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Radiation

In: Science

Submitted By AngelaBJ
Words 340
Pages 2
Angela Li
Physics 171
Problem Set 6
Leaking landfill
2014/10/4

Dear citizens:

I’m really sorry about the leaking landfill in our city. Many of you may concern the impact of releasing radioactive radon gas on your health but I’m here to assure you that you are not in too much danger and do not have to over worry. First, let’s consider the short-term effects of radiation damage to cells. If a whole body exposes to less than 100 rem (1 Sievert) dose of radiation, people will experience no short-term radiation illness. You will expose to approximately an extra 1 milli-Sievert whole-body dose per year due to the leak. The dose is far below 1 Sievert. So you will not be sick because the cells in your body can repair the tiny damage naturally.
Then, I’ll talk about extra risks of getting cancers. According to the Linear Hypothesis which predicts cancer effects at very low levels, each of you will get 4*10^-5 extra risk of getting cancers each day, which is only 0.04 extra cancers. When we expand the time range into a year, extra 14 to 15 people in 1000 of you will get cancers due to radiation. Much fewer people than 14 will actually die from cancer. Even without radiation, about 40% people will get cancer and about 20% of them will die of it. So even if there is no releasing radiation, about 400 people among you will get cancer sometime in your lives and 200 people will die for it. So the danger of getting cancer from radiation is very minimal compared to the natural rate. Besides, the linear hypothesis is not approved even though it is widely used. There are possibilities that 1mSv will not produce any extra cancer risk at all. Therefore, the government’s decision of not ordering a general evacuation of the area is fair and it is not necessary to seal the landfill immediately which will cost the city an extra million dollars.

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