nuclear-news

Award-winning project finds seafood sold in Canada with high radiation levels — Many samples well over contamination limit — “Incredible discovery

http://enenews.com/award-winning-science-project-finds-high-radiation-levels-seafood-purchased-canada-many-samples-actionable-level-contamination-incredible-discovery-unexpected-be-lurking-canadian-waters-belie

Published: April 2nd, 2014 at 6:32 pm ET
By ENENews

Metro News, Mar. 24, 2014: Alberta student’s science project finds high radiation levels in grocery-store seafood […] Bronwyn Delacruz […] said she was shocked to discover that, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) stopped testing imported foods for radiation in 2012. […] Delacruz studied a variety of seafoods – particularly seaweeds – as part of an award-winning science project that she will take to a national fair next month. […] Her results caught the attention of judges at the Peace River Regional Science Fair, who moved her project along to the Canada-Wide Science Fair […]

Daily Herald Tribune, Mar. 25, 2014: Local science project finds high levels of radiation in seaweed — When Bronwyn Delacruz started testing seaweed in her living room last August, she made an incredible discovery: Something unexpected may be lurking in Canadian waters. [Delacruz] found disconcerting radiation levels in seaweed products from local grocery stores and is concerned for the health of families who may be consuming them. Her research on the subject recently earned gold at the regional Canada-Wide Science Fair […] Delacruz tested more than 300 individual seaweed samples, with 15 brands exported from New Brunswick, British Columbia, California, Washington, China and Japan. Each was purchased in an Alberta grocery […] 0.5 Bq per square centimetre is widely considered an actionable level of contamination […] many of her samples tested well over this amount. […] Delacruz believes the current has carried dangerous radiation from Japan’s east coast to Canada’s portion of the Pacific Ocean. […] and believes dangerous radiation may only have reached the Canadian coastline recently. […] Delacruz is a CWSF Physical Award of Excellence in Physical Earth and Chemical Sciences-winner […]

Bronwyn Delacruz, Mar. 24, 2014: “Some of the kelp that I found was higher than what the International Atomic Energy Agency sets as radioactive contamination, which is 1,450 counts over a 10-minute period […] Some of my samples came up as 1,700 or 1,800.”

Bronwyn Delacruz, Mar. 25, 2014: “I think any dose of radiation can be harmful […] Any dose can cause negative health effects  […] I’m kind of concerned that this is landing in our grocery stores and that if you aren’t measuring it, you could just be eating this and bringing home to your family. […] Kelp was higher than what was considered dangerous […] Some of them came up to 1,700, 1,800 (counts). […] The way the currents and the radiation would arrive in Canada, it wouldn’t arrive until now […] My pre-Fukushima (nori) measured about 400 (counts) […] post-Fukushima measured around 500 to 600, which also not dangerous, but it’s considerably higher and statistically significantly higher too. […] I eat a lot of seaweed in almost everything […] I would like the government to test before they ‘OK’ imports from other countries […] they’re just relying on other countries to do it for us. […] I hope people will open their eyes to this.”

How You Can Help: Delacruz is fundraising to purchase a $15,000 germanium spectrometer for the High School science department that can detect radiation in fish and other complex foods. To donate, call Grande Prairie Public School District Education Foundation at 780-532-4491.

Listen to “Is it still safe to eat seafood after reports of Fukushima radiation in Canadian waters?”

April 3, 2014 Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Univ. of Mich. Nabs $25M Nuclear Arms Control Grant

The NNSA is responsible for the management and security of the United States’ nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation and naval reactor programs, and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies around the world, but it has recently come under fire for failing to keep complete and accurate information on nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile.

By Erica Teichert

http://www.law360.com/articles/524456/univ-of-mich-nabs-25m-nuclear-arms-control-grant

aw360, Washington (April 02, 2014, 7:15 PM ET) — The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $25 million grant to the University of Michigan to research and develop nuclear arms control verification technologies, the department said on Monday.

Under the terms of the National Nuclear Security Administration‘s five-year grant, the University of Michigan will lead a consortium to support and improve the federal government’s nuclear safeguards and improve its efforts to monitor countries who don’t follow the international nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

The University of Michigan will be joined by 13 other institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Columbia University, as well as eight national laboratories including Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos. In addition to their research and development efforts, the consortium will train new nonproliferation experts, the University of Michigan said.

“Developing the R&D expertise of tomorrow can take years to cultivate,” NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Anne Harrington said in a statement. “But we are linking national laboratories and academia by funding the next generation of researchers to perform complex research and gain an understanding of technical challenges in areas of major importance for the nuclear nonproliferation mission that can only be garnered first-hand at the national laboratories.”

