Last updated at 9:35 PM on 18th March 2011
Conservative maverick Ann Coulter has poured scorn on growing fears over the fallout from Japan’s nuclear crisis by claiming that ‘radiation is good for you.’
With her bizarre outburst, Coulter became the latest celebrity to cause a stir over controversial remarks on the disaster in Japan.
The right wing commentator was attempting to quell concern that a radiation plume was due to hit America’s West Coast today after travelling 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean from the damaged reactor at Fukishima. Scroll down for video
Gaffe: Ann Coulter was attempting to quell concern that a radiation plume was due to hit America's West Coast today in a Fox News interview
‘There is a growing body of evidence that radiation in excess of what the government says are the minimum amounts we should be exposed to are actually good for you and reduce cases of cancer,’ she told Fox News TV host Bill O’Reilly.
Coulter pointed to articles in the New York Times and The Times of London to back up her argument.
‘So we should all be heading for the nuclear reactor leaking and kind of sunbathing,’ joked O’Reilly.
Coulter was speaking after writing a column on her website titled, ‘A Glowing Report on Radiation.’
Controversial: Coulter told host Bill O'Reilly, there was a growing body of evidence that a certain amount of radiation was actually good for the body and reduced cases of cancer
She quotes a string of doctors to back her argument and writes: ‘With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer.
‘This only seems counter-intuitive because of media hysteria for the past 20 years trying to convince Americans that radiation at any dose is bad.
'There is, however, burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine.
‘Every day Americans pop multivitamins containing trace amount of zinc, magnesium, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, nickel, boron - all poisons.
‘They get flu shots. They'll drink copious amounts of coffee to ingest a poison: caffeine. (Back in the '70s, Professor Cohen offered to eat as much plutonium as Ralph Nader would eat caffeine - an offer Nader never accepted.)
‘But in the case of radiation, the media have Americans convinced that the minutest amount is always deadly.’
More than 150,000 people have been evacuated from the danger zone around the damaged Japanese reactor and the U.S. has advised citizens to evacuate from a 50-mile radius of the site.
‘You have to be responsible,’ said O’Reilly.
‘The prevailing wisdom is there is a level of radiation that's going to hurt you and perhaps kill you.
'All you have to do is look at what happened here in New York City on 9/11.
‘The people exposed just to the debris coming from the collapsed towers are having a myriad of health problems. All right? Health problems all day long.
'And there is variety of them. So you have to err on the side of caution.
‘What you say may be true. There may be some doses of radiation in the human body can ward off infection.
'But in something like this, you have to get the folks out of there and you have to report worse case scenarios. You have to,’ he added.
He also pointed to the wartime U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as proof that radiation can kill.
The latest controversy came after a string of insensitive celebrity gaffes in the wake of the disaster.
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried was fired by insurance company Aflac for Tweeting: ‘Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them.’
Rapper 50 Cent was blasted for a Tweet after writing: ‘Wave will hit 8am them crazy white boys gonna try to go surfing," he wrote. "Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoes from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol."
CNBC anchor Larry Kudlow was also in hot water after stating he was grateful the human toll was far worse than the economic cost of the crisis.
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