Radioactive Reindeer; Chernobyl; Guinea Pigs: Part V of a series

5 February 2014

http://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/radioactive-reindeer-chernobyl-guinea-pigs-part-v-of-a-series/

Since we discussed an epidemiological re-evaluation of Three Mile Island last time, we found the following information, from our reblog post, of special interest:
“The amount of radiation that escaped at Three Mile Island is unknown. Outdoor radiation monitors were spaced too far apart to capture plumes of radiation. Monitors within the reactor building were out of order. Traps for radioactive iodine had been inexplicably removed. All one has to go on are the health and environmental effects: the clouding over of dentists’ films…, the livestock keeling over, the one eyed kittens, a parrot breeder’s dead birds, vanished insects,…, tulips with buds on their stems, the metallic taste experienced by many Three Mile Island area residents-an effect experienced at Hiroshima and Chemobyl-and cancers and cancers and cancers.” http://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/lies-of-our-times-high-level-omissions-by-anna-mayo/ The current US EPA rad net monitors are also amazingly sparse — usually one per state. A lot in the reblog on Sellafield too.

Chernobyl Piglet
Is this acceptable? Is it “ok”?

Photo of piglet in the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum. Photo by Vincent de Groot, via wikmedia. (It looks kind of like a puppy, but the photo says it’s a pig. Pigs do have teeth).

It’s absolutely infuriating to see the IAEA and others (e.g. UNSCEAR), as seen in our previous post, proclaim thyroid cancer and disease no real problem. In a 2005 article the IAEA upped the cases to 4,000 thyroid related cancer at Chernobyl, all while glossing over the seriousness of this disease. http://www.iaea. org/newscenter/features/chernobyl-15/thyroid.shtml Not only are there issues of mortality but also of morbidity or disease. Contrary to what IAEA and UNSCEAR would lead us to believe, thyroid cancer is not the only cause of morbidity or mortality from Chernobyl. Nonetheless, also contrary to what they try to mislead everyone to believe, thyroid cancer and thyroid disease is extremely serious business. In short, IAEA and UNSCEAR admit to thyroid cancer related to Chernobyl but not much of anything else. They gloss over the thyroid cancer as no big deal, while suggesting that it would not have happened if the population had not been iodine deficient. They almost totally ignore the rest. This is obscene.

Thyroid damage can be caused by both external radiation to neck and head and internal radiation from ingestion of radioiodine (and possibly other radionuclides).

Thyroid cancer-disease IS a problem. The thyroid is NOT an expendable organ. The thyroid is critically important for the human body. Victims may live but being forced to take thyroid medicine for life is serious business. Furthermore, it locks the individual into the medical-industrial complex for life and their lives depend upon it; it appears difficult to get the medication in balance, as well. (Who pays for a lifetime of medication? The individual? The taxpayer?) Too much medication gives the symptoms of hyperthyroidism; too little hypothyroidism. An excess in medication causes nervousness, insomnia, and can even increase risk of heart attack. Too little can lead to fatigue and weight gain, and other problems.
A good doctor is required. An imbalance of the medication can be life-threatening. Nothing can replace the human body! Nothing can replace lost organs! Nothing can replace the good seafood, which is no longer safe to eat either.

If you read, or have read, the following by US EPA, you quickly see just how widespread exposure to the radionuclides, iodine 129 and iodine 131 must be. Iodine 131 has a half-life of 8 days; Iodine 129 of 15.7 million years. This means that all of the iodine 129 which has entered the environment whether from nuclear tests, nuclear accidents or nuclear power plants, still is there and is still increasing in quantity:
“How do iodine-129 and iodine-131 get into the environment?

Iodine-129 and iodine-131 are gaseous fission products that form within fuel rods as they fission. Unless reactor chemistry is carefully controlled, they can build up too fast, increasing pressure and causing corrosion in the rods. As the rods age, cracks or wholes may breach the rods.

