Fukushima was the world’s largest nuclear power accident with all four reactors probably experiencing a meltdown, the kind of event where extremists said the melted reactor rods would melt through the bottom of the reactor to create a nuclear disaster. This was the premise behind the movie China Syndrome.
As we all now know, and as any reputable nuclear scientist knew all along, the China Syndrome has always been a fiction created by those trying to scare people from adopting nuclear power.
The latest news form Fukushima is that there were no health effects in the surrounding population from the Fukushima disaster.
Wolfgang Weiss, Chairman of the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), said the latest UN report shows “that no radiation health effects had been observed in Japan among the public, workers or children in the area of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.”
The UNSCEAR report went on to say that low doses of radiation probably couldn’t be seen as a health threat. Specifically it said:
“Uncertainties at low doses are such that UNSCEAR does not recommend multiplying low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects within a population exposed to incremental doses at levels equivalent to or below natural background levels.”
UNSCEAR also said: “it was not possible to attribute increases in health effects across populations to long-term exposure at radiation levels typical of the global average background levels (about 2-20 mSv per year).”
The UNSCEAR report makes it clear that low doses of radiation should not be feared.
This flies in the face of the anti-nuclear groups, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and Greenpeace, which have been scaring people about nuclear power.
Nuclear power is safe.
With respect to the workers trying to save the reactors at Fukushima, as opposed to the nearby population, UNSCEAR said, “Six workers received total doses of over 250 mSv during their time tackling the emergency, while 170 received doses over 100 mSv. None of these have shown ill effects, and radiation played no role in the coincidental deaths of six Fukushima workers in the time since the accident.” (Emphasis added.)
So, what is the bottom line with respect to the world’s largest nuclear accident?
There have been no health problems in the population surrounding the Fukushima power plant, and none of the workers inside the plant have died, or even shown health effects, from their radiation exposure.
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