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Congenital abnormalities. Thorium and uranium, in infants and children living near an active U.S. military base in Iraq

October 1, 2020 Posted by | children, Iraq | Leave a comment

On the moon ”normal” humans (i.e males) will get 200 Times the Radiation Experienced on Earth, (what about females?)

Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs

 

It is amazing that in all this propaganda for putting a woman on the moon, – no mention is ever made, of the fact that women are much more susceptible to the effects of ionising radiation, meaning that their risk of developing cancer and other illnesses is greater than it is for men. Apparently the space enthusiasts are still buying into that traditional view that the ”normal” human being is male.

Moonwalking Humans Get Blasted With 200 Times the Radiation Experienced on Earth, Smithsonian Magazine ,

By Alex Fox, SMITHSONIANMAG.COM, SEPTEMBER 29, 2020
The new findings will inform how much shielding future astronauts will need to safely explore the moon,  The 12 human beings who have walked on the moon were all bombarded by radiation roughly 200 times what we experience here on Earth, reports Adam Mann for Science. That’s two to three times what astronauts experience aboard the International Space Station, explains Marcia Dunn for the Associated Press (AP), suggesting that any long term human presence on the moon will require shelters with thick walls capable of blocking the radiation.

The 12 human beings who have walked on the moon were all bombarded by radiation roughly 200 times what we experience here on Earth, reports Adam Mann for Science. That’s two to three times what astronauts experience aboard the International Space Station, explains Marcia Dunn for the Associated Press (AP), suggesting that any long term human presence on the moon will require shelters with thick walls capable of blocking the radiation.

Despite the fact that the measurements, which come courtesy of China’s Chang’e-4 lunar lander, are quite high compared to what we experience on Earth, the data is quite useful for protecting future moonwalkers. According to Science, the levels of radiation at the lunar surface wouldn’t be expected to increase the risk of NASA astronauts developing cancer by more than 3 percent—a risk threshold the agency is legally required to keep its astronauts’ activities safely below.

Despite the fact that the measurements, which come courtesy of China’s Chang’e-4 lunar lander, are quite high compared to what we experience on Earth, the data is quite useful for protecting future moonwalkers. According to Science, the levels of radiation at the lunar surface wouldn’t be expected to increase the risk of NASA astronauts developing cancer by more than 3 percent—a risk threshold the agency is legally required to keep its astronauts’ activities safely below……

Some forms of radiation, which is electromagnetic energy emitted in forms like heat, visible light, X-rays and radio waves, can mess with the cells inside the human body by breaking up the atoms and molecules they’re made of. On Earth, most people are familiar with ultraviolet radiation’s harmful effects on our skin, but in space, astronauts are also subjected to galactic cosmic rays, accelerated solar particles, neutrons and gamma rays, according to the research published this week in the journal Science Advances. This material can damage our DNA and lead to increased incidences of cancer or contribute to other health problems such as cataracts and degenerative diseases of the central nervous system or other organ systems.

Humanity measured the radiation astronauts on the Apollo missions experienced on their journeys to the moon, but those measurements were cumulative for each astronaut’s entire journey, per Science. To figure out the daily dose of radiation exclusively on the surface of the moon, the robotic Chang’e-4 lander used a stack of ten silicon solid-state detectors.

The renewed interest in collecting such measurements is partly because NASA has plans to send more people to the moon. The Artemis moon mission, scheduled for 2024, will feature the first woman ever to walk on the moon as well as a week-long expedition to the lunar surface and a minimum of two moonwalks, reports Katie Hunt for CNN.

Berger tells the AP that these new findings suggest the shelters needed to protect Artemis’ astronauts during such a long stay on the moon should have walls made of moon dirt that are some two and a half feet thick. Science notes that the shelter would also need an even more heavily shielded inner sanctum to protect astronauts in the event of a solar storm. Adequate shielding for this inner chamber would be roughly 30 feet of water, and would also need to be reachable within 30 minutes—the current limit of satellites’ abilities to provide astronauts with advanced warning of such hazards.

The findings aren’t exactly suprising: they are in line with calculations made using existing measurements. But they’re a crucial step towards putting people on the surface of the moon for extended periods of time. According to Science, the results confirm that with proper shielding astronauts could spend as long as six months on the moon.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/moonwalking-humans-get-blasted-200-times-radiation-experienced-earth-180975926/

October 1, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation, space travel | Leave a comment

Lunar base woud have to be underground, due to the danger of high radiation on the moon

After measuring radiation on the moon for the first time, scientists say a lunar base should be built underground to protect astronauts, Business Insider, AYLIN WOODWARD, SEP 30, 2020, 

  • NASA recently unveiled the plan for its Artemis program, a series of missions that would return astronauts to the moon.
  • A new study found how much radiation astronauts are exposed to on the lunar surface: a daily dose about 200 times as great as on Earth.
  • NASA wants to build a base on the moon, but the new data suggests it’d be safest to bury such a base under 2.5 feet of moon dirt to protect astronauts from radiation.
NASA wants to build a permanent base on the moon by the 2030s — a place astronauts could stay for extended visits at the lunar south pole.

