Please can someone clarify something.....
Please could someone put my mind to rest...
I have seen this post titled emission duration (http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2228) -
'The fallout in CA so far is 10% of what it has been over central europe after chernobyl (based on NUC data), while the same amount as chernobyl has been emitted from Fukushima (ZAMG estimates).'
In a recent Swedish study, areas with 5 % of the Chernobyl fallout found negative effects for babies in the womb (http://www.nber.org/~almond/revision_nov6.pdf).
Is the person who posted the post at the top saying we have already doubled this amount of fallout in Sweden i.e received 10 % of the TOTAL Chernobyl fallout? Or are they saying we have only received 10 % of the amount deposited on each of the separate areas in Central Europe?
I find it difficult to believe that if we have only received minuscule amounts of fallout (according to the press) how we can already have doubled the amount of fallout in a country that has been reported as having negative effects. I hope I am mis-reading the first poster.
As a pregnant women, please could I have an answer to clarify if we have received an amount of fallout anywhere close to the amount received in the areas of Sweden highlighted by the study above - as this, in my opinion, would not class as minimal fallout with no health risks.
Thanks in advance.
New Chernobyl Study is very troubling vis a vis Fukushima
Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People:
NEW YORK, New York, April 26, 2010 (ENS) - Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility.
The book, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus. The authors examined more than 5,000 published articles and studies, most written in Slavic languages and never before available in English.
The authors said, "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe," they said. "Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere."
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html
Is the 10 percent chernobyl fallout a total fallout or per cm3
Please can someone clarify whether the 10 percent of fallout from Chernobyl is related to the total amount of radionuclids or an amount per CM3, area under the curve?
thanks
I believe it means
I believe it means accumulated fallout deposition.
Sorry, I don't understand
Sorry, I don't understand what that means?
It means that 10% of the
It means that 10% of the total amount of what was in the air, and then fell to the ground in Europe after Chernobyl has been in the air and fallen to the ground in California from Fukushima.
Thanks for explaining it to
Thanks for explaining it to me. To refer back to the Swedish study in my original post - this study found that babies born in areas which received 5% of the fallout from Chernobyl had negative birth defects.
So, my worry, as a pregnant woman, is that already I have received double the radiation dose that these women in areas of Sweden had, which has been reported to show negative effects for unborn babies??? Is this correct?
How can this be seen as not harmful, especially if this disaster could continue for weeks/months?
My wife is pregnant...
so I emailed the authors of the Swedish studies over the weekend.
One of them wrote back and said he would not be concerned but that it might still be worth staying inside if it rains and if a radioactive plume is forecast to be overhead--he sent me this link to see the fallout trajectories:
http://transport.nilu.no/products/fukushima/index?searchterm=fukushima
Figured he was a reliable source of information so this helped put my wife and I at ease since it validated what the team here has been posting.
Hope this helps,
WH
Thanks, WH, that does put my
Thanks, WH, that does put my mind at rest a bit. However, I still cannot get my head round why the effects would be less than in Sweden if we have had double the dose. Did the author give any reasons why he would not be concerned?
It just seems at odds with the news telling us that there has only been minimal traces found, in my mind 10% of Chernobyl is a lot, especially as the leaks are ongoing.
Thanks for everyone's input.
The author...
unfortunately didn't elaborate...just said "I think it's probably harmless to be in California." Another professor I emailed who wrote a paper on the effects of low level ionizing radiation said simply "I can only say if I were in your shoes I would have no concerns."
When I read the Swedish study I believe the additional dose rate was estimated at ~4mSv over the year after Chernobyl which would be much much much higher than any cummulative dose estimates I've seen for Californians so far. The air samples just in from Livermore (http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/Documents/CDPH-RHB-RadReport-2011-03-28.pdf) estimate the inhaled air dose rate for I-131 at 0.12 millirem for year and 1 mSv = 100 mrem so from my completely non-science/technical background (just as an expecting dad) the air numbers aren't troubling.
Obviously the more troubling piece of this is from ingested sources like milk and food which are directly effected by the fallout, so I'm glad that the UCB folks are continuing to monitor those areas as well.
Believe me, I've been way more concerned than others I know and don't take comfort in the airplane dose rates which seem different than the impact of I-131 on the thyroid of a developing baby. As someone just said on another thread (http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2260):
"May I recommend however that you modify your methods of dose calculation? For example, for the ingestion of I-131, I would recommend that the absorbed dosed to the thyroid gland of infants and younger children be estimated rather than the effective dose to the entire body for an adult. Infants and children are the critical group among all who would be potentially exposed. The dose conversion factor for the thyroid gland of a 1 year old infant is approximately 4 microGy per Bq ingested. The dose conversion factor for a ten-year old child, by contrast is about 1.4 microGy per Bq ingested."
