
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Long Term Health Effects (2012) - amelius
https://k1project.columbia.edu/news/hiroshima-and-nagasaki
======
equalunique
My grandpa was there for this. He was a Dutch Soldier captured by the Japanese
held as a prisoner of war. They had him doing hard labor underground in a coal
mine in Hiroshima. When the bomb dropped, everyone in the mine evacuated,
believing there was an earthquake happening. Even though he fought gruesome
battles, even though he faced tortures / brutalities under the Japanese, it
was the melting faces at Hiroshima that consistently haunted him during in his
dreams.

Later they moved the POW labor to Nagasaki. They were kept on the outskirts of
the city so were safe but still witnessed the second blast. When it happened,
the house they were in collaped on him.

He had fought the Boer War for the Dutch. Even captured the regiment that
Churchil was with, but luckily released them.

Later in WW2, he fought to protect the Dutch colony in Indonesia from the
Japanese - but lost, e.g. the nuclear experiences in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As far as health effects go, he seem to have suffered effects of radiation and
also black lung from all of the coal mining. He died in the late 80s and the
story in my family goes like this:

Some government scientists showed up at the house to ask his wife if they
could autopsy him for research. Later, when the results were given to my
family, we found out that all of his bones were slightly blue-tinted and
curved. It is not suspected that this strange effect on his skeleton was
caused by the radiation exposure, and that the mysterious pain he constantly
experienced was a result of this odd deformation.

~~~
userbinator
_He died in the late 80s_

A lot of people don't live that long even _without_ exposure to radiation or
coal dust.

~~~
sokoloff
If he was 20 in the war, he could have been 65 in the late 80s. (Yes, it's
true that not everyone lives that long, but it's on the short side.)

"late 80s" there would be more likely to refer to "in the years 1987-1989 or
so" than to "at an age of 87-89".

~~~
kmm
I think "his late 80's" seems more likely. The GP post mentions his
grandfather fighting in the Boer War (~1900) which would make him almost 110
years old in the late 80's

~~~
sokoloff
Perhaps. It would seem equally unusual for a 65+ year old soldier to be in a
position to be captured as a PoW in Japan.

~~~
dutchieinfrance
The Japanese had all the Dutch imprisoned in Indonesia, not just soldiers. A
number of male prisoners had been shipped off to Japan to work in labor camps.

~~~
sokoloff
Yes, but ancestor post says "He was a Dutch Soldier captured by the Japanese
held as a prisoner of war."

~~~
mikeash
If he was still in the military at that point, then wouldn’t that be an
accurate description?

~~~
sokoloff
Of course. At that point though, it would be unusual enough [for a soldier to
serve actively in 1902 and in 1945] that when interpreting conflicting points
in a story, that you have to consider if perhaps the author hasn't gotten
something mixed up in the memory or in the telling.

If I told a story about my own grandfather's service in World War II in the
Seabees (by happenstance he was also a coal miner as a civilian), I'd be
likely to get something wrong, not out of intention to mislead, but just that
I pieced together the story in my own memories in a certain way when I was
told the stories as a young boy. I may mix in details from my other
grandfather's service or a great-grandfather's time.

Then, weigh that against a non-native speaker's chance to use a common English
idiom "in the late 80s" in a non-standard way and against the chance that
someone would express some negative interpretation of someone passing in
_their_ late 80s as being perhaps related to radiation exposure and black
lung.

It's all speculation for all of us except one. ;)

------
jostmey
Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But hydrogen bombs,
developed years later, are far worse. Check out the size of the radioactive
fallout cloud in the graphic halfway through this article (
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/known-unknowns-
th...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/known-unknowns-the-dangers-
of-north-korea-rsquo-s-h-bomb-threat/) ). People would be dying from acute
exposure as far as 100 miles away from the radioactive fallout

~~~
binarray2000
Unfortunately, military use of radioactive elements doesn't stop at bombs.
Today's use of depleted uranium - because of its elusiveness - is in some
sense worse than the use of atomic/hydrogen bombs. (BTW, only USA uses DU!)

People of Iraq, Libya, Serbia (including Kosovo and Metohija), Bosnia,
Afghanistan, Syria (and neighboring countries) but also soldiers that were/are
part of the occupational force there are sick and dying of cancer and
leukemia.

