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Age and Sex Bias in Radiation Research

Age and Sex Bias in Radiation Research—and How to Overcome It http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/60/4/466.full, 1 Apr 19, Britta Langen, Department of Radiation Physics, Institute of Clinical Sciences, Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

For correspondence or reprints contact: Britta Langen, Department of Radiation Physics, University of Gothenburg, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gula stråket 2B, SE-413 45 Gothenburg, Sweden. E-mail: britta.langen@gu.se

Basic research is the driving force behind medical progress. As successful as this relation has been, an intrinsic dilemma persists to this day: each study design frames reality—yet the conclusions seek general validity. This dilemma crystallizes into major bias when conclusions are based on selected groups that do not represent the reality of biologic diversity. Ironically, while striving for a future of highly personalized treatments, we have overlooked the obvious features that make an individual, stratify a cohort, and influence outcome: age and sex.

A current example of this issue are molecular biomarkers that may bring the next quantum leap in clinical practice. Biomarkers such as transcripts, proteins, or metabolites can easily be sampled from blood, quantified, and used for biologic dosimetry, risk estimation for postradiation therapy diseases, or screening in radiation hazard events. Still, most studies that use novel “omics” or “next-gen” methods for screening harbor pitfalls similar to previous methodologies and neglect age and sex as important factors. This can compromise the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of biomarkers, leading to erroneous diagnosis and treatment planning.

Sex bias in biomedical research is not a new revelation (1). Surprisingly, it stems not only from the use of single-sex cohorts but also from omitting sex as a factor altogether. Although other fields, such as neuroscience research, have started to tackle this issue (2), it remains largely unaddressed and underrepresented in radiation biology and related medical fields. For instance, sex-specific radiation sensitivity is known in principle yet is rarely considered in study designs beyond this particular research question. The bias in our knowledge base becomes even more worrisome when considering the nonlinearity of age between humans and mice (3). Do we relate age according to sexual maturity, onset of senescence, or total life span? It is reasonable to assume that the answer is, “depending on the research question and biologic endpoint.” However, this issue is usually neglected altogether and the age of the animal is chosen for purely practical reasons. Recently, research on age and sex bias has shown that radiation responses can differ largely between male and female mice, as well as between adolescent and adult specimens (4). If only one group had been used in the proteomic screening for blood-based biomarkers, the conclusions on dose–response would differ and poorly represent radiobiologic effects for other sex and age groups. Most importantly: if neglected, the bias would remain unknown and create large uncertainties that ultimately lead to avoidable risks for patients in radiotherapy and nuclear medicine.

It will be difficult to update our knowledge base to consider these basic factors systematically; in the end, a large body of evidence will still include age and sex biases. Nevertheless, the sooner we start taking action to overcome age and sex bias in our field, the less will misleading information contaminate the knowledge base. Each of us can partake in this effort according to our opportunities. For example, researchers can plan studies with male and female cohorts, principal investigators can establish such cohorts as the group standard, and manuscripts and grant applications can address these possible biases and highlight measures on how to control them. Reviewers can identify age and sex bias and consider it a methodologic limitation, and editors can establish submission forms that require disclosure of age and sex as preclinical study parameters. Lecturers can inform about these potential biases in research and raise students’ awareness when working with source material. Finally, students and PhD candidates can take initiative and, if presented with biased data or methodologies, address age and sex as important factors.

Undoubtedly, using both male and female cohorts and different age groups in research is resource-intensive. It is paramount that funding agencies support these efforts by rewarding points for rigorous research designs that consider age and sex as essential factors. Some large international funding agencies have already started to include dedicated sections on the age and sex dimension in grant applications, but this change needs to be consistent across all funding bodies on the national and regional levels.

By committing to a higher methodologic standard, we can reduce critical bias in our field and in radiation research as a whole. Ultimately, our effort will increase the quality of diagnosis and treatment and improve the odds for therapeutic success for every patient.

April 1, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, radiation, Reference, women | Leave a comment

Manual For Survival – A Chernobyl Guide to the Future

Science 6th March 2019 Two decades after Chernobyl, the International

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations (UN) Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation stated that “fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers,” because radiation levels were considered too low to have caused any detectable harm. This conclusion was based on data derived from the atomic bomb survivors life-span study, a program that began in 1950 to document the long-term health effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian scientists vehemently disputed this assessment, estimating Chernobyl-linked fatalities in the hundreds of thousands. The UN agencies later recognized a broader spectrum of Chernobyl-related health effects,
yet the idea that there were no long-term consequences to human health proved hard to dislodge.

The UN-WHO-IAEA assessment was repeated in many venues and was cited by journalists as a scientific consensus. After the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, residents in the affected region were told by experts from many of the same international institutions that there would be no direct long-term health effects because their radiation exposure was low.

Because there was no post-Chernobyl equivalent to the atomic bomb survivors life-span study, the argument went, the data on the Japanese survivors remained the gold standard of international nuclear regulations.

The notion that no such data existed, however, was not entirely true as regards Chernobyl. Kate Brown’s meticulously researched Manual for Survival is the first environmental and medical history that recovers decades-long efforts of scientists and doctors in Ukraine and Belarus to document the long-term health impacts from the Chernobyl meltdown.

Unlike the Japanese atomic bomb survivors life-span study, which began 5 years after the exposure, Soviet doctors worked in contaminated areas right after the Chernobyl accident—many of these areas populated by people who didn’t
know that they were exposed to radiation. Over the years, Soviet scientists amassed vast evidence of a broad range of debilitating health effects from low-level radiation, including cancers; anemia; gastrointestinal problems; and severe disorders of the liver, kidneys, thyroid, and other organs.

