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UK compensation for nuclear workers with radiation induced cancers

Trib Live 9th Aug 2018 The volunteer efforts of a Hyde Park environmental activist and a retired
Washington Township engineer helped about 300 former nuclear workers in the
region collect $60 million from the federal government for cancers likely
caused by their jobs.

A federal entitlement program that was enacted in 2000, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program pays$150,000 tax-free, plus medical benefits, to workers who became ill,
because of their work for the government or contractors for nuclear weapons
and Cold War-related work.

The illnesses covered include diagnoses of one
of 22 types of cancers. But that program fell short in its early years for
workers from the former Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC)
because many of the workers or their families couldn’t find the required
medical records and the company couldn’t come up with the required
documentation.
https://triblive.com/local/valleynewsdispatch/13956792-74/volunteer-activists-credited-with-getting-compensation-for-former-nuclear-workers

August 15, 2018 Posted by | health, Legal, UK | Leave a comment

Cleaner, cheaper, safer, more practical – cyclotrons

QUANTM Irradiation System™ Earns CE Mark Approval  https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/press-releases-pmn/business-wire-news-releases-pmn/quantm-irradiation-system-earns-ce-mark-approval

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, 8 Aug 18 — ARTMS Products today announced it received CE marking approval for its first-in-class, advanced technology QUANTM Irradiation System™ for producing high-value radioisotopes, such as Tc-99m and Ga-68, on medical cyclotrons. Cyclotron facilities are constantly facing higher isotope costs and poor supply availability. Now, with CE marking, ARTMS’ QUANTM Irradiation System™ will help ease these issues.

“CE marking is an important milestone for ARTMS,” remarked Dr. Kaley Wilson, CEO of ARTMS Products. “There is a huge opportunity in providing a cost effective and secured supply of radioisotopes to hospitals and research institutions. ARTMS provides a more economical, environmentally safe and secured supply of important radioisotopes than reactor-based sources. Now, with CE marking approval, ARTMS can be readily integrated in a standardized fashion into existing and emerging facilities which ultimately leads to improved patient access and care across Europe.”

Giving Cyclotron Facilities More Control Over the Supply of Medical Isotopes

Unlike traditional reactor and generator production methods, which are growing increasingly more expensive and cannot consistently supply user requirements, the ARTMS QUANTM Irradiation System™ combines both local production control and a cost-effective, easy-to-use solid target system for production of radioisotopes on medical cyclotrons. Medical radioisotopes are used in the field of nuclear medicine on a daily basis for both medical diagnostic imaging and therapy, particularly in the fields of oncology, cardiology and neurology.

The ARTMS QUANTM Irradiation System™ is currently available for most OEM cyclotron systems and has been installed and is operating in a number of countries.

About ARTMS Products

Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, ARTMS Products Inc. is a leader in the development of novel technologies and products which enable the production of the world’s most-used diagnostic imaging isotope, technetium-99m (Tc-99m), using local, hospital-based medical cyclotrons. ARTMS holds the exclusive global commercialization rights to award-winning and proprietary Canadian inventions which address these challenges, and which offer the prospect of revolutionizing the nuclear medicine industry.

For more information on the QUANTM Irradiation System™ and ARTMS Products, please follow us on Twitter @Quantm99 and LinkedIn and visit http://www.artms.ca/

 

August 11, 2018 Posted by | Canada, health, technology | Leave a comment

St Louis residents near radioactive wastes – high cancer risks – says Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

CBS News 7th Aug 2018 , The federal government confirms some people in the St. Louis area may have
a higher risk of getting cancer. A recent health report found some
residents who grew up in areas contaminated by radioactive waste decades
ago may have increased risk for bone and lung cancers, among other types of
the disease.

The assessment was conducted by the Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry, a branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. As CBS News correspondent Anna Werner reports, the
situation is not unique to St. Louis because it’s connected to America’s
development of its nuclear weapons program decades ago. Radioactive wastes
persist in soils, and many believe that’s why they or a loved one developed
cancer. Now for the first time, federal health officials agree, on the
record, that’s a real possibility.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/radioactive-waste-cancer-federal-health-officials-acknowledge-possible-link/

August 10, 2018 Posted by | health, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Young children will suffer the most from health risks of a changing climate

Children are highly vulnerable to health risks of a changing climate https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/cums-noc080618.php, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH , August 6, 2018 —

Young children are far more vulnerable to climate-related disasters and the onus is on adults to provide the protection and care that children need, according to research by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center. In a paper published in PLoS Medicine, researchers set out some specific challenges associated with the impacts of climate change on the world’s 2.3 billion children and suggest ways to address their underprioritized needs.

