Radiation Exposure and Risk

Ionizing radiation damages living things and contaminates the environment, sometimes permanently. Studies have shown increases in cancer around nuclear facilities and uranium mines. Radiation mutates genes which can cause genetic damage across generations.

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Entries by admin (221)

Tuesday
Dec182012

WHO downplayed health effects of nuclear crisis on Fukushima residents : German physician

A German doctor and member of a Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicians' group has criticized a World Health Organization report on the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe for underestimating its impact on human health.

In a research paper, Alex Rosen said the WHO report, published in May this year on estimated radiation doses received by residents near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, was compiled mainly by officials related to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which promotes the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

Rosen, a member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, called for an independent assessment based on solid scientific methodology that would examine the health impacts from radioactive fallout released after the Fukushima No. 1 complex suffered three core meltdowns in March 2011. The Japan Times

Tuesday
Dec182012

A tale of three (contaminated) sites

Here are three recent stories of contamination at weapons and research facilities:

A people's truth: The Hanford nuclear site was meant to be safe for its neighbours. Now they are fighting the experts to tell their story

 

Tom Bailie grew up on a dryland farm in Mesa, Washington, just downwind from the massive Hanford plant founded in 1943 to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project. Bailie often served as an informal spokesman for the ‘downwinders’, the people who believed they were poisoned by fission products that flowed from the plant on air currents, along underground aquifers, and down the Columbia River on the dry plains of eastern Washington...

‘I finally realised,’ Bailie announced on another day, ‘why me and my buddies are still going strong, and the goodie-two-shoes we went to school with are sick or dead.’

‘Why, Tom?’

‘Because when their mothers told them to eat their vegetables and drink their milk, they did! Meanwhile, me and my friends snuck off to the store and bought Twinkies and Coke.’ Aeon

Radioactive hot spots remain at former research facility's site

 

Half a century after America's first partial nuclear meltdown, hundreds of radioactive hot spots remain at a former research facility overlooking the west San Fernando Valley, according to a recently released federal study.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's $41-million survey of the facility, now owned by Boeing Co. and NASA, is expected to provide a precise map for state and federal agencies hoping to clean up the site by 2017.

It also sets the stage for determining a final disposition for the 2,850-acre site, which is home to rare plants, great horned owls and four-point bucks.

That won't be easy. Environmentalists and Boeing officials are already clashing over plans to transform the site near the Santa Susana Mountains into public open space. Los Angeles Times

Rising radiation at SC nuclear dump prompts cleanup talk but no action


Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/12/16/2557919/rising-radiation-at-sc-nuclear.html#.UM9UzRiKQyI#storylink=cpy

 

Radioactive pollution is getting worse on parts of South Carolina’s nuclear-waste dump near Barnwell, but state regulators say cleaning up the contaminated groundwater isn’t in their plan.

Tritium continues to exceed federal safe drinking-water standards in and around the 41-year-old burial ground that has come to symbolize South Carolina’s historic willingness to accept the nation’s garbage. In some spots tritium levels are higher today than they were five years ago. The State


Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/12/16/2557919/rising-radiation-at-sc-nuclear.html#.UM9UzRiKQyI#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/12/16/2557919/rising-radiation-at-sc-nuclear.html#.UM9UzRiKQyI#storylink=cpy
Friday
Dec072012

A recent review of radiation studies should lead NRC to examine the amount of radiation it claims is safe

The roots of the trilobite ancestory extend back to the Pre-Cambrian periodA few years ago, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission raised the average dose Americans receive from “background” radiation, to 620 millirem (mrem), up from 310 mrem (3.1 millisieverts or mSv) per year. This dose includes radon, terrestrial and cosmic radiation, and medical and industrial exposures, including bomb and civilian reactor radioactivity. But, as with all averages, a lot of important detail is lost, so let’s examine the 620 mrem a little closer.

Radon, accounting for approximately 200 mrem of the 620 varies greatly depending on location, therefore, not everyone gets the “average” dose. The NRC also assumes that nearly half of the 620 dose (about 310 mrem) comes from medical exams. But if you don’t get these exams, your dose is significantly lower. Add to this the reality that most medical exposures to radiation are relatively short lived, and you have exposures that are not necessarily comparable to chronic exposure to radiation.

The NRC claims “a yearly dose of 620 millirem from all radiation sources has not been shown to cause humans any harm…” and it uses this “background” dose to justify exposing us to 100 millirem per year MORE from nuclear facility operations if it wants. All nuclear power reactors release radioacitivity routinely and without this allowable limit, reactors would be forced to capture their radioactive releases at great expense. Some radioactive waste products, like tritium, they can’t capture. But radionuclides released from reactors, unlike medical exposures, can subject people and the environment to a longer-term, even permanent increase of radioactivity, either because these radionuclides have long hazardous lives (in which case they can build up in our environment) or because they continue to be released, introducing a never-ending stream of radioactive pollution.

