Why is Fukushima nuclear crisis so threatening?

Dmytry

well there's the source.
http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/fact....radiation.cfm
for proving the hypothesis: the history is such that anything is presumed harmless until some large number of people are absolutely certainly harmed by it - e.g. see radium dial painters [being told that this stuff is actually good for them, so they keep pointing the paintbrushes with their lips - what the hell?], see quack radium medicines of first half of 20th century, see all the needless nuclear testing in USA (almost twice the testing that soviets did).

Fortunately, now, instead that proving that new drug or medicine is harmful, it has to be proved it is harmless. Fortunately now, before entire factory will be licking paintbrushes with paint on them, the paint has to be proven harmless (unless the factory is in china, of course, but maybe even there). Still, people don't change; they see it as their right to make us ingest and inhale random stuff until it is proven beyond any slightest doubt whatsoever that it is harmful.

JaredJames

Is there more to this I'm not seeing?

Are you saying that equivalent of nuclear radiation (same type of radiation from the bombs) is hitting us (humans) from the sun every ten seconds?

JaredJames

Joe, start backing up your claims as per forum guidelines or they are worthless.

QuantumPion

It's only fortunate in the sense that by keeping products not known to be dangerous but known to be beneficial off the market, the people harmed by the unavailability of such products are invisible. In other words, no one blames the government when a life-saving drug gets banned from the market due to not being able to prove it is harmless, because no one is aware of products that are unavailable to them. So it's only fortunate for bureaucrats with a safety-at-any-cost mentality.

The same situation is analogous to nuclear power vs. fossil fuels. People would rather we continue to have hundreds of coal miner deaths, who knows how many lung cancer cases, possibility of global warming, acid rain, conflicts over resources, etc etc rather than risk being exposed to a tiny amount of radiation because that can't be proven to be harmless. Nevermind the fact that we know that the alternative really is very harmful.

Joe Neubarth

I do not live next to San Onofre, but I am going to make a concerted effort to get it shut down.

Proof of low levels of radiation causing cancer??? I do not need proof down at the lower levels of radiation exposure. I say it is a given for anybody with common sense.

You say it can not be proven for low levels even though we know that radiation causes cancer at higher levels. You live in a dream world.

I deal with reality. People like you with your ignorance of reality and people like me with common sense live in worlds that are poles apart. I have seen too many good people die from radiation exposure. Go look up the breast cancer research numbers and then search your soul.

JaredJames

Joe seriously, there are rules here, you must support your claims with valid sources and not just make random statements you believe to be true.

Dmytry

Indeed. For example, the products for treating morning sickness are not available to the pregnant women without extensive testing...
Think first, ok? The life threatening conditions are only a small fraction of the market, and there are relaxed rules for those.

GJBRKS

No , of course not ...different photon frequencies , no kinetics , no alpha , beta's ...

But I can understand you're temporarily being blinded by my flashes of insight ... ;)

Remember , you can't look too long at a radioactive cloud ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JrIYR8jArk


;)

JaredJames

If it isn't the same radiation, how can you compare them? It's a different issue.

Nothing clever about comparing apples with oranges.

QuantumPion

I was speaking in generalities to make a point. We all take risks, it's part of life and the fact that we do not have unlimited resources. Someone that already has cancer, receiving radiotherapy treatment, may risk further damage due to acute radiation dose. But they believe based on evidence that it does more good than harm.

I already quoted you text from the American Cancer Society stating that low level radiation is not known to cause cancer. You have posted nothing except your own personal opinion based solely on an emotional appeal. Whom between us is more in line with reality?

Joe Neubarth

Gosh Borek, I'll just stick with my Google link for your edification. There has to be some peer review publications in there or articles that have been copied from them.

http://www.google.com/search?q=nucle...ient=firefox-a

The Breast cancer link to nuclear plants and processing sites came out Many years ago. There is one thing that skews the numbers and that is the far higher number of African American women who develop breast cancer. If that is compensated for, it is easy to see the relationship.

Dmytry

You were speaking not in generalities, but of a rather rare case (when the new product is for treatment of a life-threatening condition), for which indeed there is exception and much relaxed rules when it comes to testing. It still has to be the case that there must be some prior testing otherwise the chance that the new medication is superior to old ones is too small.

In most of the cases, it is something like a new cough syrup of dubious efficacy, or a new supposed flu remedy, of other non-essential stuff which is barely better, or not any better than existing, tested medicine.
yes, that is the accepted view. Big doses of radiation, carefully targeted, are useful for curing cancer by their acute toxicity. The neighbouring tissues experience increased probability of developing another cancer though, so the dose to non-cancer tissues has to be kept to a minimum.

Joe Neubarth

I am, because I know what is happening. You live in a dream world where people only get cancer if they have stepped across an imaginary threshold. Say it ain't so.

What is that threshold? 60 REM? 70 REM? One Sievert?

Dmytry

Joe Neubarth: Nuclear authorities, actually, accept the linear no threshold model. The pro-nuclear bs people and healing stones salesmen (radon spring tour salesmen etc) don't. Some altogether claim it false, some view it as mere precaution.

There is a lot of experimental evidence in support of linear effect for small doses (google cell microbeam studies)
http://www.google.com/search?q=alpha...eam+cell+study
, as well as theoretical support (basically all we know about cancer). The pro-nuclear people evidently have a problem with using the accepted theories, and demand 'proof' in same way how global climate denial crowd or creationist crowd does. They demand that the carcinogenic effects of radiation be shown on human populations, when the resulting cancer rate is 1/1000 the baseline and below, which is impossible.

JaredJames

What you 'know' is irrelevant. Back it up. Link to some published papers on the matter as per forum rules.
He's never implied that at all.

So far only one of you has provided evidence to support their claims.

JaredJames

It would be acceptable if we had some valid sources cited in support of the claims.

If it's so widely accepted just link to them.

I'm not accepting/denying anything here, just asking you support claims.

Dmytry

http://www.google.com/search?q=alpha...eam+cell+study
first 5 results should do fine. You go read and educate yourself. Can't force education down your throat. Biology is complicated science.