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20% drop in patient’s radiation dose achieved by U.S. radiologists

November 18, 2019 Posted by | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Tritium and other radionuclides are hazardous,even in transport and storage

Zac Eagle Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia, 11 Nov 19, 
This is from the International Atomic Energy Agency admitting some radionuclides will be released into the environment even in Storage!

“The specific aims of disposal are:

(c) To inhibit, reduce and delay the migration of radionuclides at any time from
the waste to the accessible biosphere;

(d) To ensure that the amounts of radionuclides reaching the accessible
biosphere due to any migration from the disposal facility are such that
possible radiological consequences are acceptably low at all times.”

Some radionuclides can NOT be contained as they will diffuse in transport and storage, eg tritium.

Tritium is a carcinogen (causes cancer), teratogen (causes deformations of the embryo during pregnancy) and mutagen (causes mutations to DNA). Even very low rates of tritium exposure can lead to cancer, leukemia, and birth defects. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/

November 12, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Radiation map of Fukushima now launched in English, in lead-up to Olympic Games

Citizens’ group in Fukushima puts out radiation map in English, Asahi Shimbun, By SHINICHI SEKIN E/ Staff Writer, November 3, 2019    FUKUSHIMA—A citizens’ group here has released an English radiation-level map for eastern Japan created with input from 4,000 volunteers in response to requests from abroad ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

“We want people outside Japan to understand the reality of radioactive contamination following the nuclear accident,” said Nahoko Nakamura, a representative of Minna-No Data Site (Everyone’s Data Site), which published the map……

Titled “Citizens’ Radiation Data Map of Japan,” the 16-page booklet summarizes the content of the original Japanese map, released in November last year. It also shows projected declines in radiation levels by 2041.

The Japanese version was based on results of land contamination surveys conducted over three years at the request of Everyone’s Data Site.

About 4,000 volunteers took soil samples at 3,400 locations in 17 prefectures in eastern Japan, including Fukushima and Tokyo, and measured radiation levels. The map was compiled with advice from experts…… http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201911030001.html

November 4, 2019 Posted by | Japan, radiation | Leave a comment

Dispute between Japan and South Korea, over radiation levels in Fukushima food exports

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Japan, radiation, South Korea | Leave a comment

The radiation poisoning of Iraq lingers on

“The destruction of a society”: First the U.S. invaded Iraq — then we left it poisoned      Scientist: Bombs, bullets and military hardware abandoned by U.S. forces have left Iraq “toxic for millennia”, Salon.com  DAVID MASCIOTRA  7 Sept 19

The political and moral culture of the United States allows for bipartisan cooperation to destroy an entire country, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process, without even the flimsiest of justification. Then, only a few years later, everyone can act as if it never happened.

In 2011, the U.S. withdrew most of its military personnel from Iraq, leaving the country in ruins. Estimates of the number of civilians who died during the war in Iraq range from 151,000 to 655,000. An additional 4,491 American military personnel perished in the war. Because the bombs have stopped falling from the sky and the invasion and occupation of Iraq no longer makes headlines, Americans likely devote no thought to the devastation that occurred in their name.

With the exception of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is currently polling at or below 2 percent, no candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has consistently addressed the criminality, cruelty and cavalier wastefulness of American foreign policy. Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the race, not only supported the war in Iraq — despite his recent incoherent claims to the contrary — but as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee acted as its most effective and influential salesman in the Democratic Party.

The blasé attitude of America toward the death and destruction it creates, all while boasting of its benevolence, cannot withstand the scrutiny of science. Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan and recipient of the Rachel Carson Prize, has led several investigative expeditions in Iraq to determine how the pollutants and toxic chemicals from the U.S.-led war are poisoning Iraq’s people and environment. The health effects are catastrophic, and will remain so long after the war reached its official end.

I previously interviewed Savabieasfahani about her initial research, and recently acquired an update regarding her team’s latest discovery that there is a close correlation between proximity to a U.S. military base and birth defects in Iraqi children.

Average Americans, even many who opposed the war in Iraq, seem to believe that once the military campaign is over the casualties of war stop accumulating. What is the purpose of your general research regarding the toxicity of the Iraqi environment resulting from American bombs, munitions and other materials? How does the American invasion and occupation continue to adversely affect the health of Iraqis?

