Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman RK Sinha said on Friday that a UN scientific committee’s recent conclusion that the radiation exposure in the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident did not cause any immediate health effects, endorsed the view articulated by India at the IAEA General Conference in September last year.
“The international findings go to endorse the view that India articulated at the International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference in September 2012, when we said that “it is essential to project credible and authentic scientific information on the effects of nuclear radiation on human health to dispel misconceptions about nuclear power,” Sinha said in his address at the 2013 IAEA International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Power in the 21st Century held at St Petersburg, Russian Federation.
Quoting the reportage emanating from the 60th session of the Vienna-based United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) held in the last week of May 2013, Sinha said: “Radiation exposure following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health effects. It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers”.
“It is further reported there, that on the whole, the exposure of the Japanese population was low, or very low, leading to correspondingly low risks of health effects in later life,” he said.