Cracked rods can release radioactive iodine into the water that surrounds and cools the fuel rods. There, it circulates with the cooling water throughout the system, ending up in the airborne, liquid, and solid wastes from the reactor. From time to time, reactor gas capture systems release gases, including iodine, to the environment under applicable regulations.

Anywhere spent nuclear fuel is handled, there is a chance that iodine-129 and iodine-131 will escape into the environment. Nuclear fuel reprocessing plants dissolve the spent fuel rods in strong acids to recover plutonium and other valuable materials. In the process, they also release iodine-129 and -131 into the airborne, liquid, and solid waste processing systems. In the U.S., spent nuclear fuel is no longer reprocessed, because of concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation.

Currently, spent nuclear fuel remains in temporary storage at nuclear power plants around the country. If the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain opens, it will provide permanent disposal for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive wastes. Wherever spent nuclear fuel is stored, the short-lived iodine-131 it contains will decay away quickly and completely. However, the long-lived iodine-129 will remain for millions of years. Keeping it from leaking into the environment, requires carefully designed, long-term safeguards.

The detonation of nuclear weapons also releases iodine-129 into the environment. Atmospheric testing in the 1950′s and 60′s released radioactive iodine to the atmosphere which has disseminated around the world, and is now found at very low levels in the environment. Most I-129 in the environment came from weapons testing.” (bold added for emphasis) http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/iodine.html

This is a less happy account about thyroid cancer than the distortions-lies brought to us by the IAEA-UNSCEAR, and others:
“Thyroid consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.” By Pacini F, Vorontsova T, Molinaro E, Shavrova E, Agate L, Kuchinskaya E, Elisei R, Demidchik EP, Pinchera A. Acta Paediatr Suppl. 1999 Dec;88(433):23-7.
“Abstract
It is well recognized that the use of external irradiation of the head and neck to treat patients with various non-thyroid disorders increases their risk of developing papillary thyroid carcinoma years after radiation exposure. An increased risk of thyroid cancer has also been reported in survivors of the atomic bombs in Japan, as well as in Marshall Island residents exposed to radiation during the testing of hydrogen bombs. More recently, exposure to radioactive fallout as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident has clearly caused an enormous increase in the incidence of childhood thyroid carcinoma in Belarus, Ukraine, and, to a lesser extent, in the Russian Federation, starting in 1990. When clinical and epidemiological features of thyroid carcinomas diagnosed in Belarus after the Chernobyl accident are compared with those of naturally occurring thyroid carcinomas in patients of the same age group in Italy and France, it becomes apparent that the post-Chernobyl thyroid carcinomas were much less influenced by gender, virtually always papillary (solid and follicular variants), more aggressive at presentation and more frequently associated with thyroid autoimmunity. Gene mutations involving the RET proto-oncogene, and less frequently TRK, have been shown to be causative events specific for papillary cancer. RET activation was found in nearly 70% of the patients who developed papillary thyroid carcinomas following the Chernobyl accident. In addition to thyroid cancer, radiation-induced thyroid diseases include benign thyroid nodules, hypothyroidism and autoimmune thyroiditis, with or without thyroid insufficiency, as observed in populations after environmental exposure to radioisotopes of iodine and in the survivors of atomic bomb explosions. On this basis, the authors evaluated thyroid autoimmune phenomena in normal children exposed to radiation after the Chernobyl accident. The results demonstrated an increased prevalence of circulating thyroid antibodies not associated with significant thyroid dysfunction. This finding is consistent with the short period of follow-up, but it is highly likely that these children will develop clinical thyroid autoimmune diseases in the future. Therefore, screening programmes for this at-risk population should focus, not only on the detection of thyroid nodules and cancer, but also on the development of thyroid autoimmune diseases.” (bold added) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626541