Bombs and bullets have been used on an extreme scale in Iraq. Dropping tons of bombs and releasing millions of bullets leaves toxic residues the in air, water and soil of the targeted population. These pollutants continue to poison those populations years after the bombing stops

What’s more, the United States imported thousands of tons of military equipment into Iraq to use in their occupation. They include, tanks, trucks, bombers, armored vehicles, infantry weapons, antiaircraft systems, artillery and mortars — some of which are coated with depleted uranium, and much more. These eventually find their way into U.S. military junkyards which remain across Iraq.

There are unknown numbers of military junkyards scattered across the Iraqi landscape.

Fluctuations in temperature facilitates the rusting and weathering of military junk, releasing toxic pollutants [including radioactive uranium compounds, neurotoxic lead and mercury, etc.] into the Iraqi environment.

Uranium and its related compounds remain toxic for millennia and poison local populations through food, air and water contamination.

The exposure of pregnant mothers to the pollutions of war, including uranium and thorium, irreversibly damages their unborn children. We found thorium, a product of depleted uranium decay, in the hair of Iraqi children with birth defects who lived in Nasiriyah and Ur City, near a U.S. military base. 

The destruction of a society does not stop after U.S. bombs stop falling. Environmental contamination which the U.S. leaves behind continues to destroy our environment and poison our people decades after the bombs have stopped falling. The U.S. has a long history of irreversibly destroying human habitats. That must end…….

Forty-four years after U.S. forces left Vietnam, there are still Vietnamese babies born with birth defects from the American military’s use of Agent Orange. How long do you believe Iraqis will continue to suffer from the American-led war?

If left unmitigated, the population will be permanently exposed to elevated toxic exposures which can impact the Iraqi gene pool.

Through the use of the scientific method, you are gaining the ability to identify a severe problem in Iraq. Considering that the problem is a result of the U.S. invasion, what could the U.S. do to solve or at least mitigate the problem?

The U.S. must be held responsible and forced to clean up all the sites which it has polluted. Technology exists for the cleanup of radiation contamination. The removal and disposal of U.S.-created military junkyards would go a long way towards cleaning toxic releases out of the Iraqi environment.

You are a scientist, not a political analyst, but you must have some thoughts regarding the political implications of your work. How do you react to the lack of substantive conversation about the consequences of war in American politics and the press, and the American establishment’s evasion of responsibility on this issue?

I expect nothing from the American political establishment or their propaganda machines which masquerade as “news media” and feed uncritically off State Department press briefings.

Fortunately, there is a movement to criminalize environmental contamination caused by war. Damage to nature and the human environment must be considered a war crime.

Scientists are currently asking international lawmakers to adopt a fifth Geneva Convention which would recognize damage to nature as a war crime, alongside other war crimes. I hope that will make a difference in our ability to protect human lives and our environment. ……  https://www.salon.com/2019/09/07/the-destruction-of-a-society-first-the-u-s-invaded-iraq-then-we-left-it-poisoned/

September 9, 2019 Posted by | environment, Iraq, radiation, social effects, USA | Leave a comment

Harm to astronauts’ brains from space radiation

Space Radiation Will Damage Mars Astronauts’ Brains, Space.com By Mike Wall 9 Aug 19, Space radiation will take a toll on astronauts’ brains during the long journey to Mars, a new study suggests.

Mice exposed for six months to the radiation levels prevalent in interplanetary space exhibited serious memory and learning impairments, and they became more anxious and fearful as well, the study reports.

The trip to Mars takes six to nine months one way with current propulsion technology. So, these results should ring a cautionary bell for NASA and other organizations that aim to send people to the Red Planet, study team members said.

These chronic low-dose-rate, low-dose-exposure scenarios are going to increase the risk of developing, perhaps, mission-critical performance deficits,” Limoli told Space.com. “What exactly those are, we’ll never know until we get out there.”

Researchers investigating the effects of deep-space radiation have historically given lab animals acute doses — high levels over a relatively short period of time. But Limoli and his colleagues — led by Munjal Acharya and Janet Baulch of UCI’s Department of Radiation Oncology and Peter Klein of Stanford University’s Department of Neurosurgery — took a different tack.