The individuals who collected these data risked their careers and lives, enduring harassment from regional politicians and Soviet secret police and accumulating radioactive isotopes in their own bodies.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2019/03/06/manual-for-survival/

March 12, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, resources - print, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Along the 2020 Olympics torch route in Japan – higher radiation levels

Atomic Balm Part 1: Prime Minister Abe Uses The Tokyo Olympics As Snake Oil Cure For The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Meltdowns March 01, 2019, Fairewinds Energy Education, By Arnie Gundersen “……….To determine whether or not Olympic athletes might be affected by fallout emanating from the disaster site, Dr. Marco Kaltofen and I were sponsored by Fairewinds Energy Education to look at Olympic venues during the fall of 2017.We took simple dirt and dust samples along the Olympic torch route as well as inside Fukushima’s Olympic stadium and as far away as Tokyo. When the Olympic torch route and Olympic stadium samples were tested, we found samples of dirt in Fukushima’s Olympic Baseball Stadium that were highly radioactive, registering 6,000 Bq/kg of Cesium, which is 3,000 times more radioactive than dirt in the US. We also found that simple parking lot radiation levels were 50-times higher there than here in the US.

Thirty of the dirt and fine dust samples that I took on my last two trips to Japan in February and March 2016 and September 2017 were analyzed at WPI (Worchester Polytechnic Institute. The WPI laboratory analysis are detailed in the report entitled: Measuring Radioactivity in Soil and Dust Samples from Japan, T. Pham, S. Franca and S. Nguyen, Worchester Polytechnic Institute, which found that:

With the upcoming XXXII Olympiad in 2020 hosted by Japan, it is necessary to look into the radioactivity of Olympic venues as well as tourist attractions in the host cities… Since thousands of athletes and millions of visitors are travelling to Japan for the Olympics, there has been widespread concern from the international community about radiation exposure. Therefore, it is important to investigate the extent of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Dai-ichi incident.

The measured results showed a much higher activity of Cesium-137 in the proposed torch route compared to other areas. Overall, the further away from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, the lower the radioactivity. The activity of Cesium-137 in Tokyo, the furthest site from the plant, was the lowest when compared to the other sites. Therefore, the activity of Cesium-137 in Tokyo sample was used as the baseline to qualitatively estimate the human exposure to radiation.

At the Azuma Sports Park, the soil and dust samples yielded a range of 78.1 Bq/kg to 6176.0 Bq/kg. This particular Olympic venue is around 90 km from the Nuclear Power Plant. The other sites that are closer to the Nuclear Power Plant like the tourist route, proposed torch route, and non-Olympic samples have higher amounts due to the close proximity to ground zero of the disaster.

… the proposed torch route samples had the highest mean radioactivity due to their close proximity to the plant. Based on the measurement, we estimated qualitatively that the radiation exposure of people living near the Azuma Sports Park area was 20.7 times higher than that of people living in Tokyo. The main tourist and proposed torch routes had radiation exposure of 24.6 and 60.6 times higher, respectively, than in Tokyo…. Olympic officials should consider using the results of this project to decide whether the radioactivity level at the proposed torch route and the Olympic venues are within acceptable level…… https://www.fairewinds.org/demystify/atomic-balm-part-1-prime-minister-abe-uses-the-tokyo-olympics-as-snake-oil-cure-for-the-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-meltdowns

March 2, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Japan, radiation | Leave a comment

Radiation in a crematorium traced back to a human body

It wasn’t enough radiation to be alarming, but it could be a sign of an ongoing problem The Verge By Rachel Becker Feb 26, 2019, 1A crematorium in Arizona became contaminated with radiation when workers cremated a man who had received radiation treatments for cancer right before he died, a new study reports. The findings highlight a potential safety gap for crematory workers, who might not know what’s in the body they’re cremating.

In this case, the radiation in the crematorium wasn’t significant enough to be worrying for the crematory worker’s health, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But the study also found clues that exposure to radioactive compounds from medical treatments may be an ongoing safety risk for crematory workers……..

It’s not an easy problem to fix. Manufacturers provide detailed instructions for handling the drug with patients who are alive, but not for ones that have died, Yu says. “It presents a unique safety challenge.” Detecting radioactive materials is more complicated than running a Geiger counter over the body. And there aren’t any federal regulations for what to do with a radiation-treated body, Yu says, so the laws change from state to state. ……https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/26/18241402/radiation-crematorium-arizona-radiopharmaceuticals-cancer-body-lutetium

March 2, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | employment, radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Trump administration accepting the greedy “radiation is good for you” group

These assertions stand scientific consensus on its head. Most experts say to the contrary that even low doses of radiation cause cell damage that years later can promote uncontrolled cell growth and replication, and that children and fetuses are particularly susceptible to harm. That seven-decade-old view was reaffirmed as recently as last April in a study by a congressionally chartered nonprofit organization, the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement.

The study, overseen by a dozen experts from the government, academia, and industry, and funded by the NRC, considered 29 contemporary scientific studies of the effects of low-dose radiation in reaffirming that even low-level radiation should be avoided to the extent possible.

RADIATION IS GOOD FOR YOU? THE FRINGE VIEWPOINT GAINS GROUND IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/radiation-is-good-for-you-the-heretical-view-gains-ground-under-trump/The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is actively considering claims that low-dose radiation protections should be lifted because exposures make you healthier, a potential boon to radiation-related industries.

Since World War II, virtually every American business where radiation is present – hospital emergency rooms and cancer wards, uranium mines, nuclear power plants, and others – has operated under rules generally requiring that exposures be kept as low as possible. The rules are based on a widely-accepted scientific dicta that even small amounts of extra radiation can be harmful to human health.

