*As a U.S. citizen, he served from 1968 to 1970 as a Senior Surgeon of the United States Public Health Service. He was recruited in 1974 by the University of South Alabama to establish one of the first free-standing Departments of Medical Genetics in the nation, at the emerging USA College of Medicine.


Geneticist charts effects of nuclear disasters
[link to blog.al.com]

[snip]

"It is not the scale of a nuclear accident itself that makes a human disaster it is the response by officials afterward and the public panic produced. The public should not be treated as idiots and told only the 'good half' of the story, as is often done by official agencies. People have the right to know, the need to believe those who are in charge."

Wertelecki believes that the often-made comparisons of Chernobyl or Fukushima-Daiichi outcomes with those that followed the atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are wrong.

The impact of the bombs was external radiation, which was intense but short-lived, said the physician. The impact of Chernobyl and Fukushima-Daiichi is ongoing and radiation still in the environment is inhaled or swallowed, leading to accumulation in the body. One mushroom eaten in affected areas may deliver as much radiation as hundreds of chest x-rays, he concluded.