“Because of their anatomic, cognitive, immunologic, and psychologic differences, children and adolescents are more vulnerable to climate change-related events like floods, droughts, and heatwaves than adults,” says Madeleine Thomson, PhD, a research scholar in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, faculty member at Columbia’s Earth Institute, a guest editor in PLOS One Medicine’s Special Issue on Climate Change and Health in the International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

Because of their small surface-to-body ratio, infants and children are particularly vulnerable to dehydration and heat stress. During heat waves, children are more likely to be affected by respiratory disease, kidney disease, electrolyte imbalance, and fever. Heat waves have also been shown to exacerbate allergens and air pollution which impact children more severely than adults because of their underdeveloped respiratory and immune systems and because they breathe at a faster rate than adults.

The authors write that hotter temperatures may also expand the range of vector-borne diseases, including the Zika virus which, following the 2015 epidemic, has profoundly affected the lives of children and their families across Latin America and the Caribbean. Even children who were asymptomatic at birth may develop problems later in life.

After Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico in September 2017 medical responders encountered increases in gastroenteritis, asthma exacerbations and skin infections. Children were also at increased risk for mosquito-borne diseases such as Chikungunya and Dengue, as well as leptospirosis through the drinking of contaminated water. Flood waters from Hurricane Harvey a few weeks earlier dropped record breaking rain. Most of the Harvey-related toxic releases were never publicized and the long-term implications for children’s health is unknown. Studies suggest that climate change is increasing the intensity of North Atlantic hurricanes and the likelihood that the severe consequences for children’s health will grow.

In rural households droughts can have significant impacts on child development through increased food insecurity and dietary changes [17]. Droughts may also contribute to conflict and forced migration in resource poor settings, thereby increasing children’s vulnerability to a wide range of health issues.

To begin to address the specific needs of children confronted with climate-change related health disasters, Thomson and colleagues are proposing the following:

  1. Establish an international consortium of experts to develop adoptable medical and behavioral protocols and to set research agendas to address the unmet child specific needs that arise from climate-related natural disasters.
  2. Develop best practice guidelines for climate-change related event planning that incorporates strategies for addressing the health-related needs of children.
  3. Fund mechanisms designed to help the most vulnerable nations prepare for and respond to climate related disasters must consider funding the development of responses that specifically address the unmet needs of children’s health.

August 8, 2018 Posted by | children, climate change | Leave a comment

Asbestos and mesothelioma everywhere for everyone: EPA is allowing asbestos back.

Ken Rankin 8 Aug 18 
https://archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/   As a toxicologist, who worked with asbestos lawyers, there was one question. How can these little-tiny, mineral fibers, embedded in soft tissue, almost always cause cancer?  Little or no physiological explanation for it. The consensus was, that the fibers, set off a lethal-unending inflammation cascade, where the mineral fiber is lodged.  An assault, on ones own body, by itself, from cytokines and tumor necrotic factor, that leads to the deadly, almost always fatal, mesothelioma.

People forget, that for 80 years, that the government and nuclear physicists, have been lying-their-asses-off about the true nature of radionuclides. They have been lying about radionuclide, lethality in the human body, even in microscopic doses. Even the more diluted emmitors, like the radium in asbenstos just sits there in the tissue constantly emitting alpha and beta rays. The smallest fibers of the shit, trapped in soft tissue, always causes cancer.

This is what a fiber of asbestos trapped in your lungs, stomach, colon or any other soft tissue is doing:    Alpha emittor in a cloud chamber:

Cloud chamber. Alpha particles

Asbestos has Radium     https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0160412078900302

Environment International  Volume 1, Issue 4, 1978, Pages 161-165  Radioactivity in asbestos   Author links open overlay panelN.H.HarleyA.N.Rohl

https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-4120(78)90030-2Get rights and content

Abstract

226Ra has been measured in five asbestos group minerals. The activity levels are variable, are consistent with other forms of rock and range from 0.01–0.4 pCi 226Ra/g. Alpha particles from asbestos fibers immobilized in the lower lung near pleural surfaces and in the upper lung on bronchial surfaces may be implicated in initiating mesothelioma and bronchial carcinoma.

WHAT MORE DIRECT PROOF DO YOU NEED? TO KNOW HOW LETHAL RADIONUCLIDES ARE. THEY ARE THE MOST CARCINOGENIC, MUTAGENIC, TERATOGENIC, TOXIC agents in the universe

August 8, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation | 5 Comments

Study into cancer risks in New Mexico

Trinity site cancer study expected to finish in 2019, Santa Fe New Mexican, By Russell Contreras | Associated Press, 6 Aug 18

      ALBUQUERQUE — A long-anticipated study into the cancer risks of New Mexico residents living near the site of the world’s first atomic bomb test likely will be published in 2019, the National Cancer Institute announced.

Institute spokesman Michael Levin told the Associated Press that researchers are examining data on diet and radiation exposure on residents who lived near the World War II-era Trinity test site, and scientists expect to finish the study by early next year.

The study will then be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and could be available by next spring, Levin said.

