'Hamas' Jenkins |
03-15-2011 10:03 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by alnorth
(Post 7493089)
The incompetent water pollution from the government was done in the 50's. At least according to my quick research, I remembered seeing that it peaked in 1954 or something like that. I presumed that the study focused on people.
Either way, it remains that we've learned a thing or two since the 50's and the 80's, and the fatality scoreboard is still a few thousand for nuclear and a hell of a lot more for coal.
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I'm not speaking of water pollution, I'm speaking of a systematic study of the long term health effects of nuclear workers conducted by Thomas Mancuso and Alice Stewart that determined even low-level exposure at weapons plants and reactors increased the risk of cancer in individuals greatly. At Hanford it was 20 times the national average.
FWIW, when talking about safety, you should consult the supralinear hypothesis of Karl Z. Morgan, who was a pioneer in the field of health physics.
It was assumed for many years that you could predict the rate of malignancy per the total amount of radiation that people were exposed to. Basically, for every 1,000 person-rems (old terminology) of exposure, you would get one cancer. It didn't matter how evenly it was spread, whether 500 person-rems to two people or 1 to 1000, you would get an equivalent number of cancers Well, in fact this is incorrect. The supralinear hypothesis suggests that the wider you spread out of the dose the more cancers you will have at those lower levels, even if each individual is getting a smaller total dose.
In essence, there is no safe, sub-clinical dose of radiation, and while your rate of cancer goes up with the amount of exposure, those small exposures are actually more dangerous per unit dose.
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