Fukushima fallout: The worst-case-scenario health effects

The fallout at the Fukushima nuclear power plant as a result of the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan has sent shock waves around the world.

The Scientist staff (http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/58085/) reports: “…Though considerable uncertainty remains concerning the exact amount of radioactive material that has leaked from the facility thus far, low-level radiation has turned up in crops grown in the vicinity of the plant, and the danger of a widespread catastrophe lingers.”

Despite the cloud of uncertainty hanging over her head, my friend and fellow ship alumna Shoko Igarashi (we both joined the Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program sponsored by the Japanese government back in the 1970s) went back to Tokyo after a brief visit to Cebu.

Shoko sent this e-mail to her Filipino friends:

Thanks for your warm thoughts.

Tetch (Garcia) was also so nice to offer us to stay with them. Very lucky to have friends like you.

We are the lucky ones living in the center of Tokyo. We have everything we need including water, electricity, gas. We even feel guilty sometimes watching interviews on those who evacuated.

I feel so sorry for mothers with babies, elderly people, and those kids who lost their parents. None of them are complaining, but quietly, patiently waiting for help.

Tokyo is about 200 kms. away from the nuclear plant and it seems to be far enough.

Radiation is not really that bad though it sounds scary.

Japanese government is open with the information on what not to eat.

Watching lots of foreigners leaving Japan, I was not so sure what to do. It was good to have some time in Cebu to think of what to do. We may go away for a month, then we have to come home again to make our living here anyway.

Abi’s classes begin on 8th April, I have books to keep to earn our living. Maya and Yusuke are here in Tokyo. So I’m not scared any more, Matti is going to have his operation in Tokyo, too.

We just keep our fingers crossed so that no more bad things happen to Japan.                   

Take care, Shoko 

Life goes on. And now, The Scientist sifts through the latest research on the effects of radiation and explores the worst-case-scenario health and environmental effects of a nuclear disaster in Japan.

Read this report from The Scientist:

According to Professor William Schull of the University of Texas, an expert on the health effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1940s, radiation levels currently being reported by Japanese officials are still quite low, and the early public evacuation reduced the concern for community health risks. But the workers at the nuclear plants still risked acute radiation exposure and serious health problems as a result.

Direct exposure to ionizing radiation can cause anemia (loss of red blood cells) and leucopenia (loss of white blood cells such as those important in fighting off infection), increasing susceptibility to disease. Those directly exposed to radiation may display other symptoms of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), such as vomiting, diarrhea, excessive bleeding brought on by the death of hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow, and hair loss. Such symptoms, however, are caused by exposure of 1-10 grays (Gy), a unit of absorbed radiation dose. The doses of radiation leaking from the Japanese reactor are far below this.

But Schull sadly notes, “Things could quickly worsen.”

The Radiation Injury Severity Classification (RISC) system estimates three sets of clinical and hematological parameters to calculate “a combined score [that] gives you a pretty accurate estimate of what’s going to happen to this person,” said University of Pittsburgh biostatistician Richard Day, who collaborated in the creation of RISC. Applying the system to 59 workers in a Russian nuclear fuel production facility, Day, Niel Wald of the University of Pittsburgh, and coauthors estimated threshold values for some ARS symptoms, including vomiting (_1.5 Gy), severely low white blood cell count (_3.5 Gy), and mortality (_6-7 Gy).

Yoichiro Kusunoki, chief of the department of radiobiology and molecular epidemiology at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan, notes in an e-mail: Once doses reach levels of 500 mSv or more, however, the number of lymphocytes, white blood cells involved in immune response, is cut by half within a few days, and there is considerable damage to stem cells in the bone marrow. At high doses, these effects can be long-lasting.

According to studies of atomic bomb survivors, T-cells never fully recover, neither in number nor effectiveness, although stem cells and other immune cells bounce back to normal levels in about two months. The body compensates for these shortfalls by increasing levels of inflammatory cytokines — a pattern that resembles the immune systems of the elderly, suggesting that the immune system may age more rapidly after radiation exposure.

But the production of inflammatory cytokines can be seen even at a relatively low dose (several mSv) that does not trigger apoptosis of any types of cells. This short-term inflammation could initially be protective by helping clear cells damaged by the radiation. However, researchers studying radiation exposure during cancer radiation therapy suggest that low doses of radiation that trigger inflammation could also initiate the kind of chronic inflammation that leads to cancer.

End of report.

Fact is, human activities all around us expose us to radiation every day of our lives. Like the bricks, stones, cement, and drywalls we use to build our homes, schools, offices, which frequently contain uranium ores and are thus sources of radon.

And then there’s tobacco, which exposes smokers to a dose of radiation from polonium-210 Smokers get an added dose of radiation from the decay product of radon gas, polonium-218. Smoke gets in your lungs: Polonium-218 clings to tobacco smoke, and ends up in the lungs.    

Patients being diagnosed and treated for cancer are exposed to nuclear radiation. Also, it is disheartening to note that radiologists routinely use radioisotopes of technetium or thorium to diagnose heart disease.

Your job may expose you to radiation. Those at higher risk are underground miners, radiologists, medical technologists, nuclear plant operators, research scientists, and pilots.

Authorities can’t stress this enough: “Any amount of radiation can be dangerous because of the potential effect that it has on living cells. Radiation can disrupt normal chemical processes of the cells, causing them to grow abnormally or to die. Cells that are altered by the radiation may go on to produce more abnormal cells — a process that could eventually lead to cancer.”

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