Using a neutron-irradiation facility, they exposed 40 mice to 1 milligray of radiation per day (1 mGy/day) for six months, about the same dose and duration that astronauts would experience on a trip to or from Mars. (Astronauts in low Earth orbit are exposed to lower doses, because they’re protected by our planet’s magnetosphere.)

“This is the first study that’s looked at space-relevant dose rates,” Limoli said. “And this is the first study to analyze the consequences of the low dose rate over the course of time on functional endpoints in the brain.”

The researchers analyzed the behavior of these mice over the course of the study, measuring the animals’ ability to learn and remember information, their willingness to interact with new mice introduced into their enclosure, and other variables. And at the end of the six months, the scientists euthanized the mice and studied their brains, looking for physiological changes.

All of these measurements and observations were compared with those gathered from a control group of 40 mice, which did not receive the 1 mGy/day dose.

The results were striking. Radiation-exposed mice exhibited more stress behaviors and a decreased ability to learn and remember. The physiological work bolstered these behavioral findings, identifying impaired cellular signaling in two key areas of the brain: the hippocampus, which is associated with learning and memory, and the prefrontal cortex, the site of many complex cognitive functions. …….https://www.space.com/space-radiation-damage-mars-astronauts-brains.html

August 10, 2019 Posted by | deaths by radiation, radiation, space travel | Leave a comment

Radiation research facility opens to public on anniversary of Hiroshima bombing to raise awareness of effects

Radiation research facility opens to public on anniversary of Hiroshima bombing to raise awareness of effects, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/08/05/national/radiation-research-facility-opens-public-anniversary-hiroshima-bombing/#.XUiq5m8zbIU  

KYODOm HIROSHIMA – A Japan-U.S. joint research organization opened one of its radiation research facilities in Hiroshima to the public Monday to raise awareness of the effects of radiation on human health, ahead of the anniversary on Tuesday of the atomic bombing of the city.Although the Hiroshima facility will only be open to the public for two days, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation will open another research facility in the city of Nagasaki on Thursday and Friday to coincide with the city’s Aug. 9 A-bomb anniversary.

This marks the 25th annual public opening of the facility in Minami Ward, Hiroshima. It aims to share research content and help the public better understand the health effects of radiation. The research facility has been collecting data from hibakusha since the institute was established in 1975, when it succeeded the research efforts of its predecessor, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission.

Some of the exhibition booths explain the risks of radiation, as well as the role of blood. Visitors can also experiment with freezing cells in liquid nitrogen for preservation, which tends to be popular with children when the experiment is successful.

“The (facility was) full of things I didn’t know were there, like health research on second generation hibakusha. Even as a Hiroshima resident, I learned a lot,” said Sanae Yamamoto, a 41-year-old housewife from Asakita Ward in the city who visited the facility with her children.

August 6, 2019 Posted by | Japan, radiation | Leave a comment

Major problem for astronauts – radiation damages mood and memory?

August 6, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation, space travel | 2 Comments

Sunken Soviet Sub leaking high levels of radiation, Norwegian researchers say

August 6, 2019 Posted by | environment, radiation, Russia | Leave a comment

Radiation effects on the “downwinders” and others close to nuclear weapons tests

The fallout of uncertainty in nuclear test communities   https://www.hcn.org/articles/nuclear-energy-the-fallout-of-uncertainty-in-nuclear-test-communities  

For downwinders of bomb testing, plans for compensation to redress past harms makes for tricky politics.   Aria Alamalhodaei Aug. 2, 2019,   The atomic bomb was born in the desert. In the early hours of July 16, 1945, after a spate of bad weather, a 20-kiloton plutonium-based nuke referred to as “the gadget” detonated near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Firsthand testimonies of the test, codenamed Trinity, converge on the uncanny axis of awe and dread. The Manhattan Project’s Chief of Field Operations, General Thomas Farrell, wrote that “the strong, sustained, awesome roar … warned of doomsday and made us feel that we puny things were blasphemous.”

