Friends,

The front page of today’s Seattle Times is embazoned with the headline:

Friends,

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are inextricably linked in many ways. They both produce ionizing radiation that, when released into the environment, exposes people to a wide variety of radioactive isotopes. Some are extremely short-lived, while others exist for countless lifetimes. One thing they all share? When they enter the body they act at the cellular level, causing damage, potentially to the cell’s genetic material, and even at low exposure levels present some risk of a wide variety of effects.

Over a period of more than 66 years – through releases of radioisotopes to the environment from both nuclear power generation (routine operations and accidents) and nuclear weapons production and testing – vast quantities of radioisotopes have accumulated around the globe, creating a captive population of human guinea pigs.