health « nuclear-news

Inadequate radiation checkups for population near Fukushima area

As radiation fears dwindle, so do checkups Doctor wants more residents
to get followup full-body scans, Japan Times, By MIZUHO AOKI, 10 Jan
13, “……..As residents have come to understand more about radiation
and that their internal exposure levels are low, an air of calm has
been noticeable. At the same time, residents’ interest in knowing
their exposure levels has waned.

“I’m surprised to see such a dramatic loss of interest in just about a
year and a half,” said Tsubokura, 30, who works several days a week at
Minamisoma hospital and the rest of the week at the University of
Tokyo. “The biggest issue we have now is finding ways to secure
continuous checkups for internal radiation exposure.” Continue reading →

January 11, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2013, health, Japan | Leave a comment

Even in “short trips” radiation damages astronoauts

But what’s interesting, and concerning, is that even with those protections we do see signs of radiation damage to astronauts,Cucinotta told me. The big thing is cataracts — changes in the lens of the eye that make it more opaque.

There’s also probably an increased risk of cancer, though it’s difficult to estimate how much, exactly. That’s because we don’t have human epidemiological data about the kind of radiation astronauts are exposed to.

How space radiation hurts astronauts, Boing Boing, Maggie Koerth-Baker, Jan 4, 2013 Space is full of radiation. It’s impossible to escape. Imagine standing in the middle of a dust storm, with bits of gravel constantly swirling around you, whizzing by, pinging against your skin. That’s what radiation is like in space. The problem is that, unlike a pebble or a speck of dirt, ionizing radiation doesn’t bounce off human flesh. It goes right through, like a cannonball through the side of the building, leaving damage behind.

Last week, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center published a study that suggests long exposures to galactic cosmic radiation — like the kind astronauts might experience on a trip to Mars — could increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease…..

Galactic cosmic radiation — also called galactic cosmic rays — is the kind of radiation that researchers are most worried about. Continue reading →

January 8, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

Special dangers of ionising radiation in space

there are two things those astronauts have shown us. First, there are genetic changes and damage happening even within the relatively safe confines we’ve traveled thus far. Second, there is a hell of a lot we don’t know about how radiation exposure and risk works in outer space.

How space radiation hurts astronauts, Boing Boing, Maggie Koerth-Baker, Jan 4, 2013 “……We know the rates of cancer for survivors of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that radiation isn’t really comparable to the stuff in Galactic Cosmic Radiation. In particular, Cucinotta is concerned about particles known as HZE ions.

These particles are very heavy and very fast and we don’t experience them here on the ground. They’re the kind of things that get filtered out and broken down by Earth’s defense systems. But HZE ions can cause more damage, and different kinds of damage, than the radiation scientists are really familiar with. We know this because scientists actually compare samples of astronauts’ blood before and after a spaceflight. Continue reading →

January 8, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, health, Reference | Leave a comment

Ionising radiation threatens dementia onset in space travellers

Space travel may accelerate Alzheimer’s
http://www.skynews.com.au/health/article.aspx?id=831812 January 1,
2013 Long journeys into deep space, including a mission to Mars, may
expose astronauts to levels of cosmic radiation harmful to the brain
and accelerate Alzheimer’s disease, US research has shown. Continue reading →

January 4, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

Public ignorance about the radiation dangers of CT scans

Many people unaware of radiation risk from CT scans By Genevra Pittman | Reuters, 4 Jan 13, NEW YORK–One-third of people getting a CT scan didn’t know the test exposed their body to radiation, in a new study from a single U.S. medical center.
Researchers found the majority of patients also underestimated the amount of radiation delivered by a CT scan, and just one in 20 believed the scan would increase their chance of ever getting cancer.
The study’s lead researcher, , Janet Busey, , said doctors need to do a better job of talking to patients about the risks and benefits of the tests, including about radiation exposure.
One challenge is that there is still debate within the medical community about just how much long term cancer risk the scans carry, she said. That risk also depends on how many scans a patient gets and which organs are exposed to radiation.
“There’s no doubt, CT saves lives,” Busey, from the University of Washington in Seattle, told Reuters Health. And their benefits usually outweigh their risks, she added.
Still, even if the radiation risk is small, patients “definitely should be aware of it.”
CT scans are high-powered X-rays that provide clearer images but expose patients to between ten and 100 times more radiation than a normal head or chest X-ray, for example…. http://news.yahoo.com/many-people-unaware-radiation-risk-ct-scans-213236978.html

January 4, 2013 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA | 1 Comment

After Chernobyl nuclear disaster- “background” radiation estimated at double previous amount

Geneticist Valery N. Soyfer, founder of the former Soviet Union’s first molecular biology laboratory, analyzed the 1986 report to the IAEA, which has since been condemned as a cover-up. Dr. Soyfer says that if only 100 million curies were vented, then world “background radiation doubled at once.”[10] This claim was unsupported by accompanying evidence, butif “background” was doubled by 100 million curies, then it was multiplied 180 times by the release of Chernobyl’s “full inventory.”

