In March 2011 an earthquake measuring approximately 9.0 on the Richter scale struck Fukushima, Japan. Several nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daichii Nuclear Power Plant were damaged, and nuclear core meltdown occurred. A massive release of radiation accompanied damage to the plant, and 5 years later the incidence of thyroid cancer in children exposed to the radiation was determined to be well over 100 times more frequent than expected without radiation exposure. DNA damage and mutations resulting from radiation exposure are suspected of causing this increased cancer rate. Do you think it is possible that significant increases in the incidence of other types of cancer will occur in the future among people who were exposed to the Fukushima radiation? Why?

Question

Accepted Answer

Hello everyone and welcome to today's video. So in April 1986 the Chernobyl disaster resulted in a catastrophic nuclear accident, releasing a significant amount of radioactive material into the environment and causes severe health and environmental repercussions. The disaster has led to a significant increase in thyroid cancer, particularly among those exposed to high levels of radioactive ion 131 during childhood or adolescence. However, there is a possibility that the risk of inheriting cancer in future generations might be lower because let's go over each of our answer choices so that we may solve this problem before we do, let me write down something here in the problem that is going to help us cross out many of these answer choices and it is the fact that this cause severe health and environmental damage. Now, keeping that in mind, let's go over each of our answer choices so that we may solve the problem. Beginning by answer choice. A we have the effects of radiation expo exposure are completely reversible and do not have any long term impacts on health. We this is going to be incorrect because we stated that there were severe health and environmental damage and this is present even in ongoing generations after the Chernobyl disaster, then we have big the radiation released from Chernobyl was not very harmful to human health. This is also going to be crossed out because we stated that there are severe health and environmental damage. Moving on. We have there were no long term health effects observed in people who were exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster. Well, thyroid cancer is going to be a long term effect. So we're going to also cancel this out. Finally, we have the the mutations that occur in people who were exposed to high levels of radiation were mostly somatic mutations. So I want you to look at this last sentence here. It is, it is stating that inheriting cancers in future generations might be lower because now if these were occurring in germline cells, then the probability of inheriting cancer will be higher. But this is not what the problem is stating. It is stating that is lower and this is because it occur in somatic cells, specifically cells in the thyroid gland because of the uptake of radioactive iodine 131. So because they were in somatic cells, they are not going to be passed on to offspring, reducing the probability of inheriting cancer. So answer choice d the mutations that occur in people who were exposed to high levels of radiation were mostly somatic mutation is the correct answer to this question. I really hope it's helped you and I hope to see you on the next one.

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Radiation and DNA Damage

Cancer Risk and Latency Period

Epidemiological Studies