Wednesday, October 14, 2015

the friendly atom

there is an important difference between external radiation exposure (from X-rays or swimming in radioactively contaminated seawater), and internal contamination from ingesting radioactive isotopes..... "Think of the difference between merely sitting before a warm wood fire on the one hand, and popping a burning hot coal into your mouth on the other."

Internal contamination can be 1,000 times more likely to cause cancer than the same exposure if it were external, especially for women and children. And, because cesium-137 stays in the ecosphere for 300 years, long-term bio-accumulation and bio-concentration of cesium isotopes in the food chain – in this case the ocean food chain – is the perpetually worsening consequence of what has spilled and is still pouring from Fukushima.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/14/fukushima-radiation-in-pacific-reaches-west-coast/print/

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