The announcement comes as descendants of families who lived in nearby communities are pressuring Congress to include them in the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Descendants say the Trinity Test caused generations of families to suffer from rare cancer and economic hardship.
Currently, the law only covers areas in Nevada, Arizona and Utah that are downwind from a different test site.

Scientists working in Los Alamos developed the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project, which provided enriched uranium for the weapon. The secret program also involved facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Hanford, Wash. The bomb was tested in a stretch of desert near towns with Hispanic and Native American populations.

Residents did not learn that the test had involved an atomic weapon until the U.S. dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war ended………http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/trinty-site-cancer-studyexpected-to-finish-in/article_5b297eb3-e177-5d06-b435-42f2c273718a.html

August 8, 2018 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Eight more Tahiti nuclear compensation claims accepted

 https://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/363581/eight-more-tahiti-nuclear-compensation-claims-accepted  A French Polynesian anti-nuclear group has been advised that eight compensation claims lodged over the French atomic weapon tests have been accepted.

The Association 193 has told a news conference in Tahiti it has been encouraged by the response from the commission charged with assessing claims for poor health.

The Association’s Auguste Uebe-Carlson said six applications, however, have been rejected.

Father Uebe-Carlson is encouraging people to contact his association to lodge claims if they meet the criteria for compensation, such as location and type of illness.

According to the public broadcaster, since 1992 about 10,000 people have developed radiation-related conditions or illnesses which might be eligible for compensation.

Between 1966 and 1996, France carried out 193 nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific.

August 8, 2018 Posted by | health, legal, weapons and war | Leave a comment

After Hiroshima’s horror, the nuclear-caused illness and death continue

Hi-Roshimon: What We See When We Look at Hiroshima   https://globalhibakusha.com/page-2/?permalink=hi-roshimon-what-we-see-when-we-look-at-hiroshima by Bo, 30-06-2018 

What we see when we look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki depends on who we are, and where we are gazing from.,

Some people see a humane use of a weapon of mass destruction whose use “ended the war” and “saved lives.” Some people see a place of sorrow and mourning. For those who live here, we see home, work, friends, we see the same normal place anyone sees when they go about their day.

Recently I published a book chapter on this topic in the wonderful book The unfinished atomic bomb: Shadows and reflections published by Rowman & Littlefield, edited by David Lowe, Cassandra Atherton and Alyson Miller. My chapter is a personal reflection on living and grappling with Hiroshima while working at the Hiroshima Peace Institute.

Among the topics I consider:

Why it is easier for people to stand on the t-bridge that was the aiming point for the Enola Gay crew and photograph the A-Bomb Dome, than to turn the other way and photograph Honkawa Elementary School. The Dome is a Western designed buildilng dedicated to commerce. We can’t intuite how many people were killed inside. Maybe a few. Maybe none. Honkawa Elementary School is a traditional looking Japanese school building. We know for a fact that over 400 elementary school children and ten teachers were killed in the school on the morning of August 6th, 1945. Some things are easier to look at than other things.

I also talk about the retroactive logic of the use of weapons of mass destruction in Japan. Even today people claim that less lives were lost through the use of nuclear weapons than if the US had invaded Japan. They assert that the use of these weapons, even against a civilian population, was “humane.” I explore how that logic appears to only have been legitimate for this one use. Imagine that at the beginning of any modern conflict, lets say the invasion of Iraq, the US had asserted that we should just use chemical weapons on the first day since it would end the war sooner and probably result in less casualites overall. That logic would seem barbaric. Yet it continues to be repeated for the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I also examine the maxim that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear weapon should “never be used again.” There have been over 2,000 nuclear weapon detonations since 1945, many of these were thermonuclear weapons that cast vast fallout clouds over inhabited areas. While no one has been directly attacked with nuclear weapons since 1945, nuclear weapons have been detonated, and millions of people have had their lives and health severely impacted by these weapons.

Just as in the classsic 1950 film Rashomon what you see depends on who you are, and where you are looking from.
Read the whole book chapter here.

 

August 6, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, health, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Dept of Labor looks for nuclear workers eligible for compensation for radiation-caused illnesses

Government seeking nuclear workers who had radiation-caused cancers or their survivors https://triblive.com/local/valleynewsdispatch/13940878-74/government-seeking-nuclear-workers-who-had-radiation-caused-cancers-or-their-survivors, MARY ANN THOMAS  | Sunday, Aug. 5, 2018 

A federal program that has paid out more than $60 million to former Apollo area nuclear workers for radiation-related illnesses is looking for more former nuclear workers throughout the region who might be eligible for compensation.

The U.S. Department of Labor will hold an information meeting for former workers in the nuclear materials industry or their survivors on Aug. 22 from 9 a.m. noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Quality Inn in New Kensington.

There are about 14 work sites eligible in Southwestern Pennsylvania, including some steel mills and nuclear fuel processing plants.

