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Ionizing radiation from Chernobyl affects development of wild carrot plants. Abstract

Latest Chernobyl paper shows radiation effects of wild carrots!

Abstract
“Radioactivity released from disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima is a global hazard and a threat to exposed biota. To minimize the deleterious effects of stressors organisms adopt various strategies. Plants, for example, may delay germination or stay dormant during stressful periods. However, an intense stress may halt germination or heavily affect various developmental stages and select for life history changes. Here, we test for the consequence of exposure to ionizing radiation on plant development. We conducted a common garden experiment in an uncontaminated greenhouse using 660 seeds originating from 33 wild carrots (Daucus carota) collected near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. These maternal plants had been exposed to radiation levels that varied by three orders of magnitude. We found strong negative effects of elevated radiation on the timing and rates of seed germination. In addition, later stages of development and the timing of emergence of consecutive leaves were delayed by exposure to radiation. We hypothesize that low quality of resources stored in seeds, damaged DNA, or both, delayed development and halted germination of seeds from plants exposed to elevated levels of ionizing radiation. We propose that high levels of spatial heterogeneity in background radiation may hamper adaptive life history responses.”

Zbyszek Boratyński, Javi Miranda Arias, Cristina Garcia, Tapio Mappes, Timothy A. Mousseau, Anders P. Møller, Antonio Jesús Muñoz Pajares, Marcin Piwczyński & Eugene Tukalenko

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep39282

December 19, 2016 Posted by dunrenard | radiation | Chernobyl, Mutations, radiation | Leave a comment

Nuclear worker at Fukushima gets compensation for thyroid cancer

Thyroid cancer compensation for Fukushima plant worker http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201612170027.html, By YURI OIWA/ Staff Writer December 17, 2016 A man who developed thyroid gland cancer after working at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has for the first time won the right to work-related compensation.

While the case ranks as the third time a worker at the Fukushima plant has been recognized as eligible for work-related compensation because of cancer caused by radiation exposure, it is the first instance involving thyroid gland cancer.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced its decision Dec. 16.

The man in his 40s, an employee of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., worked at the Fukushima plant after the triple meltdown triggered by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. He was diagnosed with thyroid gland cancer in April 2014.

The man worked at various nuclear plants, including the Fukushima facility, between 1992 and 2012. He was mainly involved in operating and overseeing reactor operations.

After the March 2011 nuclear accident, the man was in the plant complex when hydrogen explosions rocked the No. 1 and No. 3 reactor buildings. His duties included confirming water and pressure meter levels as well as providing fuel to water pumps.

The amount of his accumulated whole body radiation exposure was 150 millisieverts, with about 140 millisieverts resulting from the period after the nuclear accident. Of that amount, about 40 millisieverts was through internal exposure caused by inhaling or other ways of absorbing radioactive materials.

Along with recognizing the first work-related compensation involving thyroid gland cancer, the labor ministry also released for the first time its overall position on dealing with compensation issues for workers who were at the Fukushima plant after the accident.

The ministry said it would recognize compensation for workers whose accumulated whole body dose exceeded 100 millisieverts and for whom at least five years have passed since the start of work involving radiation exposure and the diagnosis of cancer.

Ministry officials said the dose level was not a strict standard but one yardstick for recognizing compensation.

According to a study by TEPCO and a U.N. scientific committee looking into the effects of radiation, 174 people who worked at the plant had accumulated whole body doses exceeding 100 millisieverts as of this past March.

There is also an estimate that more than 2,000 workers have radiation doses exceeding 100 millisieverts just in their thyroid gland.

December 19, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2016, health, Japan | Leave a comment

USA govt acknowledges the many cancers in its nuclear test veterans

DISEASES ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO BE CAUSED BY PARTICIPATION IN ATMOSPHERIC TESTING OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog, 2 Jan 2012

Leukaemia (other than chronic Iymphocytic leukaemia)

Cancer of the Thyroid

Cancer of the Breast

Cancer of the Pharynx

Cancer of the Oesophagus

Cancer of the Stomach

Cancer of the small intestine

Cancer of the Pancreas

Multiple Myeloma

Lymphomas (except Hodgkinís disease)

Cancer of the Bile Ducts

Cancer of the Gall Bladder

Cancer of the liver (except if cirrhosis or hepatitis indicated)

Cancer of the urinary tract, which also translates to the bladder and kidneys

Cancer of the salivary glands

Incorporated into public law 100-321, 20.5.88.

“This law gives US atomic exservicemen due recognition for the unusual service they rendered, and is an expression of gratitude of the American people toward their atomic veterans The law enables Veteran Affairs benefits to flow to US atomic veterans who are afflicted. The US government m relation to nuclear veterans considers the nature of service plus the development of any of the above diseases sufficient cause to quality for Veteran Benefits regardless of recorded dose rates received. All US nuclear test service personnel are officially Veterans.” http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/diseases-acknowledged-by-the-united-states-government-to-be-caused-by-participation-in-atmospheric-testing-of-nuclear-weapons/

December 14, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Reference, USA | 1 Comment

Ionizing Radiation from Chernobyl and the Fraction of Viable Pollen

Tim Mousseau – latest Chernobyl paper in International Journal of Plant Sciences:

Oct 05, 2016

Pollen viability is an important component of reproductive success, with inviable pollen causing failure of reproduction. Pollen grains have evolved mechanisms to avoid negative impacts of adverse environmental conditions on viability, including the ability to sustain ionizing radiation and repair DNA. We assessed the viability of 109,000 pollen grains representing 675 pollen samples from 111 species of plants in Chernobyl across radiation gradients that spanned three orders of magnitude. We found a statistically significant but small and negative main effect of radiation on pollen viability rates across species (Pearson’s r = 0.20). Ploidy level and the number of nucleate cells (two vs. three) were the only variables that influenced the strength of the effect of radiation on pollen viability, as reflected by significant interactions between these two variables and background radiation, while there were no significant effects of genome size, pollen aperture type, life cycle duration, or pollination agent on the strength of the effect of radiation on pollen viability.