Although ingestion of a proper amount of iodine in the diet (it is important to remember balance and that excess is as dangerous as too little), can help protect against internal radiation from radio-iodine, it is not total protection. It also does not protect against external radiation, nor from other types of internal radiation. And, is iodized salt tested for radioiodine? Who knows? It’s not an answer which is easy to find on internet, although it is probably there someplace. Our guess is that some is and some isn’t, depending on the country and the brand. The ideal is eating seafood and seaweed, but we all now know that between Fukushima and Sellafield that this is rather a certain way of ingesting radioactive iodine isotopes, along with plutonium and other radioactive nasties. From a health perspective and from a seafood lovers perspective this is both criminal and an absolute tragedy. The fallout from above ground nuclear testing, nuclear power plants and Chernobyl certainly haven’t helped either.

As the world is increasingly contaminated, if the nuclear industry is not stopped, just how will we be sure that we have radiation free iodine, or anything else, anyway? As we have seen, various levels of radiation, most appearing excessive, considering bioaccumulation, are allowed in food and water in most, if not all countries. This probably includes salt. Depending on the country, non-food items such as coffee, chocolate and spices tend to have worse standards than food. This is especially true in the event of a “nuclear emergency”.

The thyroid IS needed; it DOES matter and rather than cursing and name calling the IAEA-UNSCEAR, as they deserve, we suggest that those at the IAEA and UNSCEAR ingest radioiodine and if they do not develop cancer or thyroid disease in a timely manner, then they have their thyroids removed anyway. Then they can see if this organ matters or not. Let them do for themselves what they think is ok for others. If they have any honour at all, which is doubtful, they can do it voluntarily. If not, they should be forced to act as guinea pigs and ingest radioiodine (and other radionuclides), wait for cancer and remove their thyroids whether they have cancer or not. This can be part of the job requirement for IAEA and UNSCEAR. It should be a requirement for working in any aspect of promotion of the nuclear industry.

In fact, let’s have the IAEA-UNSCEAR move to the Chernobyl exclusion zone and to Fukushima exclusion zone-prefecture and serve as nuclear guinea pigs. No joke. Why not? They say it’s safe. They should move the headquarters of IAEA from Vienna to Fukushima and Chernobyl. They must eat food grown there and drink the water, as well. They would be perfect guinea pig candidates since like animals they don’t get “radiophobia”. They love the radiation, so let’s give them the opportunity to live in the radiation and even eat the food, for laniappe (a little something extra- this measured in Bqs). (By the way, unfortunately, we DO have real guinea pig research to discuss at some point, if we don’t lose it, so the title isn’t only metaphor). Isn’t it weird that IAEA-UNSCEAR have their headquarters in Vienna, Austria where nuclear power is illegal? Let’s see if they sing the same tune from Chernobyl and Fukushima?

And, for that matter, let’s have all of the pro-nuclear government officials – too lengthy to name- and nuclear industry CEOs and everyone who thinks that nuclear is great move to the Fukushima and Chernobyl exclusion zones, and eat the food and drink the water from there. They must also bring their children and grand-children. Some of those men looked old enough to have great-grand children so they must come too.

Let the Fukushima and Chernobyl victims move around the world to the posh homes of these pro-nuclear people. This is no joking matter. Why shouldn’t they? It only makes sense that those who say that nuclear power is good and that the exclusion zones are safe should live there.

Win-win:

This is a brilliant, win-win idea, if we do say so ourselves! Moving all of the pro-nuclear people to Chernobyl and Fukushima, including government officials, will be great for the economic development of the regions. They can have their children grow the food in the garden there; they can hunt wild deer and boars. They can even put an underground nuclear waste repository there with them! Then all of the victims of the Fukushima and Chernobyl who are “radiophobic” can go to the less radioactive homes of the “radiophiles”. It’s a perfect solution! Win-win, good economic development, solves evacuation issues, solves nuclear waste storage dilemma, and all of that.