Among them are the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) in Apollo and Parks Township, Westinghouse Atomic Power Development Plant in East Pittsburgh, Westinghouse Nuclear Fuels Division in Cheswick, and Aluminum Co. of America — Alcoa — in New Kensington.

The benefits proved helpful to deceased workers’ families to shore up medical expenses and the financial losses.

But it still doesn’t make up for the loss of a loved one.

“It just seems trivial — $150,000 for someone’s life, but it did help my mom out,” said Shellie Robertson, 57, Washington Township, whose father, John Grazetti, died in 2015 at the age of 74 from acute myeloid leukemia.

Grazetti, of Washington Township, was a NUMEC worker as was his father, John Grazetti Sr., who died of colon cancer and a brother who has recently been diagnosed with rectal cancer, according to Robertson.

All three men had cancers associated with exposures to radioactive substances encountered at work, and the compensation claims to the Labor Department by the three men have been accepted.

“My dad said he would probably die of cancer,” Robertson said. “He knew.”

Grazetti, who worked at NUMEC for about 20 years, didn’t talk much about his job, according to his daughter.

All the family knew what that he was foreman and worked with chemicals. However, Robertson did recall her father having to submit urine samples for the company to test for what is now known as radiation over-exposures.

Near the end of his life, Robertson started to hear NUMEC stories when her dad and uncle would talk.

“They would have to clean up stuff, spray down the walls. I remember the soles of my father’s shoes being eaten away from the stuff he was walking in.”

Paid out so far: $15 billion

To date, the program has paid more than $129.3 million in compensation and medical benefits to 1,138 claimants living in Pennsylvania and more than $15.2 billion nationwide, according to the Labor Department.

The government established the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act (EEOICPA) in 2000 to pay sick nuclear workers a lump sum of $150,000 and coverage of related medical expenses.

The program pays people who became ill because of working for a private business subcontracted by the federal government to develop and produce components for nuclear weapons.

Generally, eligible workers must have worked a certain amount of time and developed one of 22 cancers designated by the program and or other illnesses. The benefit also is payable to families of deceased workers.

The Labor Department has visited the area before and is visiting again because there still might be workers or their families still eligible for the benefit.

In Pennsylvania, most of the nuclear workers covered by the program were employed in the 1960s and 1970s.

It’s difficult to say how many more workers could be eligible for the program, but they could number in the hundreds, according to estimates provided by an EEOICPA program official several years ago.

Mary Ann Thomas is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Mary Ann at 724-226-4691, mthomas@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MaThomas_Trib.

August 6, 2018 Posted by | employment, health, USA | Leave a comment

Canadian university develops new particle accelerator to supply medical isotopes

U of A develops new particle accelerator to supply medical isotopes https://www.thegatewayonline.ca/2018/05/u-of-a-develops-new-particle-accelerator-to-supply-medical-isotopes/ Calvin Chan May 16, 2018  

Unlike traditional nuclear methods of generating isotopes for medical imaging, the new particle accelerator at South Campus can generate a wider range of isotopes without producing nuclear waste.

The particle accelerator, known as a cyclotron, can produce enough isotopes for 1,000 diagnostic procedures a day – enough for both Calgary and Edmonton. John Wilson, the facility’s manager said the technology may soon replace nuclear reactors in providing medical isotopes for major cities across Canada.

“We’re the first to show that it can be produced to this quantity,” Wilson said.

More than 70 percent of the world’s diagnostic imaging is done using technetium-99m, a radioactive tracer. When fused with a drug or other molecule, its passage through the body can then be monitored using gamma cameras.

Wilson said the method can be used to track tumour growth and drug metabolism in cancer patients.

Technetium-99m has been traditionally supplied through splitting atoms in a nuclear reactor to produce molybdenum-99, which then decays into technetium-99m. However, only six percent of the material produced in a nuclear reactor can be used, the rest is nuclear waste.

Using a particle accelerator, Wilson said technetium-99m can now be produced directly by firing a stream of protons at a target material. The method bypasses the safety and environmental concerns surrounding traditional nuclear reactors.

“When the electricity stops, the (isotope) production stops,” Wilson said. “It’s a much safer technology.”

But Wilson said what makes the cyclotron useful is its ability to generate difficult to produce medical isotopes.

While most hospitals and clinics continue to rely on technetium for gamma imaging, Wilson said the technology is slowly being replaced with positron emission tomography (PET) scans.

“Technetium is more or less like black and white TV,” Wilson said. “It’s low definition.”

By varying the target material used in the cyclotron, the technology can produce other medical isotopes like radioactive fluorides for PET, something traditional nuclear reactors cannot produce.

Since 2010 the Canadian government has been investing in the creation of alternative medical isotope sources.

In 2009, countries across the globe faced a medical isotope shortage when the two major nuclear reactors producing technetium-99m were briefly out of service. The National Research Universal Reactor in Chalk River, Ontario was closed due to a heavy water leak the same period the High Flux Reactor in Petten, Netherlands was shut down for a month-long maintenance.

