The Negative Impact of Radiation

773 Words2 Pages

Has it ever been noticed that always on the sunniest days of the year that a health expert would warn against radiation exposure? Or has it ever been noticed that during a long haul flight the in air magazines are clouded with information on radiation energy in the atmosphere? It is quite common to find that people tend to associate radiation to persons who work in a nuclear facilities or astronauts. However the realisation of the fact is that each and every single human being on the planet is affected by radiation and should be aware of their exposure levels because effectively, they could be saving their own lives.
Radiation in simple terms is a way in which energy moves from one place to another, which makes everything virtually radioactive, including ever human being. About one - half of a person’s radiation occurs naturally, whilst the remaining is man-made. (Miksanek, 2013) The major effects of radiation are a variable that is based on the amount of exposure that a human being has. The most notorious effect of radiation is death within a few days or weeks. An extensive number of people have died from being exposed to a significant amount of radiation. Another major negative impact of radiation exposure is cancer. Many studies have shown that a common side effect of overly exposure to radiation over time, have increased the number of cancer cases within the number of affected persons. Cancer cases such as Leukaemia (a type of blood cancer that starts in the bone marrow), is a common denominator as seen from the Japanese survivors of the effects of radiation from the atomic bombing. (Barnaby, 1992)
In conjunction to the major effects of the exposure to radiation, there have also been a number of minor effects. DNA damage is an...

... middle of paper ...

... its effects. The concept is fairly simple; a normal individual would avoid as much as possible inserting a nuclear weapon into their body, but shouldn’t radiation follow the same concept?

Works Cited

Miksanek, Tony. "Radiation: What it is, what You Need to Know." The Booklist 109.9 (2013): 22. ProQuest. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

Barnaby, N. M. S., and S. Frost. "Assessing the Evidence of Low-Level Radiation Effects." Environmental Management and Health 3.1 (1992): 6. ProQuest. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

Cmielová, J., et al. "DNA Damage Caused by Ionizing Radiation in Embryonic Diploid Fibroblasts WI-38 Induces both Apoptosis and Senescence." Physiological Research 60.4 (2011): 667-77. ProQuest. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

Little, Mark P., et al. "Potential Funding Crisis for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation." The Lancet 364.9434 (2004): 557-8. ProQuest. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

Open Document