Nineteen months after the disaster, in Nov. 1987, the U.S. government officially doubled its estimate of the “background” radiation to which we are exposed every year

Chernobyl at Ten: Half-lives and Half Truths, Chernobyl, by John M. LaForge “…… In the first part of this article (Spring 1996 Pathfinder) I compared the recent trivialization of Chernobyl’s consequences to news accounts that appeared soon after the explosions and fire. For example, while the commercial press now tell us that the disaster “spread radiation across parts of Europe,” the fact is that the federal EPA announced in mid-May 1986 that, “Airborne radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear accident is now so widespread that it is likely to fall to the ground wherever it rains in the United States.”[4]

In this part I look at how much radiation Chernobyl evidently added to the “background,” at official skewing of the inevitable long-term effects, and at recent reports of its human health consequences. Continue reading →

December 31, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, environment, health, Reference | 1 Comment

US Navy men – major health problems from Fukushima nuclear radiation

CNN: Major health issues in ill US Navy sailors who were exposed to Fukushima radiation -Attorney http://enenews.com/cnn-major-health-issues-ill-navy-sailors-exposed-fukushima-radiation-attorney
Title: U.S. Navy sailors sue Japan over nuclear accident
Source: CNN
Author: Tom Watkins and Lateef Mungin
Date: Dec. 28, 2012

[…] “They have physical problems,” said Paul C. Garner, the plaintiffs’ attorney, in an interview with CNN affiliate KGTV in San Diego, the home port of the ship. “One of them is bleeding from his rectum; already, the others have problems with thyroid glands.”

Garner described the illnesses as “major health issues” during a telephone interview with CNN.

“Our best and brightest — who were hired to perform top service to our Navy — went there to provide humanitarian tasks and did not want to bargain their health and well being,” said Garner. “But the people running the power plant lied to them.” […]

December 31, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Resources -audiovicual, USA | Leave a comment

Physical. mental, social effects of Fukushima radiation

doctors told the women there was no way to determine if
the symptoms were caused by radiation. But the women saw other
patients with similar symptoms at doctors’ offices, Maeshima says.

“They went through a tremendous amount of stress and those symptoms
can be caused by stress,” she says. “There may be a direct impact from
radiation, but no one, no doctor, can tell.

Md. woman sees long-term effects of radiation in Fukushima, WTOP 30 Dec 12,
“……..Maeshima was a school nurse for 25 years in Japan. Relying on
that experience, she has been volunteering for about a year at Mano
Elementary School in Minami Soma City, which was forced to evacuate
after the nuclear plant accident. She sees a range of issues among
children.

“Some struggle to gain weight while others gain too much and become
overweight,” she says. “Insomnia and frequent headaches are causing
some kids to miss school.”

It’s not so much that she sees the physical injuries from radiation.
Instead, she sees children’s lives turned upside down. Continue reading →

December 31, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2012, health, Japan, social effects | Leave a comment

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) misled the world about Chernobyls’ cancer threat

Thyroid Cancers: More, Sooner, Untreatable Chernobyl at Ten: Half-lives and Half Truths, Chernobyl, by John M. LaForge

“……Dr. Soyfer further discovered that the Soviets focused on and publicized the fallout’s radioactive iodine content, but understated the amounts of other far more dangerous isotopes. While 10 to 15 percent of the fallout was iodine-131, the long-lived radionuclides strontium-90 and cesium-137 made up more than two thirds of the total contamination.[12]

Furthermore, the Soviet’s 1986 estimate of future cancer deaths was based only on the impact of iodine-131, and then only on external doses. As a result, the IAEA misled the world about Chernobyl’s cancer threat. Continue reading →

December 31, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Reference | Leave a comment

Okinawa a refuge for Fukushima evacuees fleeing radiation

risks are several times higher for children and even higher for
fetuses, and may not appear for years.

Japanese flee Fukushima in fear of nuclear radiation, Mail and Guardian,
22 DEC 2012 – YURI KAGEYAMA, Okinawa is about as far away as one
can get from Fukushima without leaving Japan, and that is why Minaho
Kubota is here.Petrified of the radiation spewing from the Fukushima
Dai-ichi nuclear plant that went into multiple meltdowns last year,
Kubota grabbed her children, left her sceptical husband and moved to
the small southwestern island.

More than 1 000 people from the disaster zone have done the same
thing. “I thought I would lose my mind,” Kubota told The Associated
Press in a recent interview.

