Why don’t all of the people who see all of these beneficial effects of radiation go over and do the work at the plant? Yo would be national heroes!
Is it because you don’t really believe the nonsense you post?
Why would I go all they way there for the small benefit? Those levels are not much higher than normal background radiation. It’s not worth cost get over there. Now if there was a full meltdown then I may consider it.
Many of us who are pointing out that the presence of radiation is not an end-of-the-world situation actually work with radioisotopes.
Whatever the reading at the outlet, it is not the reading a meter away. Three things are going on here which disperse the radiation: the 131-I becomes quickly dispersed in the seawater, beta particles (the radioactive emission) are blocked by a few inches of water (the exact thickness depends on the energy of the particles), and even in air, the strength of the emission is inversely proportional to the square of the distance away.
What that last means is that an emission of 72 units at a distance of 1 radius becomes 18 units at a distance of 2, 8 units at a distance of 3, and 4.5 units at a distance of 4. It drops off pretty fast.
Furthermore, as people have already pointed out, the half life is so short that in a couple of months, the radiation will be indistinguishable from background. In general, radioisotopic wastes are stored for 6 half-lifes, which puts them at background levels of radiation, and then thrown away as regular waste.
Not but a tiny fraction of the population is qualified to work in a nuke hot zone. Unnecessary overexposure through lacking of proper training would be rampant otherwise. When I worked for the big nuke in Illinois, I had to go through a thorough FBI check and a kind of basic training for dealing with radiation. And I still picked up the ringing phone in the simulated hot room when I shouldn’t have. Just a reflex. People have been known to pick their noses without thinking and get exposure that way. And even so, after all that, all it got me was unescorted access to the really safe areas. To do the real work that needs to be done, they don’t need a bunch of useless people milling around the plant getting dose for no good reason.
As for exposure, we’re seeing elevated I-131 here, albeit levels way below technical threat, but noticeable anyway. That was to be expected due to the decay and dispersion of the plume. Apparently, the radionuclides that are really long-lived, like CS-137, don’t travel nearly as well as the I-131. I’m told by people who were involved we routinely got far more hot stuff from China’s above ground a-bomb testing, a lot of it apparently in Arkansas, if that means anything.
Like most anything else in life, radiation in the right doses and under the right circumstances really is therapeutic. Limits are set over time because overdose is possible, and the effect is cumulative (statistically, not physically, i.e., outside of therapeutic conditions, the risk of harm rises for the same dose over a period of time).
So Coulter is right. The problem is, you want to control the dose, and while the health risk for us here is statistically zero, local Fukushima rad workers are doubtless at higher risk due to uncontrolled dose. A number of them will have to retire early as well, having reached their lifetime dose limits prematurely, increasing the burden (or creating an opportunity) for replacing highly qualified radiation workers.