~~~
3pt14159
What? Depleted Uranium is less radioactive than unprocessed Uranium. It's used
because it's really, really dense. I'd be comfortable using flatware made out
of the stuff.

~~~
dagw
_I 'd be comfortable using flatware made out of the stuff._

The main health concerns aren't due to the fact that DU is highly radioactive
in itself, but that tiny DU 'dust' particles break of from the munitions on
impact and inhaling these particles can be very dangerous.

There is also some evidence that long term exposure to DU can lead birth
defects and potentially other health problems, but the causality is very
difficult to tease out.

So while I agree that DU isn't used because it is radioactive, that doesn't
change the fact that it does potentially cause serious health issues.

~~~
3pt14159
I mean, sure, in the long term. But there is a long, long list of stuff that
the military uses that I'm more worried about than DU. It's essentially like
Tungsten, Lead, or Mercury.

~~~
dagw
The problem more or less unique to DU munitions is that it gives off tiny
aerosol particles when it hits its target which can contaminate a large area
and are very easy to breathe in for a long time afterwards. And breathing in
these particles are linked to an increasing number of health issues.

------
will_walker
This article seems like an attempt to minimize the effects of radiation from
atomic bombings. Given the release of the latest NPS (nuclear posture review)
advocating for use of strategic low yield nuclear weapons and the 'escalate to
deescalate' strategy being advanced by the current leadership of the U.S. [1],
this seems timed to create political allies on the right. This is interesting
because other literature from the K=1 institute seems to be anti-nuclear in
tone. [2]

I question the way in which the author glosses over the pain and suffering of
the cancer victims of these bombings. People were dying in agonizing pain for
years and decades after the war had ended [3]. By comparison, outlawed
chemical weapons seem relatively humane.

As a society, I believe we need to be vigilant towards attempts to normalize
use of these weapons. They may have a role in deterrence, but the relatively
low-level wars the USA has taken on over the past 40 years must not make us
callous towards choices that will quickly escalate to hundreds of thousands to
millions of deaths. With the survivors of the last world war rapidly
dwindling, I fear we are quickly losing our global memory of the horror of
large-scale conflict and through media, preparing our society to accept a
nuclear exchange for which we hav a very limited and untested defense. [4,5]
In fact, creating this defense system has spurred our global rivals to develop
more horrific weapons [6].

[1]
[https://www.defense.gov/News/SpecialReports/2018NuclearPostu...](https://www.defense.gov/News/SpecialReports/2018NuclearPostureReview.aspx)
[https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1204755/escalating-t...](https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1204755/escalating-
to-de-escalate/)

[2] [https://k1project.columbia.edu/a11](https://k1project.columbia.edu/a11)

[3] [https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-dying-from-
leuke...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-dying-from-leukemia)

[4] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/us/politics/military-
exer...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/us/politics/military-exercises-
north-korea-pentagon.html)

[5] [https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-limits-of-u-s-
missile...](https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-limits-of-u-s-missile-
defense/)

[6] [https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1204814/putins-
nuke-...](https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1204814/putins-nuke-a-
palooza/)

~~~
nscalf
The author points out that the damage was extensive, giving numbers of deaths,
rates of cancer among survivors, etc. but the goal of the article wasn't to
talk about how much people suffer from nuclear weapons. The point of the
article was to discuss the long term effects of a nuclear weapon, so the
author focused on the growth of plant life in the area, and the health effects
on children born from survivors.

We can discuss nuclear results without having to point out with every breath
that we shouldn't blow up cities with nuclear weapons. The individual pain
experienced by someone who was in the nuclear bomb has little to do with the
possible propagation of side effects through generations.

------
SagelyGuru
I think the upbeat conclusion trying to downplay the dangers of Fukushima is
misleading. The long term escape of large amounts of radioactive materials at
Fukushima is a very different situation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In fact, it is a logical fallacy to argue that Hiroshima and Nagasaki
recovered well because of next to no radioactive materials being left there
and therefore that Fukushima is no problem.

Though it is easy to see where the funding and motivation for these kinds of
"arguments" is coming from.

