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Everything we know today about the health effects of nuclear weapons is based on the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In August 1945, the United States dropped nuclear bombs on these two Japanese cities, killing at least 200 people. people. However, many residents survived the attacks and chose to stay there. For years, scientists have studied the effects of radiation on their health. What did they find out?
- It is estimated that in the first few months after the bombing in Hiroshima, 90 people lost their lives. up to 166 thousand people, another 60-80 thousand. died in Nagasaki. These numbers are probably heavily underestimated
- Many survivors developed cancer within a few years after the attacks, including leukemia. The risk of developing it was 46 percent. greater than in people not exposed to radiation
- Modern research focuses on observing the health of people who were children at the time of the attack or their mothers were pregnant with them at the time.
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
Life in the “nuclear desert” is possible
An attack with a nuclear weapon is one of the most severe and terrifying hostilities. The destructive power of the atomic bomb is enormous and can destroy even huge metropolises, while affecting other cities and countries, thousands of kilometers away from the epicenter of the explosion. But the fact that nuclear weapons are capable of devastating anything within their range does not mean that the target becomes a nuclear desert where life is impossible. This is well illustrated by the examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which today “look” not much different from other modern cities inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people.
The revival of Japanese cities (already visible in the spring of 1946, when – to everyone’s amazement – oleanders bloomed there) was great news, but underpinned by a great deal of suspicion. Scientists and doctors were seriously concerned that the health of the inhabitants did not go hand in hand with the regeneration of nature, and that the effects of radiation from the dropping of atomic bombs could be long-term.
All indications are that this is what happened. According to estimates by the Japanese-American organization Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), 90 people lost their lives in the first few months after the bombing in Hiroshima. up to 166 thousand people, another 60-80 thousand. died in Nagasaki. The RERF stipulates that these figures may be greatly underestimated, as it is not known how many military and forced laborers, and in Nagasaki’s case, also Hiroshima exile survivors, were in the city at the time. An additional obstacle was the fact that whole families were killed in both places, so many deaths were not registered (there was no one to report them).
How does strong radiation affect the human body?
Most of these people died almost immediately as a result of the blast wave and the fallout from the fallout; exposure to such high radiation causes extensive and irreversible damage and, consequently, cell death. But many inhabitants survived the attack and stayed in their homeland. Some of them showed no obvious symptoms of any diseases.
To understand why this happened, you have to turn to genetics. Unexpected changes can occur in the DNA of cells. It is estimated that millions of such damages occur every day. They occur as a result of the action of very different, often difficult to recognize factors. Everyone is exposed to them to some extent, but not everyone will be affected by the mutations that will lead to the development of a serious disease, e.g. cancer.
This is because the body, or rather the cell in which the changes occur, has the ability to “repair” the mutation (DNA repair) and it happens that her “work” ends with success. This is why some people who are at risk of developing cancer do not get sick or become ill later than expected.
Sometimes, however, a cell’s repair mechanisms do not work well enough and the cell changes. The consequences of this may be different. A cell may start aging (its activity dies off), it may die, or it may divide in an uncontrolled manner. Such multiplication of mutations leads to tumor development. However, this process takes a long time, even years.
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What diseases did the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffer from?
It is for this reason some of the survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not develop symptoms of diseases until several or several years after the bombing. This was the case, for example, in the case of leukemia, which turned out to be the most lethal of all diseases diagnosed in the survivors. According to RERF calculations, the risk of leukemia in people exposed to radiation, compared to the non-exposed population, was 46% higher. A marked increase in the number of cases of the disease was noticed about two years after the attack, with the peak incidence around four to six years later.
Other neoplastic diseases took even longer to develop. Changes in statistics were not recorded until 10 years after the bombing, in 1956. The study of the incidence of solid cancer in this area, conducted by Dale L. Preston of Hirosoft International Corporation, shows that the risk of their occurrence in people exposed to radiation was much lower than in the case of leukemia – it was 10,7 percent. RERF said, however, that if someone has survived as much radiation as in Japanese cities, the risk of developing cancer is less than five times higher than in non-exposed people.
Today, nearly 80 years after the bombing, most of the survivors have passed away. Contemporary research focuses on the observation of children conceived by survivors. Even at the beginning of the 90s it was found (a study by E. Nakashima from 1994) that exposure to radiation of women who were then pregnant caused that many children were born with partial mental retardation; microcephaly (microcephaly) was also common.
Interestingly enough, in children exposed to radiation in utero (in the uterus – ed.), a much lower increase in cancer incidence was found than in those who survived the attack as children.
Are places once bombed safe today?
There is another group of people who were concerned about being exposed to too much radiation. These are those who came to Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the 1945 attacks. Can living and living in a place contaminated with nuclear weapons make them develop disease?
According to experts, the risk is negligible as these cities are no longer radioactive. As explained by Dan Listwa of the Columbia University Center for Nuclear Studies in New York, there are two forms of radioactivity following a nuclear explosion.
«The first is the fallout of nuclear material and fission products. Most of them were dispersed in the atmosphere or blown away by the wind. Although some have fallen on the city in the form of black rain, the present the level of radioactivity is so low that it is barely distinguishable from trace levels around the world (…). Another form of radiation is the activation of neutrons. Neutrons can make non-radioactive materials radioactive when “caught” by atomic nuclei. However, since the bombs were detonated high above the ground, the contamination was low (…). In fact, almost all induced radioactivity disappeared within a few days of the explosions, »he explains.
It is impossible to predict the consequences for our health of an attack with the use of an atomic bomb carried out today. Much depends on the firepower of the weapon, but also on the distance from the target of the attack. It is important for any hazard to follow the instructions of the authorities that have the most reliable data on possible radiation and are best able to estimate the potential hazard.
Diagnostics is a very important part of health prevention. You can buy a package of laboratory tests that check the basic blood parameters at Medonet Market.
We encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the RESET podcast. This time Joanna Kozłowska, author of the book High Sensitivity. A Guide for Those Who Feel Too Much »says that high sensitivity is not a disease or dysfunction – it’s just a set of characteristics that affect the way you perceive and perceive the world. What are the genetics of WWO? What are the perks of being highly sensitive? How to act with your high sensitivity? You will find out by listening to the latest episode of our podcast.