RADIOACTIVE POISONING IN BUKIT MERAH, PERAK

Radiation poisoning happens when a radioactive substance gives off particles that get into a person's body and cause harm. Different radioactive substances have different characteristics. They can harm and help people in different ways, and some are more dangerous than others.

Normally, radiation occurs in a safe environment. Whether or not it becomes dangerous depends on how it is used how strong it is how often a person is exposed what type of exposure occurs how long exposure lasts. A dose of radiation from a single x-ray is not normally harmful. Nevertheless, the parts of the body that are not being x-rayed will be shielded with a lead apron to prevent unnecessary exposure.

The technician, meanwhile, will leave the room when taking the image. While one small dose is not dangerous, repeated small doses could be. A sudden, short, low dose of radiation is unlikely to cause a problem but extended, intense, or repeated doses can be. When radiation damages cells, it is irreversible. The more often a person is exposed, the greater their risk of health problems.

Moreover, radiation poisoning have signs and symptoms. Radiation sickness can be acute, happening soon after exposure or chronic, where symptoms appear over time or after some time, possibly years later.

The signs and symptoms of acute radiation poisoning are vomiting, diarrhea and nausea loss of appetite, malaise or feeling unwell headache rapid heartbeat symptoms depend on the dose, and whether it is a single dose or repeated. A dose of as low as 30 rads can lead to loss of white blood cells nausea and vomiting headaches. A dose of 300 rads dose may result in temporary hair loss damage to nerve cells damage to the cells that line the digestive tract.

In addition, to understand why there is so much opposition to the Lynas rare earth plant, we have to look at the sad history of Bukit Merah New Village, just a few kilometres south of downtown Ipoh.

Life changed forever for the mainly Hakka community of Bukit Merah after Asian Rare Earth Sdn Bhd (ARE) began operations there in July 1982 to extract yttrium, a rare earth, from monazite.

Within a few years, the villagers began noticing physical defects in their new born, and at least eight leukaemia cases were confirmed. Medical examinations on children in the area found that nearly 40% of them suffered from lymph node diseases, turbinate congestion and recurrent rhinitis. Seven of the leukaemia victims have since died.

Equally heartrending is the parallel story of the villagers’ attempt to stop the ARE operations. It was a saga that ran for more than two decades, and it pitted the villagers, helped by various civic organisations, against big business and powerful state authorities. An exercise to decommission the ARE plant finally began in 2003, but the work to decontaminate the area is still going on and is estimated to cost RM300 million. The New York Times called it “the largest radiation clean up yet in the rare earth industry”.

ARE was a collaboration between Mitsubishi Chemical Industries Ltd (35%), Beh Minerals (35%), Lembaga Urusan dan Tabung Haji (20%) and several Bumiputera businessmen (10%). The company was incorporated in 1979.

The Penang Consumer Association has compiled a chronology of events in the Bukit Merah tragedy to help us appreciate the tenacity of Malaysians who rose to act to protect their health and environment against a government that placed profit before the people’s welfare.

Eight men which is a welder, a shoemaker, a general worker, a pensioner, a barber, a tractor driver, a crane-operator and a cancer victim who was to die shortly sued Asian Rare Earth in 1985 on behalf of themselves and 10,000 other residents of Bukit Merah and the environs in Perak. They wanted to shut down this rare earth plant in their village near Ipoh because its radioactive waste was endangering their lives.

 When the Mitsubishi joint venture plant opened over 1982, the villagers soon began complaining of the factory's stinging smoke and bad smell which made them choke and cry. Worse was to come. Their health began failing, indicated not only by frequent bouts of coughs and colds, but a sharp rise in the incidence of leukaemia, infant deaths, congenital disease and lead poisoning. For the first time in Malaysian legal history, an entire community has risen to act over an environmental issue, to protect their health and environment from radioactive pollution.

Radiation are dangerous because radiation dosage can measured in various ways. Some of the units used are Grays, Sieverts, rems, and rads. They are used in a similar way, but 0.1 rad is equal to 100 Gray.

Below 30 rads it can be mild symptoms will occur in the blood, from 30 to 200 rads can be the person may become ill. From 200 to 1,000 rads, the person may become seriously ill. Over 1,000 rads, this will be fatal.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), radiation sickness, or acute radiation syndrome (ARS) is diagnosed when a person receives over 70 rads from a source outside their body. The dose affects the whole body, or most of it, and is able to penetrate to the internal organs.

The effect of these radiation is different doses are different effects which is the risk of illness depends on the dose. Very low doses of radiation are all around us all the time, and they do not have any effect. It also depends on the area of the body that is exposed. If the whole body is exposed to, say, 1,000 rads within a short time, this could be fatal. However, far higher doses can be applied to a small area of the body with less risk.

After a mild dose, the person may experience symptoms for just a few hours or days. However, a repeated or even a single, relatively low dose that produces few or no visible symptoms around the time of exposure may cause problems later on. A person who is exposed to 3,000 rads will experience nausea and vomiting, and they may experience confusion and a loss of consciousness within a few hours. Tremors and convulsions will occur 5 to 6 hours after exposure. Within 3 days, there will be coma and death.