The exploitation of indigenous peoples by uranium mining companies

Nuclear dangers real and widespread
BY HELEN CALDICOTT, THE STARPHOENIX NOVEMBER 9, 2012
Caldicott is founding president of Physicians for Social
Responsibility and was featured in the Oscar winning film, If You Love
This Planet.

I write to reply to the allegations made about me in John Gormley’s
column, More private liquor stores, less Caldicott (SP, Nov. 2).

First, it is important for me to stress that the aboriginal people in
Northern Saskatchewan are being exploited by the uranium and nuclear
power industry, as they have routinely been in the United States and
Australia.

People who have lived benignly with nature for tens of thousands of
years have been forced to allow mining companies to extract uranium
from beneath their feet and to work in the mines.

Ample evidence abounds in the scientific literature that one-fifth to
one-half of uranium miners in North America have suffered from lung
cancer. Furthermore, uranium miners are also exposed to carcinogenic
whole body gamma radiation as well as the ingestion of radium – the
element that induced leukemia in Madame Marie Curie.

Many indigenous people who live near uranium mines are also exposed to
radioactive elements, and newly elevated rates of cancer are now
reported in these populations. We don’t know exact numbers because the
Saskatchewan government has not performed a baseline health study on
the populations affected.

As if this ecological danger were not enough, the nuclear industry is
proposing to bury 37,000 tonnes of extremely toxic, high level
long-lasting radioactive waste from Canadian nuclear reactors among
this vulnerable group of people, which, it is claimed will give them
jobs.

As the isotopes inevitably leak, they will contaminate the food chain
for evermore inducing more malignancies and genetic disease over
future generations…..http://limitlesslife.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/nuclear-dangers-real-and-widespread/

December 29, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, Reference, Uranium