Acceptable Risk?
Health Consequences of a Nuclear Accident
About PSR
•
PSR is the largest physician-led organization in the
country working to protect public health from nuclear
and environmental threats.
•
In the 1960’s, PSR helped end atmospheric nuclear
testing by documenting the presence of strontium 90,
a radioactive by-product of nuclear tests, in children’s
deciduous teeth.
•
PSR was the American recipient of the Nobel Peace
Prize awarded to the International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War in 1985.
•
PSR-LA was founded in 1980 as a local affiliate of
the national organization Physicians for Social
Responsibility (PSR).
About Me
Why am I here?
•Pediatrician
•Father
•Advocate
PSR and Nuclear Power
PSR opposes nuclear power because of its risk to public
health and its association with the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
A one-year-old boy is re-checked for radiation
exposure after being decontaminated in
Nihonmatsu, Fukushiima
Every year every commercial nuclear power plant
produces 100 pounds of plutonium, increasing the
risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.
What is Radiation?
Ionizing Radiation - Alpha
•Alpha particles are relatively large and can
only travel short distances, but they can
cause a lot of damage.
•They are easily stopped by skin and other
barriers (like clothing).
•Alpha particles are most dangerous when
they are in close proximity to cells such as
when inhaled.
•Plutonium 239 is an alpha emitter and as
such is highly carcinogenic when deposited
in the lungs.
Ionizing Radiation - Beta
•Beta particles are high-speed
electrons that can penetrate deeper
than an alpha particle into tissue.
•Alpha and beta particles cause
damage through inhalation, ingestion,
absorption though the skin, or
through a cut in the skin.
•Iodine-131 is both a beta and
gamma emitter.
•Because Iodine-131 is absorbed in
the thyroid gland, it causes thyroid
cancer.
A nurse at a children's health clinic in Warsaw
administers an iodine solution to a 3 year-old girl in 1986
Ionizing Radiation - Gamma
•Gamma rays are packets of energy
that can pass through the body.
•If a gamma photon is absorbed by
the body, the energy is transferred to
the tissues and can cause damage.
•Protection from gamma rays takes
significantly more barriers.
Fukushima workers’ protective gear will stop alpha and
beta particles, but it will not stop gamma rays.
Radiation Health Effects - How do we know?
•Most of the data on the effects of
radiation exposure are from studies of
the survivors of the bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, intentional
medical irradiation, and from a few
high dose accidents.
•The Hiroshima exposure was a onetime dose largely composed of gamma
and x-rays.
•This is very different from the releases
from Chernobyl and Fukushima which
released long-lived radionuclides into
the environment.
Important Facts of Radiation Exposure
•
There is no “safe” or non-harmful level of radiation.
According to the National Academy’s BEIRVII Report,
increase of radiation exposures increases a person’s risk of
cancer.
•
We are all exposed to radiation: background radiation, with
which we evolved, and medical radiation, which may be
necessary and life saving as determined and controlled by
the patient and physician.
•
Radiation exposure that occurs with the release of radiation
throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear weapons use and
testing, and both the “controlled” and catastrophic releases
of long lived radionuclides from the nuclear power industry is
very different and is not “natural” and should not be included
as acceptable “background”.
Misconceptions and Fallacies
We have been told by industry and
government officials that 100 mSV is a
threshold below which there are “No
detectable health effects.”
NRC Chairman Gregory Jackzko
The BEIR report concluded specifically
that a 100 mSv dose confers a one in
one hundred risk of getting cancer.
While that risk may be relatively low for one person, if 100 people
receive that dose, one of them will get cancer.
And if a million people are exposed to that dose, ten thousand of
them will get cancer. This cannot be considered a “safe threshold.”
External vs. Internal Emitters
If you are near an external source of radioactivity, you are
only exposed while you are near it.
If you inhale or ingest a radioactive particle, that particle will
continue to irradiate you for as long as the particle is in your
body and remains radioactive.
Not All Exposed are Affected Equally
•Women are significantly more
vulnerable to radiation exposure
than men.
•Children are much more vulnerable
than adults to the effects of
radiation.
•Fetuses are even more vulnerable.
Vika Chervinska, an eight-year-old Ukrainian girl suffering
from cancer waits to receive treatment with her mother at the
children's hospital in Kiev. April 18, 2006. Photo: Atlantic
Radionuclides Associated with Nuclear Power
Radionuclide
Health/Environmental Effects
Tritium
Linked to developmental problems, reproductive problems,
genetic abnormalities.
Radium
Lymphoma, bone cancer, leukemia, aplastsicanemia linked with
inhalation. Other cancers with external exposure.
Technetium-99
Cancer linked to ingestion (contaminated food and water).
Iodine-131
Linked to thyroid malfunction/cancer. Combines with soil and
organic materials easily.
Cesium-137
Can cause cancer 10 – 30 years after ingestion, inhalation, or
absorption. Moves easily in environment, impossible to clean
up.
Strontium-90
Chemically similar to calcium. Can cause bone cancer, cancer
near bones, and leukemia.
Plutonium
Contaminant in dust. Extreme risk of cancers, kidney damage.
Can stay in the body for decades.
Acute Radiation Effects
Sv
REM
50-100 mSv
500 mSv
550 mSv
700 mSv
750 mSv
900 mSv
1
4
10
5-10
50
55
70
75
90
100
400
1,000
20
2,000
Health Effect
changes in blood chemistry
nausea
fatigue
vomiting
hair loss
diarrhea
hemorrhage
possible death
destruction of intestinal lining
internal bleeding
and death
damage to central nervous system
loss of consciousness;
and death
Time to Onset
hours
2-3 weeks
within 2 months
1-2 weeks
minutes
hours to days
Santa Susana Field Laboratory
In 1959, a partial nuclear meltdown occurred at the Santa Susana
Field Laboratory in the hills above Simi Valley.
Three Mile Island
The accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 was rated a 5 on the 7-point
International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). A level 5 accident entails the
“Release of large quantities of radioactive material within an installation
with a high probability of significant public exposure.”
Chernobyl
Source: Janusz Pudykiewicz, Meteorological Service of Canada.
Units are becquerel/kg at 850 mb. level. A becquerel is one nuclear
decay per second.
Efrem Lukstaky/AP)
Chernobyl
Mothers with their babies wait to board the trains which will
eventually take them to neighboring Belarus and Russia, as
well as other parts of the Ukraine to be resettled.
Nastasya Vasilyeva, 67, cries at her home in the devastated
village Rudnya in an isolated zone some 45km (28 miles) from
Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, April 3, 2006. |AP
Photo|Sergey Ponomarev|
Fukushima Daiichi
Fukushima Health Effects
NRC Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights - July 12, 2011
San Onfre
According to a 1982 NRCstudy, a meltdown at one of San Onofre reactors could cause: 130,000 'prompt'
fatalities; 300,000 latent cancer, and 600,000 cases of genetic defects within 35 miles of the site. Since
then, the population in the area has increased substantially.
Contaminating the Future
A Ferris Wheel in the ghost town of Pripyat, which was evacuated after a nuclear disaster in
Chernobyl, April 13, 2006. |Reuters|Gleb Garanich|
Prevent What We Cannot Cure
• Nuclear power is dangerous, and fraught with
safety and security hazards that do not happen
with other technologies.
• If a nuclear reactor malfunctions in a major way,
the environment and thousands of lives are
immediately put at risk - possibly for decades and
even centuries to come.
• PSR’s motto is that we must “prevent what we
cannot cure.” We believe that the best way to
prevent a nuclear accident is to move to safer,
cleaner, reliable energy sources.