After 61 years of operation, the Chalk River reactor has since been decommissioned in 2016, and Wilson believes the 57-year-old High Flux Reactor in Petten likely won’t last much longer.

“There’s only about six or seven reactors in the world that are producing [medical isotopes] and they’re ageing,” Wilson said. “It’s not that it wasn’t good technology, it’s just that nobody wants to build reactors anymore … Nobody wants a reactor built in their backyard.”

While the cyclotron is ready for use, Canada’s federal and provincial governments have yet to determine how the technology may be implemented across the country and how it may be integrated into existing healthcare practices.

However, Wilson is optimistic that the new cyclotron will set the province up for success down the line as the demand for technetium shifts.

“The cyclotron gives you a more or less stable continuous source (of isotopes),” Wilson said. “You don’t have to worry about what’s happening on the outside.”

August 4, 2018 Posted by | Canada, health | Leave a comment

University of Alberta’s Medical Isotope Cyclotron Facility – medical radioisotopes without nuclear reactor

University’s cyclotron facility could fully supply province’s demand for medical isotopes HINA ALAM, Edmonton Journal : May 15, 2018  

For an Albertan who needs it, the journey of a radioactive isotope that has the ability to detect a potential heart or a bone cancer could begin at the University of Alberta’s Medical Isotope Cyclotron Facility…….

Although tests conducted over the past few months have shown that the U of A facility is capable of meeting the province’s need for 1,000 diagnostic procedures a day, there are still hurdles to overcome and its future use for producing technetium is still unclear…..

But research lead and university oncology department chairman Sandy McEwan sees a silver lining….

There are three isotopes that are commonly used — technetium-99m, a radioactive molecule of fluorine used in PET (positron emission tomography) scanning, and isotopes of iodine, used to detect and treat thyroid cancers.

Technetium-99m is the most common of these, and has a half-life of six hours, meaning that only half of it remains after that time. This is advantageous because the imaging scan is quick and the technetium doesn’t linger around in the body. This also means that the isotope must be produced quickly.

In the cyclotron, McEwan said it takes about six hours to make enough technetium-99m for the province each day.

……… ……The U of A technology shows that the isotope can be made locally and the science replicated across the country.

As it stands now, a dose of technetium-99m produced by the cyclotron at U of A is about 10 per cent more expensive compared to a dose of technetium-99m produced by traditional reactors.

“But that includes costing everything,” McEwan said. “It includes costing the cyclotron, the building, the research, the operations — everything.”

McEwan said the technetium-99m produced by the cyclotron is of a slightly higher purity profile than what you get from a reactor.

Also, most of the reactors are extremely old, said John Wilson, manager of the facility……

“Nuclear reactors are the highest capacity source for technetium-99m but are very, very expensive and create nuclear waste,” he said. “No one wants a reactor built close to where they live.” Jan Andersson, a researcher at the facility said as the supply stands now, reactors produce molybdenum-99, which has a half-life of 66 days and decays into technetium-99m, which is used in patients. This allows isotope to be supplied from far away but only if the reactors are running.

McEwan believes that technetium PET imaging will soon fade to give way to newer technologies, and the cyclotron is well-positioned to handle that.

“The cyclotron is Canadian,” he said. “We have a made-in-Canada solution.”

August 4, 2018 Posted by | Canada, health | Leave a comment

Large retrospective study shows the connection between low level radiation and leukemia

Low-dose radiation exposure linked to leukemia in large retrospective study  https://dceg.cancer.gov/news-events/research-news-highlights/2018/low-dose-rad-leukemia  National Cancer Institute. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics July 20, 2018  Using data from nine historical cohort studies, investigators in the Radiation Epidemiology Branch and colleagues from other institutions, led by senior investigator

Mark Little, D.Phil., were able to quantify—for the first time—excess risk for leukemia and other myeloid malignancies following low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation in childhood. More than two-fold increased risk and higher was observed for cumulative exposures less than 100 milliSieverts (mSv); excess risk was also apparent for cumulative doses of less than 50 mSv for some endpoints. The findings were published online July 16, 2018 in Lancet Haematology.

Because these diseases are rare, the excess absolute risk in the population is estimated to be small. Nevertheless, given the ubiquity of exposure, primarily from medical procedures like computed tomography

CT) scans, every effort should be made to minimize doses, especially for children.

Although substantial evidence links exposure to moderate or high doses of ionizing radiation, particularly in childhood, to increased risk of leukemia, prior to this study the association of leukemia with exposure to low-dose radiation was not well-established. Evaluating risks at low-doses, under 100 mSv, is crucial since this is the range most relevant to the general population. Additionally, some have suggested that this level, about 100 mSv, may represent a threshold dose of radiation below which there is no excess risk of leukemia. Evidence from this study suggests, on the contrary, that there is significant risk even at these lower doses, and that the current system of radiological protection is prudent and not overly protective.

