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Unnecessary radiation – too many CT scans in USA hospitals

Hospitals Nationwide Unnecessarily Perform Double CT Scans, -California Heath Line –  June 20, 2011Hundreds of hospitals nationwide routinely perform two chest CT scans on a single patient, needlessly exposing them to double doses of radiation and driving up costs, according to a review of Medicare data, the New York Times reports (Bogdanich/Craven McGinty, New York Times, 6/17).

Unnecessary Testing Patients who receive a double CT scan undergo a contrast and a noncontrast CT scan in succession (Appleby/Rau, Kaiser Health News/Washington Post, 6/18). Although most radiologists say nearly all chest issues can be accurately diagnosed with only one scan, 2008 Medicare data show that some hospitals performed double scans on chest patients more than 80% of the time. According to the Times, a single CT chest scan exposes a patient to 350 times the radiation of a standard chest X-ray (New York Times, 6/17).

Specifically, Medicare data show that 76,781 chest patients, or 5.4%, received double CT scans in 2008. While most hospitals administered them sparingly—a median of 2% of Medicare patients received two scans—618 hospitals performed double scans on at least 10% of Medicare chest patients, and 94 of those hospitals performed double scans on at least 50% of Medicare chest patients (Kaiser Health News/Washington Post, 6/18).

Experts note that double scanning also is common for privately insured patients (New York Times, 6/17). Although the number of overall non-Medicare patients who receive double scans is unknown, HealthPartners, a not-for-profit Minnesota HMO, reports that 7% of its chest patients received double scans in 2010 (Kaiser Health News/Washington Post, 6/18)….http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2011/6/20/hospitals-nationwide-unnecessarily-perform-double-ct-scans.aspx

June 21, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Low dose of radiation causes cataracts

Eye lens is more vulnerable to radiation: new studies IBN LIVE  PTI |  Jun 20,2011 There are three main forms of cataract; nuclear, cortical, and posterior sub-capsular (PSC). Among these, PSC is the least common and is associated with exposure to radiation. Till recently, scientists believed that cataract was formed only after the lens received a typical radiation dose, called the threshold dose, of 2Gy for a single dose, and 5 Gy when the exposure occurred in a protracted way. Not any more. Recent studies appear to show that formation of radiation induced cataracts at much lower doses than the current standards. ICRP now considers that the threshold dose for cataract is 0.5Gy. The present ICRP recommendations must serve as a wake-up call for interventional cardiology and radiology professionals, Parthasarathy said. Cataract analysis of 8,607 Chernobyl clean-up workers 12 and 14 years after exposure indicated that posterior sub-capsular or cortical cataracts appeared in 25 per cent of the participants…http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/eye-lens-is-more-vulnerable-to-radiation-new-studies/731307.html

June 21, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

Japan experimenting with incineration of radioactive rubble

Environment Ministry to approve incineration of rubble contaminated with radiation, (Mainichi Japan) June 20, 2011 The Environment Ministry has decided to approve the proposed incineration of rubble contaminated with radiation from the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant at existing incineration facilities equipped with exhaust gas filters and absorption devices, officials said.

It made the decision after discussing how to safely dispose of rubble contaminated with radiation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

No law currently provides for ways to dispose of waste contaminated with radiation from a crippled nuclear power plant. After consultations between ministries and agencies concerned, the government decided to apply the Waste Disposal and Public Cleaning Law to the disposal of radioactive rubble.

The ministry had initially urged local governments not to move radioactive rubble out of temporary storage sites. However, it will explain its decision to local governments concerned and ask them to resume their disposal of contaminated rubble as early as the end of this month……….

The government will also try to form a consensus among Fukushima residents about its plan to build final disposal sites for radioactive waste in the prefecture….http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110620p2a00m0na017000c.html

June 21, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011 | Leave a comment

New uranium mining on Grand Canyon stopped for 20 years

20-year ban planned on new Grand Canyon uranium mining, LA Times 20 June 11By Neela Banerjee, The Obama administration announces the proposed ban for 1 million acres of land bordering the Grand Canyon, an area where uranium mining claims have spiked 2,000% in the last seven years.

Mining claims around the Grand Canyon are among the thousands filed by companies along the borders of numerous national parks and wilderness areas.Critics say an outmoded 1872 law is driving the increase in claims in such sensitive places. The law allows corporations to stake out rights to federal lands for mining without a competitive bid and to extract resources without paying royalties.

The ban would strengthen a moratorium on new mining claims and activity, which the administration placed on Grand Canyon border lands two years ago in response to the jump in uranium stakes.Interior Department officials said the agency initially would extend the current moratorium another six months, until December, in order to complete the steps necessary to establish the 20-year ban. Mines currently in operation would not be affected.