Following those rules, though, is costly and often cumbersome, and so the requirement for low-dose radiation protections – known as the ALARA standard for “as low as reasonably achievable” – has long been annoying to a large swath of American industry. Estimates of the costs associated with these protections run into the billions of dollars.

Until the Trump era, opponents of the rules have gotten little traction in trying to upend low-dose radiation protections – such as isolation units, elaborate shielding, specialized air cleaners, and elaborate worker training — in federal regulations. But proposed relaxations have been percolating in recent months, courtesy of a little-known advocacy group called Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information, or SARI.

Members of the group, which claims its ideas have been wrongly dismissed and belittled by mainstream scientists, subscribe to a minority theory known as “hormesis.” It defies conventional wisdom by holding that damaging things that are dangerous in high doses might actually be beneficial to human health in small doses.

Despite swimming against the tide in the past, one of the group’s members has just been appointed to head a Radiation Advisory Panel at the Environmental Protection Agency, which helps set federal standards for radiation doses received by the public and by workers. And several of its recommendations to ease radiation protections are presently under active consideration by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

SARI’s members typically have more day-to-day connections to radiation than others, and potentially more influence: They have held jobs connected to radiation protection at the EPA, the Department of Labor, the Energy Department and its sub-agency responsible for building nuclear weapons at nine factories across the country. Practitioners of nuclear medicine, people employed in the nuclear industry, and professors who teach nuclear medicine or industrial hygiene also populate SARI.

The NRC’s consideration of the SARI views got started when three members of the group petitioned it in 2015 to abandon its current approach and accept that radiation in low doses is not only benign, but improves health. That was two years after SARI’s founding by industry officials trying to tamp down public concerns about the radiation that spilled from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The NRC took the petitions seriously. Its staff created a working group to study the issue, and insiders now say that work is done. According to Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesman, the five members of the commission as a result will take up the issue this spring. Continue reading →

February 28, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, radiation, Reference, spinbuster | 1 Comment

Coastal populations dosed with radiation from nearby nuclear facilities

Radioactive sea spray is dosing communities, February 17, 2019 by beyondnuclearinternational Governments want to cover it up By Tim Deere-Jones.

It is clear from the available empirical data that coastal populations impacted by prevailing onshore winds and living next to sea areas contaminated with liquid radioactive effluents from nuclear sites, are annually exposed to dietary and inhalation doses of man-made marine radioactivity.

Effluents discharged to the sea by nuclear power stations, fuel fabrication sites and reprocessing facilities are transferred from sea to land in airborne sea spray and marine aerosols (micro-droplets). They come in also during episodes of coastal flooding. This problem has been particularly pronounced around the UK Sellafield reprocessing and plutonium production site in Cumbria. In 1988, independent empirical research commissioned by a west Wales local authority reported that
Sellafield-derived, sea-discharged cesium had been found in pasture grass up to 10 miles inland of the Ceredigion coast.

Clearly, this contributes to human dietary doses via the dairy and beef food chain. The research also implies the inevitability of further dietary doses via arable and horticultural crops. Given that airborne radioactivity is driven at least 10 miles inland, it should be assumed that coastal populations are exposed, on a repeated annual basis, to inhalation doses.
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2019/02/17/radioactive-sea-spray-is-dosing-communities/

February 19, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, radiation | Leave a comment

Ireland’s Radiation scrutiny now transfers to HIQA

Radiation scrutiny now transfers to HIQA Jhttps://www.lawsociety.ie/gazette/Top-Stories/radiation-scrutiny-transfers-to-hiqa/

13 Feb 19, Last month’s transposition of European Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM into Irish law means that HIQA is now responsible for regulating medical exposure to ionising radiation.

The new law covers dental x-rays, hospital CT scans, mammograms and radiotherapy received as part of cancer treatment.

Treatment

A medical exposure to ionising radiation is when a patient receives ionising radiation as part of their diagnosis or treatment.

The transposition into Irish law confers new statutory functions on HIQA under the EU’s (Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Dangers Arising from Medical Exposure to Ionising Radiation) Regulations 2018 SI No. 256.

HIQA’s John Tuffy said: “Generally the risks associated with receiving medical exposure to ionising radiation can be considered very low.

“However, as procedures that involve ionising radiation carry varying levels of risk dependent on the dose given, it is important that all radiation doses are kept as low as practically possible.

Vital

“It is vital that patients are only exposed when the benefits of receiving the exposure outweigh the risks.”

“The new legislation has given HIQA regulatory powers to ensure that appropriate processes are in place to protect patients in public and private healthcare facilities for the first time.”

Last month’s transposition of European Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM into Irish law means that HIQA is now responsible for regulating medical exposure to ionising radiation.

The new law covers dental x-rays, hospital CT scans, mammograms and radiotherapy received as part of cancer treatment.

Treatment

A medical exposure to ionising radiation is when a patient receives ionising radiation as part of their diagnosis or treatment.

HIQA’s John Tuffy said: “Generally the risks associated with receiving medical exposure to ionising radiation can be considered very low.

“However, as procedures that involve ionising radiation carry varying levels of risk dependent on the dose given, it is important that all radiation doses are kept as low as practically possible.

Vital

“It is vital that patients are only exposed when the benefits of receiving the exposure outweigh the risks.”

“The new legislation has given HIQA regulatory powers to ensure that appropriate processes are in place to protect patients in public and private healthcare facilities for the first time.”

Last month’s transposition of European Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM into Irish law means that HIQA is now responsible for regulating medical exposure to ionising radiation.

