What is the effect of radiation on my health?

Low-level radiation from normally functioning nuclear power plants, weapons facilities, and testing sites contaminates our environment and our bodies in slow stages. Uranium mining, disposal of milling wastes (called tailings), and spent fuel also create hazards. Waste from a nuclear reactor or a weapons plant remains radioactive for as long as 250 centuries.

The U.S. government has downplayed the impact of nuclear testing on women's reproductive health, but research points to a pattern of difficult pregnancies, miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects, and breast cancer near nuclear facilities. In case of a meltdown at a nuclear power plant, thousands would die immediately, tens of thousands could suffer from acute radiation sickness within two or three weeks, and others may develop cancers five to thirty years afterward. Nuclear war is the ultimate environmental hazard.