Next month marks the seventieth anniversary of the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

What is rather interesting is that, over the years, from time to time, there have been gatherings of people who survived the Hiroshima blast. Most interesting is that, currently, there are about 60 000 of these people and their average age is just about 80.

Another rather interesting case is that of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who died in 2010, aged 93. He lived in Nagasaki and had to go to Hiroshima on a business trip. He worked for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. While he was in Hiroshima, the first nuclear bomb, called Little Boy, was dropped. Yamaguchi later said that he was about 3 km from the bomb when it exploded. He survived the blast but his eardrums were ruptured and he suffered burns to his upper body. So, he would have received an initial blast of radiation, as well as later radiation from the radioactive dust fallout.

He spent the night in a Hiroshima bomb shelter and hurried home to Nagasaki the following day. He reported to his boss and was standing in his office, telling him what had happened when, he reported later, “suddenly, the same white light filled the room”. The second bomb, called Fat Man, had detonated. Poor Yamaguchi was blown up twice. Interestingly, the unofficial records showed that about 165 people were bombed twice like this. They were known as Nijyuu Hibakusha, which means ‘twice bombed’.

At the time of his death, Yamaguchi’s wife told the British newspaper The Independent that he had been particularly healthy all his life.

Today, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving modern cities with no evidence of the nuclear blasts, other than monuments preserved to commemorate the events. Of particular interest is that there has been no evidence of any genetic defects in later generations of people born in the areas, or born to parents who survived the blasts.

A few days ago, I was guest speaker at a seminar and yet again it struck me just how scared people are of the words ‘nuclear’ and ‘radiation’. One just has to mention the word ‘radiation’ and some people start to go into a glazed state. The beliefs are strange.
Radiation does not glow in the dark. You only get a glow when some light-emitting chemical is energised by radiation hitting it. It is also not true that a normal frog exposed to radiation will grow a second head or get six legs.

The only time that abnormalities occur, such as a two-headed frog, is if an embryo is irradiated – then, there may be damage to the cell structure, which results in a defect. But I emphasise the word ‘may’. It is rare, contrary to what some people claim. Some people project stories that, if a pond full of frogs is irradiated, then, a few weeks later, the whole pond will be producing deformed offspring. If a whole pond were to be heavily irradiated, then you just might get one birth defect, but you probably would not.
Deformities in nature occur quite naturally without any help from man-made nuclear irradiation.

Now think back to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki incidents. There are 60 000 people alive now in Hiroshima with an average age of nearly 80. If radiation is as dangerous as some claim, then why did these people not all die decades ago? How come the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are today thriving cities with no evidence of any after-effects of nuclear radiation? After all, the areas were saturated with radiation 70 years ago.

Radiation is also not a poison, so it is incorrect to refer to radiation as ‘toxic’. The word ‘toxic’ refers to chemical action. You would not call X-rays ‘toxic’.

However, a similarity with a poison is that a little usually does not matter. People go and get botox injections, but botox is known as a deadly poison when administered in a larger dose, another way.

In fact, small doses of poison are frequently good for you. A small dose causes the body to forcefully switch on its defences, the immune system, which then produces a beneficial effect. This is the principle behind homeopathy.

Nuclear radiation is the same – a small dose acts as a positive stimulus for the body. So, people must stop being paranoid about the mere thought of nuclear radiation. The professionals know how to handle it; it is not a mysterious evil spirit sealed away in a jar.