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The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Complexities of radiation in medical nuclear technology

How Nuclear Recoil Damages DNA  – Technology Review, 1 August 11, The recoil of a nucleus during radioactive decay can do more damage than the alpha particle it emits, according to a new study. Thorium-232 is a silvery, radioactive metal that is particularly good at absorbing X-rays. In the early days of X-ray imaging, doctors routinely injected patients with thorium dioxide because it produced high contrast images. Between the 1930s to the 1950s, some 10 million people received these doses…..

What doctors didn’t appreciate at the time were the long term effects on the body. Once injected, Thorotrast settles in various organs where it tends to stay. The biological half life of the stuff is 22 years. Continue reading →

August 1, 2011 Posted by | health, Uranium | Leave a comment

Cancer in nuclear workers even though radiation exposure was low

The current guidelines for workers’ compensation due to radiation exposure only certify leukemia among various types of cancer. In these cases compensation is granted only when an applicant is exposed to more than 5 millisieverts of radiation a year 

Nuclear plant workers developed cancer despite lower radiation exposure than legal limit, Mainichi Daily News, Japan) July 27, 2011 Of 10 nuclear power plant workers who have developed cancer and received workers’ compensation in the past, nine had been exposed to less than 100 millisieverts of radiation, it has been learned. Continue reading →

July 28, 2011 Posted by | health, Japan | Leave a comment

Get rid of coal, and benefit health, climate, and economy

it would be a mistake to view air pollution regulations only through an economic lens. The EPA says that the new cross-state border rule will provide $280 billion in public health savings at the cost of roughly $2.5 billion a year in plant upgrades — and many of those upgrades are already underway. Crunch the numbers that way and it seems like economic folly not to take action. Industry also has a habit of overestimating just how expensive clean air will really be

Coal Kills Every Day’: Michael Bloomberg Pledges $50 Million to Fight the Coal Industry, TIME, By BRYAN WALSH , July 21, 2011 “………now Bloomberg is taking on an even bigger and more pervasive American industry: coal. On July 21, the New York mayor announced that his charitable foundation would be donating $50 million over four years to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. The purpose of the gift is simple: to help the nation’s largest environmental group push back against one of the world’s biggest sources of air pollution, plant by plant. “Coal kills every day,” Bloomberg told TIME. “It’s a dirty fuel.” Continue reading →

July 24, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Radiation exposure to be estimated for 61,000 US personnel in Japan

Military to Calculate Radiation Exposure in Japan, Military.com July 20, 2011, by Seth Robson , YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The U.S. military plans to calculate radiation doses received by each of the approximately 61,000 U.S. personnel living and working in Japan during this year’s nuclear disaster, according to the U.S. Pacific Command’s top surgeon. Continue reading →

July 21, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

On health and safety grounds, Indian Point Nuclear Plant should be closed

First, to the cancer risk. Even the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission — an agency that services the industry it is supposed to regulate, if there ever was one — has bowed to growing evidence and backed away from its decades of insisting that nuclear power plants do not cause cancer. …

The Radiation and Public Health Project, a nonprofit anti-nuclear group, has found increasing levels of Strontium 90, a carcinogen that exists only as a byproduct of nuclear fission, in teeth from babies living close to nuclear plants, including Indian Point…the safety record, plus evidence that the facility already is slowly, steadily poisoning the region, makes clear that it’s time to close Indian Point.

It’s time to close Indian Point, ctpost.com, July 15, 2011 “……….But Hearst Newspapers‘ investigative reporter Bill Cummings in today’s paper presents a hard-to-dismiss examination of the plant closest to us.    More than 17 million people live within a 50-mile radius of New York’s Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y., just south of Peekskill.

And incidence of cancer near the center, including in Fairfield County, is higher than the national average, and grow higher still as you get closer. Continue reading →

July 16, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Two patients still irradiated months after medical scans

The agency said it recently became aware of two patients who underwent PET imaging scans with CardioGen-82 and were later found to have detectable levels of radiation several months after their PET scans. Both patients were crossing the border to or from the United States when radiation detectors identified radiation originating from them.

The FDA said the scans had been performed 2 and 4 months earlier.

