[ RadSafe ] Dumb and dumber at "Time" magazine

[Steven Dapra]

March 15

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110315/wl_time/08599205923200


"Right now the situation around the [Fukushima] power station is 
already much more serious than what we have today around Chernobyl," 
says [Andrei] Savin, the chief engineer of Project Uktrytiye, or 
Enclosure, the group of scientists charged with the continuing effort 
to seal off and clear out the radiation from Chernobyl. "Walking 
around Chernobyl is much more safe than being anywhere near the 
damaged plant in Japan right now. So the risk to human health there 
is already serious."

That is mainly because of the radioactive iodine that has already 
been detected around Fukushima after the explosions and fires it 
sustained in the past several days. "The human body absorbs these 
particles very easily. They get into the thyroid gland and gradually 
destroy the immune system," says Ivan Blokov, program director of 
Greenpeace Russia and an expert on nuclear accidents. "In Chernobyl 
that was the main cause of illness in the immediate aftermath, the 
radioactive iodine," which is especially dangerous for women and children.

But this toxin naturally dissolves after around eight days, meaning 
that the long term threat of radiation would come from other 
substances, such as cesium, which has already been detected around 
Fukushima, and plutonium, which poses the greatest danger if the 
nuclear fuel rods inside the reactors melt.

(end quote from TIME)

	Savin also claims the melted fuel may reach critical mass and "could 
cause an atomic explosion."

Steven Dapra