The very name ‘radiation’ makes every logical human being rise to an alarm of its disastrous effects it may have on human beings, if exposed to. We are all aware of the effects of a nuclear weapon, cancers it causes and birth defects caused by high doses of radiation. Thanks to the three major accidents in history but the fact remains that nobody died from the Fukushima meltdown after the Japanese tsunami and pollution from any thermal power station is much more disastrous to human health than from a nuclear power station, say the scientists. Even the common food products like bananas we intake on daily basis, have natural radiations. Only the exaggerated fears have led us to believe that radiation is bad, though we may use radiation for our greater good.
Not many of us would know that the houses where we live are made up of materials which contain radioactivity. We are exposed to radiation from the sun and outer space, also from the naturally occurring radioactive materials present in the earth, the house we live in, the buildings where we work, the food and drinks we consume. It is inescapable say the scientists. Bananas are slightly radioactive but does one die eating bananasIJ
Speaking to The Pioneer, Dr. K S Pradeep Kumar of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, said, “We live in a naturally radioactive world. We are exposed to radiation from the sun and outer space, there are radioactive aerosols and gases in the air we breathe, and even our own bodies contain naturally radioactive elements, so there is nothing to fear.” Gamma radiation from walls, floor and ceiling of the houses are major source of radiation exposure.
Especially in closed rooms, radon is the significant dose contributing factor. The very commonly building material cement used in buildings has potassium, radium and Thorium. But radioactivity is often linked to destruction because the first use of nuclear energy was to make a bomb which ravished Hiroshima and Nagasaki, its peaceful use in medicine and health care is often neglected, added Paradeep Kumar.
Bananas are slightly radioactive because they contain potassium which decays. Potassium is a necessary substance for healthy operation of your body. To meet with the required dosage of potassium in our body, one may be required to eat lots of bananas but that doesn’t kill a person out of radiation sickness. Radioactivity in milk is over 200 times more than in drinking water and 3 times than in beer. From a cup of milk, 180 beta particles of potassium-40 are emitted per minute.
A single match stick can burn the whole house but we do not stop using matchsticks. Similarly the radiations may cause damage if over exposed but under control they are used to multiple uses in medicine, food irradiation to increase shelf life and detect leakages in pipelines.
Children of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bomb explosion showed no increased rate of cancer says a WHO report. But the fear still lingers in minds of the people. There are oppositions from the localites whenever our country plans to commission a nuclear reactor.
Many environmentalists stand to oppose saying nuclear energy is disastrous while the fact remains that a worker working in the reactor zone is exposed to even less radiation than a common man taking an x-ray exposure done of his body to examine some fracture or ailment once in a year, so one must not fear radiation but its destructive use, plead the scientists.