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Fukushima’s radioactive iodine and cesium a greater danger at present than plutonium

How Dangerous Is the Plutonium Leaking from the Japanese Nuclear Reactor? – By Joshua E. Keating | Foreign PolicyMARCH 30, 2011“……..Plutonium may be grabbing the headlines right now, but it’s not the most dangerous substance being emitted from Fukushima. The steam intentionally vented from the plant contains iodine and cesium, both of which have a far shorter half-life than plutonium, but are being released in much higher amounts and, being airborne, can travel much farther. Radioactive iodine-131 has been detected off the coast of Fukushima at levels 1,150 times higher than normal. These elements may not be quite as radioactive as plutonium, but if ingested or inhaled, they also pose a risk of causing cancer. …”
FP EXPLAINER: How Dangerous Is the Plutonium Leaking from the Japanese Nuclear Reactor? – By Joshua E. Keating | Foreign Policy

March 31, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011, health, Japan | Leave a comment

Brockovich’s push for mapping disease clusters

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This could embarrass nuclear and uranium industries big-time!

Erin Brockovich Pushes For Disease Cluster Law – Planet Ark, 30 March 11, Erin Brockovich, a U.S. consumer health advocate whose life story was the basis for an Academy Award-winning film, urged senators Tuesday to pass a law to document disease clusters in the United States.A disease cluster is an unusual number of health events, such as reports of cancer, grouped together in a time and location, according to the Centers for Disease Control.Brockovich, who came to prominence investigating the prevalence of cancer cases in Hinkley, California, said she has become an informal reporting agency for those who worry that something in their immediate environment is a health hazard.”Thousands of Americans contact me every month asking for help and telling me about unexplained diseases in their neighborhood or on their streets,” Brockovich told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee….

A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Disease Clusters Alliance reported 42 disease clusters in 13 U.S. states, showing incidence of numerous types of cancer, birth defects and other chronic illnesses….
World Environment News – Erin Brockovich Pushes For Disease Cluster Law – Planet Ark

March 31, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Low radiation is a public health danger, rather than individual

Individual versus public health risk ABC Science Analysis 31 march 11, “……..The Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) question Gale’s position [on safety of low level radiation] .”His position illustrates very neatly the divergence between individual and public health risk,” says PSR’s Dr Ira Helfand.”The risk to any one individual from drinking water with this much radiation is indeed very low. The problem comes when 40 million people in the Tokyo water district drink the water and get this much radiation.”Helfand says if the risk of cancer from a low dose exposure is 1 in a million, an individual does not need to take any special precautions.”But if 40 million get this dose of radiation then 40 of them are going to get cancer,” he says.”And they may also be getting radiation in the days ahead from increased levels of radiation in the air, and from radiation contamination of food.”Helfand says it is reasonable to assure the public that they don’t need to take individual action if the level of radiation is very low.”But we should not mislead them that the dose is ‘safe’ or ‘no cause for concern’ which is very different,” he says.
No ‘safe’ threshold for radiation: experts › Analysis (ABC Science)

March 31, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

Radioactive iodine and thyroid cancer

RADIATION RISKS TO HEALTH A Joint Statement from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the American Thyroid Association, The Endocrine Society, & the Society of Nuclear Medicine March 18, 2011 The recent nuclear reactor accident in Japan due to the earthquake and tsunami has raised fears of radiation exposure to populations in North America from the potential plume of radioactivity crossing the Pacific Ocean. The principal radiation source of concern is radioactive iodine including iodine-131, a radioactive isotope that presents a special risk to health because iodine is concentrated in the thyroid gland and exposure of the thyroid to high levels of radioactive iodine may lead to development of thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer years later. Continue reading →

March 28, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

Don’t let the nuclear industry tell you that radiation is safe

Don’t let the nuclear industry tell you radiation’s safe The Punch, Jim Green, 25 March, 11, “………..A big part of the spin surrounding the Fukushima crisis is the claim − or the unstated, implicit assumption − that low level radiation exposures are ‘safe’ or ‘harmless’. However there is no safe level of radiation − the risk of fatal cancer is proportional to the dose, even at the lowest levels of exposure.

The Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation of the US National Academy of Sciences comprehensively studied the issue and concluded that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”

….fringe  scientists  claim that low level radiation exposure is not only harmless but actually good for you….

……To estimate the death toll from Fukushima, it will be necessary to estimate the total human radiation exposure as a result of the accidents. The standard risk estimate for low level radiation can then be applied.

It is far too early to be attempting those calculations for Fukushima, but we can apply the logic to Chernobyl. Total radiation exposure from Chernobyl was 600,000 Sieverts according to the International Atomic Energy Agency and thus an estimated 24,000 people will die, nearly all of them because of cancers induced by low level radiation exposure….. Don’t let the nuclear industry tell you radiation’s safe | Article | The Punch

March 26, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

The first manufacturing victims of ionising radiation

Until, one by one, the dial painters began, mysteriously, to fall ill.  Their teeth fell out, their mouths filled with sores, their jaws rotted, they wasted away, weakened by an apparently unstoppable anemia. By 1924, nine of the dial painters were dead

The Radium Girls | Speakeasy Science, By Deborah Blum March 24, 2011 “……Radon (Rn) is an element found in the earth’s crust as a radioactive “daughter” of uranium. ……….After American troops joined the war in Europe, (1916) the factory in Orange, New Jersey won a contract to supply radium-dial instruments to the military. By the time the war ended, wristwatches with their glowing dials and handy wristbands were all the style. So were luminous-faced clocks, nicely dressed up in gold and ebony for elegant homes. The corporation’s business was as healthy as ever, as healthy, you might say, as radium itself.There was not a thought worth mentioning that radium might not really be the golden child of the elements. Continue reading →

March 26, 2011 Posted by | health, history, USA | Leave a comment

Japan’s hibakusha see a repeat of Hiroshima’s radiation horror

Sasamori is a hibakusha, or heat radiation survivor — a name given to those who lived through the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II.