Thyroid gland importance
“The thyroid gland or simply, the thyroid /ˈθaɪərɔɪd/, in vertebrate anatomy, is one of the largest endocrine glands. The thyroid gland is found in the neck, below the thyroid cartilage (which forms the laryngeal prominence, or “Adam’s apple”). The thyroid gland controls how quickly the body uses energy, makes proteins, and controls how sensitive the body is to other hormones. It participates in these processes by producing thyroid hormones, the principal ones being triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine which can sometimes be referred to as tetraiodothyronine (T4). These hormones regulate the growth and rate of function of many other systems in the body. T3 and T4 are synthesized from iodine and tyrosine.

The thyroid also produces calcitonin, which plays a role in calcium homeostasis.

Hormonal output from the thyroid is regulated by thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) produced by the anterior pituitary, which itself is regulated by thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) produced by the hypothalamus…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyroid
Iodine also concentrates in the breasts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_in_biology This means that radio-iodine will also concentrate in the breast.

“Calcitonin…is produced in humans primarily by the parafollicular cells (also known as C-cells) of the thyroid, and in many other animals in the ultimobranchial body.[2] It acts to reduce blood calcium (Ca2+), opposing the effects of parathyroid hormone (PTH).[3] Calcitonin has been found in fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals…”.
…
The hormone participates in calcium (Ca2+) and phosphorus metabolism. In many ways, calcitonin counteracts parathyroid hormone (PTH).
More specifically, calcitonin lowers blood Ca2+ levels in three ways:
Inhibits Ca2+ absorption by the intestines[7]
Inhibits osteoclast activity in bones[8]
Inhibits renal tubular cell reabsorption of Ca2+ allowing it to be excreted in the urine[9][10]
However, effects of calcitonin that mirror those of PTH include the following:
Inhibits phosphate reabsorption by the kidney tubules[11]
In its skeleton-preserving actions, calcitonin protects against calcium loss from skeleton during periods of calcium mobilization, such as pregnancy and, especially, lactation.
Other effects are in preventing postprandial hypercalcemia resulting from absorption of Ca2+. Also, calcitonin inhibits food intake in rats and monkeys, and may have CNS action involving the regulation of feeding and appetite.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcitonin

DO THE PRO-NUCLEAR LOBBY AND THE IAEA-UNSCEAR CONSIDER THEMSELVES GODS THAT THEY THINK IT’S OK TO PLAY AROUND WITH ELEMENTS THAT CONSTITUTE THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF PLANT, HUMAN AND OTHER ANIMAL LIFE?

HOW DARE THEY WIELD THE POWER OF LIFE AND DEATH OVER US ALL AND OVER THE EARTH! THEY ARE NOT GOD! They aren’t even gods.

WILL WE LET THE PRO NUCLEAR PEOPLE AND THEIR MINIONS IN GOVT AND ELSEWHERE CONTINUE TO WIELD THE POWER OF LIFE AND DEATH OVER US OR WILL WE REVOLT AGAINST THEM? HOW MUCH LONGER? NOT LONGER! TIME TO STOP ALL NUCLEAR AND SEND THE PRO-NUCLEAR PEOPLE, INCLUDING MANY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, ALONG WITH THE NUCLEAR WASTE TO CHERNOBYL AND FUKUSHIMA. They love radionuclides. No radio-phobia among them. Let’s tell them to get packing and get a move-on. Many more workers still needed at Fukushima and Chernobyl. Are they nuclear “experts”? So, much the better then! Let the Japanese homeless be rehoused at the Elysee, Downing Street and DC, etc. rather than working at Fukushima. Let the Chernobyl and Fukushima displaced move to the homes of all of the pro-nuclear hot-shots…home swapping.

THIS POST IS CONTINUING AND WILL BE ADDED TO ON THURSDAY OR FRIDAY UTC-GMT. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THIS TOPIC, PLEASE COME BACK SOON. Much more science to come and probably the occasional diatribe.