Children and women who are pregnant are at most immediate risk from any radiation released by nuclear reactors in Japan, a US radiation expert says。
"All humans exposed to radiation suffer harm," professor Janette at the environmental institute at Western Michigan University in says。
"The fetus, infant and child are much more susceptible than adults for two reasons. First, the immune system in the young is underdeveloped, and less able to repair damage from radiation exposure. Second, young cells are dividing very rapidly, and a cell damaged by radiation in a fetus or infant is much more likely to result in a birth defect or cancer than in an adult."
However, adults should also be monitored because people absorb radiation from reactor emissions via inhalation, food and water, Janette says。
Janette is editor of a 2010 book "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" that claims, based on previously records and reports by Eastern European scientists and medical experts, an estimated 985,000 people have died as a result of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in Ukraine。
"What harm we can expect to occur from the Japanese nuclear plant emissions has been well-documented in the people, animals, birds, and plants that were exposed to fallout to Chernobyl," Sherman says。