Ex-Texan promised 750 rads on the West Coast already.
What happened there, tex?
Posted on 03/30/2011 6:23:56 PM PDT by neverdem
Japan’s broken nuclear reactors will have no detectable effect on the health of Americans.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another as the Japanese nuclear power plant crisis nears the end of its second week. The most recent news is that radioactive elements appear to be leaking out of a couple of the partially melted-down reactors. Tests show that seawater off the plant site has elevated amounts of radioactive iodine, while others have found traces of plutonium isotopes in the soil around the plant sites. Meanwhile, some workers have been exposed to dangerously high levels of radiation as they work to repair the failed cooling systems.
Japanese regulators have also found high levels of radiation being emitted by radionuclides in milk from cows grazing near the broken reactors, as well has higher radiation levels in produce grown nearby. Elevated amounts of radioactive iodine have been found Tokyo’s drinking water.
A Rasmussen poll found in mid-March that 43 percent of Americans are at least somewhat concerned that Japanese radiation will reach the United States. Worried Americans are calling their physicians for advice about the dangers of radiation and pharmacists report that that they are running short of potassium iodide pills that can protect the thyroid gland from absorbing radioactive iodine.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency RadNet system of air monitors has detected slightly elevated radiation levels that are consistent with radiation having wafted across the Pacific. In addition, a test of rainwater in Massachusetts found slightly higher radiation levels, but not in Bay State drinking water. Should these findings cause Americans be concerned about their health? No.
As the EPA reported last week, radioactive particles detected in the West Coast monitors are hundreds of thousands to millions of times below levels of concern. The EPA statement also noted...
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
“Sievert, Gray, Rem, and Rad - Why are there so many different ways to measure radiation exposure?”
Probably different academic interests/protocols.
Thanks for the link.
With is with all these stories that avoid reporting actual numbers?
Are Americans so stupid they cant handle basic figures?
I feel like I’m back in the days when I was a kid (I was born in 1966) where Red China used to light off H-Bombs and very slight traces of Strontium 90 were detected in milk over here but it was much ado about nothing. Still, there were many people who got bent out of shape worrying about it. I remember asking Mom about Strontium 90 in milk from those tests and she said, “don’t worry about it.”
Ouch, that could probably only happen, maybe, if somebody lit up a 10,000 megaton State buster on a ground burst. It’s a shame people are gullible to that point.
Some actually have different uses.
Some measurements are the intensity/density of radioactive radiation from the source. Others are the amount of radioactive radiation absorbed by the body as in dosage.
The MSM is irresponsibly (what else should we expect?) splashing the radioactive iodine in milk headline. They don’t show the amount: 0.8 pico curies per liter which is 20 times less than TMI (a non-event for I-131) and two millions times less than Chernobyl (which will cause 50k new thyroid cancers when all is said and done). The main problem with Chernobyl was lack of information and then a lack of testing until it was much too late. During atomic testing there was a lot of I-131 in the milk, but it was not generally tested.
We got pills for Iodine. Up next, Cesium-137. And it was documented going into the US Food chain in the early 1960's.
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