Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Negative effects of atomic bombs
Essay on environmental factors cancer
Negative effects of atomic bombs
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Negative effects of atomic bombs
Cancer and Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge
“I cannot prove my mother, my grandmothers, along with my aunts
developed cancer from nuclear fallout in Utah. But I can’t prove they
didn’t.” Epilogue, Refuge
In Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge, death slowly claimed almost all of the women of her family. Death took Williams’ family members one by one just one or two years apart. In every case, the cause was cancer. Williams insisted in the epilogue that fall-out from the 1951-62 nuclear testing in Utah brought cancer to her family. Because there are many other causes of cancer, such as genetic and environmental factors, it is hard for one to insist that nuclear fall-out causes cancer. Therefore, it is important to find out how and why nuclear fall-out can cause cancer and relate it to Williams’ claim that there is a connection between cancer in her family and nuclear fall-out.
The risks that can develop cancer are complicated and complex. To indicate one single cause of cancer is hard. However, certain environmental causes are strongly interrelated with the cause of particular cancers, such as cigarette smoking and lung cancer and exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light and skin cancer (CancerSource). It is also known that, “Ionizing radiation consists of x-rays, UV light, and radioactivity whose energy can damage cells and chromosomes. Radioactivity increases the risk of cancer.” Source to indicate the effects of radioactivity is the U.S bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After all these years, the Japanese are still suffering from all kinds of cancer caused by many long lived chemicals such as Strontium-90 and Cesium-147 from the fallout. “High rate of leukemia” was found among the people who had survived Hiroshima and Nagasa...
... middle of paper ...
... it has been established that chemicals in radioactivity cause cancer. Second, there is much evidence that many U.S civilians died from the effects of nuclear fall-out. Third, Williams’ family has no background of cancer until 1950s.
Williams claimed women in her family died of cancer. From all the evidences we have found, we can confidently insist that nuclear fall-out causes cancer. Therefore, Williams’ claim is evidently correct.
Bibliography
Brodersen, Tom. “Compensation available to Fallout Cancer Victims.” The Sharlot Hall Museum (August 25,2002). 11 April 2005
Dillon, Lucinda. “Toxic Utah: Ghosts in the wind.” Deseretnews (February 15,2001). 11 April 2005
Steele Dorn, Ka ren. “Time bombs keep going off for cancer-plagued families in Idaho who lived downwind of nuclear testing in the 1950s.” Downwinders (October 24, 2004). 11 April 2005
In order to better understand the historical context of nuclear development it seems to me as though Iversen dove into a fair amount of investigative journalism. The book focuses primarily on the events of Rocky Flats and her life through a narrative nonfiction interpretation. By providing a journalist approach, Iversen makes it easy for the reader to build a relationship with the characters presented throughout the book. At times I found myself visualizing the intensity of the fires, the whirlwind of emotions from locals, and the lasting environmental impacts that would not only plague Colorado, but taint the reputation of what it means to be human.
Brown took her time to interview people and look through archives to get the raw scenery of what happened behind closed doors. The third part was “The Plutonium Disasters.” She brought light to how dangerous it was to work and live there, and most of the people in the camp did not know how it can affect their body. Dr. Herbert Parker, the head of the Health Physics Division, “estimated there were eight hundred million flakes of [plutonium], which, if sucked into workers’ lungs or [ingested], could lodge in soft organs and remain in the body of years, a tiny time bomb that Parker feared would produce cancer” (Brown 166). This radioactive element that workers are producing is not just affecting the environment, but is also affecting the workers and their families. Brown has given an immense amount of evidence to explain to the readers how it affected so many of the workers’ health; she gives a vivid picture of how the radioactivity and particles of plutonium lingers in the air. The affects to the workers and their family ranges from cancerous cells to organ deterioration, when a pregnant woman is exposed to it, the health of her baby is also at risk. The fourth and last part of the book is “Dismantling the Plutonium Curtain,” this curtain is the curtain of secrecy. Brown interviewed people who lived in the camps as children and also people who worked there. Many of the people she
Hellman, Martin. "Nuclear Attack a Ticking Time Bomb, Experts Warn." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. .
Contamination from the depleted uranium weaponries and other pollution caused by war is alleged for the rise in congenital birth defects, cancer, and other illnesses (Jamail, 2013).
Poseidon was relied upon by sailors for a safe voyage on the sea. Many men drowned horses in sacrifice of his honor. He lived on the ocean floor in a palace made of coral and gems, and drove a chariot pulled by horses. However, Poseidon was a very moody divinity, and his temperament could sometimes result in violence. When he was in a good mood, Poseidon created new lands in the water and a calm sea. In contrast, when he was in a bad mood, Poseidon would strike the ground with a trident and cause unruly springs and earthquakes, ship wrecks, and drownings.