But a new study found that any astronauts who go there would face levels of radiation nearly three times as high as what the astronauts on the space station deal with. Long-term exposure to enough of this cosmic radiation poses significant health risks, including cataracts, cancer, and diseases of the central nervous system.

The new research, published last week in the journal Science, calculated for the first time what a moonwalker’s daily dose of radiation would be.

“If you think about people staying on the moon for extended periods of time — say, on a scientific research station for a year or two — then these levels start getting problematic,” Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber, an author of the new study, told Business Insider.

The solution, he said, would be to build any lunar base beneath the moon’s surface.

“Covering your habitat with sufficient amounts of lunar dirt should do the trick,” Wimmer-Schweingruber said.

The first study to calculate radiation on the moon

Apollo astronauts carried radiation-measuring instruments on their missions in the 1960s and ’70s, but those dosimeters could tell scientists only the total amount of radiation the astronauts were exposed to throughout their time in space, from blasting off to landing, not just on the moon.

Wimmer-Schweingruber’s team was able to document daily radiation levels on the moon’s surface by analysing data collected by China’s Chang’e 4 spacecraft, which landed in January 2019………

Astronauts on the moon, meanwhile, face a daily radiation level five to 10 times as high as transatlantic fliers, since the moon doesn’t have the shield that Earth does.

So an astronaut on the lunar surface would be exposed to 1,369 microsieverts of radiation per day, about 200 times the daily level on Earth. ……….. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/radiation-on-the-moon-lunar-base-should-be-buried-2020-9?r=US&IR=T

October 1, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health, space travel | Leave a comment

When looking at impact of coronavirus, we can’t forget the long-term health effects

the emergence of symptoms down the track is a reminder of why it’s important to take precautions

 ABC Health & Wellbeing, By health reporter Olivia Willis-28 Sept 20,  It can be tempting to think of COVID-19 patients as falling into one of two categories.

Category 1: young, otherwise healthy individuals who experience mild symptoms and recover at home.

Category 2: older people and people with pre-existing health conditions who become seriously ill and go to hospital.

While it’s true that there is a spectrum of risk when it comes to severity of disease, it’s become increasingly clear that not everyone fits neatly into one of these categories.

For many people, the labels of “mild” or “severe”, “sick” or “recovered” are blurred by their experience of ongoing, sometimes debilitating symptoms weeks or months after they first were infected.

Both anecdotal reports and a growing body of research suggest persistent fatigue, breathlessness, “brain fog” and muscle aches, among other symptoms, are plaguing people some time after their infection has cleared.

So what do we know about the lingering health effects of coronavirus, and how concerned should we be?

Health effects can linger for months

It is difficult to say what proportion of people with COVID-19 face medium- to long-term health impacts given how new the virus still is, said Kirsty Short, a virologist at the University of Queensland.

“It’s definitely happening, I just don’t think we have a grip on how common it is,” Dr Short said.

In July, researchers in Italy found almost 90 per cent of patients with acute infections were still experiencing symptoms two months later.

Research from the US and UK, following a much broader group of people affected by COVID-19, suggests symptoms persist in about 10 to 15 per cent of cases.

In the same way the virus can sometimes cause serious illness in young, otherwise healthy individuals, lingering symptoms appear to affect people of all ages, including those with no underlying health conditions.

Lasting effects are also not restricted to those who experience severe illness when they’re first infected.

People who are asymptomatic or have a mild case of COVID-19 can also face prolonged illness. Sometimes, these symptoms take weeks or months to appear.

The virus affects multiple organs

SARS-CoV-2 is primarily thought of as a respiratory virus, but the damage caused by COVID-19 is not always restricted to the lungs.

The virus binds to the body’s ACE2 receptors, which are found in large numbers in the respiratory tract, but also in the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, liver and gastrointestinal tract.

In some cases, it may be that the virus itself is causing damage to the body’s organs.

But researchers suspect it’s high levels of inflammation in the body — triggered by the immune system trying to get rid of the virus — that’s wreaking havoc, even after the infection has cleared.

“Most likely, they’ve had this overwhelming inflammatory response — which we know happens in COVID-19 patients — and then that’s had knock-on effects.”

COVID-19 can damage multiple organ systems, including:

  • Lungs: Lungs can be damaged when the virus enters the cells of the airways. It can cause scarred, stiff tissue that makes it difficult for the lungs to do their job of oxygenating the blood — leaving people breathless.
  • Heart: The virus can cause inflammation of the heart muscle or heart failure when the organ doesn’t pump blood as well as it should. The heart can also fail from lack of oxygen.
  • Brain: If the virus enters the brain, it can cause a sudden and severe infection. Neurological symptoms may also be a result of inflammation in the brain or strokes caused by blood clots……………..

A timely reminder

There are multiple studies now underway to investigate whether COVID-19 leaves a lasting health impact, and if so, to what extent.

