The French research group on radioactivity CRIIRAD is warning that the risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe from the Japanese nuclear power plant meltdowns are no longer "negligible," and are advising pregnant women and infants against not to drink fresh milk or eat leafy vegetables. Should we be cautious here in the US as well?
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The EPA is considering raising the levels of Iodine-131 it claims are safe by revising ‘Protective Action Guides’ that identify safety limits. It is being proposed within EPA that the level considered safe be raised up to a hundred thousand times levels currently considered safe. In effect, this would mean that a single glass of water could contain as much iodine-131 radiation as was previously considered a lifetime limit, according to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility watchdog group. The radiation arm of EPA, called the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air (ORIA), has prepared an update of the 1992 “Protective Action Guides” (PAG) governing radiation protection decisions for both short-term and long-term cleanup standards.read more

Has Japan lost the race to save its Fukushima nuclear reactor? Highly radioactive water is now being detected in the ocean near the reactor because the radioactive core seems to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and onto the concrete floor below–the same sort of thing that happened at Chernobyl.
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T.S. Eliot’s poem "The Hollow Men" says, "This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper." The Japanese nuclear plant meltdowns may end the same way. How will the affected plants finally be closed? A look at what happened at Chernobyl can give us a clue: Several times a month, especially after it rains in that part of the Ukraine, the water that has seeped through the cracks in the reactor is removed so that radiated water does not escape into the atmosphere. The area endangered by the Chernobyl reactor is 15,000 square miles–about the size of Switzerland–and the danger will last for over 300 more years, even though the meltdown occurred 25 years ago.
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