nuclear-news

How objective is the International Atomic Energy Agency? Regulatory capture?

The Anti-Lynas movement: Are we being unreasonable? – Jeyakumar Devaraj, The Malaysian Insider , 13 Dec 12  Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj is a PSM central committee member and MP for Sungai Siput.”……..The IAEA is fully behind the drive to build nuclear reactors. They say that these are safe. That we have the technology to ensure that nothing goes wrong. But we have had accidents inSellafield (UK), the Three Miles Reactor (USA), Chernobyl (USSR), and this was the worst until Fukushima (Japan) occurred! How safe are they really? But the IAEA is still all for Malaysia embarking on building 2 nuclear reactors – at a cost of more than RM 20 billion! How objective is the IAEA?

Epidemiological studies have shown that the incidence of leukaemia in children staying within a 5km radius of nuclear reactors in Germany and in Britain is 2 times higher than the national average, although the levels of radiation in the 5km radius are very much lower than the 1mSv/year “safe” threshold for the public as per IAEA recommendations. The British Parliament found this so disturbing that they set up a special committee – the Cherie Committee – to study this increased incidence. The minority report of this committee posits that the health effect of exposure to low levels of radiation has been grossly under-estimated by perhaps a factor of 100, because the effect of “internal emitters” has not been factored in.

A radioactive substance emitting alpha or beta rays will have negligible effect on any person in the vicinity as a few meters of air or clothes would stop these rays. But if a small part of that substance is inhaled or ingested and it then happens to release one of those rays – that would be at point blank range and the odds that it causes significant damage to the DNA of that person is much much higher.
We must remember that in the process of extracting the rare earths from the ore, the ore has to be crushed down to a very fine dust so that the economic product, the rare earths can be separated out. But crushing reduces the ore, including the Thorium content, to a very fine size, making ingestion and/or inhalation much more possible!

So, can we trust the IAEA as an objective authority – its brief is to promote the use of nuclear technology the world over, especially to promote nuclear reactors! Lynas isn’t a nuclear reactor to be sure, but if IAEA can be off the mark in the case of the adverse health effects of low level radiation in the vicinity of nuclear reactors, how much can we trust them when they say Lynas is safe. There are people who argue that there has been “regulatory capture” of the IAEA by the multi-billion Nuclear Reactor and Defense Industries!… themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/the-anti-lynas-movement-are-we-being-unreasonable-dr-jeyakumar-devaraj

December 14, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, RARE EARTHS, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Uranium