Introduction

Most organisms are susceptible to environmental perturbations—such as climate change, extreme weather events, pollution, changes in nutrient availability, and changes in ionizing radiation levels—but the effects of such perturbations on individuals, populations, and ecosystems are variable (Candolin and Wong 2012; IPCC 2013; Møller and Mousseau 2013). In order to better understand these effects and to predict how a given species would respond to environmental disturbances, a study of the specific effects at different stages of organisms’ life cycles is required. Since reproduction is a key phase in the life cycle of any organism, reproductive effects are of particular interest. In the case of the effects of ionizing radiation, the negative consequences for reproduction in response to acute irradiation have been studied for decades and are well established (review in Møller and Mousseau 2013). However, the effects of long-term chronic exposure to low dose radiation are poorly understood.

Pollen grains are susceptible to the effects of environmental perturbations, which can have significant negative consequences for plant reproduction through pollen limitation (Delph et al. 1997; Ashman et al. 2004). Potential negative environmental effects include those resulting from elevated levels of ionizing radiation (Koller 1943). Therefore, plants have mechanisms to protect themselves from such effects, such as DNA repair, bi- or trinucleate cells, or redundancies in the genome resulting from duplications.

The area around Chernobyl in Ukraine has proven particularly useful for studying the effects of radioactive contamination on ecological and evolutionary processes at a large spatial scale. The Chernobyl nuclear accident in April 1986 led to the release of between 9.35 × 10³ and 1.25 × 10⁴ petabecquerel of radionuclides into the atmosphere (Møller and Mousseau 2006; Yablokov et al. 2009; Evangeliou et al. 2015). These radioactive contaminants were subsequently deposited in the surrounding areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine but also elsewhere across Europe and even in Asia and North America. The pattern of contamination is highly heterogeneous, with some regions having received much higher levels of radionuclides than others, owing to atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident (fig. 1). To this day, the Chernobyl area provides a patchwork of sites that can differ in radioactive contamination level by up to five orders of magnitude across a comparatively small area. Even decades after the accident, the amount of radioactive material remaining around Chernobyl is enormous (Møller and Mousseau 2006; Yablokov et al. 2009).

Fig. 1. Map of the distribution of radioactive contamination in the Chernobyl region, with pollen sampling locations marked. Adapted from DeCort et al. (1998).

Because of the unprecedented scale and global impact of the Chernobyl event, it is not surprising that it generated significant interest in both the scientific community and the general public. As a result, studies have been conducted to assess the consequences of Chernobyl for human health and agriculture as well as its biological effects, ranging from the level of DNA to entire ecosystems. Since ionizing radiation has long been well established as a mutagen (Nadson and Philippov 1925; Muller 1950), a large proportion of the research effort has focused on examining changes in mutation rates in areas that have been radioactively contaminated to different degrees as a result of the accident. Although there is considerable heterogeneity in the results of these studies, most have detected significant increases in mutation rates or genetic damage following the Chernobyl disaster, with the rates remaining elevated over the following 2 decades (reviewed in Møller and Mousseau 2006). For example, the mean frequency of mutations in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) is positively correlated with the level of background radiation, and it is 10 times higher in contaminated areas compared with control sites (Shevchenko et al. 1996). A study of Scots pine seeds detected elevated mutation rates within the exclusion zone over a period of 8 yr following the accident (Kal’chenko et al. 1995). In wheat (Triticum aestivum), the mutation rate was six times higher in radioactively contaminated areas compared with controls (Kovalchuk et al. 2000). Likewise, the frequency of chromosomal aberrations in two varieties of wheat grown within the Chernobyl exclusion zone 13 yr after the disaster was elevated compared with the spontaneous frequency of chromosomal aberrations in these cultivars (Yakimchuk et al. 2001). The levels of chromosome aberrations in onions (Allium cepa) were also positively correlated with the intensity of radioactive contamination in plants grown 20 yr after the accident (Grodzinsky 2006). Therefore, there is considerable evidence showing increased mutation rates in plants in the most contaminated sites (Møller and Mousseau 2015).

On the basis of the results of these studies, one might expect that a similar relationship between radiation level and the frequency of abnormalities would be seen in pollen. Indeed, Kordium and Sidorenko (1997) reported that the frequency of meiotic anomalies in microspore formation and the frequency of pollen grain viability was reduced in 8%–10% of the 94 plant species studied as a function of the intensity of gamma radiation 6–8 yr after the accident. In violets (Viola matutina), the proportion of viable pollen was negatively correlated with background radioactive contamination (Popova et al. 1991). While it is evident that plants differ in their susceptibility to ionizing radiation, the reasons for this variation are not entirely clear. It is likely that some species develop tolerance and/or resistance to mutagenic effects of radiation to a greater extent than others (Baer et al. 2007). For example, pollen of silver birch (Betula verrucosa), which grows in areas contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, showed elevated DNA repair ability compared with pollen from control areas, consistent with adaptation or epigenetic responses to increased radiation (Boubriak et al. 2008). There are also indications that genome size might affect the response of different species to radiation. Among the plants studied by Kordium and Sidorenko (1997), the rate of pollen viability decreased with increasing radiation to a higher degree in plants with smaller genomes (Barnier 2005), although the actual mechanism remains unknown. One potential explanation is that a larger genome might contain multiple copies of some genes as a result of duplication, rendering mutations in one of these copies less deleterious than if there were only a single copy present, although this explanation may not universally apply (Otto 2003).