The bomb produced a massive cloud column that drifted in several directions, dusting large swaths of the surrounding region with radioactive snow – fallout that settled on buildings, plants, and animals, and that continued to permeate the air as invisible particulate in the weeks and months that followed. Five years later, the Nevada Test Site was established to continue the work that Trinity set alight.
Although the mushroom cloud became the icon of American nuclear activity in the 20th century, the harms of these bombs did not fade with their dimming fireballs. No group in the U.S. understands this better than the downwinders, communities throughout the American Southwest and beyond who were exposed to the fallout of the military’s domestic nuclear test program.
In 1990, the U.S. government passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which provided financial remuneration to downwinders who had contracted cancer or other illnesses linked to radiation exposure. (The law also provided compensation for certain on-site test participants and uranium miners.) As of April 2018, the program had awarded more than $2.2 billion to some 34,370 claimants.
As the law was written, however, only downwinders in specific counties in Arizona, Utah, and Nevada were eligible for compensation. Even residents of New Mexico, the site of the Trinity test, were excluded. Since the law was passed, studies and fallout reconstructions have suggested that the health impacts of the nuclear tests likely extend to areas as far away as Idaho, Montana and Guam. Residents in those far-flung locales have provided vivid testimonies of glowing dust, strange maladies befalling livestock, and cancer clusters ravaging whole families.
For more than a decade, civic groups have lobbied lawmakers, unsuccessfully, to open RECA to a broader population of downwinders. That Congress has so far balked at those proposals is a testament to many factors; legislative decisions are informed not only by science but by moral and political calculus. But lawmakers’ inability to come to terms on who suffered, and on who deserves reparations for that suffering, points to a little discussed weak spot of modern politics: its uneasy relationship with uncertainty.
RECA’S COMPACT DELIMITATION OF “affected areas” was based on dose estimates produced by the Department of Energy’s Off-Site Radiation Exposure Review Project — a complicated calculation that drew from atmospheric transport models, reconstructions of fallout patterns, and reports of dosimeters and other radiation recorders. The bill was amended once, in 2000, to include a larger population of uranium workers and to expand the time frame, eligible diseases, and geographic locations covered. Two years later, in response to a congressional mandate, the Health Resources and Services Administration commissioned the National Research Council (NRC) to review the RECA program and determine if additional populations should be covered. Their final report was published in 2005. Based in part on mortality and disease-incidence data on atomic bomb survivors in Japan, uranium miners in the U.S., and Utah schoolchildren exposed to fallout from the Nevada Test Site, the committee concluded that in most cases involving downwinders who had been excluded from RECA, “it is unlikely that exposure to radiation from fallout was a substantial cause to developing cancer.”
But radiation epidemiology is a science of uncertainty, and tracing a person’s illness to a single exposure event can be challenging even in seemingly clear-cut cases. Although high doses of radiation are known to lead to disease and death, the effects of lower doses are far less predictable. Moreover, an individual’s radiation dose — the amount of radiation that he or she internalizes — depends on the person’s age, sex, diet, and pre-existing risk factors; weather conditions; and the characteristics of the nuclear event itself. Extrapolating results from one nuclear event to another, as the NRC study did, is bound to introduce some error.
Consider the Trinity test, which has been consistently ignored by lawmakers. According to the Los Alamos Historical Document Retrieval and Assessment (LAHDRA), conducted in 2010 for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, previous efforts to determine exposures from Trinity ignored the specific characteristics that distinguished it from all other subsequent tests. Unlike tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site, the Trinity “gadget” detonated only 100 feet from the ground. At this height, more organic material would’ve been swept into the explosion and returned to the earth as fallout. Another compounding factor was the relative inefficiency of the device. Of the 13 pounds of fissile material contained in the device, only about 2.6 pounds exploded; the rest was dispersed into the environment, where it remained radioactive.
The LAHDRA report also faulted previous studies for failing to adequately account for internal exposure, caused by the inhalation or ingestion of radioactive material. Research shows that internal exposure is significantly more harmful to the human body than the external exposure that occurs, say, when X-rays or other high-energy radiation penetrate the skin. Internal dosages are influenced by occupation, diet, local environment, and other sociodemographic factors. Any assessment that does not account for those factors is incomplete. And, according to the LAHDRA report, no assessment has properly accounted for the internal radiation dosages experienced by residents near the Trinity site. 
 
