Dr. Donald Milton, director of the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and a professor at the SPH, and Dr. Amir Sapkota, a MIAEH and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics professor, have spoken with multiple news outlets about the possible public health risks associated with radiation at the nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan, in the aftermath of the country's earthquake and tsunami.
In a University of Maryland news release Milton and Sapkota addressed possible radiation ingestion risks, "sheltering in place" risks and radiation sickness.
As far as ingestion risks, Milton said, "Even in most of the Ukraine and in larger areas of Europe after Chernobyl, the major routes of exposure were not directly from the air, but rather through food, especially milk, produced from contaminated areas, and from fallout deposited on the ground."
"It remains highly unlikely that we will see problems with significant crop, dairy, or ground contamination in the United States as a result of the events in Japan," added Sapkota.
Milton and Sapkota said radiation is usually carried on particles coming from the fires and steam releases at the plant, and "sheltering in place" could lower exposure to those particles.
"Because much ground contamination comes from fallout in rain, the act of simply staying indoors would still provide significant protection from ground contamination, even if it only cut airborne exposure by half," they said.
"We all owe a debt of gratitude to the courageous workers who are struggling to control the plants," Milton said.
Read the full release here.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Milton said the workers at the plant are at tremendous risk. He added that the sooner the symptoms come on after radiation exposure, the worse the case is.
Read the full AP story, "Elite Japan nuclear workers race to stop meltdown," here.
This morning Milton discussed the evacuation of Americans in Japan and other public health issues related to radiation exposure with a Fox 5 reporter in Washington, DC.
Watch the video below to see more about his analysis of possible public health risks at this point.
Contamination from the food chain seems to be of a higher risk than through the air. It is with risk that these workers continue to help secure the plant to make it stable.
ReplyDeleteI do hope that the reprocusions of the explosion do not effect the area like those near the Chenobyl plant for years to come.
The harmful leak of radiation from the plant has been made to seem minimal and the people in the surrounding area told that eating the contaminated food for a year would only be equal to the radiation from a CT Scan, I do hope this information is true and these peoples lives are not being put in danger.
ReplyDeleteIt's very difficult to tell at this early stage, the true damage that has and will follow.
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