For them, radiation is an invisible enemy that has haunted them, claimed their loved ones, altered their bodies and threatened their lives…….The hibakusha like Sasamori have lived in uncertainty, watching their childhood friends fall ill and wondering if their bodies were ticking time bombs for radiation-related diseases.

Hiroshima survivors fear new nuclear fallout, By Madison Park, CNN, March 18, 2011 Los Angeles — The cities flattened by last week’s earthquake look eerily similar to the decimated buildings Shigeko Sasamori saw after an atomic bomb was dropped on her hometown in 1945.

Continue reading →

March 19, 2011 Posted by | health, Japan | Leave a comment

UK’s rising use of CT scans causing radiation worries

Certain CT scans can be up to 400 times more powerful than a chest x-ray…….

(UK) Radiation: are we putting our health at risk with increased CT scans?, The Ecologist, Eifion Rees10th March, 2011 Tesco provoked an outcry by offering Clubcard members the opportunity to redeem points for a CT scan. Now, increasing numbers of scans in NHS and private hospitals are causing concerns that we are over-exposing ourselves to radiation. Continue reading →

March 11, 2011 Posted by | health, UK | Leave a comment

Revelations of cancer caused by radiation from Antarcic nuclear plant

Other McMurdo veterans across the US have now been revealed to have cancer………The first thing the doctors asked me was, well, that’s the type of cancer you typically get from exposure from radiation,” Boyles said.

Health fears around polar nuke leak | Stuff.co.nz, by Michael Field, 7 Mar 11, A small nuclear power plant used at McMurdo Sound near New Zealand’s Antarctic Scott Base is being implicated by US media in unusual cancers in men who worked on it in the 1960s.It has also been revealed the PM-3A nuclear power plant – known at MacTown as “nukey poo” for the way it leaked – had 438 malfunctions in its life between 1964 and 1973. Continue reading →

March 8, 2011 Posted by | ANTARCTICA, health, New Zealand, USA | 2 Comments

Navy personnel claim cancers due to radiation exposure

Veterans who served there have long suspected their cancers were related to possible radiation exposure,

Exclusive report into Navy radiation exposure reaches Obama cabinet officials WEWS News, by Ron Regan, 3 March 11, CLEVELAND – Two top level cabinet officials in the Obama administration have been asked to review an exclusive 5 On Your Side investigation into possible radiation exposure among Navy personnel. Continue reading →

March 4, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

A new worldwide standard for monitoring workers for radiation exposure

New ISO standard will improve protection of workers exposed to radiation, IEWY News 3 March 11, A  new ISO standard will help optimize individual monitoring and protection of workers exposed to radiation. It will also provide the technical basis for reinforcing regulation in this field worldwide. Continue reading →

March 4, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health, technology | Leave a comment

Grudging recognition of cancers caused by radiation, among uranium workers

employees who worked outside of those dates still have to prove their cancer was caused by radiation at the plant….“They waited so long until almost everyone died,” Wytovak said.

They’re hoping for help in radiation case, Fuel Fix 3 March 2011, “…………“I thought it was a fertilizer plant,” said Wytovak, who discovered later during his 20 years at the plant that he had been part of an unwitting team extracting uranium for nuclear weapons. Continue reading →

March 4, 2011 Posted by | health, Uranium, USA | 1 Comment

Overexposure to radiation of some hospital patients

Cabell Huntington Hospital Says Some Patient May Have Been Overexposed to Radiation – WOWK-TV – , 3 March 11, HUNTINGTON — Cabell Huntington Hospital is informing former patients about possible overexposure to radiation.Hospital officials made the announcement Thursday in a news release. According to the hospital’s findings, officials believe it happened during a specific radiological procedure known as CT Angiography. The overexposure could have happened to patients who underwent the procedure between Oct. 9, 2009 and Nov. 23, 2010. Cabell Huntington believes the “a group of patients may have received an exposure to radiation that is above the recommended level.”Cabell Huntington Hospital Says Some Patient May Have Been Overexposed to Radiation – WOWK-TV – WOWKTV.com

March 4, 2011 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

The very real health danger of low level radiation

each successive report of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation committee, a committee of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, has acknowledged a greater danger to low-dose radiation. Their most recent report states there is “no evidence of a threshold below which no cellular damage occurs.” (5) That is, even the lowest of doses may be dangerous

Airport Body Scanners: More Radiation Than You Think?, THE HUFFINGTON POST, by Gayle Greene:, 3 March 11, Late last year, the American Pilots Association persuaded the TSA to allow pilots exemption from screening by full-body scanners. Captain Dave Bates, president of the association, argued that pilots “experience significantly higher exposure than most other occupations, and there is mounting evidence of higher-than-average cancer rates as a consequence.” (1)

But what about the rest of us? Continue reading →

March 3, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

The continuing cancer toll from Chernobyl

“In our report we say 6,800,” said Mettler. “But now, from what I understand people from Belarus say it is 7,000. Now the question they are asking is: what percent of them are due to the accident?  And the answer is, most of them.”…….

UN Reports Thousands of Thyroid Cancers 25 Years After Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, Voice of America, Jim Brooke | Moscow February 28, 2011 Twenty five years after the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a United Nations report estimates the disaster caused thyroid cancer in more than 6,000 children in the affected area.   Continue reading →

March 1, 2011 Posted by | health, Ukraine | Leave a comment

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