Radiation long-term damage from

The accident reportedly killed 31 people, injured 299 others, and caused tlic evacuation of 135,000 from the site. The full extent of tlie damage from tliis incident probably will not be known for years. It is tlie long-term effects from exposure to radiation that frighten most people, and tliese fears may still become a horrible reality. 

Many sunscreens contain more than one component to filter out different regions of the UV spectrum. Conjugated compounds generally shield the skin from UV-B radiation, but often have little effect on longer-wavelength UV-A radiation, which does not bum the skin, but can still cause long-term damage to skin cells. 

Acute radiation exposure, which can cause radiation sickness, radiation burns, and so forth, is caused by the energy deposited in the body, and so we are looking for effects that will occur within hours, days, or weeks of the exposure. As cancer takes many years or decades to develop, quantifying the long-term effects of DNA damage resulting from an acute exposure is not as important. In the case of acute radiation exposure, then, we measure only the amount of energy deposited in the body, so we use units of Gy or rad. 

Early on, the differences in the products from radiolysis of water were noticed. It was found, as mentioned above, that the radiolysis of pure water seemed to lead to almost no damage. If there were impurities in the water, radiation damage would occur. However, irradiation by high LET radiation would clearly lead to the formation of hydrogen. Further experiments showed that if one irradiated a sealed sample with high-LET radiation, and then the sample was irradiated with a low-LET source, the gas formed by the radiation would then disappear and it would appear as if there were no long-term decomposition. These data were part of the reason that A. O. Allen proposed the theory of radiation chemistry where back reactions occurred. ... 

A. Ultraviolet (UV) Radiation (180 - 400 nanometer (nm), UV-A, B, C). The primary hazards from this wavelength range are damage to either the lens or the cornea of the eye. Long term low level and short term high level exposures can cause corneal and lens opacities (cataracts) or inflammation of the eye. UV radiation can also cause photokeratitis, which is sunburn of the cornea. The threshold for ultraviolet radiation skin burns is similar to that of the cornea. 

Caution Uranium and its salts ate highly toxic. Dermati -tis renal damage, acute necrotic arterial lesions, death may occur. Radiation hazard from inhalation of fine particles of approx Ip. n ol particles in Lung may be long-term carcinogenic hazard. See L. T. Fair hall Industrial Toxicology (Hafner. New York, 2nd ed., 1969) pp 129-13L... 

Many concepts are being studied to treat the high level liquid waste from reprocessing so that the environment is protected against short and long term radiation damage. The final treatment concepts are ... 

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