Cancer committee meeting agenda posted

NAS has announced that the first committee meeting for analysis of cancer risks near NRC licensed facilities will be on February 24 and 25, 2011 at the Melrose Hotel, 2430 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC. Members of the public are welcome to attend the open session on Thursday, February 24, which will also be webcast. According to the current agenda, the public open session will be from 1 PM to 5:30 PM with public comments starting at 4:15. We encourage you to attend and provide comments. 

Activist urges Ottawa to examine Port Hope residents for radioactivity

A group of doctors wants the federal government to study the population of Port Hope to see if they are suffering from the effects of radioactive waste. “I think it is time for our regulator to stop trying to minimize, to obscure, to hide the effects of radioactivity on human beings and start acting to protect the public,” Dr. Linda Harvey, a family physician who has studied the effects of uranium on human health, told a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday. “Canadians deserve better.” Harvey was joined by anti-nuclear activist and pediatrician Dr. Helen Caldicott, who sparked a furor last November when she told the Star the Cameco Corp. uranium refinery in Port Hope should be shut down and the entire town moved to another site. The Star

Chernobyl birds are small brained

Marsh warblers are one of the species affectedBirds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation. The finding comes from a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region, published in the journal PLoS One. Brain size was significantly smaller in yearlings compared with older birds. Smaller brain sizes are thought to be linked to reduced cognitive ability. BBC

The most radioactive town in Europe

At about 10.30am on 17 January 1966, when Jesus Caceido heard a deafening explosion coming from the village of Palomares, the future mayor of the area had no idea he had just witnessed one of the Cold War's most serious nuclear accidents – or that nearly half a century later, the 1,500 villagers would still be battling to have the ensuing contamination removed for good. The Independent

First public meeting of NAS cancer committee announced

NAS has announced that the first committee meeting for analysis of cancer risks near NRC licensed facilities will be on February 24, 2011 at the Melrose Hotel, 2430 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC. Members of the public are welcome to attend the open session which will also be webcast. We encourage you to attend. Please stay tuned for more details.