The new law covers dental x-rays, hospital CT scans, mammograms and radiotherapy received as part of cancer treatment.

Treatment

A medical exposure to ionising radiation is when a patient receives ionising radiation as part of their diagnosis or treatment.

HIQA’s John Tuffy said: “Generally the risks associated with receiving medical exposure to ionising radiation can be considered very low.

“However, as procedures that involve ionising radiation carry varying levels of risk dependent on the dose given, it is important that all radiation doses are kept as low as practically possible.

Vital

“It is vital that patients are only exposed when the benefits of receiving the exposure outweigh the risks.”

“The new legislation has given HIQA regulatory powers to ensure that appropriate processes are in place to protect patients in public and private healthcare facilities for the first time.”

Last month’s transposition of European Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM into Irish law means that HIQA is now responsible for regulating medical exposure to ionising radiation.

The new law covers dental x-rays, hospital CT scans, mammograms and radiotherapy received as part of cancer treatment.

Treatment

A medical exposure to ionising radiation is when a patient receives ionising radiation as part of their diagnosis or treatment.

HIQA’s John Tuffy said: “Generally the risks associated with receiving medical exposure to ionising radiation can be considered very low.

“However, as procedures that involve ionising radiation carry varying levels of risk dependent on the dose given, it is important that all radiation doses are kept as low as practically possible.

Vital

“It is vital that patients are only exposed when the benefits of receiving the exposure outweigh the risks.”

“The new legislation has given HIQA regulatory powers to ensure that appropriate processes are in place to protect patients in public and private healthcare facilities for the first time.”

ReplyForward

February 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ireland, radiation | Leave a comment

Increasing danger of the radioactive by-products from the nuclear industry

Paul Waldon Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA, February 6

From mining the uranium rich ore, to nuclear abandonment – a dozen by-products more radio toxic than the ore mined to fuel the reactor are discarded. These products are the raffinates culminating in 85% of the total radioactivity that goes directly into the tailings only to migrate throughout the environment.

Products like Radon gas, Polonium-210 with a 140 day half life, Radium-226, with a 1600 year half life, Thorium-230 with a 76,000 year half life are released , and yet only 1kg of Uranium oxide is recovered in every 4,000 kilos mined.

Uranium-238 subjected to neutron bombardment in the reactor becomes Uranium-239 with a 23 minute half life, then that becomes Neptunium-239 with a 2.3 day half life, and that goes on to become Plutonium-239 with a 244,000 year half life, then this spent fuel finally decays to become Uranium- 235 with a half life of 700 million years.

Moreover, x that by no less than 10 to get the life of the radioactive hazard, which equates to no less than 7 billion years, and here we have only just crossed the nuclear industries threshold within the last 76 years with many thousands of nuclear events, and accidents recorded, and yet this is not the only wastes these machines produce with one Canadian CANDU reactor that recorded 100 trillion becquerels of radiation from the Tritium released in just one year.

The nuclear embracing coterie tell us they can safely manage these radioactive wastes, yet there containment vessels are only guaranteed for 25 years not 7 billion years, and a director of Holtec has stated there is no way to remedy a breach of containment. Moreover these nuclear wastes are a gamble and risk that only grows exponentially with every generation.

February 9, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

A claim that 5G networks are a dangerous experiment

‘A global catastrophe’: Radiation activist warns that 5G networks are ‘massive health experiment’ https://www.rt.com/news/450775-massive-health-experiment-5g-cancer/ 6 Feb, 2019 A leading activist on the issue of electromagnetic radiation and its negative impacts on public health has described the rollout of 5G as a “massive health experiment” which could “become a global catastrophe.”

Arthur Robert Firstenberg is a well-known advocate for curtailing the development of 5G networks both in the US and internationally, claiming that super fast broadband could cause cancer in humans and wildlife, as well as exacerbating the symptoms of electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

In a bid to stall the rollout of the networks Firstenberg is petitioning the World Health Organization, the UN and the EU to “urgently halt the development of 5G.” The petition had garnered over 40,000 signatures at time of writing.

The deployment of 5G constitutes an experiment on humanity and the environment that is defined as a crime under international law,” the petition states. The US rollout of the new network has already begun in cities like Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Sacramento.

“This could become a global catastrophe. When the first satellites were launched in the late 1990s for mobile phones, on the day they were launched people sensitive to these things got very sick. The mortality rate rose in the US by 5-10% too and there were reports that birds were not flying,” Firstenberg told the Daily Star.

Firstenberg also claims that, in areas of the world where rollout of 5G antennas has already begun, the local population, including insects and other wildlife, are already getting sick. He claims to have a condition known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity, which induces symptoms like dizziness, nausea, amnesia, insomnia, tremors, heart arrhythmia, acute and chronic pain, among others though it is not scientifically or medically recognized.

n addition, Firstenberg filed a lawsuit seeking $1.43 million in damages from his neighbor for damaging his health by using her iPhone and WiFi connection.

Much like cell phones before it in the 1980s and 90s, 5G has encountered strong pushback from the general public since it was first announced. In September 2018, Mill Valley city council, in California, voted to block development of 5G towers and small cells in residential areas citing “serious adverse health and environmental impacts caused by the microwave radiation emitted from these 4G and 5G Small Cell Towers,” Motherboard reports.

However, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “There is no scientific evidence that provides a definite answer to that question… More research is needed before we know if using cell phones causes health effects.”

Despite a number of broad-ranging studies into the potential effects of cell phone radiation showing no solid evidence of any significant health risks to humans (let alone insects), many within the scientific community remain skeptical that the benefits of 5G technology outweigh the potential harm to humans.

