Heavy Atomic Bomb Radiation example essay topic

... the end of 1945, either due to the initial blast or from radiation-related diseases. Circulatory diseases accounted for nearly half of the deaths. Between 1950 and 1990, the studies say that 15,633 deaths had occurred from the other diseases. Also digestive diseases, including liver disease, and respiratory diseases each accounted for about 10% of the total.

Studies show that between 140 and 280 deaths had happened form radiation exposure alone. Survivors showed a greater-than-usual incidence of leukemia early on, and an ever-increasing rate of other types of cancers as the years wears on, much greater than normal. (web) Children still in the womb when the bomb hit have a high frequency of mental retardation, but fortunately children conceived after the blast by survivors have not shown genetic effects. Radiation in surrounding land has also gone up by 2% which means people now can even get sicker. It is a fact that radiation destroys DNA in cells. Scientists say that after radiation exposure genes can get lost or can get rejoined to other genes during repair of DNA breaks.

This results in mutations and disfiguring. Many mutations are still found in erythrocytes from atomic-bomb survivors 50 years after the atomic bombings. This is because mutations remain in the genes of the bone marrow cells that produce erythrocytes. Research by scientists using recent molecular biology techniques is revealing that human cancers are caused by gene mutation. The immune system rejects unwanted substances, such as bacteria and parasites, which enter the body. People who were exposed to heavy atomic bomb radiation, the blood stem cells lost the capacity to produce immune cells, including T and B-lymphocytes.

The T and B-lymphocytes are what reject what the body does not want. Many exposed people died due to infectious and other diseases because their bodies could no longer kill intruding bacteria. Immediately following radiation exposure, atomic-bomb survivors experienced stress brought on by a broad range of physical, social, and psychological factors. The beginning of small radiation symptoms followed Burns and injuries, such as epilation, (which means hair loss), bleeding, and diarrhea. This sickness is even seen in those who appear not to be affected by the atomic-bombing. Deaths of family members and the general destruction of their lives as well as reports of an increased incidence of cancer as a late effect of radiation exposure heightened survivors' anxiety and fears.

Possible effects on the aging process have been tied to the atomic-bombing on Hiroshima. The decline of the way a person functions in breathing capacity, vision, and ability to focus the vision, sensitivity to vibration, and skin elasticity occurs with age, but no specific effect of radiation exposure has been observed. Grip strength and hearing ability seem to be incredibly affected in some survivors, but the effect is not necessarily drawn to radiation dose, but is drawn some how to the bombing. The infamous atomic bomb cataract occurred among the survivors between several months and several years after the atomic bombing. It is known that its opacity develops around the outside pole of the lens in many cases.

The studies of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation on babies who were in whom of exposed A-bomb survivors show that severe mental retardation was seen mostly among the children who were exposed to radiation at 8-15 weeks of gestation. Many survivors also had to deal with purpura, which is a condition in which a person's body begins to bleed beneath the skin, due to the radiation. This caused many to have big blotches on their body, resembling a bruise, but they don't go away. 'During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude...

' Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380 I belied that Dwight Eisenhower has a good conscience. Eisenhower knew that Japan was going to surrender because Germany just did recently. Eisenhower believed that if they just would have sit out and waited for a little while they could have avoided the mass destruction of Hiroshima. Environmental disasters are disasters that affect us all. They are disasters that are not caused by nature but by man. The disasters burned trees, which cause unusable land, and killing endangered animals.

Hiroshima is now not currently radioactive. There are two ways radioactivity is produced from an atomic blast. The first is due to fallout of the fission products or the nuclear material itself, uranium or plutonium that contaminate the ground. (web) The Hiroshima bomb exploded at 500 m of altitude then formed huge fireballs that rose with ascending air currents. (Boyer, p. 150) Next, the material cooled down and started to fall with rain. Because of the wind, the rain did not fall directly on the hypocenter but rather in the northwest region (Koi, Takas u area) of Hiroshima and the eastern region. Nowadays, the radioactivity is so miniscule that it is difficult to distinguish from trace amounts of radioactivity caused by atmospheric atomic-bomb tests.

In reading many quotes by bomb survivors and leaders in the Japanese government, I came to the conclusion that they had a lack of respect of for the United States. It wasn't just from the bombing but from the treatment of them back in the United States but from the mistreatment of the Japanese. The government thought that the Japanese were spies and were giving them military secrets. The government in my eyes thought that the Japanese were no good and looking for trouble.

The United States was prejudice against the Japanese. With the United States dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the whole world just assumed that dropping atomic bombs was now fair. This happening started what we called the Cold War. The Cold War was basically a bunch of countries pointing nuclear weapons at each other. This was total chaos throughout the majority of the century.