France to pay (well, a bit) for nuclear health problems
France to pay for nuclear health problems
Euro News 28 May 09 People who have suffered health problems arising from France’s past nuclear tests are in line for compensation. It is the first time the government will vote on such a measure after decades of campaigning by pressure groups. France’s Defence Minister Herve Morin said the compensation system would reflect similar ones in Britain and the United States
Paris is setting aside some 10 million euros initially but victims groups say the money needs to be offered to more people exposed to radiation.
Patrice Bouveret, from support group, Truth and Justice, said: “the government is talking about a few hundred victims, whereas several thousand people have health problems which can’t be explained by genetics or smoking but by their presence during France’s atomic tests.”
Around 150,000 people were on site for the hundreds of nuclear tests France carried out in the South Pacific and the Sahara until 1996.
http://www.euronews.net/2009/05/27/france-to-pay-for-nuclear-health-problems/
Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopes
Doctors urged to use diagnostic alternatives to reactor-produced isotopesLaura Eggertson CMAJ Laura Eggertson 26 May 09 The Canadian affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War is urging doctors to use diagnostic alternatives to procedures that require reactor-based ionizing radiation, because of links between the way medical isotopes are produced and the nuclear weapons industry…………………….. Edwards, a professor at Vanier College in Montréal, Quebec, and consultant on nuclear issues, says that makes the uranium a potential target for terrorists in search of material to build a nuclear bomb. “Now I know that most doctors don’t think there’s a connection between medical isotopes and bombs, but unfortunately there is,” Edwards, who is also president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told CMAJ. The connection is that molybdenum-99 is broken down into technetium-99m, that is used in about 1.5 million nuclear medicine procedures in Canada annually, Edwards earlier said to about 40 physicians at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa, Ont.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans The Local : 22 May 09 12:31 CETOnline: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090522-19443.htmlThe Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) announced Friday they will take on a large operation to test radiation-exposure levels of both current and former workers at the atomic waste depot Asse near the town of Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony. With this health monitoring programme, we want to find out if the cases of cancer and leukaemia of former Asse workers had anything to do with the radiation exposure of their work,” BfS spokesman Werner Nording said in a statement on the authority’s website…………………….Officials are now trying to determine what to do about dangerous nuclear waste which has been stored at the increasingly unstable site since 1978.
Asse nuclear waste workers getting radiation scans – The Local
Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
TriTown News 14 May 09 Paula Gotsch Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety
It has been a crisis month for Exelon since federal regulators jumped the gun and relicensed the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey until 2029.
Failure of a main transformer led to the shutdown of the reactor. That followed the recent discovery of high levels of radioactive tritium contamination at the site.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff have tracked the tritium leak to two burst pipes, a concrete vault and a monitoring well. Concentrations of radioactive tritium are 300 times the allowable levels in four test wells at the site.
This raises alarm about the plant’s aging management program, which was the basis of the relicensing that is supposed to prevent this sort of dangerous mishap.
Despite assurances from Oyster Creek spokespeople that tritium has not traveled off company grounds, it has entered the water table. Water flows, and at Oyster Creek it will eventually empty into Barnegat Bay, where the state announced this week a huge reseeding program of the oyster beds…………………
…………………Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek are a serious issue for the public. Contrary to reassuring words, tritium, though low energy, is highly radioactive and has a half-life of over 12 years. Low-energy beta particles, like those emitted by tritium, can cause considerable harm.
Tritiated water is handled by the body like regular water, becoming part of the cells. It easily crosses the placental barrier, with risk of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, congenital malformation and childhood diseases.
Exelon’s record for handling tritium leaks in the past at its other nuclear power stations is horrible. At the Braidwood plant in Illinois, tritium leaked from the site for nine years and state officials were not notified until a citizen noticed and tested a pool of water in his backyard. The test came back positive for tritium, and the state of Illinois subsequently sued Exelon.
………………………..Each day Oyster Creek operates, the public is exposed to continuous doses of low-level radiation. Of all nuclear plants nationwide, Oyster Creek’s airborne emissions for strontium 90 are highest, and they are the second highest for airborne strontium 89. The plant also emits the second highest airborne levels of barium 140. All are radioactive.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says these discharges are just a normal part of routine nuclear operation, and are below acceptable levels for public health. This claim is dead wrong.
The Bier VII report issued by the NationalAcademy of Sciences stated there are no safe levels of exposure to continuous levels of low-level radiation. Also, the socalled allowable standards are set for the most robust: a healthy 35-year-old male.
The “allowable” doses do not protect the most vulnerable: women, children, infants and the developing fetus……………………… http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2009/0514/letters/009.html
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout The Guardian by Terry Macalister and Helen Carter 12 may 09 Environmentalists say controls on 369 farms highlight danger of plans to build nuclear plants around UK Nearly 370 farms in Britain are still restricted in the way they use land and rear sheep because of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident 23 years ago, the government has admitted……………………………..