Dr Short said without long-term studies, it’s difficult to know how concerned we should be about COVID-19 in contrast to other existing viral infections.

“The question is: If you took a virus of similar severity and similar duration, would you also see long-term complications?” she said.

“It’s very possible that we’re just seeing this with SARS-COV-2 because of the sheer numbers of people being infected.”

Even still, the emergence of symptoms down the track is a reminder of why it’s important to take precautions………. https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-09-26/coronavirus-covid-health-effects-can-linger/12705022

 

September 28, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health | Leave a comment

Radiation exposure on the moon is nearly three times that on the International Space Station

Radiation exposure on the moon is nearly three times that on the ISS, 25 September 2020

By Layal Liverpool Astronauts on the moon would face nearly three times more radiation exposure than those aboard the International Space Station, which could make long-term missions riskier than thought.

“Once you’ve survived being on the moon and come back to Earth, radiation damage is what stays with you for the rest of your life and that’s why this is a critical measurement,” says Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber at the University of Kiel in Germany.

Wimmer-Schweingruber and his team analysed several weeks of data acquired by China’s Chang’e … (subscribers only) https://www.newscientist.com/article/2255545-radiation-exposure-on-the-moon-is-nearly-three-times-that-on-the-iss/#ixzz6Z61souv7

September 26, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation, space travel | Leave a comment

Medical experts testify to court on Julian Assange’s precarious mental health

Assange faces “very high risk of suicide,” medical expert tells court, WSWS, By Thomas Scripps and Laura Tiernan, 23 September 2020

Medical evidence was produced in Julian Assange’s extradition hearing yesterday detailing the terrible harm done to the heroic journalist by a decade of state-orchestrated persecution.

The day was given over to the examination of Professor Michael Kopelman who testified to Assange’s mental health. Kopelman is a psychiatrist and Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychiatry at Kings College London. He has given expert evidence in multiple extradition cases on behalf of both the defence and the prosecution. In assessing Assange, he conducted seventeen visits in 2019 and additional visits in 2020, constructed a “full family history” and a “full personal psychiatric history,” and carried out “interviews with his family and lifelong friends.”

His findings constitute a clear bar to Assange’s extradition to the United States. Under Section 91 of the UK Extradition Act (2003), extradition is prohibited if “the physical or mental condition of the person is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.”

Under Section 87, extradition is prohibited if it is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Article 3 of the ECHR states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Medical evidence speaking to these bars has played a critical role in previous US-UK extradition hearings, for example in the case of Lauri Love. The risk of notoriously poor conditions in US prisons exacerbating mental illness is an important factor.

Assange’s case meets these criteria. The details in today’s WSWS coverage are being reported consistent with the “sensitivity” called for by defence lawyer Edward Fitzgerald QC, on behalf of his client. Nonetheless they make overwhelmingly clear the “unjust and oppressive” treatment to which Assange has already been subjected.

Assange, Kopelman told the court, has experienced periods of serious mental illness in his earlier life. Since being confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy and then Belmarsh maximum security prison, these issues have resurfaced and worsened. Assange has suffered symptoms of severe and recurrent depression. Those symptoms have included “loss of sleep, loss of weight, a sense of pre-occupation and helplessness” and auditory hallucinations which Kopelman summarised as “derogatory and persecutory.”

They have also included “suicidal preoccupations.” Kopelman told the court, “There are… an abundance of known risk factors in Mr Assange’s case” and that Assange has “made various plans and undergone various preparations.” He gave his opinion that there was a “very high risk of suicide.”

These symptoms and risks, Kopelman explained, are exacerbated by an anxiety disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and by a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. Kopelman cited a paper by world-leading autism expert Dr Simon Baron-Cohen which found that the lifetime experience of suicidal thoughts in those with Asperger’s “was more than nine times higher than in the general population in England.”

Explaining the impact of the US government’s persecution, Kopelman said, “The risk of suicide arises out of the clinical factors of depression and the other diagnoses, but it is the imminence of extradition and/or an actual extradition that will trigger the attempt, in my opinion.”

If Assange were to be incarcerated in the US and segregated from other prisoners, Kopelman gave his opinion that the WikiLeaks founder would “deteriorate substantially” and see an “exacerbation” of his “suicidal ideas.” This would “amount to psychological harm and severe psychological suffering.”

Kopelman’s evidence confirms the warnings made since November 2019 by Doctors for Assange, representing hundreds of medical professionals from around the world, that Assange is suffering “psychological torture” and “could die in prison.” It underlines in distressing detail UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer’s comment regarding Assange’s treatment that “psychological torture is not torture-lite. Psychological torture aims to wreck and destroy the person’s personality and identity… to make them break.”

Assange’s year-and-a-half long incarceration at Belmarsh has been designed to achieve this objective. It has profoundly undermined, in numerous ways, his legal right to prepare his defence against extradition. Kopelman reported yesterday that Assange has repeatedly complained that the medication taken for his mental health has caused him “difficulty in thinking, in memorising [and] in concentration.”

