Atomic-Waste Disposal

The use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes also involves some radiation hazards, but up to 1960 these were not taken very seriously because so few (about a dozen) nuclear reactors were actually in operation. One risk is possible accident, but a far more pressing one is what to do with atomic wastes. We have no means of rendering atomic wastes harmless and they will continue to accumulate in the environment. You can't drop them into the ocean or scatter them to the winds. So far they have been buried in the ground, sometimes flushed down abandoned oil wells. The disposal of atomic wastes represents a real and only partially solved problem of environmental sanitation and public health.

Radiation Sickness

There appears to be a great public horror about the "mysterious effects of radiation on the human system. There is actually less mystery about this than popularly imagined.

The terms radiation sickness, injury, or reaction are used to describe the damage done to body tissues by exposure to radiation from X-rays, gamma rays, radium, radon, atomic energy, and other radioactive substances. The damage, of course, will depend both on the amount of exposure the dose and the individual's personal tolerance for or resistance to radiation. The harmful effects may be acute or delayed.

Acute radiation sickness sometimes occurs in patients who are receiving X-ray treatment for conditions that cannot be expected to respond as adequately to other kinds of treatment, if available. The symptoms are loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The treatment is symptomatic but the symptoms usually disappear in a day or two if no further  exposure to X-ray radiation occurs.

Massive doses of radiation, as encountered in atomic explosions, can produce such severe reactions that death shortly ensues. The actual causes of death in these cases, however, can usually be attributed to severe anemia, since the blood-forming organs are exceptionally sensitive to radiation; to internal bleeding, since the capillary blood vessels are adversely affected; to secondary infections, since the white blood cells are knocked out; or to severe burns, with changes in the body fluid balance, since any radiated energy is a form of heat.

In delayed radiation sickness the same mechanisms of body damage and possible death operate, but the severe symptoms develop more slowly and insidiously, sometimes over a course of many years. Early symptoms may include easy fatigue and lethargy and (in women) cessation of menstruation. Radiation injury in peacetime can be avoided by strict obedience to safety rules and regulations in establishments where possible radiation damage is a known hazard.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

Since the fourteenth century, when quarantine (40-day detention) was introduced at Italian seaports, it has been increasingly recognized that conditions affecting community health are not and cannot be contained.