11-26-2018, 08:41 PM
Emerging Environmental Justice Issues in Nuclear Power and Radioactive Contamination
“…Evidence suggests that individuals living near the nuclear power plants face difficult-to-avoid health risks associated with exposure to low level routine radioactive effluents emitted from plants. Given that no level of radiation exposure is considered safe, any excess exposure could have deleterious impacts on human health [6]. The effects of radiation at the cellular level could lead to irreversible damage and potential premature death. Tritium, to highlight a common isotope, is a carcinogen, mutagen, and teratogen and can easily be incorporated into human tissues causing cancers, chromosomal aberrations, birth defects and miscarriages, and mental retardation after in utero exposure [6]. We observed that among the estimated 87.5 million people living within a 50-mile radius of a NPP (Table 1), 5.6 million (6.4%) are children under the age of five years. Children have been found to be particularly vulnerable to radiation exposure as European studies on leukemia have found. A study in Germany reported that the children under five years of age living within a 5 km (3.1 miles) are 2.19 times more likely to develop leukemia [53] than those outside this zone. And while such findings are still debated (e.g., [54]) many are strongly convinced by the evidence (e.g., [55])….”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962241/
“…Evidence suggests that individuals living near the nuclear power plants face difficult-to-avoid health risks associated with exposure to low level routine radioactive effluents emitted from plants. Given that no level of radiation exposure is considered safe, any excess exposure could have deleterious impacts on human health [6]. The effects of radiation at the cellular level could lead to irreversible damage and potential premature death. Tritium, to highlight a common isotope, is a carcinogen, mutagen, and teratogen and can easily be incorporated into human tissues causing cancers, chromosomal aberrations, birth defects and miscarriages, and mental retardation after in utero exposure [6]. We observed that among the estimated 87.5 million people living within a 50-mile radius of a NPP (Table 1), 5.6 million (6.4%) are children under the age of five years. Children have been found to be particularly vulnerable to radiation exposure as European studies on leukemia have found. A study in Germany reported that the children under five years of age living within a 5 km (3.1 miles) are 2.19 times more likely to develop leukemia [53] than those outside this zone. And while such findings are still debated (e.g., [54]) many are strongly convinced by the evidence (e.g., [55])….”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962241/