FDA Investigating Exposure To Excess Radiation From Certain Heart Scans, WSJ, By Jennifer Corbett Dooren, WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) 16 July 11–-The Food and Drug Administration Friday warned about the potential for excess radiation exposure in patients who underwent heart scans involving a radioactive drug called CardioGen-82. Continue reading →

July 16, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Japanese mothers and pregnant women at risk from Fukushima radiation

VIDEOS,  (scroll down page for videos)  http://womennewsnetwork.net/2011/07/13/nuclear-radiation-mothers-japan/Nuclear radiation exposure
 concerns mount for mothers Japan Women News Network, Eva Fernández Ortiz and Shubhi Tandon  14 July 11,   As parents from Fukushima prefecture line up in Tokyo for public protests and a more recent 7.0 level earthquake hit off shore of the east coast of Honshu, Japan on July 9, the latest data on nuclear power reveals: the amount of radiation inside the plant’s reactor has reached much higher than originally expected levels. Current released figures through JAIN – Japan Atomic Industrial Forum show 4,000 millisieverts per hour of radiation on June 4 was measured in Reactor No. 1 through a steam release rising from a crevice in the floor……

Current radiation release figures from TEPCO, the power company that operates and manages the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant now reveals that larger than originally reported releases of radiation at 770,000 terabecquerels did happen, a level that may hold much more significance as the disabled plant is expected to continue to release radioactive isotopes over an extended period of time. Continue reading →

July 15, 2011 Posted by | Japan, Resources -audiovicual, women | Leave a comment

France’s tardy response to Pacific nuclear test victims

FRANCE RESPONDS TO TAHITI ON NUKE COMPENSATION
French Polynesia outcry registers in Paris, ,PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT, Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center, With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Radio New Zealand International, July 7, 2011) – The French authorities have responded to a claim by a French Polynesian assembly vice president, Hiro Tefaarere, that the territory’s Social Welfare Fund was to seek millions of dollars in compensation for illnesses caused by France’s nuclear weapons tests…..

The defence ministry in Paris says work has been started between the French state and the Fund in Tahiti on how those deemed eligible for compensation can be paid.

The ministry says France is yet to get a response to its initiative.

Two years ago, France recognised for the first time that its weapons tests weren’t clean but to date only one compensation claim has been recognised.

France tested nearly 200 nuclear weapons in French Polynesia before winding up its programme in 1996…..http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2011/July/07-08-14.htm

July 9, 2011 Posted by | health, OCEANIA | Leave a comment

TSA workers exposed to radiation from backscatter airport scanners?

TSA Workers Fear Radiation Dangers From Scanners, 9 News Now, 2 July 11WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) — After wading through documents he secured with a Freedom Of Information Act filing, the Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Marc Rotenberg told 9NEWS NOW, “We think that the Department of Homeland Security has not been forthcoming with the public about the true extent of radiation risk with the airport body scanners.”

The release of new documents follows concerns of TSA workers that they are being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation as they conduct the screenings. Union representatives in Boston cite an increase in cancer cases among the TSA workforce there and have asked the agency to allow its members to wear radiation monitoring devices……..

“It’s one branch of government that’s made the decision to deploy these devices and it’s the same branch of government which is evaluating its own program. That’s a recipe for a problem,” Rotenberg said… http://wusa9.com/news/article/156513/373/TSA-Workers-Fear-Radiation-Dangers-From-Scanners

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July 2, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

30 years radiation health monitoring for 2 million Fukushima residents

Residents in the Fukushima region have expressed growing concern surrounding the possible longterm health risks, in particular for children, triggered by the on-going nuclear power plant crisis.

Two million Fukushima residents to undergo radiation health checks Telegraph By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo, 21 June 11 More than two million residents living in the region surrounding Japan’s damaged nuclear power plant will undergo longterm health checks starting from this month.  20 Jun 2011 The health of residents in Fukushima prefecture in northeast Japan will be monitored over the next 30 years in order to ease growing concerns surrounding radiation contamination. Continue reading →

June 22, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011, health, Japan | 1 Comment

Unnecessary radiation – too many CT scans in USA hospitals

Hospitals Nationwide Unnecessarily Perform Double CT Scans, -California Heath Line –  June 20, 2011Hundreds of hospitals nationwide routinely perform two chest CT scans on a single patient, needlessly exposing them to double doses of radiation and driving up costs, according to a review of Medicare data, the New York Times reports (Bogdanich/Craven McGinty, New York Times, 6/17).

