

Tokyo radiation levels 23 times normal: officials  - AndyIngram
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tokyo-radiation-levels-23-times-normal-officials-2011-03-15-04540

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po
These numbers are still very very small.

I'm sitting in Tokyo right now working away on my codebase. No need to get
worked up over nothing and so far it is nothing. A lot of my friends (mostly
foreigners in Tokyo) are getting on trains out to Kyoto or Osaka. I think
that's fine; maybe it's better to be safe than sorry. Maybe it's the cynical
New Yorker in me but I feel like I've seen too many of these scares before.
Sometimes you just have to turn off the TV/Twitter/whatever and get back to
work.

Who knows, maybe in a few hours or days I'll be heading out too. I think it's
unlikely. Right now, I don't think there's a need .

~~~
marze
Isn't Tokyo 150 km from the leaking reactors? The radiation levels for those
living closer must be more concerning, if it is 23x background that far away.

~~~
varjag
The wind is also not blowing on Tokyo. Could be much worse otherwise.

~~~
brazzy
Unfortunately, the wind is going to turn towards Tokyo later today.

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xiaoma
Actually at that level chronic radiation a positive. Long term research on a
large group of people in Taiwan living in somewhat radioactive buildings
showed significantly lower cancer rates than the populace a whole.

[http://toshuo.com/2009/chronic-low-level-radiation-good-
for-...](http://toshuo.com/2009/chronic-low-level-radiation-good-for-us-
tawain-housing-accident-suggests-so/)

~~~
russss
Although this research is interesting, it isn't widely accepted yet. All major
authorities still contend that there's not enough evidence to prove that low
doses of radiation aren't harmful:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-
threshold_model#Contr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-
threshold_model#Controversy)

~~~
xiaoma
To the best of my knowledge no major authority believes the LNT, the threshold
model or the radiation hormesis model to be proven.

That said the French Academy of Sciences & National Academy of Medicine did
cite the exact same study of Taiwanese people as well as a large number of
laboratory studies in its 2005 report that criticized the LNT model.

In any case I wouldn't be worried in the least if I were in Tokyo right now.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis>

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AndyIngram
Even if it is 23 times normal it appears to be lower then living next to
Ontario's nuclear plants with 1.1 microsieverts at Darlington, 2.8
microsieverts at Pickering. <http://www.opg.com/safety/nsafe/nuclear/> not an
expert and the spelling of the unit seems wrong in the story.

~~~
uvdiv
The article screwed up the units: it is likely "0.809 microSieverts _per hour_
". Your link's figures are over one year.

~~~
nickolai
That's still way below the "no health issues" threshold of 0.01 Sv/hr (so
we're 10 000 times below the threshold)

(source : <http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/docs/energy-good-bad.pdf>)

~~~
brazzy
The closest to a "no health issues" figure in your article is 0.02 MILLI-
Sieverts per hour as the US regulation for maximum allowable exposure to the
public in the vicinity of a power plant. So it's actually only about 250 times
below that limit. i.e. nothing to worry about right now, but that can change
quickly.

~~~
nickolai
quote from table in the article

>Table 2: Symptoms associated with acute radiation exposure

>(dose for one day)

> Dose : 0-0.25Sv. Symptom : none . Outcome : - .

I was not referrign to any regulation, which is understandably way below the
danger zone, but about the actual risks. hence the 10000 number.

These figures refer to "acute exposure", and may be different from prolonged
exposure. Not sure about that, or about how prolonged the japanese exposure
turns out to be.

~~~
brazzy
Oh damn... These figures refer to _acute radioation poisoning_ , i.e. what
happens when radiation is so intense that it directly kills so many of your
cells that your body can't cope.

Even if at 0.25 Sv none of that happens, you still have a very actual,
_massively_ increased risk of cancer and genetic defects in future children.
To declare "no health issues", you most definitely want to stay several orders
of magnitude below that (there is _always_ and increased risk of cancer and
birth defects, but at some point it gets lost in the noise).

I really don't want to sound condescending, but you should not issue
statements here if you don't know such fundamental aspects.

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juiceandjuice
At this rate, an average person would still be under 1/7th the ALI for a
worker in a field of radiation, assuming rate was held for a year (limit is 50
mSv, or 50000 uSv

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orijing
The irony is that if you were to fly out of Tokyo today, you'll be receiving a
lot more radiation than what's present there because the radiation is much
stronger in the stratosphere.

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popovich21
AndyIngram , thanks for the info, and i thought that my friends there in Japan
are in danger of radiation. when i saw this news, i thought, WTH, 23 times. it
turns out im just overreacting. let's just hope and pray(if you're religious)
that Japan could recover quickly. crises like this makes a nation stronger.