In the case of the Trinity test, there’s reason to believe that sociodemographic factors would have been significant. During the 1940s, New Mexican communities were largely agrarian; most people were farmers or ranchers who grew their food, hunted and fished, and drank water collected from cisterns or holding ponds. If those sources were contaminated, residents would likely have been at an increased risk for radiation-linked illnesses.
LAST SUMMER, MEMBERS OF THE NEW MEXICO community organization Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC), along with representatives from the Navajo Nation, argued in a Senate Judiciary hearing for amending RECA. Stated TBDC co-founder Tina Cordova, “The New Mexico downwinders are the collateral damage that resulted from the development and testing of the first atomic bomb.” 
Their appeals appear to have fallen on receptive ears. This March, a bipartisan coalition of U.S. Senators, including New Mexico Senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, reintroduced Senate Bill 947 (S. 947), “Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2019.” It is the most recent in a long line of bills that attempt to expand the RECA’s coverage. Among other changes, it seeks coverage for downwinders in New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, and Guam. A companion was introduced in the House in July.

Meanwhile, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is currently conducting a three-phase study on the diet and lifestyles of mid-century New Mexicans. The models generated in this study may help scientists draw firmer links between present day cancer cases and the Trinity test. In an email, NCI spokesperson Michael Levin confirmed that the results of the study are anticipated to be published in late 2019.

Like other epidemiological studies of its size, the NCI’s study has been expensive to run and frustratingly time-intensive. And time is precisely what many downwinders feel they don’t have. More than 70 years has passed since the Trinity test. Many downwinders have passed away or are battling cancers and other diseases. Over time, it becomes increasingly difficult to demonstrate that a disease was caused by nuclear fallout rather than, say, cigarettes or bad luck.

The government, meanwhile, plods along at its own pace, unconstrained by the length of a single lifetime or the distressing span between a diagnosis and its terminal conclusion. In response to a news article about S.947 posted to the Idaho Downwinders public Facebook page, one commenter wrote, “The government are just waiting for all of us to die off so they won’t have to be bothered with it.”
In its 2005 review of the RECA law, the National Research Council stated that, although scientific recommendations were meant to inform policy, the “attendant policy decisions must come from the larger body of citizenry” and “applying this new scientific knowledge may require additional societal value-based decisions.” This is particularly true of probability-based information on cancer epidemiology. When there is simply not enough data available to definitively estimate risk, the question of compensating the citizens who live in the long shadow of the nuclear testing era becomes a moral one: How much uncertainty can we stand?

August 3, 2019 Posted by | radiation, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

New research: 2017 radioactive cloud traced to an unacknowledged nuclear accident in southern Russia

Mysterious Radiation Cloud Over Europe Traced to Secret Russian Nuclear Accident   https://www.livescience.com/66050-radiation-cloud-secret-russian-nuclear-accident.html  By Tom Metcalfe, Live Science Contributor | July 29, 2019 A vast cloud of nuclear radiation that spreadover continental Europe in 2017 has been traced to an unacknowledged nuclear accident in southern Russia, according to an international team of scientists.

The experts say the cloud of radiation detected over Europe in late September 2017 could only have been caused by a nuclear fuel-reprocessing accident at the Mayak Production Association, a nuclear facility in the Chelyabinsk region of the Ural Mountains in Russia, sometime between noon on Sept. 26 and noon on Sept. 27.

Russia confirmed that a cloud of nuclear radiation was detected over the Urals at the time, but the country never acknowledged any responsibility for a radiation leak, nor has it ever admitted that a nuclear accident took place at Mayak in 2017. [Top 10 Greatest Explosions Ever]

The lead author of the new research, nuclear chemist Georg Steinhauser of Leibniz University in Hanover, Germany, said that more than 1,300 atmospheric measurements from around the world showed that between 250 and 400 terabecquerels of radioactive ruthenium-106 had been released during that time.

Ruthenium-106 is a radioactive isotope of ruthenium, meaning that it has a different number of neutrons in its nucleus than the naturally occurring element has. The isotope can be produced as a byproduct during nuclear fission of uranium-235 atoms.

Although the resulting cloud of nuclear radiation was diluted enough that it caused no harm to people beneath it, the total radioactivity was between 30 and 100 times the level of radiation released after the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011, Steinhauser told Live Science.