Environmentalists, some lawmakers and water utilities serving metropolitan areas in the southwest, including Los Angeles, said the decision would protect the critical Colorado River watershed from possible contamination from uranium mining and would prevent the Grand Canyon panorama from being gradually industrialized…….http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sc-dc-0621-grand-canyon-20110620,0,1196854.story

June 21, 2011 Posted by | environment, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear emergency on Missouri

Federal Water Tap, June 20: Flood Effects, Nuclear Power, Dam Removal. CIRCLE OF BLUE, 20 JUNE 2011 Nuclear Emergency on the Missouri Because of snowmelt and record releases from dams managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Missouri River has surrounded two nuclear power plants in Nebraska, creating atomic islands on the floodplain. In addition to traditional safety measures, water-filled polyethylene berms are being used as a line of defense to keep the river from inundating the facilities.

On Sunday morning, the Cooper plant, 70 miles south of Omaha, filed a “notification of unusual event” with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is the lowest of four emergency classifications used by the NRC. The other plant, at Fort Calhoun, submitted such a notice two weeks ago. It has been shut down since April for refueling and won’t be restarted until the flood waters subside. The Omaha World-Herald has more details.

Nuclear Decommissioning
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed new regulations to guide the decommissioning process. The NRC is clarifying the language used in its statutes to make explicit that residual radioactivity in soil and groundwater should be accounted for in company records. These radioactivity surveys will be used to evaluate decommissioning costs. http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/federal-water-tap/federal-water-tap-june-20-flood-effects-nuclear-power-dam-removal/

June 21, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear Suppliers Group restricting sales of atomic technology

Export Group Could Restrict Key Atomic Tech Sales. Global Security Network  June 20, 2011 The 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group has acted to prohibit its members from furnishing nuclear fuel enrichment and reprocessing systems to countries outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Deccan Chronicle reported on Monday (see GSN, May 27).

The initiative prompted apprehension from India, which in 2008 received a waiver allowing it to import sensitive material and technology even as a nuclear-armed state that has not joined the treaty……http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110620_7198.php

June 21, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs | Leave a comment

Nuclear power getting dearer, renewables cheaper – Germany is right

Germany is right to opt out of nuclear The rejection of nuclear power is a result not of German angst but of economic thinking. We must invest in renewable energy, Ulrich Beck, guardian.co.uk,  20 June 2011    Ultimately, the rejection of nuclear is not a result of German angst but of economic thinking. In the long run, nuclear power will become more expensive, while renewable energy will become cheaper. But the key point is that those who continue to leave all options open will not invest. Continue reading →

June 21, 2011 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Israel’s nuclear weapons – a threat to Middle East peace?

Israel: An Impediment To A Nuclear-Free Middle East,By Kourosh Ziabari ,The Public Record,Jun 20th, 2011 “……–According to the Federation of American Scientists, Israel now possesses up to 200 nuclear warheads and since it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), it cannot be held accountable over its military nuclear program. ….Since Israel started the development of nuclear weapons in early 1950s, it adopted a so-called policy of “deliberate ambiguity” and concealed its nuclear activities under this counterfeit label to enjoy immunity and avoid responsibility over its nuclear program, meaning that it neither confirms nor denies the possession of nuclear weapons, while even the U.S.-based scientific and research organizations have admitted that it has a perilous nuclear arsenal which is potentially able to evaporate the whole Middle East in a matter of seconds. Continue reading →

June 21, 2011 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | 1 Comment

French government rejecting poll showing unpopularity of nuclear power

French Industry Minister Rejects Poll Backing Nuclear Withdrawal Bloomberg, By Tara Patel   June 11 French Industry Minister Eric Besson rejected the findings of an opinion poll that called for the gradual phasing-out of the country’s 58 nuclear reactors…..Fifty-one percent of respondents in an Ifop survey commissioned by the European Green party published March 21 said France’s reactors, along with its nuclear energy policy, should be phased out in the next 25 years. Just 19 percent wanted a more rapid pullout.

France, which depends on nuclear power for about three quarters of its electricity, should “progressively” exit from atomic energy, according to 60 percent of respondents to a Viavoice opinion poll published in today’s Liberation newspaper. Thirty-five percent are against the change, the newspaper said……http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-20/french-industry-minister-rejects-poll-backing-nuclear-withdrawal.html

June 21, 2011 Posted by | France, politics | Leave a comment

Tokyo residents fearful, as radiation ‘hot spots’ confirmed, far from Fukushima

Some city, ward, town and village governments in the Tokyo metropolitan area have started doing their own radiation checks. An increasing number of citizens also are apparently checking radiation levels themselves…..

Precise response needed to quell ‘hot spot’ concerns,The Yomiuri Shimbun,18 June 11 As the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant continues to unfold, high radiation readings have been confirmed in several isolated areas outside evacuation zones. Residents in these areas are feeling increasingly anxious about their radiation exposure.The government must quickly expand the scope of radiation measurements to grasp the actual condition on the ground and take steps to remedy the problem.”Hot spots” with high levels of radiation also were detected after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in the former Soviet Union. Some were several thousand kilometers from the Chernobyl plant. Continue reading →

June 20, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011 | Leave a comment

Audio and video accounts of flood threat to Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant

Listen to the original radio account on “Five O’Clock Shadow” on WBAI / Pacifica Radio Network with Robert Knight interviewing nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen. Watch the three youtube videos which use the Gundersen interview:
Video One, Video Two, Video Three. Watch a video taken June 16 of the road into the power plant with the reactor and generator building surrounded by floodwaters.

