Radiation and Health

Introduction

Nuclear power is an unusable energy source for a number of reasons. The health danger posed by radiation is foremost. Researchers and physicians knew or suspected very early on that radiation damages living things and contaminates the environment, sometimes permanently. Many of the early radiation researchers, including Marie Curie and her daughter Irene, died from radiation-induced diseases. In the early 20^th century, radium dial painters, often young women from poorer backgrounds, suffered horribly and died from exposure to the radium paint they used on watch face dials and other instruments. In the 1950’s Alice Stewart, a medical doctor from England, showed that x-ray exposure to the fetus would result in an increase of childhood leukemia.

 Since these warnings, communities across the world have and continue to suffer greatly for the use of nuclear power. Every nuclear reactor and fuel chain facility releases damaging radionuclides to the environment as a matter of course—no accident needed; and each additional release can increase the risk of cancer and other diseases not only in the generation exposed, but in future generations.

Breaking News

Radioactive Metals in Widespread General Use Around World

After the discovery that France had installed more than 500 sets of radioactive elevator buttons contaminated with metals imported from India, Bloomberg News took an in-depth look at the widespread dispersal of radioactive metals - considered "low-level" nuclear waste - in public use across the world. Read the story here.