Two recent studies also showed elevated risk of cancerous tumors developing in male rats (though not female) who were exposed to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) for nine hours a day over two years. However, the claims didn’t stand up in follow-up double-blind tests.

215 scientists from 40 different countries have allegedly signed an appeal calling for international protection from non-ionizing electromagnetic field exposure, the effects of which include, but are not limited to, “increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deﬁcits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being.”

In a letter, Dr Martin Pall, a biochemistry professor at the Washington State University, claimed there were severe biological and health effects, including increased risk of cancer via DNA mutations, due to exposure to 5G networks, while also claiming that the FCC is a “captured agency”that is subject to the will of the very industry it is supposed to regulate.

5G would provide broadband speeds over 100 times faster than current data speeds. But to facilitate its rollout 300,000 new antennas would be required in the US alone. That’s roughly equal to three decades-worth of cell phone tower development.

The networks require a more dense array of “small cell” sites because their high frequency waves provide faster speeds but don’t travel as far

February 7, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, radiation | Leave a comment

Sending dummies into space, to test effects of radiation on women

Radiation for dummies, Space Daily, by Staff Writers, Paris (ESA) Jan 28, 2019 Meet Helga and Zohar, the dummies destined for a pioneering lunar flyby to help protect space travelers from cosmic rays and energetic solar storms.

These two female phantoms will occupy the passenger seats during Orion’s first mission around the Moon, going further than any human has flown before.

Fitted with more than 5600 sensors, the pair will measure the amount of radiation astronauts could be exposed to in future missions with unprecedented precision.

The flight test will take place during NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, an uncrewed trip to the vicinity of the Moon and back to Earth.

Radiation poses a major health risk to people in space. Astronauts on the International Space Station receive doses 250 higher than on Earth. Away from Earth’s magnetic field and into interplanetary space, the impact on the human body could be much higher – up to 700 times more.

Two sources of radiation are of concern: galactic cosmic radiation and virulent solar particle events. This radiation could increase the crew’s risk of cancer and become a limiting factor in missions to the Moon and Mars.

Helga and Zohar
The two phantoms simulate adult female torsos. Both Helga and Zohar are made up of 38 slices of tissue-equivalent plastics that mimic the varying density of bones, soft tissue and lungs. Similar dummies are used in hospitals to quantify the right dose of radiation for cancer therapies.

“We chose female phantoms because the number of women astronauts is increasing, and also because the female body is typically more vulnerable to radiation,” explains Thomas Berger, lead scientist of the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE) at the German Aerospace Center, DLR.

Sensors have been fitted in the most radiation-sensitive areas of the body – lungs, stomach, uterus and bone marrow. While thousands of passive dosimeters will record the radiation dose from launch until return to Earth, a set of 16 active detectors will map the radiation dose both on the phantoms’ skin and internal organs during flight.

An astronaut’s shield

The only difference between the twin dummies is that Zohar will be wearing a radiation protection vest, while Helga will travel unprotected from spaceborne radiation…….. http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Radiation_for_dummies_999.html

February 4, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, technology, women | Leave a comment

America’s Environmental Protection Agency appoints a radiation sceptic to head radiation panel

Brant Ulsh, skeptic on radiation limits, to head EPA radiation panel, Japan Times, 2 Feb 19, WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency has appointed a scientist who argues for easing regulations on lower-level radiation exposures to lead the agency’s radiation advisory committee.

Acting EPA head Andrew Wheeler on Thursday announced the appointment of Brant Ulsh, a health physicist, as one of the EPA’s science advisers and the panel’s chairman. Ulsh has been a leading critic of the EPA’s decades-old position that exposure to any amount of ionizing radiation is a cancer risk.

In a paper he co-wrote last year, Ulsh and a colleague argued that the position was based on outdated scientific information and forced the “unnecessary burdens of costly clean-ups” on facilities working with radiation.

The EPA under President Donald Trump has targeted a range of environmental protections, in line with Trump’s arguments that overly strict environmental rules have hurt U.S. businesses. Environmental and public health advocates say the rollbacks threaten the health and safety of Americans.

Some environmental groups and scientists have criticized what they say is the administration’s openness to an outlier position on radiation risks.

“Once again the Trump administration is moving to the fringe for its scientific advice, choosing someone who could undercut foundational protections from radiation,” Bemnet Alemayehu, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council environmental advocacy group, said in a statement Friday. “We need sound science to dictate health protections, not dangerous theories.”

EPA spokesman John Konkus declined comment Friday, referring a reporter to a news release announcing the appointment.

Ulsh did not immediately respond to an email Friday asking for comment, including whether he intended to use the advisory position to encourage reconsideration of the EPA’s no-tolerance policy on lower doses of radiation exposure……… https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/02/02/world/science-health-world/brant-ulsh-skeptic-radiation-limits-head-epa-radiation-panel/#.XFdRStIzbGg

February 4, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Who will be there?

By Kitty commenting on Abe makes sales pitch for Fukushima sake at Davos:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other Japanese officials toast with sake produced in Fukushima Prefecture during the Japan Night …

The real killers, the strong beta and gamma-emitting, high level radionuclides like 90Sr, 137Cs, 99Tc and 129I , cobalt 60, Iridium are present in the soil in concentrations, hundreds of times higher than what they are saying in Japan. That is easy to see by the Geiger counter readings. Fukushima radionuclides can be in found very high concentrations across Japan from Fukushima to Yokohama, based on Busby and kaltofen sampling and analysis..

It is not simply cesium 137 that exists there.

