After the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in 1986, the British government assured its citizens that their food and water were safe because levels of radiation in the United Kingdom were considered too low to cause a health risk, reports this BBC News article.
But now a British doctor says that wasn't the case. In a paper presented to the World Health Organization, Dr. Chris Busby, from Aberystwyth, says the number of cases of infant leukemia has risen sharply in Wales and Scotland since the disaster. He says this is because radiation is absorbed into the body through food and drink. Busby adds that the models scientists use to assess the risks from radiation are faulty and don't accurately predict the dangers of radiation exposure.
He is working with an anti-radiation group that's trying to stop the proposed legal dumping of tritium into the River Tamar in Plymouth, England. Tritium is a radioactive waste product produced in nuclear submarine reactors.
Radiation comes from a variety of sources, including the sun, electronic devices and nuclear reactors. It also turns up in some unusual places -- like in museum rocks or in fertilizer, according to these CNN stories.
