Radiation leak was “no more harmful than a routine chest X-ray”
The United States has issued its final report on the case of an American submarine leaking radiation in Japan:
The United States assured Japan on Friday that the trace levels of radioactivity which leaked from the U.S. Navy submarine Houston during its visits to three Japanese ports were, even when combined, no more harmful than a routine chest X-ray and promised to ensure “stringent performance standard” in the future.
A final report given by the U.S. Embassy in Japan to the Foreign Ministry said the incident was the first of its kind in the more than 50 years that the U.S. Navy has operated nuclear reactors and reemphasized that the leakages posed “no adverse effect on human health, marine life, or the environment.”
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and we all know how much they love chest x-rays in this country. what`s another one?
Yea, think of it as a freebie.
Is that really a negligible amount? I got my head X-Rayed for some dental work once, and I was told that here in the UK we have to keep records of how many times someone’s been X-Rayed or been in contact with radioactive materials so that we can keep it at a safe level (so if you’d already been X-Rayed 5 times in a year they wouldn’t give you another one unless it was important).
Is it different elsewhere…?
So, it wasn’t life-threatening, just irresponsible.
This part struck me as odd:
“A final report given by the U.S. Embassy in Japan to the Foreign Ministry said the incident was the first of its kind in the more than 50 years that the U.S. Navy has operated nuclear reactors…”
Obviously there were no incidents reported to Japanese authorities in those 50 years, so the Japanese MOFA already has this information. Why include that in the report?