Going to Japan 2012

[acjama]

Originally Posted by Craghack

Just a quick question: You said the smallest recorded radiation dose linked with cancer is 100mSv. Is that micro or milli Sv?

That would be milli Sv.

And then, a humble correction based on this very cute chart:
"Lowest one-year dose clearly linked to increased cancer risk is 100 milli Sv".
Ahem, sorry about that.

[acjama]

Originally Posted by siokan

If 100mSv radiation is bathed in during year, 1/100 people get sick.

I don't think this is a particularly low value. There are over two million people in Fukushima. If everybody were subjected to 100mSv for a year, with the above effecting ratio that would mean 20 000 more terminally ill people in need of expensive long term medical treatment and care, not to mention compensations, lost work, lost income and taxes. This would paralyze health care and collapse local economy. Less people died in the March Tsunami. And the human tragedy hasn't even been accounted for in the above calculations.

Personally, I say that when calculating acceptable radiation levels, zero is the only acceptable answer.

[JBaymore]

Originally Posted by acjama

Personally, I say that when calculating acceptable radiation levels, zero is the only acceptable answer.

Quick! Find a lead lined box and climb in. You are getting bombarded with radiation (if you are on planet Earth). Oh.....make sure not to eat bananas. And forget getting married... human bodies give off radiation.

As mentioned above, this is a useful chart I have long been sharing with my students http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Do some scientific research.

best,

..............john

PS: Having a scientifically identifiable risk of having illness from radiation exposuiure (100 miliSieverts) and dieing from cancer are NOT synonomous.

[Craghack]

Hi John,

Thank you very much for the link to the radiation chart. Definitely shows some amazing stuff.

Radiation from bananas? I couldn't help but laugh

I'll continue to do my research, I don't depart until the end of 2011.

----------

Again, a BIG THANKS to all who've added their opinions and useful links. It's more information than I could find on the internet lately, all very up to date which exactly what I was looking for

JohnBraden - Seems like a bit of picturesque, if not a bit stereotyped, England in Japan. The houses do appear to look English! - Yes, definitely! That's the theme of British Hills hehe.

Max

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by acjama

I don't think this is a particularly low value. There are over two million people in Fukushima. If everybody were subjected to 100mSv for a year, with the above effecting ratio that would mean 20 000 more terminally ill people in need of expensive long term medical treatment and care, not to mention compensations, lost work, lost income and taxes. This would paralyze health care and collapse local economy. Less people died in the March Tsunami. And the human tragedy hasn't even been accounted for in the above calculations.

Personally, I say that when calculating acceptable radiation levels, zero is the only acceptable answer.

There is no way to avoid all radiation exposure - the human body actually produces radiation... But I get your point.

I think that you have misunderstood the 1/100 figure though. 1 in a hundred is the number of people who have an actual increased risk of cancer - not the number who actually develop cancer... And certainly not the number who become terminally ill.

To be more exact, a single exposure of 100mSv has been shown to raise cancer risk around 0.5~1%. Long term exposure to lower amounts is a completely different matter and is almost impossible to measure. 100mSv over a YEAR is pretty much nothing. There is a fairly large city in Brazil (Guarapari) where the natural background radiation is almost 200mSv a year, and there has been no noticeable difference in cancer rates compared to everyone else. And people live their entire lives there with no decreases in radiation over the entire time.

So, basically, 100mSv a year for those living in Fukushima has such a tiny level of risk that it is impossible to calculate.

It is when you have a single large dose that things start to change and you begin to have an increased risk of developing cancer. A person`s lifetime risk of developing cancer is influenced by a number of things - for example, smoking raises your lifetime risk of developing cancer by anywhere between 2 and 15% (depends on how long and how much you smoke, etc). Drinking raises your risk of developing cancer by so many percent. Regular tanning by so many percent. So on and so on.
This *doesn`t* mean that you will die from cancer - it doesn`t even mean that you will develop cancer at all. It just means that on average, that many more people develop cancer than a group that didn`t do those things.

So... In the case of 1000 people receiving a dose of 100mSv - one extra person might develop some type of cancer as a result. Chances are, it will be thyroid cancer - one of the easiest to treat cancers with an excellent prognosis. In the case of 100,000, you may have one extra case of a more dangerous type of cancer... Out of 2,000,000, think more like 20 extra people with a terminal illness - not 20,000.

Either way though, it`s a moot point in the case of Fukushima as it is 100mSv in a single dose, not spread over a year.

[BobbyCooper]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

There is no way to avoid all radiation exposure - the human body actually produces radiation... But I get your point.

I think that you have misunderstood the 1/100 figure though. 1 in a hundred is the number of people who have an actual increased risk of cancer - not the number who actually develop cancer... And certainly not the number who become terminally ill.

To be more exact, a single exposure of 100mSv has been shown to raise cancer risk around 0.5~1%. Long term exposure to lower amounts is a completely different matter and is almost impossible to measure. 100mSv over a YEAR is pretty much nothing. There is a fairly large city in Brazil (Guarapari) where the natural background radiation is almost 200mSv a year, and there has been no noticeable difference in cancer rates compared to everyone else. And people live their entire lives there with no decreases in radiation over the entire time.

So, basically, 100mSv a year for those living in Fukushima has such a tiny level of risk that it is impossible to calculate.

It is when you have a single large dose that things start to change and you begin to have an increased risk of developing cancer. A person`s lifetime risk of developing cancer is influenced by a number of things - for example, smoking raises your lifetime risk of developing cancer by anywhere between 2 and 15% (depends on how long and how much you smoke, etc). Drinking raises your risk of developing cancer by so many percent. Regular tanning by so many percent. So on and so on.
This *doesn`t* mean that you will die from cancer - it doesn`t even mean that you will develop cancer at all. It just means that on average, that many more people develop cancer than a group that didn`t do those things.