An absorbed bolus of 80 billionths of a gram of any one of these beta-gamma radionuclides, causes acute systemic poisoning and radiation poisoning. The results can be either acute death or prolonged agony and death. There will be death, If there is a massive bolus ingested. These are the most poisonous and dangerous substances on earth.

If 1 ounce of any of these radionuclides- substance : st90, 137Cs, 99Tc and 129I , cobalt 60, were dumped on a group of people it would be like the cesium 137 exposure in Brazil or worse.

If any one of these radionuclides :90Sr, 137Cs, 99Tc and 129I Iridium, cobalt 60 was diluted in an inert powder for example, that diffused the RADIONUCLIDE onto 10,000 people, gathered for a festival or event , 3 quarters of them would die horrible deaths in 2 weeks and the rest would have tumors and organ damage that would kill them in a few months.

Obviously the sailors on board the Ronald Reagan did not get such a dose but it came close for some of them.

Radioactivity decreases, with the square of distance. Chronic ionized radiation-wave exposure is dangerous but , those the high level of those and other RADIONUCLIDEs present do not bode well for Japan in the concentrations that exist from Fukushima to tokyo that have been recorded by Busby and kaltofen.

Nucleoapes like to keep the eyes off the lethal radionuclides that are actually emitting the radiation.

There are also the highly potent alpha emitting, uranic and Transuranic alpha emitters like u235, u238, plutonium, AMERICIUM and actinides like Californium that are destroying the human genome in Japan. The beta-gamma emitters do too, but are not as effective and as potent, as mutagens and acute carcinogens because of their solubility and other chemical properties.

The Uranics, transuranics, actinides, are causing lung cancers, pancreatic cancers and sharp increases in birth defects from mutagenesis, and teratogenesis across Japan now.

A great deal of Japan’s water supply is probably heavily contaminated with tritium by now. TRITIUM is a strong teratogen, that is known to substantially increase incidence of leukemia. Tritium actually covalently bonds to DNA, protein, fat tissue and muscle tissue, unlike other radionuclides tritium acts exactly like hydrogen does in the body and the body is constantly doing chemical conversions of proteins using hydrogen and tritium ions in metabolic, acid-base, and enzyme reactions in the body.

The nucleoapes have gone out of their way, to obscure the deadly, insidious-effects of tritium on the human genome, chromosomes and the human body.

We are bags of mostly saline water solutions, proteins, fat, with some bone in us. When we ingest radionuclides they are sometimes diluted enough by our water and protoplasm, to not cause recognizable or apparent damage and acute symptoms. It is so with the highly water soluble saline analogs like cesium and strontium.

Dr Chris Busby:

Einstein, politics, physicists-nuclear physicists, and reality

The Uranics, transuranics, actinides are not so soluble because they are heavy metals. Particles of these radionuclides, that get stuck in the lungs and gi tract are particularly deadly. Many of these radionuclides can be biotransformed or chemically transformed into sulfates and organometallics that are easily absorbed into the body.

Then there are the evil-monkeys that says that some radionuclides increase our resistance to RADIONUCLIDE exposure and bioccummulation. Don’t ya know radioactive tritium increase incidence of leukemia, as has been shown in rigorous studies and case studies, its hormetic!

Question. What are the Four most poisonous substances known to humans that are not radionuclides?

Answers

1. Sarin gas is an organophosphate chemical weapon.

20 micrograms will kill you

2. Botulin toxin: Used cosmetically as a neuromuscular block agent, to get rid of wrinkles is lethally toxic in a bolus of 150 micrograms.

Botulin toxin is used to relax muscles and give the illusion that wrinkes are gone cosmetically. Botulin is used because of its extreme potency and length of duration,of action.

Botulin toxin has to be highly diluted and administered by and expert, for any purpose in the human body.

Botulin toxin is lethaly toxic in millionths of a gram concentrations. You can barely see a millionth of a gram with a powerful microscope.

Drugs are dosed at thousands of a gram,that is milligrams. A milligram is a barely detectable spec on a piece of paper to the human eye.

3. 220 micrograms of Ricin toxin from castor beans can kill a child

4. 300 micrograms of fentanyl can kill an adult. Fentanyl analogs are even more potent.

The Moscow theater hostage crisis (also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege) was the seizure of a crowded Dubrovka Theater by 40 to 50 armed Chechens on 23 October 2002 that involved 850 hostages and ended with the death of at least 170 people.

It is known that the Russians used a fentanyl-like agent to try to sedate the Chechens, who were holding the hostages in the theater. Unfortunately fentanyl is very hard to dose and disperse as an aerosol. A highly toxic agent like Fentanyl, has to be prepared in such a very special way, so that only its sedative effects are manifested.

Many of the innocent hostages in Nord-Ost, siege died from fentanyl poisoning from the compounded-fentanyl gas, used by the Russians to try to sedate the chechens, before they stormed the theater.

On the flip side of the coin, Sarin, when aerosolized with a suspending agent that works and diffuses the poison in high enough concentrations, is a deadly nerve gas that will kill thousands, in a few square miles with only a few, weaponized Cannisters, detonated.

The Tokyo subway sarin attack-Subway Sarin Incident was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated on 20 March 1995, in Tokyo, Japan, by members of the cult movement Aum Shinrikyo. In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released sarin on three lines of the Tokyo Metro (then part of the Tokyo subway) during rush hour, killing 12 people, severely injuring 50 (some of whom later died), and causing temporary vision problems for nearly 1,000 others. The attack was directed against trains passing through Kasumigaseki and Nagatachō, where the Diet (Japanese parliament) is headquartered in Tokyo

The Aum sarin attack in the Tokyo subways only killed 12 people. They used relatively large amounts of sarin in closed, relatively small areas, with sealed spaces.