In order to assess the effects of radioactive contamination on plant reproduction and to further assess species-specific differences in the effects of ionizing radiation on pollen viability, we analyzed pollen samples from plants growing in the Chernobyl region. We expected that the effects of radiation would differ among species, with some plants showing higher pollen inviability rates than others as a result of elevated radiation levels. A second objective was to test whether observed differences in pollen viability rates could be attributed to differences in phenotype among species, with possible explanatory factors including pollen size, the number of pollen apertures, ploidy, genome size, bi- or trinucleate cells, life span (annual vs. perennial), and pollination agent. We hypothesized that each of these factors could be related to the plants’ ability to resist or to tolerate radiation-induced mutations. Pollen size, genome size, and ploidy are all related to the amount of DNA and the number of copies of genes contained in the pollen grain. Because the pollen aperture—as the site of pollen germination—could be particularly susceptible to radiation-induced damage, we included the number of apertures as a potential explanatory variable. Furthermore, whether a plant is annual or perennial is related to individual longevity and, consequently, to the number of mutations that can accumulate over its lifetime as well as to the number of generations from the time of the Chernobyl accident until the time of sample collection. This may be particularly relevant for plants, given that germ tissue is derived from somatic tissues during each reproductive event as opposed to most animals, in which germ cells terminally differentiate very early during embryonic development (Buss 2006). Pollen viability depends on the ability of pollen to assess the integrity of its DNA and to repair the DNA of the generative nuclei before division (Jackson and Linskens 1980). This process is particularly important for binucleate pollen cells in which this happens during pollen germination, which is in contrast to trinucleate pollen cells, in which the need for DNA repair during pollen germination is less evident. DNA repair efficiency and adaptation of plants to chronic irradiation may also depend on the composition of radiation at the contaminated sites (Boubriak et al. 1992, 2008).

Across all plant species, we found a statistically significant relationship between radiation and the frequency of viable pollen of an intermediate magnitude (Cohen 1988). We also documented significant interactions between species and radiation, radiation and cell number, and radiation and ploidy. However, the significant effect of ploidy disappeared when both ploidy and whether cells were bi- or trinucleate were entered simultaneously in a single model. Most effects were small to intermediate in magnitude, as is commonly the case in studies of living organisms (Møller and Jennions 2002). We emphasize that our study included by far the largest sample size so far reported to detect effects of chronic radiation on pollen viability. However, we also emphasize the limits of our study. Many plant species could not be included simply because we could not locate multiple flowering specimens during our fieldwork. These and other sampling limitations reduced the number of pollen grains and the number of species that could be included.

Species differ in their susceptibility to radiation, as demonstrated for birds at both Chernobyl and Fukushima (Møller and Mousseau 2007; Møller et al. 2013; Galván et al. 2014), and in terms of adaptation to radiation (Galván et al. 2014; Møller and Mousseau 2016; Ruiz-González et al. 2016). The observed interspecific differences in radiation effects reported here for the proportion of viable pollen could be due to adaptation to radiation through tolerance of radiation-induced mutations or through induction of increased DNA repair in organisms living in contaminated areas. Another possibility is that some species are more resistant to radiation because of historical exposure in radiation hotspot areas with high natural levels of radiation (Møller and Mousseau 2013).

We observed a significant relationship between the proportion of viable pollen and the interaction between ploidy and radiation. Such a finding might suggest that resistance to deleterious effects of radiation is based on redundancy in the genome, where species with higher ploidy levels have an advantage if they have multiple copies of a given gene. We failed to detect an effect of selected physical attributes of pollen grains—such as genome size, pollen size, and aperture type—on the susceptibility of pollen to radiation. Furthermore, whether a plant was annual or perennial or whether it was insect or wind pollinated did not affect the proportion of viable pollen. Finally, whether plants produced bi- or trinucleate pollen had a significant effect on pollen viability, and the interaction between radiation and cell number was also significant.

While we confirmed the general finding of Kordium and Sidorenko (1997) that in approximately 10% of species the proportion of viable pollen is negatively correlated with radiation level, we were unable to reproduce their findings with respect to the overall magnitude of this effect. Our observed effect size was much smaller, and the slopes for individual species differed significantly from those reported by Kordium and Sidorenko (1997). Because more than 10 yr have passed between the two studies, we suggest that a change in radiation effects has taken place over time, for example, as a result of adaptation or accumulation of mutations. Another possible explanation for the discrepancy has to do with sample size, since our study included a much larger number of pollen samples and sampling locations than the study by Kordium and Sidorenko (1997). These explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Whereas other studies have demonstrated significant negative effects of radioactive contamination around Chernobyl on mutation rates and fitness in general, our study of pollen viability shows a very small effect, and some species even show positive relationships between pollen viability and radiation that is suggestive of adaptation to increased levels of radiation. However, on the basis of the current study, it is not possible to determine whether the observed heterogeneity reflects evolved adaptive responses or is the consequence of unmeasured selective effects on characters correlated with pollen viability, which could in part explain an overall positive effect of radiation (for a discussion of evolutionary responses in Chernobyl, see Møller and Mousseau 2016). Experimental approaches would be needed to decipher the mechanisms underlying the heterogeneity in plant responses observed here (Mousseau 2000).

The observed variability in susceptibility to radiation is a common finding in studies of the effects of radiation from Chernobyl (Møller and Mousseau 2007; Galván et al. 2011, 2014; Møller et al. 2013). While our results are consistent with earlier findings that DNA repair mechanisms may play an important role in adaptation to life in radioactively contaminated environments—especially for plants, which are sessile and hence cannot move to less contaminated areas—further research is required to test this explicitly. Finally, because of the observed differences in resistance to radiation among species, it is likely that even small overall effects of radiation—such as the one on the proportion of viable pollen described here—can have significant consequences for species composition and abundance at a given location and, therefore, for ecosystem characteristics and functioning.

