While it's no panic situation, it is no idyllic situation either. There were many cases of cancers and leukemias linked in military and civilians to fallout from the testing. Then there is the mess aroundHanford that is still being cleaned up. I wouldn't drink the ground water near a certain facility in Tennessee where being an oncologist is a very busy occupation.

The one person I knew affected by radiation stood on the deck in the pacific to watch the atomic tests. As did everyone else - they just didn't know. So sad.

Luckily, I learned to get under my desk back in 1960.

epador,

Nobody's suggesting licking a Cesium lollypop, merely that the level of hysteria is slightly disproportionate to the actual damage thus far.

Signed,
Someone whose house was on well water 10 miles from ORNL.

The level of hysteria is inappropriate and the success of anti-nuclear propaganda is pretty scary. I talked to about 30 people yesterday who were quite convinced that Chernobyl killed millions. The death toll from acute radiation poisoning was actually only 31. At least 75,000 emergency workers continue to be monitored and studied. Chernobyl was a huge accident, it was not global genocide.

Why does it matter? Because here on the West coast people who are listening to the fear mongering from the media and Obama's surgeon general, are taking iodide tablets and prussian blue in the presence of no radiation at all! Who knows how much damage people are doing to their health based on nothing but rumors, fear, and hysteria.

The numbers I'm seeing are in the micro REMs. And the same idiots panicking about "radiation" have no problem holding what, in comparison, is a blazing radioactive torch (a cellphone) next to their brain. If the radiation rises one million times, unlikely given the short half-life of the particles, then people on the west coast may have to stay inside for a week or so. Except for Nancy Pelosi.

Its the "Chicken Little" syndrome writ in large glowing headlines.

Any time the MSM, FOX included, starts screaming headlines that it's "Worse then Chernobyl, has the potential to be the *deadliest* nuclear disaster ever or hyperventilates about how everyone is going to die because of what is occurring at one plant I get a case of the flaming (fill in the blank) and immediately dismiss them as vapid idiots that don't have the first clue what they are talking about.

"The numbers I'm seeing are in the micro REMs" and have little to NO damage potential.

I have resisted watching the TV 'news' shows because of their hyperventilating. Utter and complete fail on doing research before screaming "Everyone's gonna die"...

Check out Ann Coulter's latest: A GLOWING REPORT ON RADIATION
(She doesn't give her articles permalinks until they are replaced by another article; after Mar 23, 2011. you'll have to search her archives for it).

I know, I KNOW!!!; it's ANN COULTER. As with the Coen Brothers, you can't always be sure how seriously to take her. :-)

But least, READ IT, before just dismissing it out of hand.

Ok?
-

The media decided the real human catastrophe of hundreds of bodies washing up on shore and potentially millions without adequate food, water, and shelter just wasn't sexy enough to keep viewership up after three days. Problems at the nuclear plant were like manna from heaven for their ratings.

Why, if not for the continuing problems, they would have had to invent something else to sensationalize (unless some blond chick went missing). The moon will be at perigee tomorrow night, its closest approach to Earth in 18 years. If not for Japanese nukes, we'd be subjected to speculation it might crash into the Earth and disrupt Obama's Rio weekend.

Tam, I did not suggest anyone was licking a Cesium lollypop, simply trying to make the point that I am concerned that those downplaying the situation in an attempt to counter the hysteria have swung just a little to far in the opposite direction. Despite what you read in the MSM and BSphere, folks on the Oregon and Washington Coast are not panic buying or exodusing. Now a few are smoking more pot or hitting up their docs for some extra Xanax to deal with the stress of the Tsunami scare followed by this radiation threat, but I've had not one request for Iodide tablets and there is plenty of iodized salt on OUR grocery shelves locally.

And my other implied point has nothing to do with the "damage so far" but the long term effects if significant particles reach our shores and are washed into the surface water system, accumulation downstream and downwind in the large water systems, such as has happened downstream from Hanford, is a problem that may have to be respected.

My sympathy for your proximity to ONRL groundwater. I had a choice to work there in the mid 1990's and chose a little farther east (only to be downwind and water from Eastman and the Armory in Kingsport). So far none of my kids have turned green or developed interesting diseases. But I do have the damnest twitch when I get close to a plastic bottle.

epador,

If by significant particles you mean non-gaseous fission products, you are in for a very long wait. The radiation and contamination so far observed indicate that the pressure vessels remain intact.

epador,

"...folks on the Oregon and Washington Coast are not panic buying or exodusing."

Oh, I've no doubt it was Californians paying $100/bottle on Ebay last Thursday & Friday.

"My sympathy for your proximity to ONRL groundwater."

No sympathy required. My landlord, on the same well, was an HSO for SAIC. Pardon my lack of panic. :)