8.9 quake in Japan triggers massive tsunamis

[Jiro]

Jiro the answer to your question is that the animals used for consumption was also affected by the radiation. The meat still contained dangerously high levels of radiation without the knowledge of the consumer thus many ate radiactive meat.

At Chernobyl - the main source of epidemic was milk. The cows were grazing on contaminated grass and... well you know rest.

The radiation was ingested into the body and into the blood stream where it spread to the thyroid, liver, and bones causing fuckups with the DNA. Specifically it fucked up the DNA replication process in which the cells keep replicating with no end in sight. I think on a molecular level it affected the mRNA, thus causing cancer of the liver and/or thyroid which is horrible to say the least.

You just lost me

 

[TWA]

If things absolutely bottom out and get really bad, I've got about 48,000 chickens to sell for 75 cents a pound.

Mmmmm, radioactive chicken. I hear it makes them more tender. Yummy!

 

[Jiro]

Wow. That's actually scary. I thought they got it by fallout.

and nobody cares about that fact. It's all same thing to them. Nuclear Fallout = bad. anything else = they don't care

 

[Beowulf]

Jiro the answer to your question is that the animals used for consumption was also affected by the radiation. The meat still contained dangerously high levels of radiation without the knowledge of the consumer thus many ate radiactive meat. The radiation was ingested into the body and into the blood stream where it spread to the thyroid, liver, and bones causing fuckups with the DNA. Specifically it fucked up the DNA replication process in which the cells keep replicating with no end in sight. I think on a molecular level it affected the mRNA, thus causing cancer of the liver and/or thyroid which is horrible to say the least.

I miss the good old days when I could turn down a meal of swordfish simply because it may contain mercury.

 

[Dixie]

At Chernobyl - the main source of epidemic was milk. The cows were grazing on contaminated grass and... well you know rest.


You just lost me

Plants have been known to absorb radiation from nuclear fallout. It's also entirely possible the cows were also affected from the fallout so I guess the cows got a double dose of it. One being from the atmosphere, the other being from their main food and possibly even water sources. I guess at the time they did not have a full understanding of how radiation could pass from plant to animal to human.

As for dizzy - I may not know a lot of things but dammit I know biology (ok well not as much as a biologist, but probably a bit more than the average joe as I grew up learning it as my father was a biology teacher.) I smoked college biology with an A. Transcript proves it.

 

[Jiro]

They did, but they forgot about the possibility of the animals also being contaminated and not fit for consumption.

I'm not sure if they forgot or they didn't know. Beside - the affected victims were mostly poor people. Nothing we can do about it.

 

[Miss-Delectable]

Chernobyl | Chernobyl Accident | Chernobyl Disaster

It stated approx how many people died.

 

[Jiro]

I'm curious: how many deaths do you think were caused by the Chernobyl explosion? I asked a couple smart guys here and they both said around a million. I dunno, man...

I have no idea but I'll guess.

From direct explosion? I'd say around 50?
and from nuclear fallout? probably over 300,000 people due to thyroid cancer, birth defects, etc.



a million death? heck no. that's ridiculous.

 

[Jiro]

Precautions Should Limit Health Problems From Nuclear Plant’s Radiation

Worsening conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan have raised fears that people will be harmed by radiation. But experts say that in terms of public health, the Japanese have already taken precautions that should prevent the accident from becoming another Chernobyl, even if additional radiation is released.

The Japanese government has evacuated people closest to the plant, told others to stay indoors and distributed the drug potassium iodide to protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine.

The great tragedy of Chernobyl was an epidemic of thyroid cancer among people exposed to the radiation as children — more than 6,000 cases so far, with more expected for many years to come. There is no reason for it to be repeated in Japan.

The epidemic in Chernobyl was preventable and would probably not have happened if people had been told to stop drinking locally produced milk, which was by far the most important source of radiation. Cows ate grass contaminated by fallout from the reactors and secreted radioactive iodine in their milk.

The thyroid gland needs iodine and readily takes in the radioactive form, which can cause cancer. Children are especially vulnerable. Potassium iodide pills are meant to flood the thyroid with ordinary iodine in the hope that it will prevent the gland from taking in the radioactive type. The drug may be unnecessary if people avoid drinking the milk, but for most people, there is no harm in taking it. And if radioactive iodine has already started building up in the thyroid, the pills can help get rid of it, said Dr. Richard J. Vetter, a professor emeritus of biophysics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“It will always help if you’re within a month or so of the exposure,” Dr. Vetter said. “The later it is, the less it helps.”