During the morning’s cross examination, Kopelman forcefully rebuffed prosecution lawyer James Lewis QC’s challenge to his credentials. He said solicitors had called him several times in recent years saying that Lewis himself was “keen to have your services” in an extradition case.

In the afternoon, cross-examination continued, with Lewis challenging the veracity of Kopelman’s diagnosis, and claiming that Assange’s appearance was “wholly inconsistent with someone who is severely or moderately-severely depressed and with psychotic symptoms.”

Kopelman replied, “Could we go back a step?” Having seen Assange between May 30 and December [2019], “I thought he was severely depressed, suicidal and was experiencing hallucinations.”………….. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/23/assa-s23.html

September 24, 2020 Posted by | civil liberties, health, legal, UK | Leave a comment

Compensation for some nuclear workers with mesothelioma .

September 24, 2020 Posted by | health, Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Grief in Western America, as inequities, wildfires, and climate change collide

Climate Grief Is Burning Across the American West
Climate change is making wildfires bigger, fiercer, and deadlier, fueling a new kind of despair on the West Coast—and beyond.   Wired  16 Sept 20, GRIEF HAS SETTLED over the western US, along with the thick haze of smoke pouring from dozens of massive wildfires up and down California, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington. It’s grief over the thousands of structures and at least 33 lives lost so far; grief over another villain conspiring with Covid-19 to lock people indoors; grief that the orange-hued dystopia of Blade Runner is now a reality in smoky San Francisco; grief over losing any sense of normalcy, or indeed a clear future.Enveloping all of those emotions—packaging them into an overwhelming feeling of doom—is climate grief, as psychologists call it, the dread that humans have thoroughly corrupted the planet, and that the planet is now exacting its revenge. Wildfires were around before human-made climate change, but by pulling a variety of strings, it’s made them bigger, fiercer, and ultimately deadlier, creating what fire historian Steve Pyne has dubbed the Pyrocene, an Age of Flames.

By burning fossil fuels, we’ve primed the landscape to burn explosively, and by pushing human communities deeper and deeper into what was once wilderness, we’re provided plenty of opportunities for ignition—and plenty of opportunities for grief as these forces catastrophically combine.

“So much is out of our control,” says Adrienne Heinz, a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, who studies the effects of disasters like wildfires and the Covid-19 pandemic. “We lose our sense of personal agency over how we will live—the decisions are made for us.”

It shifts from grief over what’s happening with our climate—can we feel safe in our own communities?—to despair, the differentiator being that you don’t feel like tomorrow is going to be any better than today,” Heinz adds. “That’s where it gets really dark.”

For the people of Northern California, an exhausting parade of massive wildfires have marched across the landscape over the past several autumns, with many people having to evacuate several years in a row. Last October, the Kincade Fire burned 120 square miles. The November before, the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 86 people. And in October 2017, the Tubbs Fire obliterated 5,600 structures and killed 22.

“The catchphrase—kind of with a bitterness around here—is, ‘This is the new normal,’” says Barbara Young, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Healdsburg, north of San Francisco, who had to evacuate last month. “And so with that, I think it’s implied that this isn’t going away—our climate is changing. These aren’t flukes, this is the trend. And I think everyone is very clear that this is not a one-off. This is every year now.”  ……………

Thus inequities, wildfires, and climate change collide. Each massive problem on its own is difficult for the human mind to parse, much less all three together. “I am doing a lot of work with people on really increasing psychological self-care, spiritual self-care, physical self-care, and to help that fatigue,” says Young, the therapist in Healdsburg. “And I do think that is connected with climate grief. Finally, maybe we are forced to see how interconnected everything is.”  https://www.wired.com/story/climate-grief-is-burning-across-the-american-west/

September 17, 2020 Posted by | climate change, psychology - mental health, USA | 1 Comment

In tropical areas, increasing heat and humidity will make life almost unbearable

September 17, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, health | 1 Comment

The coronavirus pandemic and the increased safety risks for nuclear reactors

Nuclear Alert: NRC & Nuke Safety In the Time of COVID-19    https://www.fairewinds.org/demystify/nuclear-alert-nrc-amp-nuke-safety-in-the-time-of-covid-19 September 14, 2020  By The Fairewinds Crew

First off, we would like to preface this by saying that the world simply cannot afford a meltdown or nuclear disaster on top of the already traumatic times wrought by Pandemic 2020.

Did you know that nuclear plants close for scheduled refueling every 18-months, meaning that 1/3 of the operating reactors are off-line each spring and fall? For the record, more than three dozen reactors had planned to do so in Spring 2020. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) defines this rather temporary closing as an outage. During these outages, used-up nuclear fuel is replaced, and critical safety inspections are performed.

You may remember, that in early May, Maggie wrote extensively about the numerous safety risks to all of us if the nuclear industry continued operating these reactors during the COVID-19 Pandemic without implementing critical safety protocols and procedures. Along with 86 other organizations from all over the U.S., Fairewinds Energy Education nonprofit cosigned a letter to Vice President Pence and the COVID-19 Task Force detailing significant safety risks that must be addressed. You can read more about that letter and the increased safety hazards here. To date, we have received no response!