The research was published today (July 29) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ruthenium release

The cloud of radiation in September 2017 was detected in central and eastern Europe, Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and even the Caribbean.

Only radioactive ruthenium-106 — a byproduct of nuclear fission, with a half-life of 374 days — was detected in the cloud — Steinhauser said.

During the reprocessing of nuclear fuel — when radioactive plutonium and uranium are separated from spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power reactors — ruthenium-106 is typically separated out and placed into long-term storage with other radioactive waste byproducts, he said.

That meant that any massive release of ruthenium could only come from an accident during nuclear fuel reprocessing; and the Mayak facility was one of only a few places in the world that carries out that sort of reprocessing, he said.

Advanced meteorological studies made as part of this new research showed that the radiation cloud could only have come from the Mayak facility in Russia. “They have done a very thorough analysis and they have pinned down Mayak — there is no doubt about it,” he said.

The accident came a little more than 60 years since a nuclear accident at Mayak in 1957 caused one of the largest releases of radiation in the region’s history, second only to the 1986 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which is now in the Ukraine. [Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster 25 Years Later (Infographic)]

In the 1957 accident, known as the Kyshtym disaster after a nearby town, a tank of liquid nuclear waste at the Mayak facility exploded, spreading radioactive particles over the site and causing a radioactive plume of smoke that stretched for hundreds of miles.

Nuclear accident

The study showed that the 2017 accident at Mayak was unlikely to have been caused by a relatively simple release of radioactive gas, Steinhauser said. Rather, a fire, or even an explosion, might have exposed workers at the plant to harmful levels of radiation, he added.

Russia has not acknowledged that any accident occurred at the Mayak facility, maybe because plutonium is made there for thermonuclear weapons. However, Russia had established a commission to investigate the radioactive cloud, Steinhauser said.

The Russian commission ruled that there was not enough evidence to determine if a nuclear accident was responsible for the cloud. But Steinhauser and his team hope it may look again at this decision in the light of the new research.

“They came to the conclusion that they need more data,” he said. “And so we feel like, okay, now you can have all of our data — but we would like to see yours as well.”

Any information from Russia about an accident at the Mayak facility would help scientists refine their research, instead of having to rely only on measurements of radioactivity from around the world, Steinhauser said.

The international team of scientists involved are keenly interested in learning more about its causes. “When everybody else is concerned, we are almost cheering for joy, because we have something to measure,” he said. “But it is our responsibility to learn from this accident. This is not about blaming Russia, but it is about learning our lessons,” he said.

July 30, 2019 Posted by | incidents, radiation, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Problematic issue of cremation of radioactive bodies

A Dead Man Was Cremated in Arizona Without Anyone Realising He Was Radioactive, Science Alert PETER DOCKRILL, 28 JUL 2019

In 2017, a 69-year-old man with pancreatic cancer went to hospital with abnormally low blood pressure. Sadly, he died only two days later, and his remains were cremated.

What nobody at the hospital or the crematorium knew, was that this hadn’t been the man’s only recent trip to hospital. ust one day earlier, in fact, he had been injected with a radioactive compound at another hospital to treat his tumour – and when his mortal remains were incinerated, this radioactive and potentially dangerous dose of lutetium Lu 177 dotatate was still inside his body.

This alarming case, reported in a research letter published in February this year, illustrates the collateral risks potentially posed by on average 18.6 million nuclear medicine procedures involving radiopharmaceuticals performed in the US every year.

While rules regulate how these drugs are administered to living patients, the picture can become less clear when those patients die, thanks to a patchwork of different laws and standards in each state – not to mention situations like the 69-year-old man, whose radioactive status simply slipped through the cracks.

“Radiopharmaceuticals present a unique and often overlooked postmortem safety challenge,” researchers from the Mayo Clinic explained in a case note.

“Cremating an exposed patient volatilises the radiopharmaceutical, which can then be inhaled by workers (or released into the adjacent community) and result in greater exposure than from a living patient.”……..

Given more than half of all Americans eventually get cremated, postmortem management of individuals who receive radioactive drugs is an area the US health system needs to work on, the researchers say.