In conclusion, we have found a statistically significant overall negative relationship between radiation intensity and the frequency of viable pollen in plants growing in contaminated areas around Chernobyl. The magnitude of this effect across species included in our study was intermediate. We only found a significant relationship between the proportion of viable pollen and ploidy × radiation interaction, bi- or trinucleate cells, and bi- or trinucleate cells × radiation interaction. This suggests that DNA repair mechanisms could play an important role for the ability of plants to resist increased radiation, at least when it comes to pollen formation.

Acknowledgments

We thank Puri López-García for use of a microscope for pollen counts. This work has benefited from the facilities and expertise of the cytometry platform of Imagif (Centre de Recherche de Gif; http://www.imagif.cnrs.fr). We thank Spencer Brown and Mickaël Bourge for their help with the flow cytometry measurements and Srdan Randić for help with pollen counts. Field collections for this study were supported in part by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Collaborative Linkage Grant program, the Fulbright program, the University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences, and the Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust. Two reviewers provided constructive criticism.

Read full paper at:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/688873

December 9, 2016 Posted by dunrenard | radiation | Chernobyl, Mutations, Plants, Pollen | Leave a comment

Medical radiation poses risks for nurses

For patients, unnecessary procedures (usually imaging procedures) and radiation dosing errors represent the bulk of risk from medical radiation, whereas incidental, unintended radiation exposure is the primary concern for nurses and other health care workers…

Radiation safety for patients—and nurses Oncology Nurse Advisor, Bryant Furlow, October 26, 2011 Diagnostic and therapeutic radiation have prolonged and improved millions of patients’ lives, and represent indispensable and increasingly sophisticated tools in clinical oncology. But medical radiation’s gifts have come at the potential cost of unintended irradiation of patients and health care workers and increased lifetime risks of secondary cancers. This concern has grown with improving patient survival times, particularly among pediatric cancer patients. Continue reading →

December 7, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Reference, USA, women | Leave a comment

Nuclear industry’s legacy – stranded wastes, safety fears, collapsing communities

As nuclear plants age, risks rise, telegram.com Christine Legere, Dec 4, 2016 Dec 4, 2016 “………COLLAPSING COMMUNITIES

Fifty years after the U.S. launched a bold plan to invest in nuclear power, most of the promises of clean, inexpensive energy have failed to materialize. Plants often cost far more than projected and took years longer to build — driving up rates for consumers. Many plants were never completed, instead becoming a debt utility companies passed on to ratepayers.

Meanwhile, the direst fears of anti-nuclear activists also have not played out. Although there are rashes of safety incidents, the most serious U.S. incident being the 1979 partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island, there has never been the kind of catastrophe seen at the Chernobyl plant or, more recently, at the Fukushima reactor.
But skeptics such as Gunter say risks are still with us. As reactors age, they are more prone to accidents caused by worn-out parts. In some cases, operating licenses are being renewed far beyond a plant’s planned shelf life, meaning expensive upgrades and extra-vigilant maintenance — things not always tended to by strapped utilities.

Of even greater concern to the nuclear watchdogs: the vast and growing piles of spent nuclear fuel. There is still no known way to store used fuel long-term that guarantees it won’t leak during the tens of thousands of years some components remain radioactive. The 76,000 metric tons of dangerous nuclear waste that already have been generated now sit on plant sites across the country. To give that number perspective, if existing radioactive fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, they would stand more than two stories high and cover a football field.

And there is another impact — one that perhaps even the most ardent of anti-nuclear activists did not envision. Across the country, communities expanded and grew dependent on the nuclear plant in their backyards. Now, as many of those plants cut back or are decommissioned, economic vitality is gutted. Jobs and middle-class lifestyles disappear. Housing prices collapse. Tax bases dwindle, undermining everything from school budgets to road repairs……

IN THE RED

Across the country, other communities also have found it hard to recover from the loss of revenue when their nuclear plants close…….

PENT-FUEL FEARS

Plymouth may be able to mitigate the financial loss of Pilgrim, but, like other sites of shuttered plants across the country, the town will be left with several hundred tons of nuclear waste in the form of highly radioactive spent fuel.

Spent fuel is nuclear fuel that has been used and removed from the reactor core. The Government Accountability Office calls the hot and highly radioactive stuff one of the most hazardous substances created by humans. Some components stay radioactive for tens of thousands of years

The country’s nuclear plants are adding about 2,000 metric tons of waste each year to the 76,000 metric tons already sitting at 72 plants across the country.

“If not properly contained or shielded, the intense radioactivity of spent fuel can cause immediate deaths and environmental contamination, and in lower doses can cause long-term health hazards such as cancer,” the accountability office said in a study of spent fuel done in 2012 at the request of Congress.

Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Congress mandated that the federal government open a permanent geological storage facility for nuclear waste from civilian facilities and begin accepting waste by 1998. Plans for such a repository at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, ran into heavy opposition and were halted in 2010. To date no alternative has been found.

More than 70 percent of the spent fuel in the U.S. currently remains at reactor sites, squeezed into tightly racked storage pools that were designed for much smaller loads.

Boron panels, which prevent fission from occurring in the fuel pool, are deteriorating at many sites, including at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. To address the problem, operators shift the hottest fuel in the pools away from the degraded panels. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission currently views the issue as one it will monitor.