When the COVID-19 Pandemic began in late February, atomic reactor operators and owner corporations begged the NRC for special exemptions from regulatory requirements to implement critical safety and security inspections for up to two years! And, in an extreme example of regulatory capture, the NRC has approved all the corporate requested safety inspection delays, handing them out like candy to eager Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween! We know you have heard this before from the Crew at Fairewinds Energy Education, however, let us emphasize again that the federal laws [called statutes] that authorize the NRC, chartered it to protect ‘public health and safety’. Letting the industry continue to ignore critical safety inspections risks public health and safety!

During the past decade, the success in the growth of renewables has caused the nuclear industry to fight tooth and nail to keep operating even though nuclear power plants are much more expensive to operate than sustainable energy sources, and nukes charge much higher rates to consumers. Additionally, the risk of a disaster or other calamity has increased dramatically due to the old age of all current U.S. operating reactors. Instead of moving to solar and wind and shutting down these decrepit reactors, the energy and utility corporations are trying to reduce their higher operating costs by laying off employees and pushing the people remaining to work harder to save money and continue stockholder profit earnings.

Rather than slowing down these Spring refueling outages and allowing more time for inspections and repairs due to the extra burden the COVID-19 Pandemic has put on their employees and contractors, America’s nuclear monopoly has decided to risk ‘public health and safety’ – you remember what the federal law states – by reducing the amount of safety inspections the staff at each reactor was scheduled to perform. We agree that squeezing three or more people into a confined space for an inspection could be a recipe for COVID-19 transmission. However, slowing the inspection down and using fewer people at a time means having the reactor offline [shutdown] for a longer amount of time. In other words, the truth is that any operating schedule delay reduces each corporation’s profits.

Most atomic power reactors earn $1Million dollars in revenue every day. In addition, vice presidents, plant managers, and other corporate functionaries are on special bonus plans equivalent to between 40 and 70% of their salaries in a special year-end bonus. Such huge sums create a unique incentive for nuclear corporate executives to keep the outages as short as possible. When a vice president earns about $500,000, they will receive a $350,000 year-end bonus for meeting corporate goals, especially a short outage. We tend to notice that bonuses of that size cloud one’s judgment. Furthermore, we are reminded of Upton Sinclair when he so aptly said, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Is the risk of a disaster and a major radiation release to the surrounding community worth the extra millions of dollars earned by the corporate owner for starting these reactors up too soon? We don’t believe so.

Despite there being an abundance of available electricity without even using the atomic chain-reaction, the nuclear power operators and their corporate owners as well as the nuclear industry lobby are claiming that delayed testing will not cause a disaster and no nearby communities will be damaged or deal with the radioactive exposure to its residents.

Safety risks obviously increase because critical inspections are being delayed.

 

September 15, 2020 Posted by | health, safety, USA | 2 Comments

Arizona’s cancer toll from nuclear testing: the fight for recognition and compensation

Arizona’s ‘downwinders,’ exposed to Cold War nuclear testing, fight for compensation, “It’s a travesty, and the government should not be alloweto get away with it,” one Mohave County, Arizona, resident said. NBC News, Sept. 13, 2020, By Anita Hassan, KINGMAN, Ariz. — Danielle Stephens ran her fingers down a long list of her relatives’ names and sighed.

All of them had been diagnosed with cancer. Most of them had died, many before they were 55.

Like Stephens, 81, they had all spent their lives in Kingman, Arizona, where during the Cold War they often watched the early morning sky lit up by orange flashes from atomic bombs detonated at a government testing site in the Nevada desert less than 150 miles north of the city.

“Back then, no one thought the tests were dangerous,” said Stephens, who ran a cattle ranch with her husband.

The list of her family members with cancer grew to 32 in July, when she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. It is the radiation exposure from those nuclear tests that Stephens believes caused her cancer and that of her family members and scores of others who lived in lower Mohave County in the 1950s and ’60s. Her relatives had breast, colon, thyroid and kidney cancer, all of which have been linked to radioactive fallout.

“I just think it’s a travesty, and the government should not be allowed to get away with it,” Stephens said.

The federal government enacted a compensation program for “downwinders,” those who lived near the Nevada Test Site and suffered cancers linked to radiation from the nuclear blasts. However, unlike residents in other parts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah, the residents of Kingman and lower Mohave County have never been compensated by the federal government.

Lower Mohave County residents don’t know why the federal government left them out of the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, known as RECA. Neither do lawmakers who’ve fought for years to broaden the program. With RECA scheduled to end in 2022, they say, it’s urgent to include residents like Stephens and her neighbors and relatives.

We want to make sure that all of the families impacted are appropriately recognized and compensated,” said Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., who along with Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., introduced legislation this year that would expand RECA to include all of Mohave County, as well as Clark County, Nevada, most of which was also left out of the compensation program.

