people realized the nuclear weapon’s threat to the environment and warned Americans the severity of air pollution that people might die by breathing the poison

(Events of Fukushima Nuclear disaster) The Fukushima Nuclear disaster had many effects on the environment and health, some of its effects on the health are, infection of skin and that is mainly caused because of radiation and chemicals in the water after the incident and little supply of clean water, it also impacted the citizens physiologically (mainly the mothers, kids and workers) who might have diseases as anxiety and depression, problems in pregnancy, related to deficiency of iodine in the body, and some hormones not functioning properly, all these causes might lead to still birth, and miscarriage and finally, radiation syndrome which is caused because of the release of massive amounts of radiation, spread of cancer (as thyroid cancer) because of radiation, and ascend of genetic inheritable diseases As in Diagram 2 (Health Concerns in Fukushima), we can signify that the percentages of cancer increased highly because of the disaster in comparison to nowadays and especially between people of ages (1month-20years)

Cancer is a genetic, heritable disease in which abnormal cells divide rapidly destroying normal body cells, often being fatal. Cancer can occur in any body tissue; skin, organs, and parts of the reproductive system (Duda). There are various activities linked to different types of cancer, such as smoking, too much sun exposure, gene mutations, carcinogens, and viruses. A major cause of cancer, dating all the way back to the 1950’s, is radiation. Atomic testing ordered by the U.S. Government has been suspected to be the cause of many deaths linked to radiation-related diseases (Williams 149).

Beginning with the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, a widespread belief has proliferated that all levels of ionizing radiation are dangerous. Since 1980, radiation hormesis studies have shown there is actually a threshold of danger with high level exposures, but below that threshold low dose radiation is essentially safe and quite possibly beneficial to life. Yet, this relatively new, seemingly contradictory understanding of radiation's health effects has gone essentially unknown to the general public. In order to grasp the reasons why, we must again return to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb is used in war on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed by Nagasaki on August 6, 1945 (Findlay & Hevly, 2011, p. XI). Both atomic bombs were fueled by the plutonium from the Manhattan Project. Death counts from Hiroshima ranged from 99,000 to 166,000, and 60,000 to 80,000 for Nagasaki from the debris, blast, heat, and radiation (Listwa, 2012). However, these counts did not factor in the rescue workers who entered the areas breathing in radioactive dust, nor had appropriate clothing and radiation gamma readers like present day to view levels of radiation. Between the United States and the Japanese government research and continued healthcare are conducted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. This foundation estimates that after the bombings between the second and sixth year there was an increase in leukemia cases, especially children (Listwa, 2012). Research continues to follow leukemia incidences, cancer in registries, and children of the survivors.

According to Ecker and Bramesco, the majority of the understanding of the effects of radiation comes from the research from the atomic bombings of the town of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (107). There is a greater effect when a dose of radiation is given all at once rather than over an extended period of time (105), However, as soon as radiation hits an individual there are some immediate effects and more long term effects. Some long issues that has come up due to the radiation of the atomic bomb were the more frequent cases of leukemia, cancer, and cataracts than people who weren’t affected from radiation (Ecker and Bramseco 107). Also, mutations can be a long term effect. Naturally, mutations occur at a low rate. Radiation can increase the number of mutation cases because it is a mutagen (Nasr and Hoyle). Some short term effects would be radiation sickness called acute somatic effects. Acute means severe and somatic means ‘related to the body’. The first signs of radiation sickness are nausea, throwing-up, and fever and

Radiation is part of the aftermath of war. In “Thunder in Roses” people everywhere are affected. The author stated “The air is becoming radioactive.” (Sturgeon 191). Only a few million people were left after the war hit them. Most of the bombs that hit the states were nuclear. “So saturated is the atmosphere with Carbon Fourteen

There is cancer rooted in my family history. Did the nuclear radiation from these tests cause cancer? These are all important ideas needed to be discussed. My overall reason for writing this paper, though, is to discover the truth about nuclear tests and radiation.

It is no surprise that in the beginning, the ABCC focused on studies and observations that interest them the most at the time being, study of leukemia, birth defects in children irritated in the utero, and cataracts. These were considered the most common things known about radiation at the time. It was until later that the organization started studying mortality and caner incidences based on the sample of 120,000 survivors. Basically, everyone who survived within 2.5 km of the blasts was enrolled into this study. For the study data, all the cohorts were supported financially and scientifically for more than 60 years by both Japan and US governments.