“I felt I would have no answer for my children if, after they grew up,
they ever asked me, ‘Mama, why didn’t you leave?'” Continue reading →

December 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, social effects | Leave a comment

High rates of birth defects in Iraq, where depleted uranium was used

in Iraq, and Afghanistan, too, the idea of sicknesses related to depleted uranium does not seem in much doubt, from what we can tell. In Iraq, as we have reported many times, doctors are even advising women in certain areas not to have children because the chances of birth defects are so great

Depleted Uranium Receives More Attention , The Daily Bell
December 21, 2012
Mystery in Iraq – Are US Munitions to Blame for Basra Birth Defects? … The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently assembling a report on DU ammunition. It will reflect the current state of research on the issue, but it will hardly provide any new insights. With the help of the University of Greifswald, a cancer registry has been developed for the Basra region and will serve as the basis for all future study. Still, even as further research is needed, if only for the children’s sake, it will come too late for many. The guns have been silent in Iraq for years, but in Basra and Fallujah the number of birth defects and cancer cases is on the rise. Locals believe that American uranium-tipped munitions are to blame and some researchers think they might be right. – Der Spiegel

Dominant Social Theme: US munitions are harmless except to the bad guys.

Free-Market Analysis: The WHO (see above) is finally getting around to seeing if depleted uranium weapons used by NATO and the US are responsible for the many birth defects in Iraq. From what we can tell, the outcome will be a preordained “no.”

US officials, military or otherwise, have already ruled out the idea that depleted uranium dust could possibly be responsible for these birth defects or for US ailments that are much in dispute – having to do with immune deficiencies, etc. Continue reading →

December 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | depleted uranium, health, Iraq, Uranium | 1 Comment

Official data now estimates Chernobyl death toll at 1.5 million

Death toll estimate from Chernobyl now around 1.5 Million -Expert (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/expert-death-toll-estimate-chernobyl-around-15-million-people-video
December 22nd, 2012
Title: Pr A.Yablokov and Pr C.Busby on Fukushima victim estimations
Uploaded by: radioactivebsr
Date: April 6-8, 2011
Description: Interview by an unidentified Austrian radio reporter
h/t Nuclear_Problem

Prof. Alexey Yablokow, PhD, Centre for Russian Environmental Policy, N. K. Koltzoff Institute of Developmental Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences:

9,000 additional deaths from cancer, nothing more – This is official data from so called Chernobyl Forum, by International Atomic Energy Agency and World Health Organization. […]

And when I calculate this, of course it’s not precise. But level of death toll was more than 1 million. If you not only for 15 years, but for 25 years, maybe to close one and a half million – than 9,000 deaths which I mentioned before.

December 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Reference, Ukraine | 2 Comments

Space travel’s inevitable cancer danger

Astronauts can endure this radiation for only a limited time before serious
problems such as cancer begin cropping up…..

For Manned Deep-Space Missions, Radiation Is Biggest Hurdle
by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior WriterDate: 20 December 2012 High
radiation levels beyond Earth orbit pose the biggest challenge to
human exploration of deep-space destinations, experts say. Continue reading →

December 22, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

National Christian Council finds nuclear power incompatible with life and peace

The science in play is not fiction. Children are growing up forbidden to play outdoors, young women worry that no one will want to marry them, a mother tests her rice harvest to see if she can share it with her children, families are paying off loans on radioactive homes they will never use. These are the kind of stories heard every day at a parish radiation information centre in Aizu Wakamatsu, Japan.

The conference concluded that “there is no safe use of nuclear power, no safe level of exposure to radiation, and no compatibility between nuclear power, life and peace.”

Nuclear tragedy finds a human face in Fukushima, Insights, ON 19 DEC 2012 BY STEPHENW
The everyday effects of radiation borne by survivors of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan add up today to an involuntary experiment with public health, community life and environmental affairs.
An ecumenical conference, called to listen to local residents, found that last year’s chain reaction of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear calamity has generated a “live” human tragedy, across a province, with no end in sight.
The Geiger counters that priests and parishioners pull out of their pockets like cell phones made the local anxieties and fears real for their visitors.
“I cannot tell my children that there will be something good if they live,” one mother told a Buddhist priest. Continue reading →

December 22, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2012, Japan, Reference, social effects | Leave a comment

Fallujah: the forgotten scandal of babies affected by depleted uranium

FallujahIraq: Crimes against Humanity. The Babies Will Haunt Us By Kelley B. Vlahos Global Research, December 18, 2012 antiwar.com It was like walking through a nightmare: drifting in an out of hospital rooms, down the long hallways, her contact with shock-ravaged Iraqi parents interrupted only by glimpses of their physically deformed and terminally sick babies who in many cases, would never see the outside of Fallujah’s main hospital, ever.

Then, the more than vague sense that she must apologize. The words thick like molasses were hard to form. “I felt inadequate,” said Donna Mulhearn. “What was so hard was, what do you say to these people other than saying sorry, which I said over and over again. You just wanted to offer more.”

Donna Mulhearn is a name we need to remember, as she is one of a small but dedicated group of citizen activists who, after most of us have said the long goodbye to Iraq in the rear-view mirror, are taking on the environmental and humanitarian legacy of the Iraq War as a personal cause. Right now, she is doing what the western mainstream has so far failed to do, which is report on the horrifying number of miscarriages, deaths, birth defects and congenital illnesses among babies in urban Fallujah, the site of some of the most intense U.S bombing (2004) during the war. Continue reading →

December 19, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | depleted uranium, health, Iraq | 2 Comments