This includes better ways of evaluating radioactivity in deceased patients (prior to them being cremated), and also standardising ways of notifying crematoriums about their clients.

After all, nobody really has any idea how often this is happening.

As nuclear scientist Marco Kaltofen from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, who wasn’t involved with the research, told BuzzFeed News: “They only happened to catch this one case because normally they don’t look.”

The findings were reported in JAMA. https://www.sciencealert.com/a-dead-man-was-cremated-in-arizona-without-anyone-knowing-he-was-radioactive

July 29, 2019 Posted by | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

New research shows how low dose ionising radiation promotes cancer

Low doses of radiation promote cancer-capable cells, Science Daily 

New research in mice helps to understand the risks around exposure to low doses of radiation, such as CT scans and X-rays

Date
July 18, 2019
Source:
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Summary:
New research finds that low doses of radiation equivalent to three CT scans, which are considered safe, give cancer-capable cells a competitive advantage over normal cells.

Low doses of radiation equivalent to three CT scans, which are considered safe, give cancer-capable cells a competitive advantage over normal cells in healthy tissue, scientists have discovered. Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge studied the effects of low doses of radiation in the esophagus of mice.

The team found that low doses of radiation increase the number of cells with mutations in p53, a well-known genetic change associated with cancer. However, giving the mice an antioxidant before radiation promoted the growth of healthy cells, which outcompeted and replaced the p53 mutant cells.

The results, published today (18 July) in Cell Stem Cell show that low doses of radiation promote the spread of cancer-capable cells in healthy tissue. Researchers recommend that this risk should be considered in assessing radiation safety. The study also offers the possibility of developing non-toxic preventative measures to cut the risk of developing cancer by bolstering our healthy cells to outcompete and eradicate cancer-capable cells……..

Low doses of radiation equivalent to three CT scans, which are considered safe, give cancer-capable cells a competitive advantage over normal cells in healthy tissue, scientists have discovered. Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge studied the effects of low doses of radiation in the esophagus of mice.

The team found that low doses of radiation increase the number of cells with mutations in p53, a well-known genetic change associated with cancer. However, giving the mice an antioxidant before radiation promoted the growth of healthy cells, which outcompeted and replaced the p53 mutant cells.

The results, published today (18 July) in Cell Stem Cell show that low doses of radiation promote the spread of cancer-capable cells in healthy tissue. Researchers recommend that this risk should be considered in assessing radiation safety. The study also offers the possibility of developing non-toxic preventative measures to cut the risk of developing cancer by bolstering our healthy cells to outcompete and eradicate cancer-capable cells…….

Dr Kasumi Murai, an author from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “Giving mice an antioxidant before exposing them to low doses of radiation gave healthy cells the extra boost needed to fight against the mutant cells in the esophagus and make them disappear. However, we don’t know the effect this therapy would have in other tissues — it could help cancer-capable cells elsewhere become stronger. What we do know is that long term use of antioxidants alone is not effective in preventing cancer in people, according to other studies.” … https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190718150933.htm

July 20, 2019 Posted by | radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Future space travellers will be, in reality, radiation guinea pigs

Space radiation hasn’t contributed to astronaut mortality — yet, study shows

An analysis of all living and dead astronauts and cosmonauts shows that radiation hasn’t contributed meaningfully to their mortality rates. Astronomy, By Korey Haynes , July 5, 2019 “ …………   they found no trend in the deaths suggesting any common cause, meaning radiation didn’t play a major role in the health outcomes of the astronauts and cosmonauts they studied.

Of course, this doesn’t mean humans are in the clear.

“We would expect that at some level of dose there should be adverse health effects,” Reynolds says. “We keep getting the answer ‘no.’ This doesn’t mean radiation isn’t harmful or greater doses wouldn’t be. But so far the doses have been low enough that we don’t see anything.”

That’s probably because the vast majority of space farers so far have spent most or all of their time in Earth orbit, where Earth’s magnetic fields still protect them from the majority of harmful space radiation. Only those 24 astronauts who ventured to the Moon went beyond Earth’s radiation protection, and they stayed for just a few days.

Reynolds says that it’s difficult to draw meaningful results from that tiny sub-sample of people.

By contrast, a Mars mission might last multiple years, and would take place almost entirely beyond Earth’s shielding.

