The Toxicological Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident
Radiation has both beneficial and harmful effects. The most detrimental health effect on humans, is the incidence of cancer, which has been studied. Humans are exposed to radiation more than they realize. They are exposed medically with x-rays, just by being outside with cosmic rays, and by accidents such as at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Exposure to radiation is high and more studies are done which improve radiation protection.
The Chernobyl disaster is one such example in which the studies done had implications in the future of radiation protection. It was an unprecedented event. Large amounts of radiation were released into the area and affected the population living there. With the known damaging effects of radiation, this event was not to be ignored. The factors playing a role in the spread of the radiation as well as the future implications of radiation exposure/protection are explored in this paper. The results of the accident were due to the elements of the area, population and nature of the radiation. These results showed the need to improve radiation data collection as well as safety measures. Radiation is harmful because of its interactions with the environment and the body and in turn, the Chernobyl disaster was harmful because it released large amounts of radiation into the environment, exposing the population.
Radiation is broken up into four types: alpha particles, beta particles and positrons, gamma rays and x-rays. Electron volt is the conventional energy unit for ionizing radiation (1 eV = 1.6 x 10-19 J). Alpha particles and beta rays have energy equal
to their kinetic energy (E=1/2mv2, m = mass, v = velocity) while gamma rays and x-ray...
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The engineers in Visit Sunny Chernobyl created a new frontier past the safety zone because they want to test the limits of the reactor. What the scientists didn’t account for is that fact that the reactors already had the potential of a dangerous chain reaction. (Blackwell 6) Consequently, their boundary destroying led to catastrophic consequences and the total annihilation of a land area because of massive radiation. Blackwell thought Chernobyl was so horrific he expressed that no one should visit without a “working understanding of radiation and how it’s measured” (Blackwell 7). These are some horrific consequences that followed from surpassing the
IPPNW. Only 50 Deaths Caused by Chernobyl? 20 Years after Chernobyl - The Ongoing Health Effects. 6 Apr. 2006. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. .
...r. Iodine 131, another radioactive element, can dilute very quickly in the air, but if it is deposited on grass eaten by cows, the cows then re-concentrate it in their milk. Absorbed into the body's thyroid gland in a concentrated dose, Iodine 131 can cause cancer. In the Chernobyl disaster, the biggest health effect has been cases of thyroid cancer especially in children living near the nuclear plant. Therefore, because of the Chernobyl disaster we know to test the grass, soil, and milk for radiation. Also, an evacuation of the Chernobyl area was not ordered until over 24 hours after the incident. Japanese authorities evacuated 200,000 people from the area of Fukushima within hours of the initial alert. From the mistakes and magnitude of the disaster at Chernobyl, the world learned how to better deal with the long and short term effect of a Nuclear Fallout.
Initially the Soviet Government kept the accident at Chernobyl a secret. Because radiation lacks smell or taste, and is invisible, people carried on with their daily lives, all the while inhaling radioactive particles. It took ten days for the Soviet government to evacuate the contaminated areas. Particles fell into the crops and plants of the people. Cows ate grass that had been contaminated by the nuclear particles causing the dairy produ...
The Holocaust started in 1939. In that time period the Germans and the Allied Forces were in war. When they were in war the Germans took all Jews (except the ones in hiding) to multiple concentration camps and death camps. When they were sent to concentration camps they were ordered to take off all their jewelry, gold teeth and clothes. They were provided with stripped pajamas with numbers on them so they can be recognized by their number and not by their names. They were also tattooed on their left forearm with the same number that was on their stripped pajamas. Everybody’s head had to get shaved BALD. After everybody got to get concentration camps they were forced to go into the hard labor imme...
The Chernobyl Nuclear has also affected the environment. Such as the food products in the Forest like mushrooms, berries containing high levels of long-lived radioactive caesium and this pollution is expected to remain high for several decades or so. For example, the accident led to high pollution of caribou meat in Scandinavia. Water bodies and fishes became polluted as well with radioactive materials. The accident has actually affected many animals and plants living within 30-40 km of the . There was an increase in mortality as in increasing of deaths in an area and a decrease in reproduction and some genetic anomalies in plants and animals are still reported
"Estimated Exposures and Thyroid Doses Received by the American People from Iodine-131 in Fallout Following Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests National Cancer Institute (NCI). 2002. June 2004.