Critics of the nuclear industry expressed alarm at the latest numbers, which they believed would increase public unease about the highly toxic and long-term impact of radioactivity.
David Lowry, a member of Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates, said the figures demonstrated the “unforgiving hazards” of radioactivity dispersed into the environment, whether from Chernobyl in Ukraine, thousands of miles away and 23 years ago, or over decades from the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland, as revealed by the Guardian last month…………………………
…………Revelations about the continuing impact of the Chernobyl accident come weeks after three different sites were bought in auction by EDF and other power companies for building new atomic plants in Britain.
Britain’s farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained APP.com By PETER HIBBARD • May 12, 2009The recent reports of tritium being found in monitoring wells at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey are deeply disturbing. Once a contaminant gets into the aquifer, it is nearly impossible to remove it. Water in the aquifer moves slowly, but it moves……….
…………..Oyster Creek is the oldest nuclear plant of its type in the nation. It has one of the highest leak rates in the country. Project Tooth Fairy measured Strontium 90 in children by examining baby teeth, and estimated the leakage has been going on for many years. Growing teeth can be checked for age of exposure, like rings on a tree.
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained | APP.com | Asbury Park Press
An American Tragedy
An American Tragedy
Augusta GazetteFri May 08, 2009,Approximately 225,000 American servicemen participated in atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1962 in the U.S. and over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
These Americans were placed in very hazardous, extremely dangerous areas and were constantly exposed to the unknown factors of radiation in the performance of their duties. They were assigned to these duties with no formal training, knowledge of the hazards and with very little or no safety gear.
They were America’s atomic guinea pigs and kept away from the public.
And still today the U.S. government remains reluctant to acknowledge the health problems created by the atomic testing, which left the servicemen with hidden wounds — not from bullets or shrapnel, but from radiation.
“Thousands of veterans have died while they begged for medical help. The government has never admitted that subjecting them to atomic radiation causes all different kinds of cancer,” said Gary Thornton of Leon, who has been working hard to bring honor and remembrance to our nation’s forgotten veterans…………………..
They were also instructed to sign a document stating that whatever they “witnessed, saw, or heard would not be revealed for 20 years under the penalty of execution and/or life imprisonment.” This was called the Atomic Secrets Act and no entries were made in the service jackets, medical records or orders of these soldiers.
Because of the sworn secrecy, it’s as if the testing never happened.
Thornton has been telling anyone who will listen that most of the Atomic veterans have experienced severe health problems, as well as their children and grandchildren.
Iraq’s Wrecked Environment
Half Life of a Toxic War Iraq’s Wrecked Environment ounterpunch May 1 By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK – “………………….
Months of bombing during the first Gulf War by the United States and Great Britain left a deadly and insidious legacy: tons of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted uranium. In all, the United States hit Iraqi targets with more than 970 radioactive bombs and missiles.
Depleted uranium (DU) is a rather benign sounding name for uranium-238, the trace element left behind when fissionable material is extracted from uranium-235 for nuclear reactors and weapons. For decades, this waste was a nuisance; by the late 1980s there were nearly a billion tons of the radioactive material piled at plutonium processing plants across the country. Then Pentagon weapons designers discovered a use for the tailings: they could be molded into bullets and bombs. Uranium is denser than lead, making it perfect for armor penetrating weapons designed to destroy tanks, armored personnel carriers and bunkers. When tank-busting bombs explode, depleted uranium oxidizes into microscopic fragments that float through the air, carried on the desert winds for decades. Inhaled, the lethal bits of carcinogenic dust stick to the lungs, eventually wreaking havoc in the form of tumors, hemorrhages, ravaged immune systems, and leukemia.
More than 15 years later, the dire health consequences of our first radioactive bombing campaign in this region are coming into focus. Since 1990, the incidence rate of leukemia in Iraq has increased over 600 percent.
Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank: Iraq’s Wrecked Environment
Ukraine Honors the Memory of the Victims of Chernobyl
Ukraine Honors the Memory of the Victims of Chernobyl
Epoch Times By Ekaterina Popova 29 April 09 23 years after the incident with the nuclear plant, the concrete slabs which buried 25 000 Ukrainians are crannied and radiation again threatens lives –
“………………On April 27, 1986, workers in Sweden in the nuclear plant Forsmark—about 680 miles from Chernobyl—were found to have radioactive particles on their clothes. Swedish authorities began investigating the case and established that there was no leakage or emissions from their reactor. Then it became clear that there was a serious problem in the western part of the Soviet Union. At that time, Finland had reported an increase in the level of radiation in the atmosphere.