Unnecessary Testing Patients who receive a double CT scan undergo a contrast and a noncontrast CT scan in succession (Appleby/Rau, Kaiser Health News/Washington Post, 6/18). Although most radiologists say nearly all chest issues can be accurately diagnosed with only one scan, 2008 Medicare data show that some hospitals performed double scans on chest patients more than 80% of the time. According to the Times, a single CT chest scan exposes a patient to 350 times the radiation of a standard chest X-ray (New York Times, 6/17).

Specifically, Medicare data show that 76,781 chest patients, or 5.4%, received double CT scans in 2008. While most hospitals administered them sparingly—a median of 2% of Medicare patients received two scans—618 hospitals performed double scans on at least 10% of Medicare chest patients, and 94 of those hospitals performed double scans on at least 50% of Medicare chest patients (Kaiser Health News/Washington Post, 6/18).

Experts note that double scanning also is common for privately insured patients (New York Times, 6/17). Although the number of overall non-Medicare patients who receive double scans is unknown, HealthPartners, a not-for-profit Minnesota HMO, reports that 7% of its chest patients received double scans in 2010 (Kaiser Health News/Washington Post, 6/18)….http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2011/6/20/hospitals-nationwide-unnecessarily-perform-double-ct-scans.aspx

June 21, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Low dose of radiation causes cataracts

Eye lens is more vulnerable to radiation: new studies IBN LIVE  PTI |  Jun 20,2011 There are three main forms of cataract; nuclear, cortical, and posterior sub-capsular (PSC). Among these, PSC is the least common and is associated with exposure to radiation. Till recently, scientists believed that cataract was formed only after the lens received a typical radiation dose, called the threshold dose, of 2Gy for a single dose, and 5 Gy when the exposure occurred in a protracted way. Not any more. Recent studies appear to show that formation of radiation induced cataracts at much lower doses than the current standards. ICRP now considers that the threshold dose for cataract is 0.5Gy. The present ICRP recommendations must serve as a wake-up call for interventional cardiology and radiology professionals, Parthasarathy said. Cataract analysis of 8,607 Chernobyl clean-up workers 12 and 14 years after exposure indicated that posterior sub-capsular or cortical cataracts appeared in 25 per cent of the participants…http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/eye-lens-is-more-vulnerable-to-radiation-new-studies/731307.html

June 21, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

Future human generations are affected by nuclear radiation

Ionising radiation – the kind that comes out of bombs and nuclear power plants – has been shown to alter sex ratios in fruit flies and mice, says Karl Sperling, of the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of Berlin. He suspects that radiation exposures might affect DNA in the first few cell divisions around the time of conception, which is known to be a highly vulnerable period.

If radiation can influence sex ratios in this way, he adds, there might be reason to be concerned about other environmental exposures, too.

Nuclear radiation affects future generations, 8 June 2011, ABC Radio Emily Sohn After exposure to nuclear radiation events, women may be more likely to give birth to boys than to girls, suggests a new study. Continue reading →

June 9, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

Problems in assessing health effects of Fukushima radiation

some of the radiation to which people are being exposed around Fukushima is inside the body; it comes from radioactive materials that contaminated their food or water.

Radiation’s Unknowns Weigh on Japan, New York Times, By  June 6, 2011 As officials in Japan agonize over what constitutes a safe radiation dose for people who live near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, the state of the science has been a daunting problem. Studies on the effects of exposure are based mostly on large doses delivered quickly by atomic bombs, while radiation from the Fukushima disaster would more likely result in small doses delivered over many years. Continue reading →

June 7, 2011 Posted by | health, Japan | Leave a comment

Sick former uranium miners face hurdles in seeking compensation

Efforts to document Corral’s work history and exposure levels have turned into endless rounds of paperwork for him and volunteer advocate Sandra Belvail. They’ve had to track down decades-old payroll records and medical reports..

Former co-workers who started the claims process gave up.

“If they drag this process out, these guys will be gone,” Belvail said.

Chico Corral blames uranium industry for failing health But as others before him have learned, compensation is elusive The Spokesman Review, Becky Kramer 6 June 11, “….Now 79, Corral’s lungs show signs of scarring. Minor exertion leaves him short of breath. He believes his lung problems resulted from the two decades he spent in the uranium industry. Continue reading →

June 7, 2011 Posted by | health, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

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