So... In the case of 1000 people receiving a dose of 100mSv - one extra person might develop some type of cancer as a result. Chances are, it will be thyroid cancer - one of the easiest to treat cancers with an excellent prognosis. In the case of 100,000, you may have one extra case of a more dangerous type of cancer... Out of 2,000,000, think more like 20 extra people with a terminal illness - not 20,000.

Either way though, it`s a moot point in the case of Fukushima as it is 100mSv in a single dose, not spread over a year.

I have never heard about these cities before. Very Informative!

I found out that Ramsar, Iran has the highest known year-average human exposure levels measured in an inhabited location.

According to UNSCEAR 2000 report, Ramsar, in northern Iran, has some inhabited areas with the highest known natural radiation levels in the world.

In Guarapari, Brazil, a city of 80 000 inhabitants built on the seaside, peak measurements made by EFN on the thorium-rich beach were as high as 40 microSv/hour (about 200 times higher than the average natural background radiation in other areas of the world).

But the highest known year-average human exposure levels measured in an inhabited location up to date is in Ramsar, Iran.

Natural Radiation: High Background Radiation Areas (HBRAs) of Ramsar, Iran

[acjama]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is called " Trolling out those who know better but for some reason won't speak out, and again facebook becomes information source for those in serious need of reassurances". I'm thinking about renaming it.

Thanks for the corrections. Some were indeed due to honest misunderstanding (those are better out than in), but some where well-used propaganda technique to take example in the farthest side of the direction the opponent is going and ridiculing that. Oh well, sometimes it works.

I do have extreme opinions about how to handle radioactive exposure above the background level. I earned them with relevant academic grades AND experience as someone in charge of factory's radiation safety. I never had the emotional luxury of statistics, I had to look those people in the eye. And since I did not fail anybody, I don't need to understand actions of those who let little children piss cesium and tell them "everything is actually really good!". That's not how human world works.
(Can anybody guess which propaganda technique was used there? )

I said before and will say again, going to Fukushima won't probably come to a bad end, but aggressive zero-tolerance towards increase in radiation exposure is not only proven to be possible, it is also the only ethical approach.

[JBaymore]

"Cesium-134 and cesium-137 were detected in the urine samples of all 10 children aged between 6 and 16 who participated in the survey. The largest amount of cesium-134, which has a half-life of two years, was 1.13 becquerels per liter, found in the urine of an 8-year-old girl.

As for cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, the largest amount was 1.30 becquerels per liter detected in a 7-year-old boy. No traces of iodine-131 were found in the test.

The government has set a safety limit of 200 becquerels of cesium per liter of water.

The samples were taken in late May in the city of Fukushima, more than 50 km from the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

"All (tested) kids are contaminated. . . . Currently the (government's) policy is mainly on external exposure, but internal exposure should be taken into consideration," ACRO Chairman David Boilley told a news conference in Tokyo.

Boilley said the exact levels of contamination can't be judged by urine tests alone because there is no direct correlation between contamination found in urine and contamination in the entire body. It was difficult to judge the contamination level because the amounts of cesium detected were small, he added."

Japan Times Online
Friday, July 1, 2011
Cesium found in child urine tests
By MIZUHO AOKI
Staff writer

Quoted under Fair Use statutes
red highlighting is mine


Just wanted to clarify the hot link in the posting directly above this a bit for those reading this thread that might not click on that link.

best,

..................john

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by acjama

Thanks for the corrections. Some were indeed due to honest misunderstanding (those are better out than in), but some where well-used propaganda technique to take example in the farthest side of the direction the opponent is going and ridiculing that. Oh well, sometimes it works.

If you were referring to my response... I don`t think that I was using any sort of propaganda. If you, any family or friends is one of those extra terminal illnesses... All the figures in the world aren`t going to make you feel any better.
The point I was trying to make is that the raised risk for the amounts that people are being exposed to in Fukushima are very hard to prove as increasing risk. The studies for those low amounts are so very scattered around the board that some of them show *lower* rates of cancer for those exposed... I am definitely not going to say that radiation is good for you by any stretch, but when it is so incredibly hard to find any negative effects that you find the opposite in some cases... I am not going to feel all that stressed about the levels.

And since I did not fail anybody, I don't need to understand actions of those who let little children piss cesium and tell them "everything is actually really good!". That's not how human world works.
(Can anybody guess which propaganda technique was used there? )

I haven`t seen anyone telling people that it`s all okay let alone "good". What I do see is that they are unsure of the levels of exposure, but that they`re testing and trying to determine the levels of internal exposure.
You can`t just tell everyone to find somewhere else to live. There is no way to prevent the exposure at this point - the event has already occurred. What they can do is try to find out to what extent people were actually exposed, and take further precautions. Please clarify how they are "letting" the kids have this exposure, and how they can NOW prevent it. ("This should never have happened" is not a valid answer as it already HAS happened.)

I said before and will say again, going to Fukushima won't probably come to a bad end, but aggressive zero-tolerance towards increase in radiation exposure is not only proven to be possible, it is also the only ethical approach.

It is a serious toss-up dependent on the situation, really. When the exposure is minimal, is it more ethical to send people away from their homes, familiar surroundings, and the areas they have lived their entire lives? As you acknowledge above, people are not mere statistics. There are countless things that would make people safer - there are countless locations people live that are a risk in some way. When we get down to it, all the people of Japan would likely have a much lower statistical risk of suffering from a natural disaster (earthquake, typhoon, tsunami) if they all moved out of the country... But that certainly isn`t going to compel everyone to move.

The question now isn`t "should we let there be lots of radiation?" but rather "what is best for the people who live in areas that have experienced contamination?"

[JBaymore]

Nyororin,

SO well said!

best,

.................john