If the pills are in short supply and have to be rationed, he said, they should go first to children and pregnant women. But taking the drug does not make it safe to stay near a reactor that is emitting radiation, he said. People still must evacuate.

Apart from the increase in thyroid cancer, “there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident” at Chernobyl, in part because of the evacuation efforts, according to a recent United Nations report.

There are several ways to tell if someone has been exposed to radiation. A Geiger counter will detect radioactivity outside the body, on clothing, hair and skin. People found to be contaminated should be advised to undress and take a shower, and their clothing should be discarded as hazardous waste, Dr. Vetter said.

Another device, a sodium iodide detector, can be held an inch or so from the neck to check for radioactive iodine in the thyroid gland; if it detects any, the person may be given iodide pills.

In photographs from Japan, health workers appear to be screening members of the public with both Geiger counters and sodium iodide detectors.

If there is a suspicion that someone has been exposed to a large dose of radiation, the first test that doctors are likely to perform is a complete blood count, Dr. Vetter said. Abnormalities in the count — fewer white cells than would be expected, for example — can show up within a day or so, and give a ballpark estimate of how bad the exposure was.

“In Japan, it’s very unlikely that a member of the public would get a dose of radiation that would result in a decrease in any blood cells,” Dr. Vetter said. “If anyone got that kind of dose, it’s likely people who are working in the nuclear plants themselves.”

People with significantly lowered blood counts from radiation can be given drugs to stimulate their bone marrow to make more blood cells. Those drugs were not available in 1986, when a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, blew up. Other drugs can be used to help rid the body of certain radioactive isotopes. But if the exposure was so high that the drugs do not help, people may need to be treated in the hospital — put into isolation and given antibiotics to protect them from infection, and possibly blood transfusions as well. A bone marrow transplant may be a last resort, but, Dr. Vetter said, “the patient is in real trouble at that point.”

Crops can be contaminated by fallout, which can cling to surface of plants at first and later be taken up by their roots.

Radioactive iodine has a half-life of only eight days — the time it takes for half of it to decay or disappear — so most of it is gone within about two months. But radioactive forms of the particulate cesium persist much longer, and in the regions affected by Chernobyl, they are still the main threats to human health and will be for decades.

Wild mushrooms, berries and animals have been found to be contaminated with cesium in areas contaminated by Chernobyl, and that is expected to last for decades. Lakes and freshwater fish may also be contaminated, but experts say ocean fish are less of a worry because the contaminants are more dispersed and diluted in the ocean than in lakes.

 

[Dixie]

I'm not sure if they forgot or they didn't know. Beside - the affected victims were poor people. Nothing we can do about it.

From what I gather, the probably did not know. Why? Because the first responders to the site did not even know what they were dealing with until it was far far too late and some had even picked up pieces of graphite that held the rods in place and said it was hot. One person said someone from the Chernobyl plant mentioned graphite and he said "what is graphite?". They literally had no idea about what they were dealing with. Also given that there was no containment vessel? C'mon the Soviets definitely downplayed the dangers of this nuclear power plant. No one even knew there was a nuclear disaster until radiation alarms went off in Sweden some 600+ miles away.

I don't if it was because of their economic status but it definitely has a lot to do with the fact that they were not educated or properly informed of the dangers.

 

[Jiro]

From what I gather, the probably did not know. Why? Because the first responders to the site did not even know what they were dealing with until it was far far too late and some had even picked up pieces of graphite that held the rods in place and said it was hot. One person said someone from the Chernobyl plant mentioned graphite and he said "what is graphite?". They literally had no idea about what they were dealing with. Also given that there was no containment vessel? C'mon the Soviets definitely downplayed the dangers of this nuclear power plant. No one even knew there was a nuclear disaster until radiation alarms went off in Sweden some 600+ miles away.

I don't if it was because of their economic status but it definitely has a lot to do with the fact that they were not educated or properly informed of the dangers.

at that time, nuclear concept was new.

 

[Dixie]

at that time, nuclear concept was new.

In 1986? They had been testing nuclear bombs since 1940s. I think the Soviet government had a damn good idea of what they were dealing with, they just downplayed it to get it's citizens to accept this as the greatest thing ever when the reality is Chernobyl was ill equipped compared to similar-type reactors elsewhere in the world. The Soviets weren't known for their safety records or it's 'high regard' of it's citizens.