The consortium will be divided into different groups working on monitoring, disarmament and other nuclear safeguard goals, and they hope they will be able to streamline nuclear monitoring processes, which can be costly and time-consuming. Rather than requiring inspectors to open and measure nuclear materials from individual storage containers and verify them against reactor and fuel processing facility records, the group will research neutron detectors and other solutions.

According to a DOE Office of Inspector General report issued last week, NNSA has incomplete product definitions and ineffective management of classified nuclear weapons drawings, which could lead to the unauthorized changes to the drawings.

The OIG audit also found that NNSA sites could not always locate “as-built” product definitions and drawings for nuclear weapons and components in their official records, according to the report. Friedman’s team also found the sites could not always confirm that parts not conforming to specifications were actually built for use in nuclear weapons.

The report issued several recommendations to the NNSA, including that it “prioritize, collect and digitize the original as-built nuclear weapons product definition information” and implement a system to match this information with weapons systems and components. The NNSA concurred with OIG’s recommendations.

–Additional reporting by Zachary Zagger. Editing by Philip Shea.

April 3, 2014 Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

UNSCEAR cover-up of health consequences of the nuclear disaster

The report has received criticism from medical experts who are researching on health effects of radiation. In the interview with 3Sat, Dr. Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician and member of German IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War), harshly criticizes the playing down of radiation impact by UNSCEAR and the nuclear lobby. Professor Wolfgang Hoffmann, a German epidemiologist and radiobiologist, holds views similar to those of Dr. Alex Rosen. He assumes that those who criticize this report would be officially blamed for panic mongering and that any claims for damages and compensation could also be preempted on the basis of this report.  https://nuclear-news.net/2013/12/26/medical-experts-criticise-unscear-report-for-playing-down-consequences-of-fukushima-nuclear-accident/

IPPNW press release dated 02.04.2014 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War,
Physicians for Social Responsibility Association (IPPNW), Section Germany

UMWELT/718: UNSCEAR report on Fukushima – cover-up of health effects of the nuclear disaster (IPPNW)

www.schattenblick.de/infopool/…/m2um0718.html  German language

3rd April 2014

Today’s report by the United Nations Committee on the Consequences of Radiation (UNSCEAR) plays down the true extent of the health consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster systematically.

UNSCEAR claims in his 300-page final report that

“are to be expected, no significant changes for future cancer rates that can be associated with radiation exposure from the accident.”

Doctors of the IPPNW,  say their calculations estmate tens of thousands of additional cancer cases.

As the number of cancers in the Japanese population  are already high, the majority of these cases will be claimed to not be related to the radiation.

The fact that a cancer bears no designation of origin, and never can be clearly attributed to a single cause, is used by the nuclear industry and also by UNSCEAR to deny any causality.

One tactic, was used by the tobacco industry or the asbestos industry for a long time.

“History repeats itself. Like the time after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the risks for the people living in the contaminated areas to be covered up, trivialized and secretive,” criticized the deputy chairman of the IPPNW, Dr. Alex Rosen.

The IPPNW also complained that the members of UNSCEAR support them in their report mainly on information from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the operating company TEPCO and the Japanese nuclear authorities.

Neutral, independent institutes and research institutions will be ignored. So based dose calculations of the affected population in the report

“to promote worldwide use of nuclear energy”The IAEA isn organization that was founded with that goal.

Unwanted results of independent food samples are ignored. To estimate the total emissions of radioactivity studies of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency are used, instead of the significantly higher calculations by independent institutes.

The radiation doses from the power plant workers were largely taken directly from the controversial operating company TEPCO. The large number of reports of manipulations and inconsistencies of these readings are overlooked by the the authors of the UNSCEAR report.

In 47% of the examined children in Fukushima Prefecture nodes and cysts were found. In 33 children, the doctors now firmly thyroid cancer and had to remove the thyroid surgery, a further 42 children with acute suspicion of cancer is such an operation before.

These figures correspond to an incidence of 13.0 per 100,000 children. Before Fukushima, the annual number of new cases was in Japan at only 0.35 per 100,000 children. The number of thyroid cancer cases in Fukushima are so alarmingly high.

  Undisputed: every little dose of radioactivity is associated with an increased risk of cancer. Instead of the affected educate people openly about these risks, however, the report’s authors try based on questionable assumptions, selective samples and averaged doses of radiation that underlines the nuclear industries complacent messages of “no health effects”

A video statement by Dr. Alex Rosen, please visit:
http://youtu.be/MJOP0vJmeWA – German

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RidNoEizE1k  – French

Source:
Press release of 2 April 2014
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War,
Physicians for Social Responsibility Association (IPPNW), Section Germany
Körtestr. 10, 10967 Berlin
Phone 030/69 80 74-0, Fax: 030/69 38 166
E-mail: ippnw@ippnw.de

April 3, 2014 Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment