42 Hanford workers contaminated with radiation, Seattle Times, March 24, 2018 The final results of worker tests after a December spread of contamination found that 11 Hanford workers had inhaled or ingested radioactive particles from demolition of the nuclear reservation’s Plutonium Finishing Plant. By Annette Cary Tri-City Herald ioactive contamination from demolition of the nuclear reservation’s Plutonium Finishing Plant.
The final results of worker tests after a December spread of contamination at the plant found 11 Hanford workers had inhaled or ingested radioactive particles, according to information released Thursday
That’s on top of the 31 positive test results after a similar spread of contamination in June at the plant in the center of the nuclear reservation.
Demolition at the plant has been halted since December. It will not restart until the Department of Energy approves a new demolition plan, and a plan is approved and implemented to prevent the airborne spread of small radioactive particles.
The Washington Department of Ecology, a regulator on the project, also has said it will not allow demolition to continue if it is not convinced it can be done safely.
Open-air demolition on the plant began in late 2016 using heavy equipment to tear down its walls. Extensive work already had been done to remove as much contaminated equipment as possible from the plant.
According to a draft report issued earlier in the month by CH2M/Jacobs Engineering with input from the U.S. Department of Energy, an air-monitoring system last fall failed to pick up the spread of radioactive contamination, giving management false assurance that controls were effective.
State monitoring has found that plutonium and americium particles traveled as far as 10 miles from the demolition site, near Richland. Vehicles, office buildings and workers have been tested for traces of radioactive contamination.
A plan for safer demolition has yet to be released.
The project has been troubled with radioactive contamination found outside worker offices at the plant and on worker cars and government vehicles.
The combination of a thinning ozone layer and farming practices in India may add up to more days of extreme ultraviolet radiation across Australia.
A Sun-Herald analysis of daily UV index readings since 1997 in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane found the number of days when ultraviolet radiation reached or passed extreme levels had risen slightly.
The amount of UV that hits Australia is influenced by fluctuations in cloud cover, ozone levels and the solar cycle.
In Sydney, four of the 10 highest UV index days since 1996 have been recorded since December 2016. While the ozone layer is recovering over the poles, it is thinning in mid-latitudes from Russia to the Southern Ocean below Australia, a study published last month in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics found.
“Decreases in ozone are less than we saw at the poles before the Montreal Protocol was enacted [in 1987], but UV radiation is more intense in these regions and more people live there,” said report co-author Joanna Haigh, from Imperial College London.
The weather bureau studied UV radiation in Australia between 1959 and 2009 and found an annual increase of 2 to 6 per cent since the 1990s, above a 1970-80 baseline. The bureau found these changes were related to ozone depletion.
Associate Professor Clare Murphy, from the school of chemistry at Wollongong University, said ozone trends were not fully understood.
“The largest factor involved in mid-latitude ozone depletion is the nitrogen cycle, which operates by nitrous oxide turning into reactive nitrogen in the stratosphere,” Dr Murphy said.
Nitrogen fertiliser is converted into nitrous oxide by soil microbes, creating a stable greenhouse gas that can reach the stratosphere, where the ozone layer protects the earth from most of the sun’s UV radiation,” she said. “However, once in the stratosphere, nitrous oxide is broken down by high energy radiation from the sun to become reactive nitrogen, which can deplete ozone.”
Dr Murphy said that last century, concerns about ozone depletion centred on “chlorine chemistry” (CFCs) because of the massive hole over the poles. “Now it’s nitrous oxide, which almost stopped the Concord from flying because they were worried about reactive nitrogen in the stratosphere.”
Nitrous oxide damage to ozone is ubiquitous, whereas damage from CFCs creates a hole during extreme weather years over the Antarctic, Dr Murphy said.
Nitrous oxide was identified as the most damaging substance to the ozone layer in the 21st century by a 2009 study published in Science. That study also suggested one of the best ways to address the problem was to give insurance to Indian farmers.
“In India, particularly, they’re putting in 10 times more nitrogen fertiliser on their crops than they need to because if a crop fails they may starve,” Dr Murphy said. “Insurance could pick up the loss.”
Robin Schofield, director of Melbourne University’s environmental science hub, said UV in Australia should be trending downwards because factors such as surface ozone, which is contained in smog, is on the rise and there is evidence of a recovery of stratospheric ozone.
The UV Index and skin cancer
The UV index relates to the intensity of sunburn-producing UV radiation. Sun protection is recommended when the UV Index is above 3 in clear sky conditions. The higher the number, the more severe.
11+ = Extreme. Avoid sun exposure between 10am and 4pm due to extreme risk of harm.
8-10 = Very High. Unprotected skin and eyes may be damaged and can burn quickly.
6-7 = High. Protection against skin and eye damage is needed. Reduce time in the sun between 10am and 4pm.
3-5 = Moderate. Stay in the shade near midday when the sun is strongest. Moderate risk of harm.
1-2 = Low. There is a low danger from the sun’s UV rays for the average person.
Note: UV intensity can nearly double with reflection from snow or reflective surfaces such as water, sand and concrete.
Heather Walker, Cancer Council Australia’s skin cancer committee chair, said UV is the most common cause of skin cancer but the council has not seen any evidence of a trend of more extreme or high UV days.
“Queensland is the skin cancer capital of Australia and they get more UV all year round,” Ms Walker said. “Skin cancer rates continue to rise but look like they may be stabilising over the next few years in all age groups except for the under 40s.”
The continued high rate of skin cancer in Australia is partly due to the ageing population, because cancer is a disease of ageing, Ms Walker said.
Brisbane average monthly maximum UV index.Photo: Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency
But skin cancer rates are falling for people under 40, she said, because they have had the benefit of Sunsmart messages [slip, slop, slap, seek shade and slide on sunglasses], which started in the 1980s.
“This is a message we need to keep reinforcing, because as it was put to me: ‘you don’t tell your children to brush their teeth once and expect them to do it for the rest of their lives’.”
Because UV and heat are not related, people often get sunburnt when there is no sun.
“The heat will rise and continue to rise in the afternoon, whereas UV is more of a bell curve shape that peaks in the middle of the day. And that’s why the advice is to avoid being outside in the middle of the day.
“Cool and cloudy days when the UV is high, that’s when people are most likely to be caught out because they don’t think they need sun protection.”
Italian study links cellphone radiation to heart and-brain tumors https://www.ewg.org/release/italian-study-links-cellphone-radiation-heart-and-brain-tumors#.WrVYStRubGgAlex Formuzis (202) 667-6982 alex@ewg.org, MARCH 22, 2018 WASHINGTON– Laboratory animals exposed to cellphone radiation developed heart and brain tumors similar to the types seen in some studies of human cellphone users, according to an Italian study published today. EWG said the findings reinforce the need for people, especially children, to exercise caution when using cellphones and other radiation-emitting devices.
The study by the Ramazzini Institute, published in the journal Environmental Research, supports the findings of the federal National Toxicology Program. Last month, the NTP reported that male rats exposed to radio-frequency radiation at levels including those emitted by cellphones had a greater chance of developing malignant brain cancer, and tumors in the heart and other organs.
The Ramazzini Institute’s research found that male rats exposed to the radio-frequency radiation emitted by cellphones using GSM networks had a greater chance of developing heart tumors and hyperplasias affecting Schwann cells, which support the peripheral nervous system. Schwann cell tumors were also observed in human epidemiological studies of tumor incidence in cellphone users, and in the NTP studies of lab animals.
“The Italian study reinforces the need for a precautionary approach when it comes to radiation from phones and other devices, especially for young kids,” said Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., senior science advisor at EWG. “Children’s bodies develop through the teenage years and may be more affected by cellphone use. As new telecom networks are built around the country, in-depth assessment of children’s health risks from cellphone radiation is essential.”
In 2011, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer declared the kind of radiation emitted by cellphones a “possible carcinogen” based on human epidemiological studies that found increased gliomas and acoustic neuromas in long-term cellphone users. The data on health effects of cellphone radiation in laboratory animals collected by the NTP and the Ramazzini Institute studies support the earlier evidence from human studies that cellphone radiation increases the risk of cancer.
EWG has been at the forefront of public interest organizations raising concerns about connections between cellphone use and cancer. EWG’s 2009 Science Review on Cancer Risks and Children’s Health summarized comprehensive studies showing a variety of health harms linked to long-term cellphone use. This included increased risk of brain tumors; lower sperm counts, motility and vitality among men; neurological effects; and changes in brain metabolism.
While the public debate on cellphone radiation risks has focused on cancer, which progresses slowly in response to lifelong exposures, a growing body of research suggests that even shorter exposures could cause harm. In a study published last year, Kaiser Permanente researchers reported that pregnant women exposed to radio-frequency radiation from sources such as wireless devices and cell towers had nearly a threefold greater frequency of miscarriage.
In December 2017, the state of California issued official guidelines advising cellphone users to keep phones away from their bodies. The state Department of Public Health also recommended that parents consider reducing the amount of time their children use cellphones, and encourage kids to turn the devices off at night.
For more information about how studies on laboratory animals can help answer the questions about human health risks from radio-frequency radiation, read EWG’s Comments to the National Toxicology Program on the NTP cellphone radiation study.
NGO Safecast co-founder Pieter Franken explains to schoolgirls how to assemble a Geiger counter kit in their classroom in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture.
Tracking Fukushima’s radiation , https://www.shine.cn/feature/lifestyle/1803181780/Source: AFP Editor: Fu RongBeneath the elegant curves of the roof on the Seirinji Buddhist temple in Japan’s Fukushima region hangs an unlikely adornment: a Geiger counter collecting real-time radiation readings.
The machine is sending data to Safecast, an NGO born after the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster that says it has now built the world’s largest radiation dataset, thanks to the efforts of citizen scientists like Seirinji’s priest Sadamaru Okano.
Like many, Okano lost faith in the government after the nuclear meltdown seven years ago.
“The government didn’t tell us the truth, they didn’t tell us the true measures,” he said.
Okano was in a better position than most to doubt the government line, having developed an amateur interest in nuclear technology 20 years earlier after the Chernobyl disaster. To the bemusement of friends and family, he started measuring local radiation levels in 2007.
“The readings were so high, 50 times higher than natural radiation,” he said of the post-disaster data. “I was amazed. The news told us there was nothing, the administration was telling us there was nothing to worry about.”
That dearth of trustworthy information was the genesis of Safecast, said co-founder Pieter Franken, who was in Tokyo with his family when disaster hit. Franken and friends had the idea of gathering data by attaching Geiger counters to cars and driving around.
“Like how Google does Street View, we could do something for radiation in the same way,” he said. “The only problem was that the system to do that didn’t exist and the only way to solve that problem was to go and build it ourselves. So that’s what we did.”
Within a week, the group had a prototype and got readings that suggested the 20-kilometer exclusion zone declared around the Fukushima plant had no basis in the data, Franken said.
“Evacuees were sent from areas with lower radiation to areas with higher radiation” in some cases, he said.
The zone was eventually redrawn, but for many local residents it was too late to restore trust in the government.
Okano evacuated his mother, wife and son while he stayed with his flock.
A year later, based on his own readings and after decontamination efforts, he brought them back. He learned about Safecast’s efforts and in 2013 installed one of their static counters on his temple.
“I told them: ‘We are measuring the radiation on a daily basis… so if you access the (Safecast) website you can choose (if you think) it’s safe or not’.”
Norio Watanabe has been a Safecast volunteer since 2011. In the days after the disaster evacuees flocked to Koriyama, which was outside the evacuation zone. He assumed his town was safe.
He sent his children away, but stayed behind to look after his mother, a decision he believes may have contributed to his 2015 diagnosis of thyroid cancer.
“As a scientist, I think the chance that it was caused by the Fukushima accident might be 50-50, but in my heart, I think it was likely the cause,” he said.
His thyroid was removed and is now healthy, but Watanabe worries about his students, who he fears “will carry risk with them for the rest of their lives.”
“If there are no people like me who continue to monitor the levels, it will be forgotten.”
Safecast now has around 3,000 devices worldwide and data from 90 countries. Its counters come as a kit that volunteers can buy through third parties and assemble at home.
Nuclear power is unsuited for a populated planet for three reasons; radiation, waste, and economics. Nuclear fission of a radioactive atom produces two smaller pieces (daughter products) and radiation of energetic debris consisting of gamma rays, beta and alpha particles, and neutrons. The bombs dropped on Japan were detonated at altitude to maximize the blast damage. The radiation damage was from gamma rays, which irradiate the entire body. Biologists were not involved in the development of the atom bomb, so radiation devastation was unexpected. Radiation deaths continued long after the armistice, but this information was overshadowed by the enthusiasm of using the bomb to end the war.
Three years later, a detailed study examined the health impact of radiation. Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated and people had moved, it was difficult to track effects accurately, but damage correlated inversely with radiation dosage. One conclusion, which ignored long-term results, was the idea of a “safe” level of radiation exposure with no cause for concern.
External radiation exposure from a single blast differs in effect from long-term exposure to radiation from material ingested by breathing, drinking, or eating. Radioactive isotopes concentrate in different parts of the body and decay at different rates, some long lasting. Internal beta and alpha exposure is very damaging, increasing the likelihood of disease, cancer, and genetic mutation.
Physicians for Nuclear Responsibility have campaigned for decades against the idea of a safe level for ingesting radioactive material. However, the idea of a “safe” level is important to governments and corporations that build nuclear power plants, because all aspects of the nuclear process release radioactive material into the environment. The fiction of a safe level means that no one takes responsibility for the health problems associated with radiation.
The three worst nuclear power accidents released untold amounts of radioactive material into the environment. At Three Mile Island, the reactor experienced a partial core meltdown in 1979, which vented contamination to the surrounding area for over 12 hours. Onsite radiation instruments quickly went off scale and couldn’t measure how much radioactive material was released. To this day, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) states that only low amounts were released, and no people were harmed. The many reports of health damage were dismissed as hysteria. Recent studies by independent investigators indicate the NRC understated the radiation exposure by a factor of 1000.
At Chernobyl, in 1986, the graphite core burned for more than a week, consuming over five percent of the nuclear fuel. As there was no containment structure, a radioactive plume spread across western Russia and much of Europe. The Chernobyl area is still contaminated, and requires constant investment to keep it contained.
The 2011 Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami led to the core meltdown and containment breach in three of six reactors at the Fukushima complex, and an explosive release from a spent fuel pool. The contamination of air, land, and water by highly radioactive hot particles was widespread, extending to Tokyo, 150 miles away. Contaminated water continues to flow into the Pacific Ocean, but the US government has never measured radiation in the ocean or the air off the west coast.
While large contaminations due to accidents have been rare, reactors are aging and growing more vulnerable to failure. Even normal reactor operation releases radiation into the environment. The mining, refining, and enriching of uranium fuel releases radioactive material. Mountains of radioactive mine tailings sit next to the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for millions.
The efficiency of a uranium reactor core is reduced by contamination from the daughter products of nuclear decay. Within a few years, when as little as 10 percent of the uranium has been consumed, this “spent fuel” is removed to cooling pools, and fresh fuel rods are installed. Even though most of the uranium is still useful, it is expensive to reprocess the spent fuel by removing the daughter products, and reconstituting fresh fuel rods. Everywhere this has been tried, massive radioactive environmental contamination has resulted.