Although it does not solve the problem of waste storage in communities across the country, the only way to reduce the danger from spent fuel is to move it to dry casks, mammoth steel-lined concrete structures, says David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

LEFT WITH A ‘NUCLEAR DUMP’

Mayor Al Hill says Zion knew what it was signing up for in 1973, when it agreed to host a nuclear power plant: The trade was 267 acres of lakefront property for $18 million in annual revenue. The city did not agree to storing nuclear waste indefinitely

We have environmental concerns and everybody in the U.S. should have environmental concerns about these rods being so close to Lake Michigan,” Hill says. “We’re stuck with a nuclear dump.”

In July, U.S. Rep. Robert Dold, an Illinois Republican, filed a bill at the urging of Hill and other regional leaders to pay communities storing the nuclear waste. Under the Stranded Nuclear Waste Accountability Act, Zion, which stores more than 1,000 metric tons of spent fuel, would get about $15 million annually. Congressmen from other host communities have signed on to the bill.

The Department of Energy is working on a plan for consent-based interim storage. Andrews County in West Texas, with a total population of under 15,000, has endorsed a proposal submitted by Waste Control Specialists. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing the company’s application for a facility that would be ready by 2021 to store 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel from closed commercial reactors.

Holtec International is working on an application for a storage site in southeastern New Mexico and expects to submit its proposal to federal regulators by year’s end.

DEMANDING ANSWERS

Populations near U.S. reactors, meanwhile, want to know if their proximity poses a health threat. The NRC hired the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study in 2010 but halted the work last year because of costs, expected to be about $8 million.

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has long fought for tighter industry controls, said the agency gambles with the public’s health.

“The NRC blames budgetary constraints for ending the study, but what price do residents pay for living near operating nuclear facilities?” he wrote in a statement. “We should know that answer.”

Plant owners, however, hope to keep lucrative reactors online despite their age. Most already have extended their reactor licenses for another 20 years beyond the initial 40 they were allowed to operate. And at least two already have indicated their intent to go for another extension, which would allow the plants to continue until they are 80 years old. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission makes the decision on those extension requests.

In a recent study on extending nuclear plant licenses, the Office of Nuclear Energy said the question that must first be answered for the public is “How safe is safe enough?

“Even with continuous improvements in safety and performance, nuclear power is still perceived by the public as not safe enough,” the report noted. “Nuclear power does involve high-consequence events like those at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima that are rare but can be catastrophic.”

Gunter says further license renewals should not even be considered. He calls the current plants “antiquated” and no longer economically viable without government subsidy.

“They’re in a death spiral,” Gunter says. “The question now is how quickly can we retire this industry? How much more nuclear waste are we going to generate before we realize enough is enough?” http://www.telegram.com/news/20161204/as-nuclear-plants-age-risks-rise

December 7, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | employment, safety, social effects, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Belarus’s radiation tragedy of Chernobyl is only just developing

Exiled scientist: ‘Chernobyl is not finished, it has only just begun’

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/17/nuclear-exile-chernobyl-30th-anniversary/82896510/ YURY BANDAZHEVSKY DETAILED CHERNOBYL’S DEVASTATING IMPACT ON PEOPLE’S HEALTH, PARTICULARLY THAT OF CHILDREN, IN BELARUS. NOW HE LIVES IN EXILE WHILE THE GOVERNMENT INSISTS “EVERYTHING’S OK.”

Chernobyl through the eyes of an artist

Kim Hjelmgaard , USA TODAY Yury Bandazhevsky, 59, was the first scientist in Belarus to establish an institute to study Chernobyl’s impact on people’s health, particularly children, near the city of Gomel, about 120 miles over the border from Ukraine. He was arrested in Belarus in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison for allegedly taking bribes from parents trying to get their children admitted to his Gomel State Medical Institute. He denied the charges.

The National Academy of Sciences and Amnesty International say he was detained for his outspoken criticism of Belarus’ public health policies following the nuclear disaster. He was released in 2005 and given French citizenship, after rights groups took up his case along with the European Union, Britain, France and Germany. He now runs a medical and rehabilitation center outside Kiev dedicated to studying and caring for Chernobyl’s victims.

Bandazhevsky has not returned to Belarus for fear that his family there could be persecuted or arrested by authorities.

Here are his words, edited and condensed for clarity:

KIEV, Ukraine — If you were told that a lot is already known in Ukraine and Belarus about what Chernobyl has done to these countries, than I can tell you that you are wrong. How can I put it? It is only after 30 years that we are starting to see the real impact. We can say for sure that Belarus was affected more. There was more radioactive fallout there. The doses the general population received were huge. My students and colleagues and I observed it when I arrived in Gomel in 1990 to organize the medical institute (now a university).

At the first, we were observing the effects of the large doses because Gomel was located in the epicenter of this high level of contamination. Then we started to look at the accumulation of radioactive elements in internal organs at lower doses, children’s in particular. We were already seeing a complex pathology affecting the endocrine system (which produces hormones), the cardiovascular system and almost all the internal organs. This was work that had never been done in Belarus and has not been done since.

When I arrived in Ukraine in 2009, I did not find any serious objective source of information about the state of health of the children and people in the Ivankiv and Polesskiy regions (two areas that neighbor Chernobyl). There was no interest. We have now examined about 4,000 second-generation children and most of them have serious problems with their cardiovascular systems. I was starting to see the same thing in Belarus before I left. I am especially disturbed by irregularities I see in teenagers, in particular boys ages 12-17.

Several million people in Ukraine live on land contaminated by radiation, so we need to evaluate a very large number of people. But there are no such projects. You have to live among the people here to truly understand what is happening, because the problem is very complicated. I have even tried to send interested people to the cemetery in Ivankiv so they can see for themselves how many graves are there — many who died at a very young age. None of this is in the official statistics.

