Radiation poisoning

Radiation poisoning, also called "radiation sickness", is a form of damage to organic tissue due to excessive exposure to ionizing radiation. The term is generally used to refer to acute problems caused by a large dosage of radiation in a short period. Many of the symptoms of radiation poisoning occur as ionizing radiation interferes with cell division. This interference causes particular problems for cells that normally divide rapidly, such as those lining the gastrointestinal tract. Likewise, this is one reason for the effectiveness of radiotherapy in treating cancer — cancer cells are among the fastest-dividing in the body, and will be killed by a radiation dose that adjacent normal cells are likely to survive.

Radiation poisoning in fiction

• On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel written by British author Nevil Shute, made into a movie in 1959 and a television movie in 2000. It depicts the lives of various people in Australia awaiting the arrival of a deadly radioactive cloud from a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere. In the end, everybody dies of radiation sickness or suicide. The length of time that such a fallout cloud would survive is greatly exaggerated for effect. The 1959 movie was a sensation and frightened many people.
• The 1983 film Testament follows a suburban family coping with radiation sickness after Soviet nuclear attacks on San Francisco and the continental United States.
• The 1983 anti-war film The Day After portrays the aftereffects of a global nuclear war between the US and the USSR, focusing mainly on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas. Various characters are shown dying of radiation poisoning, in particular showing hair loss and baldness. Because actor Jason Robards played the lead role, it popularly got called "Jason Robards' disease." The movie appeared at about the same time that various members of the Reagan administration were downplaying the dangers of nuclear war and also proposing a controversial missile defense system, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), more popularly known as "Star Wars."
• Mick Jackson's 1984 made for TV movie Threads dealt with the consequences of a nuclear attack on England during the cold war era. The story follows two families and their future children at different stages of radiation poisoning and its aftermath.
• Shohei Imamura's 1989 movie Black Rain (黒い雨; kuroi ame) deals with the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The title refers to the "black rain" of radioactive fallout that fell on Hiroshima after the bombing. It is based on the book of the same name by Ibuse Masuji.
• In the television series 24, second season, a major character inhales a fatal amount of airborne plutonium. The effects on his health are shown on an hour-by-hour basis. He becomes very ill but before dying from the radiation sacrifices his life to divert a nuclear bomb away from Los Angeles, California.
• In the Graphic novel When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs, an elderly couple are exposed to fallout after a nuclear war. Much of the second half of the story deals with the effects of radiation poisoning on them and how they interpret what is happening to them. Oblivious to the true danger they are in, they put most of the symptoms they are suffering from down to shock and stress.
• In the television series Stargate SG-1, the character Daniel Jackson is exposed to a massive dose of radiation (approximately 12sv) while disarming an experimental nuclear weapon on another planet. Allowed to return to his home planet on compassionate grounds, he quickly succumbs to the symptoms of radiation poisioning, eventually only cheating death by ascending to a higher plane of existence.
• The 1999 time-travel TV series "7 Days" featured an episode in the first season involving a radiation leak from a damaged Russian nuclear submarine. When asked to describe the size of the leak, one scientist explains, "The phrase 'radioactive death cloud' comes to mind." Victims are pictured as pale and sickly.
• The 2002 film ' shows the events of Soviet submarine K-19, where seven crew members experience acute radiation poisoning (spending 10 to 20 minutes repairing the coolant system of the reactor). They immediately experience vomiting and nausea, and become extremely ill. Some of the remaining crew members suffer minor symptoms.