Fallout Risks in Europe No Longer ‘Negligible’
April 11th, 2011The concern is with pregnant women and infants.
For whatever it’s worth, here is Google’s French to English translation of the document, Contamination de la France par les rejets de la centrale de Fukushima Daiichi: QUELS SONT LES RISQUES?
Via: EurActiv:
The risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe are no longer “negligible,” according to CRIIRAD, a French research body on radioactivity. The NGO is advising pregnant women and infants against “risky behaviour,” such as consuming fresh milk or vegetables with large leaves.
In response to thousands of inquiries from citizens concerned about fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Europe, CRIIRAD has compiled an information package on the risks of radioactive iodine-131 contamination in Europe.
The document, published on 7 April, advises against consuming rainwater and says vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant or breastfeeding women should avoid consuming vegetables with large leaves, fresh milk and creamy cheese.
The risks related to prolonged contamination among vulnerable groups of the population can no longer be considered “negligible” and it is now necessary to avoid “risky behaviour,” CRIIRAD claimed.
However, the institute underlines that there is absolutely no need to lock oneself indoors or take iodine tablets.
CRIIRAD says its information note is not limited to the situation in France and is applicable to other European countries, as the level of air contamination is currently the same in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, for instance.
Data for the west coast of the United States, which received the Fukushima radioactive fallout 6-10 days before France, reveals that levels of radioactive iodine-131 concentration are 8-10 times higher there, the institute says.
I would think any contamination would be worse in the U.S. then Europe seeing as it has to go through there on its way to Europe.
If you read the excerpt above…
Data for the west coast of the United States, which received the Fukushima radioactive fallout 6-10 days before France, reveals that levels of radioactive iodine-131 concentration are 8-10 times higher there, the institute says.
Hmmm, it’s not a surprise, but it is a healthy reminder not to get complacent. Thanks for posting this Kevin, important for the kids if not the rest of us.
So it’s basically waiting out the 8 days or so for the Iodine-131 to decay and halve in potency… except while these nuke plants keep leaking, we’ll never be free of it.
Drinking water – yesterday’s rainwater is next week’s tapwater – just about long enough for the Iodine-131 to have decayed? I’ll have to start drinking out of date bottled beer to be safe.
Large leaf vegetables – so my polytunnel lettuce is ok so long as I fed it tapwater?
Dairy – fresh milk and fresh dairy produce are out. hmm.
So, I wonder how long this sorry state of affairs will go on for?
@williamspd
This stuff is maddening to try to understand, but if the experts at Berkeley are to be believed, the health risks re: food consumption so far seem pretty low.
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2525
Look at this part:
The number in parentheses is the number of kilograms of the item that one would need to consume to equal the radiation exposure of a single round trip flight from San Francisco to Washington D.C.
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On many of the samples where detectable radiation is observed, one would have to eat hundreds or thousands of kilos of the food to equal that round trip flight described in the paragraph above. And that’s West Coast, U.S. It’s much lower where you are, BUT, as this French organization notes, more caution is necessary when pregnant women and infants are concerned.
Also, there’s the ‘Eating Fallout’ post on Cryptogon:
https://cryptogon.com/?p=21430
A person who works in a professional capacity in the nuclear industry did calculations on some vegetables that had been exposed to fallout particles in Japan:
https://cryptogon.com/?p=21430
The article says that 500 Bq/kg is the legal limit and 890 Bq/kg was found on the spinach. The pathway we are talking about is ingestion, so multiplying 890 Bq/kg by 1.3E-8 Sv/Bq gives us 1.16E-5 Sv/kg, or 1 mrem/kg ingested. I don’t know how much spinach the Japanese eat, but 1 kg per day would lead to 365 mrem/y CEDE (Committed Effective Dose Equivalent). This is about the same dose we all get from natural radon each year. The public dose limit I’m used to is 100 mrem/y. It’s probably the same in Japan. I realize that a person eating 1 kg per day of spinach would be getting 4 times the legal limit, but the risks associated with this dose are still fairly small.
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Erring on the side of caution is probably worth the effort, but at what point do the effects of the stress and fear about all of this become more harmful than the fallout itself? I don’t know the answer to that, but maybe someone does.
I had a really good childhood, but I grew up having terrible nightmares about nuclear war and nuclear fallout. When I was ten, I knew what things like “primary blast radius” and “circular error probable” meant. More of the same after Chernobyl.
Anyway, This Fukushima fallout situation doesn’t directly threaten NZ in the same manner as countries in the northern hemisphere, but it brought back the memories of the nightmares I had as a child about nuclear war/fallout. I’m pretty sure that my health has been more negatively impacted from thinking about this than if I was to consume a truckload of leafy greens grown in California.
Heh, sounds like we had very similar childhood concerns. I just made some pupils’ jaws drop the other day by reciting some basic primary blast radius statistics, and explaining about how the overpressure blasts outwards first and then a secondary wave returns as an inward blast, so keep your head down etc.
Thanks for your data and the clarifications, very useful, very kind. I’m just squeamish about ingesting radiation – skin exposure is one thing, ingestion is a big hazard in my mind.
I won’t get stressed about it – I’m calm as as a Force 0 (until I slip into rant mode on blogs!) and you are right that how I react largely determines how harmful anything is to me. I live 12km and 16km from two different nuclear reactor sites here in the UK, and part of my mind lives in the future and how we would respond to any problems at those sites. It infuriates me that we never get told about incidents or accidents at the time, it only emerges much later on when it is too late. Those poor bastards around Fukushima are screwed, and all the while the government is playing Sim City with ‘disaster mode’ turned up to maximum.