Every reactor has a designed life span, after which, it must be decommissioned, and the site cleaned of radioactive material. There are 449 large commercial power reactors in operation globally. Another 150 have been shut-down, but only 17 very small plants have been completely decontaminated. The decommissioning of all the rest will introduce massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment.
Dualistic economics, and the fiction of safe levels of radioactivity, guarantees that.
University of New Hampshire researchers recently concluded there’s at least 30 percent more dangerous radiation in our solar system than previously thought, which could pose a significant risk to both humans and satellites who venture there.
In their study, published Feb. 22 in the journal Space Weather, the researchers found that astronauts could experience radiation sickness or possibly more serious long-term health effects, including cancer and damage to the heart, brain, and central nervous system, said Nathan Schwadron, a space plasma physics professor at UNH and lead author of the study.
“Both concerns are very serious, but what we’re seeing in deep space is that over time, radiation seems to be getting worse,” Schwadron said.
Why is it getting worse? The sun’s activity has been low, the lowest it’s ever been during the Space Age, which began in 1957 with the launching of Sputnik, the world’s first satellite.
That’s bad because an active sun intensifies the sun’s magnetic field, which shields our solar system from cosmic rays, the university said in a statement.
“When we started sending human beings to the moon in the late 50s, the solar activity cycles were fairly strong, so the number of cosmic rays were lower,” Schwadron said. “But now the cosmic rays number is going up.”
Scientists expect the solar activity levels to vary, but they don’t know why the current activity is so weak, he said.
Seven years after the Fukushima, Japan nuclear disaster began, forcing evacuations of at least 160,000 people, research has uncovered significant health impacts affecting monkeys living in the area and exposed to the radiological contamination of their habitat.
Shin-ichi Hayama, a wild animal veterinarian, has been studying the Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), or snow monkey, since before the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Now, his research has shown that monkeys in Fukushima have significantly low white and red blood cell counts as well as a reduced growth rate for body weight and smaller head sizes.
Hayama, who began his macaque research in 2008, had access to monkeys culled by Fukushima City as a crop protection measure. He continued his work after the Fukushima nuclear explosions. As a result, he is uniquely positioned to discover how low, chronic radiation exposure can affect generations of monkeys.
The macaque is an old world monkey native to Japan, living in the coldest climates of all of the non-human primates. Like humans, macaques enjoy a good soak in the mountain hot springs in the region. It is even said that they have developed a “hot tub culture” and enjoy time at the pools to get warm during winter.
However, snow monkeys and humans share more than a love of hot springs. Human DNA differs from rhesus monkeys, a relative of the snow monkey, by just 7%. While that 7% can mean the difference between building vast cities to living unsheltered and outdoors, for basic processes like reproduction, these differences begin to fade. Consequently, what is happening to the macaques in Fukushima should send a warning about the implications for human health as well, and especially for evacuees now returning to a region that has been far from “cleaned up” to any satisfactory level.
Hayama’s research group has published two studies, each comparing data before and after the nuclear catastrophe began, and also between exposed and unexposed monkey populations. In a 2014 study, researchers compared monkeys from two regions of Japan, one group of monkeys from the Shimokita region, 400 Km north of Fukushima, and a second group of monkeys from contaminated land in Fukushima.
The monkeys in Fukushima had significantly low white and red blood cell counts. Other blood components were also reduced. The more a radioactive isotope called cesium was present in their muscles, the lower the white blood cell count, suggesting that the exposure to radioactive material contributed to the damaging blood changes. These blood levels have not recovered, even through 2017, meaning that this has become a chronic health issue.
Changes in blood are also found in people inhabiting contaminated areas around Chernobyl. Having a diminished number of white blood cells, which fight disease, can lead to a compromised immune system in monkeys as well as people, making both species unable to fight off all manner of disease.
