Plutonium found in urine of 5 workers exposed to radiation

TOKYO (Kyodo) — A small amount of plutonium was found in the urine of five workers exposed to radiation in an accident earlier this month at a nuclear research facility in Ibaraki Prefecture, a hospital operator said Monday.

The result shows that the five workers have suffered internal radiation exposure following the June 6 accident at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s Oarai Research & Development Center in the coastal town of Oarai.

They had been receiving medication to facilitate the discharge of radioactive materials from their bodies since the accident and will continue to do so, said the National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, the operator of the hospital.

The five, although showing no signs of deterioration or notable change in their health, were hospitalized again from Sunday for the treatment.

In the accident, radioactive materials were released into the air in the room where the five were working when one opened a metal container holding plutonium and uranium powder samples and a plastic bag containing the samples inside suddenly ruptured.

Initially, the agency said up to 22,000 becquerels of plutonium-239 were found in the lungs of one of the five workers, while up to 5,600 to 14,000 becquerels of the radioactive substance were found in the lungs of three other workers. It said at the time that the four had suffered internal radiation exposure.

But the facility operator has since said a subsequent check by the National Institute of Radiological Sciences has found no plutonium in the lungs of any of the five workers. It has not ruled out the possibility that what was actually detected was radioactive substance left on the workers’ bodies after decontamination.

Also on Monday, JAEA President Toshio Kodama again apologized over the accident, saying at a press conference, “The agency as a whole had problems in the prediction of risks.”

He said he has no intention of resigning for now but will take “appropriate” responsibility depending on the cause of the accident.

The agency submitted a report compiling the causes of the accident and measures to be taken to prevent a recurrence to the Nuclear Regulation Authority, the state’s nuclear safety watchdog.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170619/p2g/00m/0dm/074000c

1.This Month

Reluctantly, I have realised that the climate crisis is the most huge and urgent problem for humanity, now. This website is not able to do justice to this enormous topic. All that I can do is to pick out significant information as it arrives, and also note some, (not nearly enough) of the climate events happening.

Meanwhile, nuclear-news will focus on its original purpose, to reveal the disastrous effects of the nuclear industry, and to refute the propaganda lies from the nuclear lobby.

Projects For Good’ – This Ingenious Website Makes it Easier to Change the World! https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/projects-for-good-makes-it-easier-to-change-the-world/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=29-03-2019

By Good News Network -Mar 26, 2019 Unlike Kickstarter which funds creative startups, or GoFundMe which addresses personal needs, Projects for Good was designed for people who want to support the greater good, not just with money, but with their talent and energy—and don’t know where to start.Patrick Furlotti is giving them that opportunity. Growing up in Santa Monica, California, Patrick learned at an early age that society could create a better world if people just worked together.

As a teen he volunteered with Heal the Bay, which was trying to clean up water pollution in 1980s Los Angeles. He folded, sealed, and mailed thousands of letters. The group scored a huge victory when a billion-dollar sewage treatment facility was erected right next to LAX airport.

I realized how valuable a campaign could be to the world, and that politicians weren’t all bad—they just didn’t know what to do. We provided momentum and direction.”

Beyond studying business at college, Furlotti began captaining ships for researchers who were studying human impact on coral and water quality around the Hawaiian islands.

At age 20, he was one of the youngest ever to captain a sailboat from California to Tahiti, gaining a deep respect for the natural forces that connect us to the planet. Now 37, he enjoys big wave surfing whenever he’s not launching or investing in social impact technology and environmental protection.

He also has attended many green tech conferences: “I saw all these people with great ideas—so many half-baked projects, but the world needs all these ideas.”

“I had seen firsthand how hard it is to get projects started, funded, and completed, and wanted to create a whole new model to help people with their ‘Projects for Good’.”

It took a year to design the web platform, and today they are adding new features all the time to make it “a complete project success ecosystem”.

‘Currently with Kickstarter and Gofundme, you can just give money. That’s cool, but what about if you’re really inspired and want to join the project? A lot of people don’t have any money, but they think, ‘I would really love to work for this cause.’”

“Our commitment is not to make money, but to build a community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about changing the world—not by featuring someone who is trying to build a robot that makes coffee and smoothies (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but by focusing on projects that help the greater good,” Patrick told GNN.

“It’s about humans working together, and educating each other on what’s possible, that’s why I love partnering with Good News Network.”

PFG is trying to give project owners the tools they need—to make it cheaper to become a nonprofit, easier to find grants, and even make it free to crowdfund, so fees aren’t diverted from the money that is being donated. Patrick also believes there should be more transparency about where the money is going on these fundraising platforms.

The Community Center is where jobs can be posted, milestones recorded, and new members welcomed. These are some early success stories on the PFG platform:

Peter Gottesman is passionate about animal rights and has championed projects from saving cheetahs in Africa to rescuing bears in Laos through his non-profit Endangered Species Revenge. For him, Projects for Good offers exposure to caring people who want to support him. To date, he has raised over $6500 on PFG to help fund his animal causes.
Andrew Malais saw how badly Joshua Tree National Park needed a trash cleanup. He used PFG partially as a fundraising tool but mainly to list jobs and hire the perfect candidate or find volunteers. His project was a success, raising over 80% of its fundraising goal to purchase the supplies he needed and hire workers to cover the vast acreage.
Peter Fiekowsky raised money on Projects for Good to help develop patented technology that will capture excess CO2 in the atmosphere—and convert it into building materials. They are literally turning ‘air into concrete’. The founder of Foundation for Climate Restoration and partner in Blue Planet Ltd. praised Projects for Good for “helping the foundation raise the crucial seed funding needed to design our first Blue Planet prototype direct air capture machine.”

THE HUMAN EFFECTS OF THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY – theme for June 2019.

Before we enter “a new nuclear age” – learn from the newly declassified Chernobyl health records

April 7, 2019

Fortunately, Chernobyl health records are now available to the public. They show that people living in the radioactive traces fell ill from cancers, respiratory illness, anaemia, auto-immune disorders, birth defects, and fertility problems two to three times more frequently in the years after the accident than before. In a highly contaminated Belarusian town of Veprin, just six of 70 children in 1990 were characterised as “healthy”. The rest had one chronic disease or another. On average, the Veprin children had in their bodies 8,498 bq/kg of radioactive caesium (20 bq/kg is considered safe).

For decades, researchers have puzzled over strange clusters of thyroid cancer, leukaemia and birth defects among people living in Cumbria, which, like southern Belarus, is an overlooked hotspot of radioactivity from cold war decades of nuclear bomb production and nuclear power accidents.

Currently, policymakers are advocating a massive expansion of nuclear power as a way to combat climate change. Before we enter a new nuclear age, the declassified Chernobyl health records raise questions that have been left unanswered about the impact of chronic low doses of radioactivity on human health.

Chernobyl’s disastrous cover-up is a warning for the next nuclear age

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/04/chernobyl-nuclear-power-climate-change-health-radioactivity, Kate Brown , 5 Apr 19, Before expanding nuclear power to combat climate change, we need answers to the global health effects of radioactivity

Igor: Child Of Chernobyl (Medical Documentary) – Real Stories

Open Dialogue: Edward Snowden, Live from Russia | Dalhousie University–

Fukushima Will Leak Forever Day after Day after Day 5-28-2019

#DemocracyNow

U.N. Special Rapporteur Calls for Julian Assange to Be Freed, Citing “Psychological Torture”

Food, Glorious Food. Never Before Has Earth Needed More: Part 1 of 2

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