In reply to Shadow Minister an Geoff Russell
Just a couple of points as you both try once again to dazzle the readers with (inaccurate) science.
Radioactive iodine - it depends on which isotope you're talking about. Radioactive iodine 127 has a half-life of 15.7 million years,

As to Australia's rate of melanoma being so much greater than Japan's - this is such a red herring argument.
Natural UV radiation is the major cause of melanoma - hardly surprising that the continent (Australia) with the largest amount of sunshine has also a high rate of melanoma, while Japan, much cooler, has a low rate.
That has nothing to do with the kinds of cancer that are expected from the man made radiation from Cesium 137 from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe radioactive fallout.

It's simple Noel, living in Australia is more dangerous (higher risk of deadly cancer) than living in the Fukushima evacuation zone. Even if you don't drink, smoke or eat red meat. The increased risk due to sunshine is much bigger than the increased risk from living in the exclusion zone.

I can't understand why you have no compassion for these people and are in favour of keeping them from going home.

Noel, do you think that when a person dies in Qld of melanoma, their relatives run round saying "Gosh, that was lucky, thank God they didn't die from some radioisotope!"

Normal people say that if X raises your risk of death more than Y, that X is more dangerous than Y. So Aussie sunshine is more dangerous than the Fukushima exclusion zone.

Qld melanoma death rate is about 10 per 100,000 in men and 4 in women per year and in Japan 0.2 per 100,000 per annum for both. So moving to Qld is far more deadly than moving into the exclusion zone. The only difference is that you and your mates have scared the hell out of people about isotopes. Terrifying children, mortifying their parents, causing suicides, depression, mental anguish and an unnecessary evacuation.

Suppose evacuation standards were set as follows: "When the increased risk from radiation matches the melanoma risk of living on the Sunshine coast, we'll evacuate". That's a perfectly reasonable criterion and everybody would be back rebuilding their lives instead of homeless and traumatised.

NW,

You are the one peddling inaccuracies.

Iodine 127 may well have a half life of 15m years, but it is a tiny fraction of the radioactive product produced. Most other products decay far faster.

Please refer to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product

and especially

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Totalexternaldoseratecher.png

Which shows that radioactivity at points outside Chernobyl have radiation levels 1/100th of the level they were shortly after the accident, as has the risk of cancer etc.

Just a comment on exposure to sunlight (UVB and UVA.

Too little exposure.

Vitamin D deficiency (rickets in children, osteomalacia in adults).

A good model for Hormesis
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I-127 is a stable (non-radioactive) iodine isotope.