I don’t have any objective information about what is happening now with the health of children in Belarus. Everything is closed. The government says, ‘Everything’s OK, everything’s OK.’ But I get telephone calls from people in Gomel and they tell me that many of the children we were observing before I left have died. They were of different ages: 6, 12, 14. I will never forget appearing on television in Belarus with the president (Alexander Lukashenko). I was saying we were seeing very serious problems in children because of radiation, while he was saying ‘Everything’s OK.’ But I can’t touch this, because I can’t go there, or work there.

For me, the problem of Chernobyl is not finished, it has only just begun.

I am very much afraid that in one or two generations from now, the (descendants) of the population of Belarus and Ukraine that were affected by Chernobyl will vanish. I am afraid of that very much. I don’t want my countrymen to perish. It’s possible that help from the international community to understand what is going on is needed now, just as much as it was immediately after the accident.

December 6, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Belarus, health | Leave a comment

Cancer and birth defects in India’s uranium mining area

Koodankulam struggle: Western nations are learning from their mistakes, India is not, The Weekend Leader, By Nityanand Jayaraman & Sundar Rajan, 30 Nov “…..In Jadugoda, Jharkhand, where India’s uranium is mined by the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd, the effects of radiation among the local adivasi population are horrendous.

Indian Doctors for Peace and Development, a national chapter of the Nobel-winning International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, recently published a health study on Jadugoda. The study found that:
• Primary sterility is more common in people residing near uranium mining operations.
• More children with congenital deformities are being born to mothers living near uranium mining operations.
• Congenital defects as a cause of death of children are higher among mothers living near uranium mines.
• Cancer as a cause of death is more common in villages surrounding uranium operations.
• Life expectancy of people living near uranium mining operations is lower than Jharkhand’s state average and lower than in villages far removed from the mines.
• All these indicators of poor health and increased vulnerability are despite the fact that the affected villages have a better economic and literacy status than reference villages….. http://www.theweekendleader.com/Causes/833/Nuking-myths.html

December 5, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, India, Reference, Uranium | 1 Comment

Hanford’s nuclear site ‘the most toxic place in America’

Former nuclear site in Washington state is ‘causing workers to develop terminal illnesses’ – and it won’t be cleaned up for another 50 more years (photos)

The Hanford Site in Washington state was used to produce plutonium from 1943 through the end of the Cold War
Washington River Protection Solutions is now cleaning up the site
Workers at the site say they are being exposed to radioactive fumes
A watchdog group says that three workers have died as a result of exposure to nuclear waste on the job
Just this year, 61 workers have allegedly been exposed to toxic materials
But the government contractor says that everyone who has been checked out for possible exposure has been cleared to return to work

By Ashley Collman For Dailymail.com, 1 December 2016 |

A former nuclear site in Washington state is poisoning workers and threatening the health of those who live around it, according to a new investigation.

Some experts have called the former Hanford nuclear plant ‘the most toxic place in America’ and ‘an underground Chernobyl waiting to happen’.

The site, located in a rural area along the Columbia River, was commissioned by the Manhattan Project to produce plutonium for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

It remained an active nuclear site until the end of the Cold War, when it was decommissioned and the Department of Energy subcontracted Washington River Protection Solutions to start the clean-up.

But current and former workers at the site have told NBC that the underground containers holding the site’s nuclear waste are leaking, and that they have been exposed to the toxic fumes because the company has not given them the right safety equipment.

Their health issues include dementia, nerve damage, memory loss and respiratory problems.

Watchdog group Hanford Challenge says that at least three workers’ deaths have been linked to exposure at the site, but officials with Washington River Protection Solutions have refused to admit they are putting their workers in danger. Those workers are Gary Sall, Deb Fish and Dan Golden.

But several studies show that’s not the case and just this year, 61 workers have allegedly been exposed to toxic materials.

For their story, NBC spoke to DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary Mark Whitney, who said that all workers who have been evaluated for possible exposure have been cleared to return to work. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3986750/Former-nuclear-site-Washington-state-causing-workers-develop-terminal-illnesses-won-t-cleaned-50-years.html#ixzz4RctEncj2

December 2, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

No need for a nuclear reactor to produce medical isotopes: Canada shows the way.

14 September 2016. A consortium of institutions led by TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and accelerator-based science, is granting sole rights for its proprietary technetium-99m (Tc-99m) production technology to ARTMS™ Products, Inc (ARTMS). Technetium-99m is used in over 80% of all nuclear medicine imaging procedures and is vital to patient care in areas such as cardiology, oncology, and neurology. …

Typically sourced from an ageing global reactor fleet, Tc-99m has been subject to significant supply disruptions in recent years. ARTMS’ production technology promises to provide a reliable, cost effective, and safe supply of this critical medical isotope. The license includes all the required products and procedures for the production of Tc-99m using common hospital-based and commercial cyclotrons, through the bombardment of a high-energy proton beam against specific chemical ‘targets’. ….

“The ARTMS production technology offers many advantages, and that is why we believe our technology is truly disruptive and that it will gain widespread adoption,” Dr. Schaffer added. “Not only does the ARTMS production technology provide regional supply security of Tc-99m, it also offers favourable economics, and aids to eliminate the need for highly-enriched uranium, which is currently used by nuclear reactors to produce this isotope.”

“This agreement represents the culmination of six years of hard work by a dedicated team from across Canada, including TRIUMF, the BC Cancer Agency, Lawson Health Research Institute, and the Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization,” said Dr. Jonathan Bagger, Director of TRIUMF. “Today marks the completion of a major milestone as we move to commercialize a decentralized, green, and Canadian-made, technology that can produce Tc-99m daily at hundreds of hospital-based cyclotrons around the world. This licensing agreement marks the beginning of a new era in Tc-99m production and supply security.”