Data for this analysis came from more than 250,000 individuals aged 21 or younger at the time of first exposure and were contributed from nine cohort studies (from Canada, France, Japan, Sweden, the UK, and the US) enrolled between June 4, 1915, and December 31, 2004.

Reference: Little, M. et al. Leukaemia and myeloid malignancy among people exposed to low doses (<100 mSv) of ionizing radiation during childhood: A pooled analysis of nine historical cohort studies. Lancet Haematology. DOI: 10.1016/S2352-3026(18)30092-9

August 3, 2018 Posted by | health, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Guam nuclear bomb test veteran continues fight for radiation compensation

Atomic veteran continues fight for radiation compensation, Meghan Swartz | The Guam Daily Post , 27 July 18

As one of a few islanders in his company within the U.S. Army, Robert Celestial jumped at the chance to help with post-World War II cleanup in the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the late 1970s. He looked forward to six months of island living and was promised a monthly trip to Hawaii for some R&R.

Not long after, Celestial found himself draining water from a crater on Lojwa Island in the Enewetak Atoll, wearing shorts, boots and a dust mask. The crater was left over from a nuclear test explosion. While he knew they were dealing with nuclear waste during the deployment, he said he did not know that was what the crater was from.

“We were never told the extent of the 66 nuclear detonations,” he said. “The only thing that was serious was the Air Force was in charge of the Geiger counters … if you see an Air Force guy running, then you better run.”

Like any good soldier, he followed orders and didn’t ask questions. When a magazine came to report on the cleanup, some soldiers donned a full-body protective suit. Celestial said it was the only time he saw the suit used.

Celestial said he and fellow soldiers often caught fish, lobster and octopus to eat. They were not told that the seafood could be contaminated until months after arriving.

More than 70 years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Celestial’s past willingness to be exposed to that level of nuclear radiation is unthinkable.

But that was decades ago, at the dawn of the nuclear age. Few could be expected to predict the ramifications of their six-month cleanup tour.

An undetectable enemy

“We were all young. … We got to the Marshall Islands and it was beautiful,” he said. “You can’t see the danger, you can’t smell it, taste it. … We just did what they told us.”

Today, Celestial, who serves as president of the Guam-based Pacific Association for Radiation Survivors, says he is blessed: He hasn’t been diagnosed with cancer, unlike many of his fellow veterans, and was discharged from the Army with full disability.

Celestial said he deals with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. In fact, he said, almost all atomic veterans suffer from brittle bones. Two decades ago, while living in San Diego, California, Celestial was told he had the liver of a 90-year-old and was given four years to live, but he ultimately recovered.

Others have not been as fortunate. One Enewetak veteran, who lives in Maine, has been diagnosed with six distinct cancers, Celestial said. Because he was diagnosed after his separation from the military, he does not receive any compensation for medical costs.

Without any major medical issues, some wonder why Celestial has spent the better part of the past two decades fighting for Guam and veterans who participated in the Enewetak Atoll cleanup to receive federal reimbursement for illnesses linked to radiation exposure.

Proposed amendment

Legislation has been introduced that would expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The current law has distributed more than $2 billion to residents within Nevada, Utah and Arizona who suffer from radiation-related illnesses, but will end payments by 2022. The last year for people to apply for coverage is 2020.

The proposed amendment would extend RECA by 19 years and offer up to $150,000 in medical coverage to residents of Guam, Idaho, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation.

In late June, Celestial gave testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Toward the end of the hearing, he was asked if he had cancer.

“I told them no,” Celestial said with a laugh. “It made other people realize … what the hell is he doing it for? I’m not doing it for myself. I’m doing it for other people. I’m fighting for the people of Guam and the other states, and I’m also fighting for the Enewetak veterans who haven’t been rightly identified.”

He said his Senate testimony – given alongside downwinder allies from Idaho, New Mexico and Navajo Nation – was a new high in his decades-long fight.

“Now the Senate really believes our testimonies,” Celestial said. “They really understand this.”

But he refuses to make any promises about the future.

“What we’ve done in the Senate is the closest we’ve come,” he said. “Now we have to go to the House.”

……… Years ago, Celestial’s fight was bolstered by a report from the Board on Radiation Effects Research, which determined that Guam “did receive measurable fallout.”

Without this proof, Celestial said, he would not have continued his work on RECA.

‘Very, very wrong’

Lt. Charles Bert Schreiber, a chemical, biological and radiological officer with the U.S. Navy who served on Guam in 1952, gave testimony to the BRER, saying that just two days after a nuclear explosion in the Marshall Islands, radiation level readings were off the charts on Guam.

According to Schreiber’s testimony in 2001, he went straight to the admiral’s top aide to see what needed to be done. Minutes later, he was told to leave.

“I then knew something was very, very wrong,” Schreiber said in his testimony.

