科學家稱日本核事故危害被嚴重誇大

Fukushima is not Chernobyl, scientists repeat, and even Chernobyl was not as deadly as popularly believed。

Dire warnings of radiation spreading from Japan's embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to deadly effect across Japan, or even to California, are likely overblown, they say。

Radiation is all around us, varying with the number of miles we fly, the elevation of our towns, and the minerals in our environments, scientists point out. We live with it, and most of the time it is harmless。

“There is an increased level of anxiety disproportionate to the actual risk,” says Jerrold Bushberg, who directs programs in health physics at the University of California at Davis. “It’s the dose that makes the poison. It’s not a binary thing。”

Fear and hype surround radiation, which has become something of a bogeyman in part because of popular culture. A radioactive spider bit Peter Parker and turned him into Spiderman. Bruce Banner absorbed radiation in a bomb explosion and became The Incredible Hulk. Radiation from nuclear detonations morphed a small lizard into Godzilla。

“It gives you subliminal messages about the capacity of radiation to do harm,” Professor Bushberg says in a telephone interview。

A buy-up of potassium iodide tablets, which some say guard against some effects of radiation exposure, is “premature” in America, he says, and concerns over contaminated Japanese exports are also alarmist。

“That’s crazy, absolutely crazy,” agrees Shan Nair, a former nuclear physicist who was one of two UK experts assisting the European Commission in the post-accident Chernobyl response. “It’s important to have a sense of proportion here。”

And even then, Chernobyl was a very different incident from what is now unfolding at Fukushima Daiichi. Chernobyl’s reactor lacked a containment facility, unlike the Fukushima plant, whose GE-made containment vessels have withstood both an earthquake, tsunami, and thus far, a partial meltdown。

When it comes to nuclear power, says Bushberg of the University of California, "there is a lot of misinformation."科學家反覆強調，福島不是切爾諾貝利，而且切爾諾貝利也不像公衆所想的那麼可怕和危險。

日前傳出可怕的警告，稱日本福島第一核電站危機四伏，它的核輻射擴散將對全日本、甚至美國加州造成致命後果。科學家稱，這種警告很可能是言過其實。

科學家指出，我們四周到處是輻射，輻射多少和我們飛行的裏數、我們居住的城鎮的海拔以及周圍環境的礦物質有關。我們生活在輻射當中，而且大多數時間我們所受到的輻射是無害的。

加州大學戴維斯分校保健物理學專業項目的負責人傑羅德•布希伯格說：“人們的焦慮情緒日益強烈，但實際上人們並不需要如此擔憂。只有劑量夠大，纔會把人毒死。並不是非此即彼。”

有關核輻射的恐懼和炒作由於在某種程度上受大衆文化影響，變得像鬼怪一樣。彼得•帕克被一隻遭到輻射的蜘蛛咬過之後，就成了蜘蛛人。布魯斯•班納在吸收了炸彈爆炸中的輻射後，就變成了神奇綠巨人。核爆炸產生的輻射還使一隻小蜥蜴變異成了怪獸哥斯拉。

布希伯格教授在一次電話訪談中說：“這傳達了一種信息，讓你在潛意識裏認爲輻射能帶來的危害是無限的。”

有人認爲碘化鉀藥片可以起到一定的防輻射作用，於是人們大量買進這種藥片。布希伯格認爲這一舉動在美國還“爲時過早”。他說，有關日本出口貨物受到污染的說法也是危言聳聽。

前核物理學家杉•奈爾也同意這一觀點，他說：“這真的很瘋狂，太瘋狂了。人們應該適可而止。”奈爾曾經是協助切爾諾貝利事故後續反應歐洲委員會工作的兩個美國專家之一。

儘管都是核事故，切爾諾貝利事故和現在福島第一核電站發生的事故也是有很大不同的。切爾諾貝利核電站的反應堆缺少防範設施，而福島核電站有美國通用製造的防範設施，而且福島核反應堆已經經歷了一場地震和一場海嘯，迄今爲止，也只是部分核心熔燬而已。

加州大學的布希伯格說，關於原子能“有太多的錯誤信息”。