“They suffered so that we could advance American defense systems at the time that we were testing nuclear missiles, and now we owe it to them to do our part to make sure that they are recognized, acknowledged and compensated,” Stanton said.

Stephens spent more than a decade as the president of the Mohave County Downwinders, sending letters to legislators and collecting personal stories. She hopes she and other downwinders can see those changes in their lifetimes.

“We fought so long for so many years,” she said. “I want it resolved.”

The dangers and fallout of atomic testing were unknown to the public when testing began at the Nevada Test Site, now known as the Nevada National Security Site. One hundred of the nuclear tests at the site from 1951 to 1962 were above ground.

Stephens said getting a glimpse of the flashes or enormous mushroom clouds was a form of entertainment. Detonation times and dates were advertised in newspapers. Children were given short recesses on testing days to stand in the schoolyard and to watch the explosions turn the sky orange. In Las Vegas, only 65 miles from the testing site, businesses billed the tests as tourist attractions to view from hotel windows.

Stephens recalls that as a teenager in 1953, she, her father, her uncle and her brother rode on horseback into the Aquarius Mountains to get a better view of one of the nuclear explosions. As they watched the plume shoot into the sky, they could feel the wind blow the smoke and dust toward them. They hurried to get off the mountain, trying to escape the fallout. But by the time they returned home, their clothes were coated with oily pink stains, Stephens said.

“So about everyone up there got cancer,” she said. Her father died of colon and kidney cancer. Her brother, who is still alive, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Colon cancer, which Stephens is also diagnosed with, is covered under RECA.

RECA, created in 1990 and administered by the Justice Department, entitles people to one-time payments of up to $50,000 if they developed certain cancers and lived for at least two years in certain counties of Nevada, Arizona and Utah from 1951 to 1962. It also offers compensation to on-site participants and uranium workers. The program has approved more than 23,000 downwinder claims, paying more than $1.1 billion.

But only a small part of Mohave County that lies just north of the Grand Canyon was covered. In 2000, amendments expanded the boundaries, adding five more Arizona counties, but still lower Mohave County was left out.

“It’s closer to the Nevada Test Site than any other county in Arizona,” said Laura Taylor, a lawyer who focuses on RECA claims. She pointed to a 1997 study by the National Cancer Institute that found twice the amount of radiation exposure in lower Mohave County compared to other Arizona counties, such as Gila and Yavapai, which are much farther east of the Nevada Test Site but are now covered by RECA. “It really just doesn’t make any sense.”

According to a report by Arizona health officials, Mohave County had one of the highest average cancer rates in the state from 1999 to 2001.

Taylor believes that lower Mohave County may have been left out because, at the time of RECA’s creation, the county’s closest member of Congress was based in Phoenix. Gosar, who’s spent five years trying to amend RECA to include Mohave County, said he believes that it’s been difficult to gain traction because other lawmakers may view the issue as affecting a small group of people or because the federal government doesn’t want to issue more payments.

“The government also never likes to admit it made a mistake,” he said.

In February, Stanton and Gosar introduced their latest bill to include all of Mohave and Clark counties in RECA. However, COVID-19 has limited congressional hearings, and it hasn’t moved out of the Judiciary Committee.

In July, Stanton and Gosar tried instead to introduce the expansion as an amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, but it failed. They say they will try to include the language in coronavirus stimulus bills this fall.

If that doesn’t work, they plan to introduce a new bill during the next congressional session in January.

Eddie Pattillo, a retired construction manager, said acknowledgment by the government that lower Mohave County had been affected by nuclear fallout would mean more to him than monetary compensation………. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/arizona-s-downwinders-exposed-cold-war-nuclear-testing-fight-compensation-n1239802eside

September 14, 2020 Posted by | health, legal, PERSONAL STORIES, Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Fukushima’s citizen radiation testers still on the job.

Fukushima Has Turned These Grandparents Into Avid Radiation Testers, NPR,     Kat Lonsdorf (@lilkat_bigworld) September 11, 2020  Takenori Kobayashi lugs a garbage bag full of soil across a parking lot to an unmarked office. His wife, Tomoko, holds the door to a tiny work space with lab equipment and computers set up. On the edge of Fukushima’s former nuclear exclusion zone, this is the place the couple likes to call their “grandma and grandpa lab.”

It started as a makeshift operation in the city of Minamisoma the year after the 2011 nuclear disaster, when people — mostly elderly — returned to the area and were worried about high radiation levels in their food and soil.”We’ve given up hope that our children and grandchildren will come back to live here,” Tomoko, 67, says. Most young people decided to start lives elsewhere rather than return, not wanting to take the risks with radiation. “But in order for them to come back and visit us,” she continues, “we need to know everything is safe. So we test it all.”