Other researchers are looking at alternative ways of testing the dangers of radiation exposure. But it’s possible that the next round of human space explorers will be guinea pigs, much like the first generation, and only time will tell how radiation has affected them.http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/07/space-radiation-hasnt-contributed-to-astronaut-mortality–yet-study-shows

July 18, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation, space travel | Leave a comment

A heightened solar cycle, by chance, reduced the exposure of Apollo astronauts to space radiation

Space radiation: the Apollo crews were extremely lucky  The Conversation, Jim Wild
Professor of Space Physics, Lancaster UniversityJuly 17, 2019   “………..  There is potentially harmful radiation in space. So how did the astronauts survive it?

The term “radiation” is used to describe energy that is emitted in the form of electromagnetic waves and/or particles. Humans can perceive some forms of electromagnetic radiation: visible light can be seen and infrared radiation (heat) can be felt.

Meanwhile, other varieties of radiation such as radio waves, X-rays and gamma rays are not visible and require special equipment to be observed. Worryingly, when high energy (ionising) radiation encounters matter, it can cause changes at the atomic level, including in our bodies.

There are a several sources of ionising radiation in space. The sun continuously pours out electromagnetic radiation across all wavelengths – especially as visible, infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Occasionally, enormous explosions on the solar surface known as solar flares release massive amounts of X-rays and gamma rays into space, as well as energetic electrons and protons (which make up the atomic nucleus along with neutrons). These events can pose a hazard to astronauts and their equipment even at distances as far from the sun as Earth, the moon and Mars.

Potentially dangerous radiation in space also originates from outside our solar system. Galactic cosmic rays are high energy, electrically charged atomic fragments that travel at nearly the speed of light and arrive from all directions in space.

On Earth, we are protected from most of this ionising radiation. The Earth’s strong magnetic field forms the magnetosphere, a protective bubble that diverts most dangerous radiation away, while the Earth’s thick atmosphere absorbs the rest.

But above the atmosphere, the magnetosphere traps energetic subatomic particles in two radiation regions. These “Van Allen belts” comprise an inner and outer torus of electrically charged particles.

Lucky escape

So how did NASA solve the problem of crossing the Van Allen belts? The short answer is they didn’t. To get to the moon, a spacecraft needs to be travelling quickly to climb far enough away from the Earth such that it can be captured by the moon’s gravity. The trans-lunar orbit that the Apollo spacecraft followed from the Earth to the moon took them through the inner and outer belts in just a few hours.

Although the aluminium skin of the Apollo spacecraft needed to be thin to be lightweight, it would have offered some protection. Models of the radiation belts developed in the run-up to the Apollo flights indicated that the passage through the radiation belts would not pose a significant threat to astronaut health. And, sure enough, documents from the period show that monitoring badges worn by the crews and analysed after the missions indicated that the astronauts typically received doses roughly less than that received during a standard CT scan of your chest.

But that is not the end of the story. To get to the moon and safely back home, the Apollo astronauts not only had to cross the Van Allen belts, but also the quarter of a million miles between the Earth and the moon – a flight that typically took around three days each way.

They also needed to operate safely while in orbit around the moon and on the lunar surface. During the Apollo missions, the spacecraft were outside the Earth’s protective magnetosphere for most of their flight. As such, they and their crews were vulnerable to unpredictable solar flares and events and the steady flux of galactic cosmic rays.

The crewed Apollo flights actually coincided with the height of a solar cycle, the periodic waxing and waning of activity that occurs every 11 years. Given that solar flares and solar energetic particle events are more common during times of heightened solar activity, this might seem like a cavalier approach to astronaut safety.

There is no doubt that the political imperative in the 1960s to put US astronauts on the moon “in this decade” was the primary driving factor in the mission timing, but there are counterintuitive benefits to spaceflight during solar activity maxima. The increased strength of the sun’s magnetic field that permeates the solar system acts like an umbrella – shielding the Earth, moon and planets from galactic cosmic rays and therefore lessening the impact on astronaut radiation doses.  https://theconversation.com/space-radiation-the-apollo-crews-were-extremely-lucky-120339

July 18, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation, space travel, USA | Leave a comment

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