ITS WHAT I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU HERE FOR MONTHS
YOU SMOKE, YOU USE GASOLINE, YOU DRINK ALCOHOL,
YOU OVEREAT AND GROW OBESE, AND YOU DO IT ALL WITH
NO FEAR AT ALL.
Then why grow tense about mythical nuclear fallout?
For one thing, the drinking , smoking, gasoline and fatness are REAL!!
The nuclear fallout, which has never happened to you, and will never happen to you , is 100% IMAGINARY.
Even if it could happen some day, that day is not today, so have another Marlboro, chugalug another Merlot, swill down some prime rib and cheesecake, and go fill up your car at the gas pump, before attending the anti-nuke rally, fatso!
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/49/abstract
Are passive smoking, air pollution and obesity a greater mortality risk than major radiation incidents?
By Jim T Smith
Centre for Ecology
Winfrith Technology Centre,
Dorchester, Dorset DT2 8ZD, UK
Background
Following a nuclear incident, the communication and perception of radiation risk becomes a (perhaps the) major public health issue. In response to such incidents it is therefore crucial to communicate radiation health risks in the context of other more common environmental and lifestyle risk factors. This study compares the risk of mortality from past radiation exposures (to people who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs and those exposed after the Chernobyl accident) with risks arising from air pollution, obesity and passive and active smoking.
Methods
A comparative assessment of mortality risks from ionising radiation was carried out by compiling radiation risks for realistic exposure scenarios and assessing those risks in comparison with risks from air pollution, obesity and passive and active smoking.
Results
The mortality risk to populations exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl accident is no higher than that for other more common risk factors such as air pollution or passive smoking. Radiation exposures experienced by the most exposed group of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to an average loss of life expectancy
significantly lower than that caused by severe obesity or active smoking.
Conclusion
Population-averaged risks from exposures following major radiation incidents are clearly significant, but are far less than those from other much more common environmental and lifestyle factors. This comparative analysis, whilst highlighting inevitable uncertainties in risk quantification and comparison, helps place the potential consequences of radiation exposures in the context of other public health risks. The public is generally unaware that existing risk factors which they routinely ignore, are far greater than any radiation-related risks, should they
ever occur.
