Health Issue Analysis Nuclear Energy Essay

Total Length: 843 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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The turn of the last century brought humankind the discovery and development of nuclear energy. From this point, experts in health, medicine and the sciences as a whole recognized that ionizing radiation has a negative and debilitating impact on the health and wellness of humans (Vakhil & Harvey, 2009). Destruction from radiation can impact literally any part of the human cell and can interrupt a host of human cell processes. Furthermore, the harm done to the genetic material within a cell can create a host of negative conditions from cancer to birth defects and hereditary diseases (Vakhil & Harvey, 2009). The scientific community largely agrees that there is no benign amount of exposure to radiation, and that literally any experience with radiation is destructive (Vakhil & Harvey, 2009).

The health risks associated with nuclear energy are definitive, and the use of nuclear energy is risky—history demonstrates this without a doubt, if one recalls the accidents that happened at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. Any contamination from the usage of nuclear energy is largely irrevocable and a permanent part of the environment. The industry of harnessing nuclear energy is nuanced and includes a host of branches from uranium mining to fission processing to radioactive byproducts (Vakhil & Harvey, 2009).
All of these aspects have an impact on public health and consequences for public health.

When it comes to prudent endeavors such as limiting radiofrequency exposure, the United States trails behind other nations. This is because “…countries like Switzerland, Italy, France, Austria, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Israel, Russia and China have set RF exposure limits 100 to 10,000 times less than the USA. They recognize that there can be non-thermal biological effects from wireless radiation” (PFST.org, 2017). When it comes to the use of nuclear energy, the United States has some of the weakest laws in place designed to protect the nuclear power plants and not the average citizen. Just two years ago, nuclear power plants in Miami and New York were found to be leaking tritium: in Miami the leak was funneling into the Biscayne Bay and in New York the leak was spreading to the groundwater facility (Neuhauser, 2016). Most nuclear power plants in America are over 20 years old with some as old as 40 and 60 years of operation. “Yet more than three-quarters of the country's commercial nuclear power sites have reported some kind of radioactive leak in their life….....

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"Health Issue Analysis Nuclear Energy", 12 March 2018, Accessed.20 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/health-issue-analysis-nuclear-energy-2167121