More information on the recent global isotope shortages, Tc-99m, and the story of ARTMS can be found in this media backgrounder and more information on medical isotopes and cyclotrons can be found in this FAQ. http://www.triumf.ca/current-events/artms%E2%84%A2-products-inc-licenses-canadian-technology-address-global-medical-isotope

December 2, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, health, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Study pinpoints protein that detects damage from radiation

Small intestine tissue from mouse after high-dose X-ray radiation. Green fluorescence shows dying epithelial cells.

High doses of radiation from cancer treatment can cause severe damage to cells and tissues, resulting in injury to bone marrow and the gastrointestinal tract. The consequences can be fatal. Yet researchers do not fully understand how exposure to radiation triggers this damage at the molecular level.

Led by Yale professor of immunobiology Richard Flavell, an international team of researchers studied the radiation response using animal models. They identified a novel mechanism of radiation-induced tissue injury involving a protein called AIM2, which can sense double-strand DNA damage and mediate a special form of cell death known as pyroptosis.

They observed that in animals lacking AIM2, both the gastrointestinal tract and bone marrow were protected from radiation. While the role of AIM2 as a sensor that detects infectious threats to the body was known, this study is the first to describe the protein’s function in the detection of radiation damage to the chromosomes in the nucleus, said the researchers.

When a cell receives a high dose of radiation, the DNA is broken into pieces, which can be joined together again. However this aberrant rejoining of chromosomal fragments can lead to chromosomal abnormalities and cancer. Flavell and his team believe that when this chromosomal damage is inflicted, the AIM2 pathway is activated in order to kill the cell to avoid the deleterious consequences of these chromosomal translocations, such as those commonly seen in cancer cells.

For this reason, the cells that accumulate this chromosomal damage are dangerous to the person or animal and are therefore killed by this AIM2 pathway. This pathway is beneficial to the person or animal under normal circumstances because it eliminates dangerous cells, but when a high dose of radiation is given the pathway is detrimental because it leads to bone marrow and digestive tract injury.

These findings suggest that a drug that blocks or inhibits the AIM2 pathway could potentially limit the deleterious side effect of chemotherapy or radiotherapy on cancer patients, said the researchers.

Read the full paper in Science.

http://news.yale.edu/2016/11/10/study-pinpoints-protein-detects-damage-radiation

November 11, 2016 Posted by dunrenard | radiation | DNA Damage, radiation | Leave a comment

USA Federal Judge upholds lawsuit about Hanford nuclear workers’ health and safety

Federal judge rejects dismissing Hanford nuclear lawsuit http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2016/11/nuclear-power-federal-judge-rejects-dismissing-hanford-nuclear-lawsuit.html November 4, 2016 By Nicholas K. Geranios, Associated Press SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday rejected the U.S. Department of Energy’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Washington state over worker safety issues at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Rice rejected an Energy Department argument that the federal agency was not endangering enough Washington residents to allow the state to sue.

“The state has an inherent and fundamental sovereign interest in ensuring that all Washington workers are safe,” Rice wrote in his opinion.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed the lawsuit last fall against the Energy Department and its contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions. The lawsuit contends that hazardous tank vapors pose a serious risk to Hanford workers.

‘This motion was just another example of the federal government’s culture of indifference to worker safety at Hanford,” Ferguson said Thursday.

Ferguson’s office contends that hundreds of workers have been exposed to vapors escaping from nuclear waste storage tanks since the early 1980s and that those breathing the vapors developed nosebleeds, chest and lung pain, headaches, coughing, sore throats, irritated eyes, and difficulty breathing.

Hanford for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons, and now is engaged in cleaning up a massive inventory of radioactive and chemical wastes left over from that work.

Much of the waste is stored in 177 giant underground storage tanks at Hanford, which is located near Richland.

After more than 50 workers were exposed to tank vapors earlier this year, Ferguson asked a federal court to immediately order the government to implement enhanced safety measures. That motion is still pending before the court.

Officials for the Energy Department in Richland did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment on Thursday.

Lawyers for the Energy Department had argued that the state lacked legal standing to file the lawsuit, in part because it involved about 2,000 workers out of a population of millions of residents. The agency also contended that no evidence has been provided showing that Hanford workers have been harmed by vapors. Symptoms like headaches are common, they have said.

The trial is set for May 22, 2017.

November 5, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Russia, Japan Team Up to Study How Radiation Affects the Next Generation’s DNA

Russia and Japan are set to team up to become leaders in transgenerational healthcare research, to help prevent the effects of nuclear catastrophes being passed genetically from one generation to the next indefinitely.

Both Russia and Japan have a stake in this research, given that both countries are still dealing with radiation exposure via the events in Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Fukushima and Chernobyl. “This research is extremely important in relation to future generations we are responsible for,” said Nomura Taisei, Radiation Biology and Medical Genetics Department Head at National Institute for Biomedical Research at Osaka University.

The professor was at the 15th Congress on Innovation Technologies in Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery which was held in Moscow from October 25-27, making a report on trasngenerational healthcare. His report shines a light on how exposure to radiation is passed down through generations via DNA mutation.

When DNA is damaged, the consequences for future generations are serious.Birth abnormalities, developmental disorders, a weakened immune system, higher cancer risks, and numerous physical and mental disorders are all the result of these gene mutations passed down to future generations. While the effects of radiation exposure passing between generations has so far not been widely studied in humans, the effects on experimental animal subjects is more widely understood.

Professor Nomura’s experiments on mice proved that genetic effects of radiation exposure can cause genetic defects into the 58th generation. The problem is that Japan has very little data on radiation exposure on humans.