After giving this testimony, containing information that Celestial said was previously classified above the top-secret level, Schreiber revealed to Celestial that a burden had been lifted from him, as he was finally able to share what happened.

“The Guamanians, for the large part, had only rainwater for drinking … and they were drinking highly contaminated radioactive water and I could not tell them to stop. The Navy … did not provide any information to the military personnel, civilians or the natives about how to protect themselves.”

According to Post files, Schreiber called it quite simply “madness.”  https://www.postguam.com/news/local/atomic-veteran-continues-fight-for-radiation-compensation/article_fa1b4024-931c-11e8-8401-87c44085fc5d.html

July 30, 2018 Posted by | health, Legal, PERSONAL STORIES, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission stifled research into nuclear radiation’s effects on pregnancy

Does living near a nuclear plant give children cancer? https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/07/23/does-living-near-a-nuclear-plant-give-children-cancer/by beyondnuclearinternational

US cancer study that would have told us was killed by NRC,  by beyondnuclearinternational, By Cindy Folkers

More than 60 studies have shown increases of childhood leukemia around nuclear facilities worldwide. Despite this finding, there has never been independent analysis in the US examining connections between childhood cancer and nuclear facilities. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had tasked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct such a study, but then withdrew funding, claiming publicly that it would be too expensive. 

n fact, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process reveal that NRC employees had already determined the study would show no impact. Internal emails indicate that staff was presupposing a conclusion for which they had no evidence, demonstrated by statements like “even if you found something that looked like a relationship [between cancer and radiation], you wouldn’t know what to attribute it to,” and “[m]ost people realize that all the evidence shows you’re not going to find anything.” The evidence, however, had not yet been fully collected and examined.

Not protective and unaccountable

While the NRC claims it protects public health, its radiation exposure standards fail to account fully for:


  • impacts on the placenta 
  • impacts on fetal blood forming cells 
  • impacts on fetal and embryonic organs 
  • estrogenic impacts 
  • disproportionate impacts on women 
  • genetic impacts past the second generation 
  • cumulative damage of repeated radiation exposure

NRC exposure data and modeling is designed to demonstrate compliance with the NRC’s regulations but not to assess health impacts. The NRC has already stated numerous times that it believes low doses of radiation, the kind NRC claims its licensees are allowed to release, pose risks so low that health impacts may not be discernible. We don’t know if NRC’s claims of no discernible or attributable public health impact from nuclear power are actually true since no one has ever looked properly. 

Studies in other countries show association between nuclear facilities and childhood cancer. However, given the demonstrable bias of the US NRC toward low doses having no health impact, it is essential that a US study go forward under the auspices of outside, independent experts, in order to examine what is happening in the US.

Ground-breaking study plans were threat to current health assumptions

Under the original and now canceled study, the NRC had tasked the NAS to use the most advanced methods in order to update the study the NRC currently uses to claim its reactors are safe. That study, published in 1990, had several shortcomings including the way the authors define and examine disease, assumptions about doses, location of cases, and who is examined.

The NAS was considering two study designs, one examining specifically children. This study type, dubbed by one expert as a case-control nested in a cohort, is very similar in basic design to studies conducted in France and Germany, which show increases in childhood leukemia around nuclear power facilities.

The NRC scuttled the NAS study in 2015, dubiously claiming it would have cost too much and taken too long. Upon examination, however, it is clear that the NAS study would have challenged the fundamentals of the NRC’s health assessment regime.

To date, most radiation studies have routinely suffered from a host of improper methodologies, making it impossible to discern health impacts. The NAS was considering using new ways of examining the issue by implementing a more detailed, more thorough, publicly shared research protocol. The protocol included:

  • Making the study process and underlying assumptions public while the study was being conducted
  • Allowing public comment during the study process 
  • Standardizing raw health data and making it available to researchers and the public 
  • Standardizing and verifying pollutant data
  • Integrating independently collected pollutant and meteorological data 
  • Examining and redoing the current health models 
  • Tailoring health studies to local conditions
  • Creating new health models, specifically for the radionuclide carbon
    • 14, which concentrates in fetal tissue more than maternal tissue.

    This detailed and accessible protocol could have opened the NRC’s regulatory regime to exhaustive scrutiny, revealing just how inadequate it is for examining health impacts in the first place, never mind protecting public health. Further, with such careful research, NRC could have feared that the NAS study would point to an association between environmental radiation and cancer, as other studies have, although FOIA documents consisting mostly of internal emails did not specifically demonstrate this fear.

    Moribund study could be revived, made better

  • While the NAS child study design and protocol had much to recommend it, it is unclear whether it would have been free of all of the flaws that have historically plagued radiation health assessments. At the point of study cancellation, independent experts still had concerns. 
  • Historically, industry and radiation regulators have insisted that a causal link must be absolutely established between radiation and disease. For protection of the public, however, experts claim the standard should be a lower bar of association with disease. If this study moves forward under the NAS, it needs to relinquish concepts and methods that favor causation. 