Citizen science like this flourished in Fukushima after the nuclear disaster in 2011, when a tsunami triggered explosions at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The wind carried radioactive material for miles, covering whole towns and neighborhoods with dangerous, yet invisible, particles. For weeks after the disaster, information was scarce and trust in the Japanese government plummeted. And now, almost a decade later, wide arrays of residents have taken it upon themselves to collect radiation data — from mothers worried about their kids to surfers monitoring beaches to individuals with Geiger counters in their homes — to help regain a sense of control.
Inside the lab, the Kobayashis pair get to work. One measures out soil into small containers, the other starts labeling — so coordinated and practiced, it’s almost like a dance. They put the samples through a donated gamma counter, a big cylindrical machine that measures radioactive particles. Today, they’re testing soil from a nearby farm.

A handful of other residents help run the lab, and throughout the years, experts from nearby universities have come to teach them all about the different equipment and radiation science.

“All the grandparents here are radiation professionals now,” Takenori, 71, says with a smile……..

The maps show that Fukushima’s radiation levels are decreasing, because of both natural decay of particles and large-scale Japanese government decontamination efforts. But there are still a lot of hot spots — places where radiation is worryingly high. The authorities have tried to ease concerns, testing food in supermarkets and setting up radiation monitors in public parks, outside train stations or flashing along highways, but trust in the government is still extremely low. Many residents say they still feel best collecting information themselves. ……… https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/907881531/fukushima-has-turned-these-grandparents-into-avid-radiation-testers

September 12, 2020 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, radiation | Leave a comment

Why climate change has the potential to cause more pandemics

Why climate change has the potential to cause more pandemics, AFR,  Tom McIlroy, Political reporter, Sep 9, 2020,

Biosecurity leaders and Nobel prize winner Peter Doherty are lobbying the federal government to reduce the risk of animal-borne diseases caused by environmental degradation and climate change.

A group of former chief veterinary officers and senior government advisers have asked for renewed action to limit greenhouse gas emissions and have warned that a repeat of the COVID-19 pandemic could come about from the damage to natural ecosystems and increased contact between humans and animals carrying potentially deadly pathogens….. (subscribers only)  https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/why-climate-change-has-the-potential-to-cause-more-pandemics-20200908-p55t

September 10, 2020 Posted by | climate change, health | Leave a comment

Central Asia’s toxic nuclear legacy

 

According to Kyrgyz official data, the gamma radiation on tailings pit surfaces are within 17-60 mR/hr; however, in the damaged areas, radiation levels reach 400-500 mR/hr. An exposure to 100 mSv a year (a millisievert, mSv, is equal to 100 milliroentgens, mR) or 10,000 mR is the point where an increase in cancer is clearly evident. At 400-500 mR/hr this would be achieved in 20-25 hours, or just one day. Radionuclides and heavy metals from these tailing pits and dumps are seeping into the surface and groundwater, polluting water and farmland and increasing the risk of cancer for local people.

Birth anomalies are an additional indicator of environmental radioactive contamination. A study by the Institute of Medical Problems showed that the incidence of birth defects in Mailuu-Suu was three times higher than in the country’s second largest city of Osh. Studies have correlated birth defects to the distance of the parents’ residences from radioactive waste sites. Polluted water is the major factor causing the development of congenital malformations, according to research by the Institute of Medical Problems.

Mailuu-Suu: Cleaning up Central Asia’s toxic uranium legacy https://www.thethirdpole.net/2020/09/02/mailuu-suu-cleaning-up-central-asias-toxic-uranium-legacy/

Countries must set aside territorial disputes and work together to clean up radioactive waste seeping into rivers and farmland in the Ferghana Valley – causing an environmental and health catastrophe for people living in the region   Janyl Madykova, September 2, 2020   Political tensions between countries in Central Asia have intensified since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Along with border conflicts and water disputes, problems have arisen from residual radioactive waste located in the Kyrgyz town of Mailuu-Suu in the Ferghana Valley, which has caused widespread pollution of river and farmland, and led to major impacts on the health and economy of people in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Industrial-scale uranium mining began in Mailuu-Suu during the Soviet era in 1946 and lasted until 1968. Uranium ore from Europe and China was also processed in Mailuu-Suu during this time.

As a result, the small town of 24,000 people is now surrounded by about 3 million cubic metres of uranium waste left in 23 tailings pits and 13 dumps. These sites have contaminated the Mailuu-Suu river, a major tributary of the Syr Darya which flows through Kyrgyzstan and into Uzbekistan, carrying radioactive waste into the densely populated Ferghana Valley.

The biggest problem is that earthquakes, landslides and heavy rainfall events have intensified in recent years, destroying uranium tailing storage sites along the river and mountain slopes, contaminating surrounding areas. A number of international organisations have worked to prevent further disasters in Mailuu-Suu. The World Bank has allocated more than USD 11 million to clean up uranium tailings. The European Commission launched an initiative in 2015 to remediate the most dangerous sites in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

However, the pollution remains, and Central Asian countries must cooperate to prevent further environmental disasters in the Ferghana Valley, as well as mitigate economic damage and resolve political issues.