This is where Russia can help, through opening up their database on three tree generations of people: those who were exposed after the Chernobyl disaster, those who were exposed prenatally, and those whose parents were exposed before impregnation. Thus Russia and Japan can now conduct joint comparative research of the effects of radiation on animals and on humans applying the latest technologies.

The Head of Children’s Scientific and Practical Center of Radiation Protection, Larisa Naleva told Sputnik Japan about the importance of this Russian-Japanese research project.

“We assume that the phenomenon of radiation-induced genetic instability has significant effects not only on the health of exposed people but also on the health of their children, first of all, resulting in an increased cancer risk. We have already detected an increase of morbidity in the second generation of exposed people’s descendants and now we are studying the third generation. Today in Russia there are about 135 thousand children who have been exposed or are exposed to radiation to some extent,” said Naleva. By using Japan’s expertise, Naleva hopes that the health risk for subsequent generations of those who were exposed to radiation can be reduced. “And that is the goal of our collaboration with our Japanese colleagues,” she said.
https://sputniknews.com/society/201611021046998030-russia-japan-radiation-dna/

November 4, 2016 Posted by dunrenard | radiation | DNA, DNA Damage, Japan, Joint Study, Radiation Effects, Russia | 1 Comment

Mother’s Radiation Lab and Clinic

No High Level International Nuclear Waste Dump in South Australia, Paul Richards, 2 Nov 16 Exactly what the radiation fuel cycle means to all mothers in the Fukushima region by looking at the outcome of the nuclear disaster, more on a day to day basis

The relatively short video shows a female perspective of how women are dealing with the risk despite the Japanese governments, lack of radiation testing, children’s health checks, financial and social support – the social responsibility to their community

Women suffer the most from this stoic denial that radiation effects the community, causing unnecessary stress from risk of radionuclide ingestion on a child’s growing body, well established to be many times more sensitive to radiation due to rapidly dividing cells programmed by DNA at risk during early development

It is sad a mother’s worldview has been largely left out of the South Australian debate around the whole nuclear cycle dominated by senior male nuclear sales executives and academics

However, that isn’t any surprise, as that is how the world embraced the whole nuclear industry in the first place, that is from a purely patriarchal worldview and that is a matter of our species shameful human history https://www.facebook.com/groups/1314655315214929/

November 4, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, radiation | Leave a comment

Examining health impacts of climate change on Pacific Island Countries

Pacific Island Countries and Climate Change: Examining Associated Human Health Vulnerabilities, Environmental Health Perspectives, 1 Nov 16 Nancy Averett writes about science and the environment from Cincinnati, OH. Her work has been published in Pacific Standard, Audubon, Discover, E/The Environmental Magazine, and a variety of other publications.

Climate change presents a significant and growing threat to human health, with diverse impacts projected for different regions.1Investigators now report that Pacific island countries including Fiji, Tonga, and the Marshall Islands are among the nations most vulnerable to climate-related health problems due to their particular geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics.2 Their new paper is a synthesis of the key technical findings and policy implications of the 2015 World Health Organization report Human Health and Climate Change in Pacific Island Countries, written by the same group.3

First author Lachlan McIver, an associate professor in the College of Public Health, Medical, and Veterinary Sciences at Australia’s James Cook University, says that when teams of climate change and health consultants began their assessment in 2011, not many regions or countries had undertaken vulnerability and adaptation assessments or been able to derive results and act upon them, “so we were really on a bit of a crest of the wave in that sense.” He says the teams found that not all “best practices” described in the literature for assessing climate change health vulnerabilities actually worked in practice in the Pacific island countries due, in part, to a lack of data in some countries. Thus, he says, the consultants found they had to be flexible and use both quantitative and qualitative methods in their research and analysis.

The authors examined 13 Pacific island countries in terms of 3 categories of climate-related health concerns that they termed “direct,” “indirect,” and “diffuse.” Direct effects included physical and psychological trauma related to an extreme weather event such as a hurricane or a heat wave. Indirect effects included increased burdens of disease resulting from climate-related disruption—for instance, a rise in vector-borne diseases if ecological disruption were to create conditions favorable to the spread of pathogen-carrying pests. Finally, diffuse effects included increased mental health problems, injuries, and violent deaths that could result as societal dysfunction unfolds; this unfolding would be due to such phenomena as loss of livelihood or a lack of basic resources including water, food, and housing.2

The teams worked with stakeholders in each country to develop lists of their highest-priority climate-sensitive health risks then decide which ones to address in their adaptation plans. Some countries chose to include all relevant risks; others picked just those deemed to be the greatest threat. Because of that variation, the report contains this caveat: “The climate-sensitive health risks presented … should be considered a synthesis of each country’s priorities rather than a true cross-country comparison of risks.”2

Most countries placed water security, food security, vector-borne diseases, and direct health impacts of extreme weather events among their top priorities. Pacific island populations also face a unique climate-related health risk in terms of their extremely high levels of noncommunicable diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. Noncommunicable diseases are already leading causes of death in these populations,4 partly because of a high dependence on energy-dense, high-calorie imported foods rather than locally grown products.5 In an example of a diffuse effect, climate change could exacerbate these trends because higher temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, and sea level rise will make it even more difficult to grow local food; increased reliance on imported foods could, in turn, lead to food insecurity.2

Kathryn Bowen, a senior research fellow at the Australian National University, says the work was an important first step. …….

For coauthor Kristie Ebi, a professor of environmental and occupational health science at the University of Washington, the concern is whether there will be enough outside funding to help these nations implement their plans. “These islands are suffering the consequences of climate change, and they’re not responsible for it,” she says. “Their total greenhouse gas emissions are tiny … so to ask them to take on [the health burdens associated with climate change] without additional funding really isn’t fair.” http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/124-A208/

November 4, 2016 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, health, OCEANIA | Leave a comment

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