Soviet authorities and the leaders of most countries in Eastern Europe continued to hide the truth from the public until the situation became out of control………….
……….According to scientific research, Belarus has absorbed 60 percent of the pollution. The radioactive cloud reached Bulgaria on May 1, coinciding with the celebration of Labor Day, with thousands of people out in the open.
Twenty-five thousand Ukrainians, known as “liquidators,” died in the early days while trying to keep the situation under control, trying to construct a concrete slab over the remains of the reactor.
In Ukraine alone, 2.3 million people are officially registered as victims of the tragedy. Immediately after the incident over 4,000 Ukrainians—children and adults—were operated on for cancer of the thyroid gland, the most common consequence of radiation exposure.
The nuclear plant was finally closed in 2000. Until then one of the reactors continued to produce electricity.
The facility continues to be dangerous, as the concrete cover, which was laid over 200 tons of radioactive fuel, has started to crack. To prevent further problems, a steel sarcophagus is planned to be built, which will cover the concrete.
Epoch Times – Ukraine Honors the Memory of the Victims of Chernobyl
Study examines radiation dose estimates for pregnant women undergoing therapeutic ERCP
Study examines radiation dose estimates for pregnant women undergoing therapeutic ERCP
Eureka Alert Anne Brownsey 29 April 09 – ” …………………. – Pregnant women with gallstone disease may require immediate endoscopic intervention because of potentially life-threatening cholangitis (infection in the bile ducts) or gallstone pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas).
The radiation exposure in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), which is used to treat these conditions, is a concern because fetal tissues are more susceptible to radiation injury.
Researchers from Greece found that the radiation risks associated with ERCP procedures are not trivial and that accurate fetal dose estimation is now available regardless of patient body size, operating parameters, equipment used and gestational stage.
The study appears in the April issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).
Study examines radiation dose estimates for pregnant women undergoing therapeutic ERCP
The period of “Chernobyl’s decay” /ДЕНЬ/
The period of “Chernobyl’s decay”U kraine will be exposed to residual radiation for hundreds of years. What can be done today? day.kiev.ua By Oleksandra SHEPEL 28 April 09
Twenty-three years have passed since The Day of April 26 divided human fates into “before” and “after” the disaster at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Until this day it is the world’s worst anthropogenic catastrophe unmatched for its environmental impact.
For Ukraine Chornobyl is an everyday reality and a host of global-scale problems. Unfortunately, the problems caused by the catastrophe are as acute today as they were 23 years ago. Can one get used to devastated villages and abandoned fertile land?………………………..
Radioisotopes of iodine, which were present in the air in the largest quantities, were the most dangerous for people. Therefore, Ukrainians who were outside under the radioactive clouds in the last days of April and early May picked up plenty of this isotope. Their thyroid glands accumulating this substance, received the largest dose of irradiation of all the parts of body, and suffered worst. As a result, several years after the Chornobyl disaster, doctors registered a spike in thyroid cancer among children.
Some experts assert that the life of radioactive iodine is short, so it cannot be affecting our health today. In fact, radioactive iodine does not disappear within eight days, as some write, but plants itself in the thyroid of its victims and stays there for 80 days.
Back in 1978 the children’s doctor Helen Caldicott warned humanity that the silence of doctors about the consequences of nuclear technologies and radiation would lead to an increase in cancer and hereditary diseases. In 1982 Ukraine published data of foreign authors proving the dangerous influence of radiation on the health of pregnant women and children, specifically mentioning children with inborn defects born of irradiated parents.
Before the Chornobyl catastrophe, in 1985, academician Valeri Legasov argued that the residual radioactivity after nuclear plant explosions increases with time because of accumulation of long-lived radionuclides. Alice Stuart, an expert on the effects of low levels of radiation, studied the state of health of the employees of the Hanford military plant, and victims of nuclear bombing in Japanese cities, and proved that small doses of radiation over a longer period of time are more of a carcinogenic threat than a one-time equivalent.
Are the restless experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) aware of this?………………………………….plutonium-241 will “leave the arena” in a century — it will be replaced by more mobile “long-lived” americium-241. Experts are afraid that this isotope, able to percolate into the ground, will contaminate the subsoil waters and will spread from the worst contaminated zone to clean territories over several thousands of years.
Radiation from 1960s nuclear tests are still hurting my family – Times Online
Radiation from 1960s nuclear tests are still hurting my family THE TIMES April 27 2009 The Government is to hold an inquiry that may finally lead to compensation for British servicemen exposed to radiation during nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s. ……………………………………………………
Within a few years many of the men had developed cancers and the rate of miscarriages among their partners grew to alarming levels. Evidence is now growing of damage having been caused to their DNA, damage which may have resulted in gene mutations that caused illnesses and congenital deformities among their children.