Also consider that levels of background radiation peaked at about 7 milligray (mGy) during the Pre-Cambrian period. Since life first originated this dose has decreased by a factor of ten (Moller & Mousseau referencing Karam & Leslie 2005). (7 mGy is roughly equal to about 700 millirem for external exposure to gamma, but this conversion can become tricky when considering naturally occurring, internal doses of alpha and beta radiation) While we must be cautious about a direct comparison, it is thought that radiation levels had to decrease substantially for creatures as complex and differentiated as mammals to be viable.

The more radiation we release to our environment, the more we may be reverting to levels that were too high for us to evolve in the first place. In fact, the NRC average of 620 mrem plus an additional 100 mrem per year allowed, is perilously close to this Pre-Cambrian PEAK, even if a millirem-to-millirem comparison is not exactly equivalent.

A recent study calls into question the NRC assumption that 620 mrem/year is safe, especially over the long term. The research reviewed by Moller and Mousseau demonstrates that in areas of increased natural radiation, human populations suffer an increase in “significant negative effects on immunology, mutation and disease frequency”, including reduced levels of antioxidants.  The existence of hormesis, a theory that, stated simply, claims “a little radiation is good for you”, is not supported by these studies: “…these negative effects of radiation on mutations, immunology and life history are inconsistent with a general role of hormetic positive effects of radiation on living organisms.”

Of the 46 studies reviewed, approximately 15 of them measured natural background radiation levels between 0.67 to 6.4 millisieverts (67 to 640 mrem) per year. The remaining studies had higher natural radiation. Even at the lower levels of natural background radiation, health impacts included cancer incidence and death, all manner of chromatid and chromosome aberrations (deletions, dicentrics and rings, translocation and inversions) some of which have cross-generational (inheritable) implications, congenital malformations, and Down’s syndrome.

Obviously a direct comparison between the NRC’s calculated average background exposure of 620 mrem and the Moller/Mousseau study is problematic. There is a good possibility that the NRC’s assumption of 620 mrem/year is not correct and that the amount Americans are exposed to is actually much lower.  This means that the 100 mrem/year extra they want to expose us to is a greater fraction of our dose than they assume. But increasing background dose leads to increases in diseases and immunity problems, and a comparison between this increase and the NRC’s background exposure estimate IS warranted. It is time for NRC to revisit its “background” radiation dose assumptions and account for the data found in studies like the ones reviewed by Moller/Mousseau.

Monday
Dec032012

Researchers plan to study effects of Navajo Reservation uranium exposure on pregnancy and child birth

Three decades after the end of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation, researchers plan to conduct a study in response to community concerns about the effects of exposure to uranium waste on pregnancies and child development on the Navajo Nation.


The Navajo Birth Cohort Study is a three-year study on the Navajo reservation. It will provide early assessment and education on environmental and prenatal risks from exposure to environmental contaminants.


In 2009, Congress mandated and awarded money for the Navajo Birth Cohort Study. The money will support the University of New Mexico Community Environmental Health Program as it designs and conducts the study in collaboration with the Navajo Area Indian Health Services, the Navajo Division of Health, Southwest Research and Information Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.


Johnnye Lewis, Ph.D., director of the Community Environmental Health Program, Health Sciences Center, at the University of New Mexico, is the principal investigator in the project. She coordinates the professional research team drawn from the five agencies responsible for implementing the project.


"This particular set of funding is for Navajo, but this is not just a Navajo problem," said Lewis. "There are 10,400 abandoned uranium mine waste sites in the western U.S., many of those on tribal lands. So I think the information we gain from this study will have impacts much further reaching than just Navajo."


More information on the Navajo Birth Cohort Study is available by calling toll-free (877) 545-6775 or contacting a Clinical Liaison at the nearest IHS facility. Navaho-Hopi Observer

Thursday
Nov292012

Foreign doctors on Fukushima trip “very surprised” at condition of patients

Ms. Kazuko Kawai, Founder of Voices for Lively Spring (a Japan-based human rights organization and a grass-root organization): The radiation problem, health problem is spreading all over Japan now through burning debris Iwate and Miyagi, and also contaminated food.

Both foreign doctors participated in the IPPW World Conference and the field trip in Fukushima, which was organized by Peace Boat and Green Action and other organizations.

And they thought that they had sufficient information, but then they observed the health consultations on the tour and were very surprised to find out that actual patients were in even worse condition than they had anticipated.

The symptoms are always the same […] Nose bleeds, skin disease, diarrhea, respiratory diseases, pains at the rear of the ears, stomatitis, and so on, and so on – as well as thyroid disorders.