Nuclear power greener/A critique of Unsafe at Any Dose

(Review Paper) Cited in Nuclear power greener/A critique of Unsafe at Any Dose

NO Radiation is okay radiation

Doctors opinions are not as well known in the nuclear power industry because generally they do not get as much or even no attention from congress on the issue. Helen Caldicott focuses on dangers that we are not aware of nor do we see yet from the impacts of nuclear radiation. Many physicists advocate for nuclear power because they focus on the external less harmful sources of radiation. Physicists also do not acknowledge that radiation is cumulative and the harmful effects may not surface until later in life or generations later. There are many long term effects that will take generations to appear from incidents such as Chernobyl or Fukushima .

Rational

Helen Caldicott is a doctor advocating that no exposure to radiation is the only safe method for avoiding the short and long term effects of radiation exposure. After Chernobyl many advocates for nuclear power argued that there were few deaths afterwards and few genetic abnormalities in offspring from those who survived the incident. The International Atomic Energy Agency said there were 4000 deaths from cancer where as a report published in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences said there were almost one million deaths due to cancer or other diseases in the aftermath of Chernobyl. Quite a large difference??? The high doses of radiation from Chernobyl caused many miscarriages which also means that the accounted offspring of the survivors that appeared to have no genetic abnormalities is not a reliable source of data because we are not aware of what genetic disorders or abnormalities of the miscarried fetuses. Also most mutations that are caused by radiation are recessive genes therefore it could take many generations before two recessive genes come together to form a child that has a certain disease. We are not seeing the effects of Chernobyl or Fukushima yet and probably won't see the effects until many generations down the road. Right now there are 2,600 genetic diseases on record that could be caused by radiation induced mutation. This number will rise, especially because we continue to increase the artificial exposure we are exposed to. What physicists fail to recognize is that radiation is cumulative and effects do not appear immediately. It takes years for certain types of cancers to surface, for example it takes 5 to 10 years for Leukemia to emerge and other types of cancer can take anywhere from 15 to 60 years to emerge.

Results

Helen Caldicott states that "nuclear power is neither clean, nor suitable, nor an alternative to fossil fuels". She continues this with stating that it contributes greatly to global warming. In conclusion the arguments presented by physicists for nuclear power do not account for the damages of radiation that we missed seeing due to the high number of miscarriages after Chernobyl as well as does not account for the damages that we have not witnessed yet due to the recessive nature of the radiation - induced genes, making it a process that takes generations before all the damaging and severely life threatening effects will showcase. Nuclear power is unnecessary being that we can meet all of our energy needs through solar, wind and geothermal energy as well as conservation. Nuclear power is only putting lives now and lives generations from now at risk of many genetic diseases. There is no good amount of radiation exposure, especially considering any exposure is cumulative throughout a lifespan.