They absolutely did not know what they were doing, otherwise they would have known that high doses of sarin have to be aerosolized in a suspending agent like a gas that is liquid under pressure, to properly disperse enough of the agent for it to be widely, dispersed and effectively lethal to a large group of people.

Many radionuclides, and especially the corrosive salt beta-gamma emittors and halogens like I131 and I129 are lethal in billionths of a gram . It even says so in toxicology profiles because, some of these radionuclides are used as radiopharmaceutical agents to treat cancer.

Bllionths of a gram, of any substance, is not even visible with a high powered microscope.

Radionucides are ionizing radiation emitters, as well as being the most poisonous substances to living things on earth, in the universe.

Billionths of a gram concentrations of these elements are highly detectable in billionth of a gram concentrations with scintillometers, gamma spectrometers, and decent pancake Geiger counters.

One of the main difficulties with proving how acutely lethal or chronically damaging RADIONUCLIDE are after nuclear accidents, or with chronic exposure to nuclear waste, are the chaotic mechanisms of dispersion of the radionuclides after catastrophes or in-situ.

Think of the Russian, poisoned with polonium, in London. He was dosed with a nanogram amount of polonium that caused him to die a slow painful death,from systemic organ failure for which there was no cure. He died days after the poisoning.

Boluses of cesium 137, and iodine 131 can kill quite quickly or at lower doses, can kill like the polonium did the murdered Russian in prolonged agony.

Who will be there, to prove what caused people dying a days, weeks or a month, after a.large exposure. Who will speakup for causative agents, after years of bioaccumuted exposure, when no one is even properly looking for the causative agent-RADIONUCLIDE or radionuclides?

February 3, 2019 Posted by dunrenard | fukushima 2019, radiation, Reference | Contamination, Fukushima, radiation, Radionuclides | Leave a comment

Nuclear reactors routinely release radioactive gases into the environment

This graphic best explains issues with venting and filtering of nuclear reactor cores under normal operations. The venting is done approximately once every three months at the beginning of fuel cycle and once a month or more at the end of fuel cycle. Noble gases like Krypton 85 are chemically inert single atoms. They go right through the filters.

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February 3, 2019 Posted by dunrenard | radiation | Gases release, Krypton 90 | Leave a comment

A single jawbone has revealed just how much radiation Hiroshima bomb victims absorbed

WP, By Kristine Phillips, 2 May 2018, At 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first combat atomic bomb, “Little Boy.” It exploded 43 seconds later, creating a massive fireball that incinerated much of Hiroshima. Nearly 350,000 people were in the Japanese city that day, and most were civilians.

Twenty-seven years later, a scientist from across the Pacific Ocean arrived in Hiroshima with what was considered then a novel idea. Brazilian physicist Sérgio Mascarenhas, at the time a visiting professor at Harvard University, said that exposure to radiation makes human bone magnetic, and that “magnetic memory” existed in the bones of atomic bombing victims years after the explosion. Scientists could measure radiation exposure by examining the bones of victims, Mascarenhas proposed.

With the help of two Japanese scientists in Hiroshima, Mascarenhas obtained several samples of victims’ bones, including a jawbone that belonged to a person who was less than a mile away from Ground Zero. They were able to estimate the amount of radiation present in the bones, according to a paper Mascarenhas presented to the American Physical Society meeting in April 1973 in Washington, but specific calculations could not be achieved with 1970s technology.

Mascarenhas brought the samples home to Brazil, where they sat in storage for the next four decades — until two other Brazilian scientists continued his research using more advanced technology. The result was astonishing.

Using a technique called electron spin resonance, the researchers measured that the jawbone had absorbed 9.46 grays of radiation from the Hiroshima attack. (A gray or Gy is a unit used to measure the amount of radiation absorbed by an object or a person.)

To place this in context: A cancer patient receiving radiotherapy treatment is exposed to about 2 to 3 grays on a very localized part of the body where a tumor is located. Whole-body radiation with about 5 grays — nearly half of the amount calculated from the jawbone — is enough to kill a person, Oswaldo Baffa, one of the researchers and a professor at the University of São Paulo, told The Washington Post Tuesday.

Teeth have been used to measure the amount of radiation a person had been exposed to. In 1997, scientists from Taiwan measured the radiation dose that patients with nasopharyngeal cancer (in which cancer cells form near the throat behind the nose) had absorbed from radiotherapy by examining their jawbones. But the researchers in Brazil said this is the first time that bones were used to precisely measure the amount of radiation absorbed by atomic bombing victims……..https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/05/02/a-single-jawbone-has-revealed-just-how-much-radiation-hiroshima-bomb-vic

February 2, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Dr Gordon Edwards explains the background to former NRC chairman’s opposition to nuclear power

Nuclear Regulatory Commission ex-Chairman Gregory Jaczko is adamantly opposed to the idea of keeping existing nuclear reactors running as a way to offset climate change, because each reactor is like a time bomb ready to explode if the cooling is cut off by a total station blackout, by equipment failure, by major pipe breaks, or by acts of warfare, sabotage, or terrorism. The societal dislocation caused by the spread of radioactive material over wide areas, affecting drinking water, food and habitation for decades or centuries, is as bad as the ravages of climate change for the communities so affected.

As Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time of the Fukushima disaster, Jaczko has a unique insight into the factors that make nuclear power plants dangerous even after so-called “safe” shutdown. The Ex-NRC regulator argues against nuclear energy as a tactic to fight climate change 4 knows, too, that the arguments levied against renewables are ultimately incorrect, as technology to store energy and to rechannel it is growing by leaps and bounds. Investing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into maintaining old nuclear reactors, which are becoming increasingly dangerous as they age, is simply stealing money away from investments in the renewable revolution that is our best hope for a sustainable energy future.