According to The return of The Kings, “known as The Lord of the Rings, was so immediately successful that a new, larger printing was required, and soon another, still larger printing became necessary. The Hobbit, under wartime pressure of paper shortages, went out of print in 1942, and its subsequent popularity largely derives from the success of The Lord of the Rings” (Kroeber). According to The return of The Kings, The Lord of The rings was successful because people read it and liked it. JOHN RONALD REUEL TOLKIEN (always called Ronald by his family) was born on 3 January 1892, at Bloemfontein, South Africa, where his father Arthur had taken a position with the Bank of Africa (Firchow). The Tolkien family had been prosperous piano manufacturers, but the business had failed. Mabel Suffield, Arthur’s wife, was the daughter of a once successful drapery manufacturer in Birmingham, England, who had gone bankrupt and survived by selling disinfectant to shopkeepers around the city. According to the Background, Sauron always sought pleasure in whoever has interest in the ring and whoever had possession of the ring was called the ring Barer. Sauron is a giant eyeball sitting on top of a tower. From there, he watches every move anyone takes but he is mainly looking for the ring bearer. Once Sauron finally obtained possession of the ring, he then transformed into his omnipotent transformation meaning he makes all that is afraid of fear, fear him. He was then so powerful to the point that no man can defeat him only women. The first of Tolkien’s four children was born in November 1917. After the Armistice Tolkien joined the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary, and in 1920 he was appointed Reader in English Language at Leeds University, whe...
Much controversy surrounds the humanity or inhumanity of using defenseless animals in experiments. Animals endure excruciating pain and suffer harsh conditions when used to test products. Many argue that animals are unable to consent to the tests. They are forced to undergo the pain put upon them and often die or are euthanized when no longer needed. Human beings feel as if they are superior to and more valuable than animals, yet, humans are more similar to chimpanzees than chimp...
Lisa as a young teen begins to manage her special gift to connect with spirits by progressing from the motivation her grandmother gave her to grasp a stronger understanding of what she spiritually obtains. Lisa’s grandmother encourages her to learn about the spirit world and the consequences that follow, to make sure her mistakes don’t mislead her, “Never trust the spirit world too much. They think much differently from the living.”(Robinson, 153). Ma ma oo (Lisa’s grandmother) ensures that Lisa is provided with the knowledge of the supernatural world at her current age so she will be prepared for the future and along with that she wants her to being to learn about herself through these teachings and develop from them. Considering that the bond between Lisamarie and her grandmother is already well established it makes the understanding and communication of the spirit world more interesting for her. Overtime Lisa becomes curious about her gift of connecting with spirits, “What do spirits look like?”...
Using animals for medical experimentation, product testing, and education is a controversial subject that often leads to a large argument. While the problems can go into detail, the suffering involved in animal experimentation is painfully clear. Every year there are tens of millions of animals that die in federally and privately funded experiments. A projected 90 percent of all animals used in research are rats and mice, and many other species including guinea pigs, dogs, cats, rabbits, nonhuman primates, and farm animals are killed every year to animal testing. (UGA) The experimentation of animals and testing has not stopped because it is not the most accurate or reliable means of research, but because of the tradition, peer pressure, and large amounts of funding from those with strong invested interests into the business. (UGA)
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
The worst accident in the history of this nuclear power generation occurred on the morning of April 26, 1986. It was at the Chernobyl (Ukraine) nuclear power station in the Soviet Union. At 1:32AM Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Telyatnikov received a telephone call and was told that there was a fire at the nuclear power plant. There were many reasons their plant had backfired. These reasons included human error and poor plant design due to the cold war. Chernobyl was located in the former Soviet Union in what is now Ukraine. The area in and around Chernobyl is now a nuclear wasteland. People are not supposed to live in these areas, yet they still do, even with the danger of mutations and radiation sickness. For the people and countries affected by the radiation, this was a horrible, terrifying and angering experience. Villages were evacuated late and not many things were done in time to save lives and prevent more damages.
Information on the effects of comes from studies of exposed, from animal experiments, and from studies at the cellular level. It is now well recognized that radiation has both timely and postponed effects. At very high radiation exposures, death will occur within several months or less. At moderate levels, radiation exposure increases the chance that a being will develop cancer, with a time delay of ten or more years. At low levels, the cancer risk decreases, but the bond between cancer risk and the scale of the exposure is hesitant.
Animal testing has been done since at least 500 BC; even Aristotle experimented on animals for scientific reasoning. Around 200 AD, dissecting animals in public was actually used as a form of entertainment, people would actually go and watch someone perform a vivisection on an animal. Vivisection is when an organism is dissected while it is still alive (“Animal Testing”). The public did not start objecting animal testing until the 19th century, which was around the time when more people started to adopt domestic pets. In 1875, the first group to protect animals from testing was formed, called the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection (“Animal Testing”).