A town built on radioactive waste

According to the state surveys there are 92 radioactive and toxic storage facilities across Kyrgyzstan today. The most dangerous of these are the Mailuu-Suu uranium sites, because of numerous hazards threatening the tailing pits. Were these tailing pits destabilised, they would have potentially catastrophic environmental consequences for Kyrgyzstan and the neighbouring countries of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, with the radioactive waste contaminating the river as well as the soil and irrigated farmland surrounding it.

Uranium was first discovered in the region in 1933, and within 20 years 10,000 tonnes of uranium oxide was extracted in Mailuu-Suu. Residual radioactive waste in southern Kyrgyzstan currently poses a major environmental threat to the densely populated parts of the Ferghana Valley, home to about 14 million people.

Landslides are the major risk. There are more than 200 landslide-prone locations around Mailuu-Suu. There was little such threat in the 1940s, but landslide activity has intensified since 1954 due to increased rainfall. Landslides in Mailuu-Suu occurred several times in 1988, 1992 and 2002, damaging infrastructure and altering water flow. The most dangerous landslide is Koi-Tash, which happened in 2017 and could block the riverbed and spread radioactive contamination down the river.

The 1950s saw one of the most salient examples of the danger posed by vulnerable waste dumps. In April 1958, as a result of rainfall and high seismic activity, an alluvial dam collapsed into tailings pit #7 in Mailuu-Suu, pushing more than 400,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste into the Mailuu-Suu river, which then spread 30-40 km downstream in irrigated farmland in Uzbekistan. The effects of this disaster have lasted to this day, with the radioactive contamination of the river and surrounding soil and vegetation causing major health problems and fatalities. Such disasters also heighten tensions between the regional states. Continue reading →

September 7, 2020 Posted by | ASIA, children, environment, history, Reference, women | Leave a comment

Workers and families sue U.S. Department of Energy contractors over illnesses from work at Piketon-area nuclear plant

Former employees, families sue companies working on Piketon-area nuclear plant,    https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200906/former-employees-families-sue-companies-working-on-piketon-area-nuclear-plant  By Beth Burger
The Columbus DispatchThe lawsuit, filed last week, alleges workers and their families became ill due to the actions of U.S. Department of Energy contractors. The suit seeks a medical monitoring program to evaluate the multi-generational impact of radioactive contamination.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of former nuclear employees and their families accuses U.S. Department of Energy contractors of “poisoning workers and the people, land, air and water for miles” around the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant that was in southern Ohio.

The actions of DOE’s contractors released radioactive isotopes that “have created a situation akin to a creeping Chernobyl” and resulted in “injuries, sickness, disease, including cancers, damage to DNA, death, loss of and damages to property, and reduction in property values,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Columbus.

The contamination likely spread in Pike, Scioto, Lawrence, Vinton and Adams counties in Ohio, according to the lawsuit.

Though the DOE is not named as a defendant in the case, its contractors are, including: Centrus Energy Corp., the United States Enrichment Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., Uranium Disposition Services, BWXT Conversion Services, Mid-America Conversion Services, Bechtel Jacobs Co., Lata/Parallax Portsmouth LLC, FLUOR-BWXT Portsmouth LLC, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and Martin Marietta Inc.

DOE spokeswoman Jessica Szymanski said Friday that the department does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit is requesting a medical monitoring program that would evaluate the multi-generational impact of radioactive contamination.

“That is a major component of our request for relief,” said Nathan Hunter, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, who noted that DNA damage could be transferred through generations.

There’s a workers’ compensation fund for nuclear workers, but that has failed the plaintiffs because of a host of issues, including falsified records, Hunter said.

The accusations are serious, and allege that DOE and the companies “actively deceived workers, the general public and regulators,” by suppressing critical information, including the release and spreading of nuclear poison, safety violations, arson, workplace exposures, and illegally transporting highly radioactive materials, as well as conspiring to destroy and falsify records.

Jeff Walburn worked in security at the plant for 31 years, and was hospitalized in 1994 because of damage to his lungs. He’s listed as a plaintiff.

“My life and family have been decimated by the nuclear scourge unleashed into the environment by these companies. These radioactive isotopes go into our bodies, creating cancers and genetic defects for generations,” he said in a released statement.

Charles “Chick” Lawson, a resident of Lucasville who was employed for 15 years in security and was the union safety representative and OHSHA investigator at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, also is a plaintiff.

We are filing this lawsuit to expose the heinous actions and extensive cover-up by companies paid over a billion dollars to protect us,” he said in a released statement.

The lawsuit says that cancer rates in some affected areas are 700% greater than the national average. Scioto, Pike, Lawrence Vinton and Adams counties have the highest cancer rates in the state of Ohio, according to the lawsuit.

Pike County’s cancer rate was the second-highest in Ohio in 2019, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Vinton County had the highest rate of cancer, records show.

The lawsuit filed Thursday is the latest filed in connection to health issues associated with the former plant.

bburger@dispatch.com

@ByBethBurger

September 7, 2020 Posted by | health, Legal, USA | Leave a comment

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