    To date, researchers have started radiation health studies by presuming that there will be no impact because doses are too low — a contention that, in reality, remains scientifically unproven. Many studies reveal the opposite. Any new such research needs to ensure that the basis for health assessments is a focus on health outcomes, not dose models that are fraught with uncertainties. 

    While NRC licensees attempt to monitor environmental contamination, the NRC has never incorporated biological monitoring, which might prove useful after spike releases from various facility outages. There are several techniques that have been used in other health studies, which a revived cancer study could weave into any child or adult health assessment.

    A truly independent and scientifically robust study would attempt to address these issues in addition to using the other enlightened protocols the NAS was considering. With the public process and protocol review suggested by the NAS for this now moribund study, perhaps these remaining shortcomings would finally have been addressed as well. The NRC made sure that did not happen. However, according to Ourania Kosti, NAS researcher coordinating the study, the NAS has left the door open to completing it. “I think it is important to update the findings of the 1990 study using better methodologies and information,” Kosti said. “This is the reason the Academies agreed to carry out the update. The Academies remain willing to do the study, if asked to.”

    Cindy Folkers is the radiation and health specialist at Beyond Nuclear.

 

July 25, 2018 Posted by | USA, women | Leave a comment

Russia’s new “doomsday” weapon works by dispersing killer nuclear radiation

Russia just showed off a potentially world-ending nuclear ‘doomsday’ torpedo https://www.businessinsider.com.au/russia-shows-off-a-nuclear-doomsday-torpedo-that-the-us-cant-stop-2018-7?r=US&IR=T, ALEX LOCKIE, JUL 24, 2018, 

  • Russia’s Ministry of Defence released a video of one of the most inhumane and fearsome nuclear weapons ever created – and it’s purpose-built to avoid US defences.
  • The weapon, a high-speed nuclear-powered torpedo, isn’t like other nuclear weapons.
  • It’s designed to create a lasting cloud of nuclear fallout that could render thousands of miles of territory unlivable for decades.
  • But Russia may be bluffing about how far along the weapon actually is, a close viewing of the video shows.

Just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin met with President Donald Trump, Russia’s Ministry of Defence has released a video of one of its most inhumane and fearsome nuclear weapons ever created – and it’s purpose-built to avoid US defences.

The weapon, a high-speed nuclear-powered torpedo, isn’t like other nuclear weapons. While there’s a risk of radioactivity any time an atom is split, nuclear weapons have typically used nuclear detonations to create heat and pressure, with lingering radioactivity emerging only as a dangerous side effect.

But the new Russian torpedo uses radioactive waste to deter, scare, and potentially punish enemies for decades.

“Nuclear weapons only generate significant amounts of radioactive fallout when they are detonated at, near, or beneath ground level,” Stephen Schwartz, the author of “Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940,” told Business Insider.These types of nuclear explosions “suck up dirt, or water, contaminates it with debris from the bomb, and then lofts it into the atmosphere,” leaving deadly radioactive fallout potentially strewn across thousands of miles, Schwartz said. What’s more, the bomb is rumoured to have its nuclear core coated in a metal that would make the fall out last for half a century.

“It’s an insane weapon in the sense that it’s probably as indiscriminate and lethal as you can make a nuclear weapon,” Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told Business Insider.

Russia hasn’t specified how big the nuclear warhead is, but Kristensen said reports indicated it’s “anything from a normal yield to up to 100 megatons,” making it potentially one of the biggest bombs ever built.

Russia has advertised a simple mission for the torpedo: “Going in and blowing up a harbour with the purpose of blanketing a coastal area with radiation to make it uninhabitable” in a “blatant violation on the international laws of war, which require them to avoid collateral damage,” Kristensen said.

Russia, which first leaked images of the weapon in 2015, released the video of the torpedo, called “Poseidon,” along with several other updates on new weapons programs. Putin announced all of the weapons in a March 1 speech in which he said they’d been designed to defeat all existing US defences.

The video of the Poseidon shows its stern suspended in a factory with engineers standing by. Lines across its hull indicate where its various components and chambers separate and indicate a large space for a warhead.

Analysis from H.I. Sutton shows that Russia augmented a test submarine to carry the Poseidon as far back as 2010, indicating a long testing period.

But Russia traffics in military propaganda frequently, and it may be bluffing on how far along its weapons are. The torpedo is shown only in a lab setting, and then the video cuts to a computer-generated simulation. The actual weapon shows its ability to steer in water, and doesn’t even show it can propel itself.

Additionally, the video demonstrates a new, only slightly less dangerous use for the weapon: Targeting US aircraft carriers and their strike groups. As it stands, the US doesn’t have a way to defend against fast-moving torpedoes like the Poseidon.

July 25, 2018 Posted by | radiation, Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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