In research conducted by the independent environmental consultants Green Audit in 2007, the rate of congenital deformities among nuclear test veterans’ children was almost ten times higher than that of an average control group. Among veterans’ partners, the rate of miscarriage was three times the average……………………
“These men have been treated extremely shabbily,” says Gibson. “Successive governments have been dodging their responsibilities while families have been suffering. The MoD’s denial of a link between nuclear tests and ill health looks increasingly shaky now that children and grandchildren of veterans are experiencing congenital disease and early death.” Gibson and Baron’s efforts led to last week’s announcement of Government-backed research.
Only a small number of people have seen the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion close up. Most of them are dead. Those who survive endure not only their own awful ailments but must, in many cases, wince and weep while their children and now grandchildren suffer before their eyes.
Radiation from 1960s nuclear tests are still hurting my family – Times Online
Chernobyl fallout continues | The Courier-Mail
Chernobyl fallout continues
April 26, 2009 12:00am
THE charity flights arrive at London’s Gatwick Airport twice a week. On board are sick, disadvantaged or dying children from areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster.
More than two decades after the world’s worst nuclear accident, thousands of youngsters are still being brought to the UK each year.
Born up to 15 years after the event, they spend a month recuperating with volunteer families from the Chernobyl Children Life Line………………
………….for charity founder Victor Mizzi, who personally greets almost every flight, there is no question that Chernobyl is an ongoing tragedy.
“The situation is just as bad now with cancer and leukemia as it was in 1986,” claims Mizzi, who has brought more than 46,000 children from affected areas to Britain…………………………
More than 340,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding area over the following years, never to return to their contaminated homes.
Today, the area around Chernobyl remains a wasteland, with habitation banned in a 30km “zone of alienation”.
In the abandoned city of Prypiat, once bustling with a population of 50,000, decaying shells of buildings are all that is left…………
………….Greenpeace, for one, has estimated more than 90,000 people will die from cancer and that other illnesses will send the toll soaring into the hundreds of thousands.
85,000 radioactive baby teeth
85,000 radioactive baby teeth. Now that we have your attention…
Forgotten about for 50 years, an odd stash yields clues about above-ground nuclear tests and cancertHE sTAR.COM Apr 26, 2009 “…………………The fallout came from hundreds of above-ground nuclear tests in America and other parts of the world. The radioactive isotope Strontium-90, one of the by-products of the bombs, spread into the atmosphere, fell onto the land, was ingested by dairy cows and passed into the milk supply. Strontium-90, like calcium, was concentrated in children’s teeth in detectable amounts.
In 1958 scientists in St. Louis began a campaign to collect baby teeth to study the link between above-ground testing and human exposure. The undisputed link between the tests and a radioactive element in baby teeth provided much of the impetus for the 1963 Test Ban Treaty, which outlawed above-ground nuclear weapons-testing.
The rediscovery of the 85,000 samples, about a quarter of the total collected, has spurred a new effort to study the link between early childhood exposure and health problems in later life.
There is already evidence that 1950s children in St. Louis grew into adults with a higher-than-average rate of cancer. Now researchers at the Radiation and Public Health Project, based in Brooklyn, are attempting to find more than 6,000 of the teeth donors to track their health problems or, in some cases, their premature deaths.
The link between radioactive fallout and subsequent health problems is an international issue.
Families Against Radiation to post beach
FARE to post beach Northumberland Today By Louise BarracloughP 24 April 09
Families Against Radiation Exposure (FARE) plans to release soil test results on Saturday, Apr. 25, showing that a popular Port Hope beach playground is contaminated with uranium.The volunteer environmental organization has decided to hand out brochures to fishermen and residents at noon at the East Beach park at Mill and Madison Streets.
FARE believes the public, which uses the beach area, has a right to know that it is contaminated by uranium more than four times higher than guidelines issued by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.
What is disturbing is that the testing was done by SENES Consultants for Cameco Corporation and sent in a report to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in June, 2008, but nobody told the municipality or the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office (LLRWMO).It was FARE which informed them of the problem on March 20, shortly after receiving them through the federal Access to Information Act from the CNSC.Uranium-in-soil concentrations of more than 98 parts per million were recorded at the park – three times higher than the LLRWMO clean-up criteria.
It is also much higher than the CCME standard of 23 parts per million, which signifies a “no- or low-effect” on human health.The park has been declared safe. Cameco confirmed the soil test results but claims that the uranium contamination has nothing to do with its operations or those of Eldorado Nuclear.FARE believes a public investigation needs to occur to determine what caused the contamination, why the park is not being posted or cleaned up, and why the municipality was not told a year ago.Louise BarracloughInterim president, FAREPort Hope
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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