Lingering health effects of ‘low level’ radiation
For the study, the researchers looked at about 86,000 people who survived the bombing of Nagasaki……..the recent study gave credence to the fact that radiation even at moderately low doses was hazardous.
A-bomb survivors still getting sick | hc2d.co.uk | Healthcare News16th Luisetta Mudie December 2010 People who survived the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II still get radiation-related illnesses, according to a recent Japanese study.
The researchers spent about 20 years analyzing data related to myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), in which bone marrow damage prevents blood cell development.For the study, the researchers looked at about 86,000 people who survived the bombing of Nagasaki.
Not all of the study subjects had lived very close to the blast site at the time, and some of them had normal rates of MDS.
Statistically, the rates of MDS literally radiated outward from the blast site, with people’s risk of getting radiation-related MDS rising by up to 88% per kilometre of proximity to the explosion.
In total, 198 of the people who had survived the Nagasaki blast developed MDS between 1985 and 2004.
David J. Brenner, head of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, who was not involved in the research, said that the recent study gave credence to the fact that radiation even at moderately low doses was hazardous.
He said the study also showed that the diseases people got from radiation were not limited to cancer.
No comments yet.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
Leave a comment