The Chernobyl Failure would have never happened in America. The EPA would have never allowed such an ill-designed plant to ever be built on American soil.

 

[Jiro]

In 1986? They had been testing nuclear bombs since 1940s. I think the Soviet government had a damn good idea of what they were dealing with, they just downplayed it to get it's citizens to accept this as the greatest thing ever when the reality is Chernobyl was ill equipped compared to similar-type reactors elsewhere in the world. The Soviets weren't known for their safety records or it's 'high regard' of it's citizens.

The Chernobyl Failure would have never happened in America. The EPA would have never allowed such an ill-designed plant to ever be built on American soil.

Nuclear Weapon and Nuclear Power are not the same.

 

[Dixie]

Nuclear Weapon and Nuclear Power are not the same.

No they are not - but the thing is they know that this is dangerous stuff. This isn't some little model volcano science experiment, this is the hardcore stuff, yet they wanted it done as cheaply as possible. If you look at the design of Chernobyl, they cut several corners. No containment vessel? A backup system that did not pass prior tests? A site manager that did not confer with higher ups about the procedure they wished to complete nor with the government? There's a lot of human error with Chernobyl.

Chernobyl = EPIC FAIL OF ALL EPIC FAILS.

 

[Jiro]

No they are not - but the thing is they know that this is dangerous stuff. This isn't some little model volcano science experiment, this is the hardcore stuff, yet they wanted it done as cheaply as possible. If you look at the design of Chernobyl, they cut several corners. No containment vessel? A backup system that did not pass prior tests? A site manager that did not confer with higher ups about the procedure they wished to complete nor with the government? There's a lot of human error with Chernobyl.

Chernobyl = EPIC FAIL OF ALL EPIC FAILS.

I guess we have to be there at that time to understand why Soviet Union did such thing. Could be part of Cold War race.

 

[TheOracle]

Plants have been known to absorb radiation from nuclear fallout. It's also entirely possible the cows were also affected from the fallout so I guess the cows got a double dose of it. One being from the atmosphere, the other being from their main food and possibly even water sources. I guess at the time they did not have a full understanding of how radiation could pass from plant to animal to human.

As for dizzy - I may not know a lot of things but dammit I know biology (ok well not as much as a biologist, but probably a bit more than the average joe as I grew up learning it as my father was a biology teacher.) I smoked college biology with an A. Transcript proves it.

I got an A, too, but I think I cheated a litte.

q: So I know about the cows, milk, children getting sick, etc. but what do you mean DNA replicating itself without an end in sight? I'm confused.

 

[TheOracle]

Oh yeah...about Japanese not looting...

Part of it is culture...but part of it is the law. They're a lot more strict. And they have more police officers. I mean, think of it this way. Since Japan doesn't have a standing defense force (not really - they have peacekeeping forces, but not the kind other developed countries do) and can only spend 3 per cent of their budget on the military, they have more police in helicopters than we do. And more on the street. And if there's not a police officer nearby, the mafia will handle it.

Also, civilians don't carry guns.

Clearly, the law reflects the culture, so you can't really say it has nothing to do with the Japanese themselves. But if you look at how the elderly are respected, the respect of Japanese life, etc, the reports we're getting about some of the shelters...it's still pretty stunning.

 

[Dixie]

I got an A, too, but I think I cheated a litte.

q: So I know about the cows, milk, children getting sick, etc. but what do you mean DNA replicating itself without an end in sight? I'm confused.

mRNA which is the 'messenger' so to speak that tells when the DNA replication should end on a strand, when this is destroyed, the 'stop codon' is missing thus DNA continues replication. The mRNA carries additional 'instructions' for replication as where proteins should be placed on the strand and when. mRNA is transcribed from a DNA blueprint. If there's an error in the blueprint or in the mRNA, things don't look good.

 

[TWA]

I got an A, too, but I think I cheated a litte.

q: So I know about the cows, milk, children getting sick, etc. but what do you mean DNA replicating itself without an end in sight? I'm confused.

Aren't you a teacher?

 

[Babyblue]

Radiation Fears Spark Fake Potassium Iodide Pills, Says FDA - Health Blog - CBS News

Seen other articles where health food stores are selling out in America.