Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Global Health Impacts of the Fukushima Disaster
The health impacts caused by the nuclear power plant meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi, originally expected to have little to no environmental impact, has now been expected to cause between 15 and 1,300 deaths and 24-2,500 cases of cancer. Although this was the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, scientists originally predicted that because most the radioactive material had gone into the sea it would not cause any deaths or cancer. New data suggests that most like about 130 people in Japan will die and 180 will get cancer because of the meltdown. Although these numbers are higher than we would like to see, the fact that they are not higher after such a momentous meltdown shows we are progressing in how we deal with nuclear fallout. Compared to the 4,000 or so people who developed cancer in the Chernobyl area after the nuclear disaster, the totals in Japan are much improved.
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Even though the Fukushima disaster affected less people than the Chernobyl area disaster, I do not think enough has been done to protect citizens. After such obvious proof of the negative impacts that a simple nuclear power spill can have, the fact that we still are running nuclear plants, to me is unbelievable. People are not indispensable, and we can not keep having "accidents", killing hundreds of people and giving other hundreds of people one of the most life threatening diseases. I hope that we do not have to wait for another spill, for the public to wake up and realize nuclear power and nuclear experimentations is not worth it. In my opinion the potential risks are greater than the benefits.
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