Ex-NRC regulator argues against nuclear energy as a tactic to fight climate change 1 Background: by Dr Gordon Edwards, http://www.ccnr.org/Jaczko_nixes_nukes_2019.pdf January 11, 2019 Commercial nuclear power plants are water-cooled. They are fuelled by ceramic uranium fuel pellets stacked inside long narrow rods made of zirconium metal. A number of these rods are bound together into a fuel assembly — in Canada such an assembly is called a fuel bundle.

Heat is produced by splitting uranium atoms. That heat is transported by the liquid water coolant which flows past the zirconium tubes containing the fuel. The heat is used to produce steam that will turn the blades of a steam turbine to generate electricity.

As the uranium fuel undergoes nuclear fission (splitting uranium atoms), hundreds of varieties of intensely radioactive byproducts build up inside the fuel. These are (1) broken fragments of uranium atoms, called “fission products”; (2) heavier-than-uranium elements, including plutonium, called “transuranic actinides”. These byproducts are millions of times more radioactive than the original fuel.

Loss of Cooling During a severe nuclear accident, the cooling is lost. Even if the reactor has been safely shut down just beforehand, and the fission process has been totally arrested, the temperature of the fuel will still soar to destructive levels without adequate cooling.

The problem is that radioactivity cannot be shut off. The radioactive byproducts created during nuclear fission remain in the fuel, and they continue to generate heat. In the case of a 1000 megawatt reactor, immediately following shutdown, over 200 megawatts of heat continue to be generated by the ongoing atomic disintegrations of the radioactive waste byproducts. After one hour this drops to about 30 megawatts of heat, which is still a tremendous rate of thermal energy release.

If the coolant is no longer circulating — perhaps because of a station blackout, as at Fukushima, or due to a large pipe break followed by a failure of emergency cooling — that “residual heat” or “decay heat” will not be removed from the core of the reactor.

Make no mistake, even 30 megawatts is a lot of heat — unless it is rapidly removed, that heat is more than enough to melt the fuel and surrounding structural materials of a nuclear reactor at a temperature of 2800 degrees C (5000 degrees F). That’s more than twice the melting point of steel. It’s the beginning of a partial or total core meltdown.

Hydrogen Gas Buildup At about 1800 degrees C (3300 degrees F), long before the fuel melts, the solid zirconium “cladding” surrounding the fuel starts to melt. Any failure of the zirconium cladding allows the escape, under high pressure, of dozens of radioactive waste byproducts that were previously trapped inside the fuel. The superheated steam that now fills the reactor vessel is suddenly infused with a multitude of radioactive gases, vapours, aerosols and ashes, all ready to be expelled into the atmosphere if there is any failure of containment.

At an even lower temperature, 700-800 degrees C, steam reacts chemically with the zirconium metal. Recall that water molecules are combinations of hydrogen and oxygen atoms (H2O). The blistering hot zirconium metal strips the oxygen out of the steam, forming zirconium oxide, while releasing all the left-over hydrogen. Hydrogen gas mixes with the steam-filled radioactively contaminated air to form an explosive mixture. Any spark will detonate the hydrogen in a devastating blast, more powerful than a natural gas explosion.

Such hydrogen gas explosions almost always accompany a nuclear meltdown. There were several such explosions during the partial meltdown of the NRX reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, in 1952; during the Three Mile Island partial meltdown in Pennsylvania in1979; and during the triple meltdown at Fukushima Dai-ichi in Japan in 2011. Such explosions will often damage the containment envelope of the nuclear reactor, spewing highly radioactive materials into the outer atmosphere.

Radioactive Exposures People, animals and plants are irradiated from above by “skyshine” from gamma-radiation-emitting gases passing overhead. Metallic radioactive vapours such as cesium-137, iodine-131 and strontium-90 will condense on vegetation, soil, buildings, skin, clothing, and surfaces of all kinds, leaving a lasting legacy of radioactive contamination, irradiating living things by “groundshine”. And these radioactive materials gradually work their way into the food chain, sometimes re-concentrating along the way, yielding contaminated crops, meat, fish, water, milk, mushrooms, berries, and much else besides. Ingesting or inhaling such materials will lead to the internal irradiation of people and animals by radioactive materials that lodge in the lungs, the bones, the blood, or the soft organs of the body.

For example, radioactive iodine condenses on pastureland, and the concentration of radioactive iodine in the grass becomes about 100 times greater than in the air above the pasture. The concentration of radioactive iodine in cow’s milk is about 100-1000 times greater than it is in the grass they eat. Then, when a young child drinks the cow’s milk, the concentration of radioactive iodine in the child’s thyroid gland is about 7-10 times greater than it is in the contaminated milk. So, a child’s thyroid can be exposed to radioactive iodine levels that are several orders of magnitude greater than that found in the contaminated air that they might breathe.

Radioactive cesium accumulates in meat and fish, often making them unsuitable for human consumption. Even today, hunters in Germany and the Czech Republic are compensated by their respective governments if they kill a wild boar, because they cannot eat the meat due to radioactive cesium contamination from the Chernobyl accident 33 years ago. In Japan, wild boars in the Fukushima forested areas have levels of radioactive cesium in their bodies that are 10 to 150 times greater than the maximum permissible levels for human consumption. Boars love mushrooms, and fungi are especially adept at concentrating radioactivity.

January 12, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, Reference, safety | Leave a comment

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