The High-Radiation Lives and Risks of Nuclear-Nomad Subcontractors

Harperdog writes "Gabrielle Hecht has an interesting piece on the subcontracted workers of the nuclear energy industry, in Japan and elsewhere. These workers face far more exposure to radiation than salaried workers; in Japan, 90% of the nuclear workforce is contracted. This is an eye-opening look at a practice that 'carries exceptional risks and implications. And until these are recognized and documented, complex social and physiological realities will continue to be hidden.' A good read, but I would like to know how the Fukushima 50 are doing."

Translation:

[thegarbz]

Translation: Temporary contract workers do work that the plant workers won't do is riskier.

Let's file that one in the "You don't say!" category. It's like that throughout the entire processing industry. Need to hot tap onto a gas pipeline? Get a contractor. Need to go in a vessel that has an inert atmosphere? Too dangerous, get a contractor.

Industries are full of contracting companies who exist specifically to absorb high business risk and appear "disposable" to the plant. They are after all not the plant's employees. If they die it won't be "us" who has to pay compensation, it'll be "them".

Re:are they really not tracked?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

The claim is that they falsify the numbers. Not the employer, not the plant, not the government. The worker.

Why ? To make a few more quick bucks. Nuclear worker is one of the few highly paid relatively unskilled jobs available, because you get exposed.

Re:Radiation effects on health

[DerekLyons]

* High or Very high levels - severe radiation poisoning, die within hours or days, maybe a few weeks if you're unlucky - so wouldn't still be in the hospital.

* Moderate levels - something very similar to sunburn, might be in hospital for a short time for treatment, have increased risk of cancer developing, but that will take 5 - 25 years. People in this category would have been out of the hospital in maybe April or May of last year.

Well, the truth is we don't know much about these ranges. The vast majority of the cases of whole body exposure are either survivors of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or are among the early clean up workers at Chernobyl. I.E. amounts and types of exposure are for the most part poorly documented, as are subsequent care and outcomes. On top of that, it's a fairly small number as such things go, so it's hard to say clearly where the bottom of the 'Moderate' category is. There's just not enough data.
 
And I haven't adressed the difference between whole body dosages and point dosages like the women exposed to Radium while painting watch dials. Or hospital workers exposed to ongoing low dosages of X-rays over extended periods...
 
Making the problem even more difficult is the fact that the media (and Wikipedia, and Slashdot commentary) seem to treat all radiation more or less the same - when nothing could be further from the truth. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, neutron, X-ray... all ionizing radiation, all with subtly different effects. The same goes for length of exposure, whole body doses received over short periods are going to be different than those received over long periods, even if the absolute exposure is the same.
 
All we really know is Exposure Is Bad, and try to avoid these levels.
 

* Low levels - No immediate health effects. Increased risk of cancer in 5 - 25 years.

* Very low levels - No health effects, essentially no increased risk of cancer (maybe something like .01 percent increased risk, but so close to zero as to be effectively zero increase in risk of cancer).

Here, we see the same problems as above - you're acting as if there are clear bright lines between the categories. There isn't. Most importantly, the boundary between (your) Low and Very Low levels is fuzzy and poorly understood.