THANK YOU. Your explanation
THANK YOU. Your explanation is the first one that has really made any sense to me, I appreciate you taking the time to walk me through it.
A huge thanks.
Happy to help!
I've been trying to read as much of the hard data as I can since my wife is 3 months pregnant and I've been worrying myself sick over the reactor situation.
Even though no exposure is good, the responses from the two authors who have spent a lot of time looking at low level radiation exposure were definitely helpful in validating just how low the levels are here, although I will be paying attention to the water and vegetable testing results as soon as they're released here.
I'm really thankful that we have this forum for communicating our concerns and raising questions regarding the data--especially since those with kids/kids on the way have even more reason to understand the risks which are higher to children/infants than the rest of the public.
Pretty Much
I have a 5 month old and a 3 year old, so trust me when I say I completely agree. Trying to find information has been next to impossible. So we are sticking with soy milk, only eating the cheese we stored up before this whole thing started, drinking and cooking with only reverse-osmosis(ed) water and limited our exposure to rain. We're in the Central Valley and not sure how I feel about my three year old going swimming this summer though.
What to do, what to do...
Hi there,
We've switched from iodized salt to kelp, because the kelp has more iodine in it. We get our kelp from a company called Maine Coast (www.seaveg.com). We just ordered more, and it's cheaper by the pound. This kelp is organic grade and has iodine in it. We just sprinkle it on our food. When you use iodine in your food, it is used by your body and competes with the radioactive iodine, so you don't allow the radioactive iodine to enter and attach itself to the thyroid or other organs (apparently iodine is also used in the breast and prostate).
We also use reverse osmosis water, and that's supposed to remove radioactive particles. We stocked up on food (canned food, tuna, etc.) to have handy, in case it is needed if things get really bad...Our grade school son is a concern for us, and so we're taking all the precautions that we could take to ensure a better future for him.
Also, for the milk, another alternative is the canned milk. Stock up on that. It has the vitamins A & D.
Low level radiation is bad for you. A report from the National Resource Council (2006) which is found on EPA website, says any level of radiation is not safe. I read recently in a radiation biology book that the body's repair mechanism for DNA doesn't kick in for low level radiation as it does for high levels, and therefore it causes damage to the cells. Also, that a person who gets exposed now, may have it carried generations later in their offspring.
So it makes sense to be cautious. Radiation is invisible, and you can't smell or taste it.
Take care and please, please write to Obama and let him know, like I did, that we don't care for nuclear power...it is an accident waiting to happen...
Hopefully
We'll know more about the total contamination and exposure levels by summer. I just keep hoping to hear good news about getting the situation under control (for everyone in Japan even more so than those of us here on the West Coast), but it looks like we'll continue to have the low levels releases for the weeks/months ahead. That's one thing I find troubling about all the assurances not to worry -- no one really knows how much I-131 or other radiation my wife will be exposed to over the last two trimesters of her pregnancy...
BTW
I still continue to come across very troubling studies regarding low dose rates...
See, for example
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9450.2010.00814.x/abst...
"Adolescents exposed to low-dose ionizing radiation in utero scored significantly lower in full-scale IQ than unexposed adolescents. The difference was restricted to verbal IQ and was not evident for nonverbal IQ. The effect was not observed in exposed adolescents who had passed the most sensitive gestational period prior to the accident and thus were exposed to the radiation from Chernobyl exclusively after gestational week 16. These participants performed as well as the controls. Although the results should be interpreted cautiously due to the study’s nonrandomized design, the data add new and important support to the hypothesis that the Chernobyl accident may have had a subtle effect on the cognitive functioning of those exposed to low-dose ionizing radiation in utero during the most sensitive gestational period."
and
http://nonuclear.se/files/ijerph-06-03105.pdf
"The fetal exposures to fallout from the Chernobyl accident in the combined exposed population of 2204055 children in Germany, Greece and the United Kingdom resulted in a 43% increase in infant leukemia, a disease associated with a gene mutation in utero. The specificity of the cohort defined it as one in which exposure to the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident is the only possible cause of the increased infant leukemia incidence. Since the mean calculated weighted fetal dose to this population was 0.067mSv, this finding defined an error in the ICRP risk model for this kind of exposure and suggests that it is unsafe to predict risks from chronic exposure to internal radionuclides on the basis of external doses. Using the best data for external fetal exposures and leukemia, that of the Oxford Obstetric X-ray studies of Stewart et al. [18,19] the error in employing such an approach is upward of 160-fold."
agree
I know, this is terrible. I am just as upset as you are about the lack of information and distortation about information in the media.
Maybe we should all send a letter to Obama and the governor of California to at least educate our community.
I think we can just pray that each of us, including your child will be fine.
Seriously? You think Obama
Seriously? You think Obama gives a damn about us? Where has he been while all this has been going on? I will pray for all of us. I have a 4yr old grandson in Anaheim.