Should we at all be worried about imported goods from Japan? Playstations, food, cars, etc. I'm kinda thinking radioactive fallout may have ruined certain things and it makes me wonder if anyone is really looking at this stuff with a Geiger Counter? Not trying to be too worried but I mean.....c'mon? Nothing we import is hot?
Steel from pre-WWII era is a bit radioactive if I recall. I think if radiation were such a huge problem that it would affect their exports we would be hearing more about their citizens getting sick.
Living on the west coast, I've been tracking the glow from Japan: http://www.epa.gov/japan011/ It is believed that there's nothing to worry about.
The fly ash from coal powered plants are radioactive; contaminated with transuranics. Overly airtight houses collect dangerous levels of radioactive radon gas. High altitude locations like Denver receive radioactivity direct from the Sun. To a greater or lesser extent, radiation and radioactive elements are a regular part of our life. It's only dangerous when it exceeds a certain amount. Even at that, for radioactive elements to show up in Japanese manufactured goods, the item would have to have been in a contaminated zone, and left the contaminated zone without a proper radiation check or decontamination procedure. The amount of fried food you eat daily should properly be much more of a concern for you, since it's far more likely to make you sick, and even kill you over time, than possible radioactive contamination from imported goods from an industrialized First-World Country. Obesity and cholesterol are the greatest present threat to us. (Edit: Three months ago, my cholesterol was high, and I laid off the fried and fatty foods, and now my cholesterol is NORMAL! Yay me!!) And as for imported threats, bacterial contamination of foodstuffs is a greater threat than radiation poisoning. Edit: As an irrelevant side-note, the radioactive contamination is more "seep-out" than fall-out, since there was no explosion to waft radioactive clouds of debris into the stratosphere.
Edit in response to ^^: Denver has a lot more radiation than from just high altitude exposure, go go strip mining and its super fund creating sites! I will! Everything except for fish caught off the eastern shores of Japan, but as I understand it that is mostly used domestically.
I'm not worried about it. Although I do have a radon gas system in my basement, I spend a ton of time down there and would prefer my nuts not glow in the dark.
Radiation that could potentially be leaked into food is nothing to worry about. Food will not remain radioactive for much time. It absorbs the radiation quickly, and dissipates it just as fast. We honestly get more radiation from solar exposure than you would ever realize. That is the biggest contributor to general radiation exposure (chronic doses). The highest acute dose the general public receives is from X-Rays (which is quite honestly a pretty insane dose). It takes a lot of exposure to really have any affect on the human body, though. In other words, we have nothing to worry about. Even those up in the Rockies don't have to worry. It's not enough exposure to really have any affect on anything at all. ~Will Courtier~
There are definately way more worrysome things afoot than japan radiation such as the total loss of the free world: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012...20120401?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=76 My hope is that this is a huge assed april fools joke.
