Rida?

[rida]

I was reading that the spinach and milk freaking out everyone reading yahoo for news are still less than the radioactive equivalent of a CT scan. Admittedly, there may be some fudging, but even so, CT scans are ordered without blinking every day. It's still got to be hard to keep cool with so much hype. I'm glad you're doing well and I'm assuming all your contacts have checked in, if not I hope it's just outages, of course.

Thank you!
I don't have any family or acquaintance directly in the affected zone. The closest would be family of one of Hubby's business partner. And the news there are, unfortunately, not good (the details are too sad to even mention).

As for the radiation "scare", the way it was reported here was the same as mentioned by DVS:

The way I heard it stated was if someone was to drink a glass of the milk every day for a year, it would still be lower than the dosage you'd get from a CT scan. The guy talking was from the U.S. and he said that upper exposure limits are always set pretty low, so even though these levels are measuring high on the scale, they aren't really that bad. He also said the radioactivity in the water is not a big deal, either.

I've also heard that they don't know if the pumps are going to work, once they try to turn them on. But what I heard a few days ago was that the U.S. provided pumps to replace the ones that might have been damaged by the tsunami. I guess that just goes along with some of the other mis-information you hear.

While he said there is still a chance that something could go wrong, it looks a lot better that the rods are now cooler than they were. But it depends on the reason the water levels were down in the first place. If it was because the hot fuel was causing the water to boil and evaporate off, that's good. That's also the likely reason. Because the pumps weren't working, the water levels were not being replenished. But if the vessels were cracked in the earthquake and there are leaks, there could still be a problem. As long as the temperature of the rods keeps getting cooler, that's a very good thing.

Yes, things could still turn bad (another quake +/- tsunami ...). But I don't believe even the worse case would be as tragic as the media painted it.

The risk of more quakes is indeed real. But that has always been true, living in Tokyo. I always had an emergency bag kind of on the ready. It will now be kept properly up-dated and easily available.

 

[Etoile]

That's the news media for you: "OMG RADIATION IN TOKYO!!!!!"

When really it's millions of times less than is dangerous to human health.

 

[catalina_francisco]

CT scans are ordered without blinking every day.

LOL, not quite everywhere. Here, getting a simple x-ray is not a given as they do not like the repeated exposure easily achieved when as you say, they are given without blinking. IME, you have to try everything else first (physio etc.,), or be an extremely serious case before they even entertain the idea of possibly x-raying someone.

Catalina

 

[catalina_francisco]

That's the news media for you: "OMG RADIATION IN TOKYO!!!!!"

When really it's millions of times less than is dangerous to human health.

Oh well, I guess part of the responsibility also lays with the consumer. News is a necessary part of our lives, otherwise the world would be ignorant, many would not even know people in Japan need help and donations etc...it is then up to the consumer to check more than one source, engage their brain, and these days, check out places like twitter where people actually involved are posting continuously. With that in mind though, you get many there also sensationalising things from time to time, so once again it comes down to using the brain and taking what is good, putting it int perspective, and using it in a pro-active way. Not sure I would want to be one of the media who is sent into areas of high danger (war zones, quakes etc.) as sometimes they too become a casualty while trying to keep the world informed. Like most things, you cannot apply a blanket statement to what they do and report.

Catalina