Question about older son
she has 2 sons, the older one brad doesn't get sick? even at the end he doesn't have any signs of sickness, how come he didn't get sick?
my cat will rule the world!
I thought I saw him looking a bit feverish when he was on the CB radio trying to get a response from other communities. He looked like he was shivering and pale.
shareI wondered too because his siblings & the little boy they took in died. But the mom wasn't really sick either (even though there is a scene where she barfs). I think I remember reading once that people who die from radiation poisoning don't all get sick at the same rate.
shareThat's true. Some people are more resistant than others. People who get radiation sickness can recover, but it's only temporary. Then the symptoms get worse.
Apparently there is no such thing as a "safe" dose of radiation. There are long-term effects. The older son could have survived for another ten or fifteen years before developing cancer. (If starvation hadn't killed him first.)
Children are growing and therefore their bodies need more nutrients than adults. Also, being smaller than adults the proportion of contamination in their nutrients is higher than in adults. In other words, a specific amount of radioactive Iodine or Stronthium is much worse for a child than an adult as an adult is bigger and therefore the dose is not as bad proporitonally. Also, an adult does not absorb that much as their body has already developed and they do not need as much.
Which is why open-air nuclear testing was so controversial in the 1950s and early 1960s. On the large tests (hydrogen bombs) the mushroom clouds rose high enough that the winds took the radioactive material around the world before it dropped out. When the stuff did drop out it went into the environment and some of it was aborbed by growing children. The fear was that this testing would cause thyroid cancers (from the radioactive iodine) and bone cancer (from radioactive Stronthium- which is chemically the same as calcium). Whether or not the testing became widespread enough to cause cancer has been a source of controversy for over 40 years now. However, the fears of people (particulary children) being adversely affected by this testing was the primary motivator for the treaty to ban open air testing.
After the open air test ban treaty came into effect in 1963 some non-treaty countries (China and France) continued to test in the atmosphere. The French tests were carried out properly (fairly low yield and in a very remote place) and I doubt if any radioactive material reached inhabited areas outside of French territory. The Chinese tests were considerably dirtier, but far fewer in number. Eventually everybody went to underground testing and nuclear testing was no longer a threat to our health.
In the movie, the smallest children (babies) are dying first; which would be expected from such an event. Later, the larger children develop the effects of radiation poisoning. Ultimately the smaller adults (women) will die off followed by the men. This, of course, is only approximate. In the most notable atmospheric nuclear accident (reactor meltdown in Ukraine) the number of thyroid cancer deaths of children rose horribly high over the years. Adults seemed to be not so affected. Older (60 years +) people moved back to the area and the radiation by products seem not to harm them at all. Of course, at that age their body is not absorbing very much so very little harm comes to them.
"Wars are fought by your children." This applies even more so to a nuclear conflict. Which is why the old men who hold power are horrified by the prospect of this occurring. President Kennedy said, during the Cuban missile crisis, that if it wasn't for the children he would like to go to war to destroy the Soviet Union. But, because of the children (including his own) he decided to negotiate instead.
Yes, there are "safe" doses of radiation. However, in the movie it is obvious that the radiation doses they received were much larger than the medically accepted safe doses.
share