What You Need To Know About Radiation: Thanks To NBC’s Nancy Snyderman MD

Posted on | March 17, 2011 | Comments Off on What You Need To Know About Radiation: Thanks To NBC’s Nancy Snyderman MD

Mike Magee

This week’s tragic events in Japan have reignited the world’s fears of radiation – whether they be the result of man-made or natural disaster. Those fears are especially troublesome to the Japanese populations who suffered so substantially from radiation in the wake of atomic bombibg during World War II. But radiation and its associated fears, as with so many other issues of the day, does not respect geographic borders, and the first whiff of radiation contaminated air is projected to reach the West Coast tomorrow.

Fear escalates in information deprived or information confused environments. Individuals “imagine the worse” and respond instinctively to that “imagined reality”. For all our fear of radiation, the every day person has little tangible knowledge. Nancy Snyderman MD at NBC News has done a great job in addressing this information gap. To get informed, go to her NBC site.

Here are a few of the questions she answers:

Q: What are the main symptoms of radiation sickness?
A: Radiation sickness (acute radiation syndrome, or ARS) occurs when the body is exposed to a high dose of penetrating radiation within a short period of time. The first symptoms of ARS typically are fatigue, hair loss, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, as well as skin changes such as swelling, redness, itching and radiation burns. Symptoms may present within a few minutes to days after the exposure, and may come and go. This seriously ill stage may last from a few hours up to several months.

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