However, all the impacts that the nuclear bomb left to this day are but a shadow of the health effects that were observed during the 1960-1990. The way researchers have quantified the long term health effects from the nuclear bomb, specifically for the significant increase in malignant tumors, is by using a absolute risk function. This function takes the total excess deaths from cancer over 1 million year per rad. The higher the number the greater deaths observed from cancer. Between 1950 – 1954 the absolute deaths from leukemia among nuclear blast survivors was 4.13. The amount of leukemia deaths decreases with the years so that during 1971 – 1974 the absolute death quotient was 0.42. For other cancers there is a different story. For all cancers excluding leukemia there was a disturbing upwards trend during the years following the use of the nuclear bomb. During 1950 – 1954 the absolute death quotient was 1.58 and during the 1971 - 1974 period the quotient was 9.17. These increases in the deaths from cancer during this 25 year period is frightening. The Americans by using this bomb killed thousands of people 10, 20, 30 years down the road from the war. Eliminating chunks of the Japanese work force even decades after the fact. This however, is not the end of the story, children were also victims of this atrocious weapon. As made clear in a study by the Radiation Research Society, the dose specific risk from radiation for breast cancer was greatest in females under the age of 20. This means that not only did America take out a large chunk of adult Japanese, they also afflicted innocent children post war with a terrible
One of the biggest and longest lasting environmental impacts of the detonation of the atomic bomb is the radiation contaminations that are left over. These contaminations spread into water, air, animals, soil and into the atmosphere. What’s worse is that these contaminations have materials that have very long half-life meaning that their radiation effects do not decay quickly. “Many of the substances released, including plutonium, uranium, strontium, cesium, benzene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury and cyanide, are carcinogenic and/or mutagenic and remain hazardous for thousands, some for hundreds of thousands, of year” (The Effects of nuclear weapons). The spread of these contaminates will cause significant health risks to animals ca...
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a type of anxiety disorder that can be best characterized by the recurrent or disturbing thoughts that are labeled as obsessions. Sometime these obsessions can take on the form of intrusive images or the unwanted impulses. The compulsions can come from the repetitive or ritualized behaviors that a person feels driven to perform on a daily basis. The majority of people with the diagnosis of OCD can have both obsessions and compulsions, but most of the times about 20% have obsessions alone while 10% may have the compulsions alone (Goodman M.D., 2013) . Common types that have been illustrated in individual’s diagnoses with OCD can be characterized with concerns of contamination, safety or harm to themselves, unwanted acts of aggression, the unacceptable sexual or religious thoughts, and the need for symmetry or exactness. While some of the most common compulsion can be characterized as excessive cleaning, checking, ordering, and arranging rituals or the counting and repeating routines activities that are done sometimes on a daily basis multiple times in a day.
Physician assisted suicide is murder. Using euthanasia, increased dosage of morphine or injecting patient’s with a lethal combination of drugs to slow his/her breathing until he/she dies is also murder. Physician assisted suicide is morally wrong. The classical theory for physician assisted suicide is utilitarianism because according to Mosser 2010, “utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines the moral value of an act in terms of its results and if those results produce the greatest good for the greatest number.” Utilitarianism will solve the physician assisted suicide problem if all of the physicians will stand by the oath they say. According to the Hippocratic Oath doctor says, “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.”
There are several things that are included in OCD, including its symptoms, treatments and its involvement with the brain. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder recognize their symptoms to be ego-dystonic which are thoughts one would not usually have and not within one’s control but is still a product of one’s mind. The two common symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions take the form of persistent and uncontrollable thoughts, images, impulses, worries, fears or doubts. An anonymous writer wrote about his/her images, “These images included hitting, stabbing, poisoning and shooting people, even the people I loved the most…” However, compulsions are either repetitive physical behaviors or mental thought rituals that are performed over and over again to help relieve a person’s anxiety. Over time compulsions can become more elaborate and time- consuming. Shirley Brinkerhoff mentions in her book Amanda, a high school girl facing OCD, said, “Then I started having to count my steps. Like, 387 steps to the bus stop, and if missed...
Always checking the door to make sure it is locked or the oven to make sure it is off? Or washing your hands constantly? You might have a psychological disorder known as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It has recently been found that 2.2 million Americans have been tested and diagnosed with OCD and is a common disorder affecting 1-3% of children and adolescents (Thomsen 5). OCD is known to be hereditary and the symptoms may spread out and begin to get worse at different times (Thomsen 2). So what is OCD? What causes it, what are the treatments and symptoms of this behavior? How this disorder can affect a human’s life? I will answer all these questions throughout this paper.
Bender, D. , and B. Leone. Death and dying: Opposing viewpoints. Greenhaven Press, Inc., print.
In 1917 a young female right out of high school started working at a radium factory in Orange, New Jersey. The job was mixing water, glue and radium powder for the task of painting watch dials, aircraft switches, and instrument dials. The paint is newly inventive and cool so without hesitation she paints her nails and lips with her friends all the while not knowing that this paint that is making them radiant, is slowly killing them. This was the life of Grace Fryer. Today there are trepidations on the topic of radiation from fears of nuclear fallout, meltdowns, or acts of terrorism. This uneasiness is a result of events over the past one hundred years showing the dangers of radiation. Although most accidents today leading to death from radiation poisoning occur from human error or faults in equipment, the incident involving the now named "radium girls" transpired from lack of public awareness and safety laws. (introduce topics of the paper)
Obsessive compulsive disorder is said to affect 2.3% of the population who are between the ages of eighteen and fifty-four. In the United States alone, 3.3 million people suffer from this mental illness. Statistics have shown that both men and women are equally affected by obsessive compulsive disorder. Children as young as six years old could show signs of OCD, however, diagnosis at this age could be difficult. In most cases, signs of OCD become definite during adolescence into early adulthood. Usually stress, illnesses and fatigue can lead this disorder and its symptoms to worsen. Throughout a person’s life, OCD could become mild, to the point where it is almost nonexistent, or it could completely take over their lives. It is incredibly important to seek help and continue treatment that will help maintain OCD at a healthy level. Failing to do so can certainly lead to the inability to function properly in one’s life (Understanding Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). This paper will discuss obsessive compulsive disorder in detail. It will compare the differences between obsessions versus compulsions, possible causes of OCD that have been discovered to date, the different types of OCD, and finally, various treatment options.
Echlin, Echlin. “Doctors and Nurses Should Never Take Part in Euthanasia.” Medical Ethics. Ed. Noel Merino. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Current Controversies. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 18 Feb. 2011.