Missouri River floods endanger nuclear power plants – time for climate adaption | Indymedia Australia, 19 June 11“……The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in the midwest state of Nebraska was protected by sandbag levies and is now surrounded by flood waters. Continue reading →

June 20, 2011 Posted by | Resources -audiovicual | Leave a comment

Japan’s green tea industry hit with radiation crisis

VIDEO Crisis brewing as Japan’s tea farmers face radiation ban June 19, 2011CNN) — Japan’s green tea fields sway in the early summer winds, the picture of bucolic beauty. But beneath these peaceful rows of young green buds, ready for the second harvest of the year, a national crisis is brewing.Earlier this month, Japan’s government banned green tea from parts of three prefectures: Tochigi, Chiba and Kanagawa; and banned tea from all of a fourth prefecture, Ibaraki.The authorities had detected levels of radioactive cesium in tea leaves above the legal limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram.Now the discovery of radiation in fields further south in Shizuoka, Japan, some 400 kilometers away from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, threatens the most robust tea-producing region in Japan.The Shizuoka government says it asked five tea manufacturing plants in the Warashina district of Shizuoka to voluntarily stop shipping green tea leaves, after tests revealed dried tea contained 581 to 654 becquerels of cesium per kilogram…Crisis brewing as Japan’s tea farmers face radiation ban – CNN.com

June 20, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011 | Leave a comment

Decentralised solar energy racing ahead in Bangladesh

  One Million Households Powered by Solar Energy – in Bangladesh  ENN June 18, 2011 The number of households powered by solar energy in Bangladesh has passed the one million mark — the fastest expansion of solar power in the world, according to Bangladeshi officials. Aided by non-governmental organizations that provide low-cost loans to install solar panels, Bangladesh’s rural households — most of which are off the electricity grid — have driven a dizzying expansion of solar power in recent years. In 2002, only 7,000 households were using solar panels.

The country reached the 1 million-household milestone 18 months ahead of schedule, and by 2014 Bangladeshi officials are aiming to power 2.5 million homes with solar energy. “It’s the fastest expansion of solar energy anywhere in the world,” said Nazmul Haq, of Bangladesh’s Infrastructure Development Company.

An estimated 60 percent of Bangladesh’s 150 million people have no access to reliable electricity, and a World Bank report last month said that solar panels had “changed the face of the remote, rural areas of Bangladesh.” Bangladesh had gotten a World Bank loan in 2009 for solar energy in the country.  The results are impressive!  In 2002, just 2000 homes had solar systems, and now there are more than one million.  Bangladesh now aims to have 2.5 million on solar by 2014…..: One Million Households Powered by Solar Energy – in Bangladesh

June 20, 2011 Posted by | ASIA, decentralised | Leave a comment

AREVA trying to stop Aboriginal land becoming World Heritage listed

Areva formally requested Australia to withdraw its nomination for heritage listing from the agenda of the 35th World Heritage Committee meeting, which will be held in Paris this week…..

…Jeffrey Lee, the sole member of the Djok clan and senior custodian of the land that includes the 12.5 square kilometre Koongarra project area, has also travelled to Paris hoping to speak at the meeting. Mr Lee, 40, who would be one of Australia’s richest people if he allowed the mine to go ahead, told The Age he wanted to tell the story of his country, which he wanted to see protected forever in the park.

French uranium challenge to Kakadu heritage listing, Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin,The Age, June 20, 2011 A FRENCH government-owned company attempted to block countries discussing an Australian request to expand the World heritage-listed Kakadu National Park to include land that contains uranium worth billions of dollars. Continue reading →

June 20, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues | Leave a comment

South Korea urged to close Gori nuclear reactor,and to ‘leapfrog’ to safe renewable energy

Greenpeace and the Korean Federation of Environmental Movement called in a statement for the immediate closure of the Gori 1 reactor 325 kilometres (200 miles) southeast of Seoul…..South Korea had enough technological knowledge to leapfrog to clean renewable energy and provide a very safe future for the country…….

S.Korea’s oldest reactor must close: Greenpeace – Yahoo! News Jun 17,  ETSEOUL (AFP) – Greenpeace urged South Korea Friday to shut down its oldest nuclear reactor, expressing concern about its safety and drawing a parallel with a disaster-stricken reactor in Japan.The anti-nuclear environmental group is currently sailing around South Korea on its campaign ship, the Rainbow Warrior, visiting and showing solidarity for communities sited around nuclear plants. Continue reading →

June 20, 2011 Posted by | safety, South Korea | Leave a comment

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