Hayama followed up his 2014 study with another in 2017 examining the differences in monkey fetus growth before and after the disaster. The researchers measured fetuses collected between 2008 and 2016 from Fukushima City, approximately 70 km from the ruined reactors. Comparing the relative growth of 31 fetuses conceived prior to the disaster and 31 fetuses conceived after the disaster revealed that body weight growth rate and head size were significantly lower in fetuses conceived after the disaster. Yet, there was no significant difference in maternal nutrition, meaning that radiation could be responsible.
Smaller head size indicates that the fetal brain was developmentally retarded although researchers could not identify which part was affected. The mothers’ muscles still contained radioactive cesium as in the 2014 study, although the levels had decreased. These mothers had conceived after the initial disaster began, meaning that their fetuses’ health reflects a continuing exposure from environmental contamination. This study mirrors human studies around Chernobyl that show similar impacts as well as research from atomic bomb survivors. Studies of birds in Chernobyl contaminated areas show that they have smaller brains.
Although Hayama has approached radiation experts to aid with his research, he claims they have rejected it, saying they don’t have resources or time, preferring to focus on humans. But humans can remove themselves from contaminated areas, and many have chosen to stay away despite government policies encouraging return. Tragically, monkeys don’t know to leave, and relocating them is not under discussion, making study of radiation’s impact on their health vital to inform radiation research on humans, the environment, and any resettlement plans the government of Japan may have.
Hayama presented his work most recently as part of the University of Chicago’scommemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the first man-made controlled nuclear chain reaction. His work follows a long, important, and growing line of research demonstrating that radiation can not only damage in the obvious ways we have been told, but in subtle, yet destructive ways that were unexpected before. The implications for humans, other animals, and the environment, are stark. Cindy Folkers is the radiation and health specialist at Beyond Nuclear.
Safecast operates using measurements captured by volunteers. Data is verified and validated when two randomly selected people take the same measurement of the same place. Safecast’s reliable system means local people could count on its data and stay informed. Around 3,000 Safecast devices are deployed worldwide, and 100 to 150 volunteers regularly contribute their time and effort to the project.
As Safecast’s power and influence in society — both inside and outside of Japan — expanded, so did its technologies.
“We are a pro-data group, we are not an activist group,”
Back in 2011, soon after the 3/11 disaster, Safecast was born. Today, the global volunteer-centered citizen science organization is home to the world’s largest open data set of radiation measurements.
Safecast was a response to the lack of publicly available, accurate and trustworthy radiation information. The group initially set out to collect radiation measurements from many sources and put them on a single website. What the volunteers quickly realized was that there was simply not enough official data available.
Soon after the disaster, members attached a homemade Geiger counter to the side of their car and drove around Fukushima taking measurements. They quickly noticed that radiation levels were radically different even between streets, and that the government-issued city averages were far from sufficient as data that could be used by citizens to determine the safety of their areas.
Within weeks the group’s members decided to build their own Geiger counters and collect the data themselves. They picked the name Safecast the following month.
For months after the nuclear disaster began, the government released only very limited information about the spread of radiation. The first informative map of radiation levels in Fukushima, based on aerial surveys, was not available until May 2011. The first map with an adequate level of detail to show contamination in the Tokyo metropolitan area, including infamous “hot spots” in cities such as Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, was not released until October that year. As confusion spread and triggered panic among citizens, Safecast was determined to commit itself to one thing: openness. “What Safecast proves is that all the preparation in the world — all the money in the world — still fails if you don’t have a rapid, agile, resilient system,” explains Joi Ito, Safecast co-founder and director of MIT Media Lab, on Safecast’s website.
In 2012, Safecast began working with municipal governments in Fukushima to put Geiger counters on postal delivery cars and collect data. As international attention on the group’s activities grew, Safecast was invited to present its findings at an expert meeting at the International Atomic Energy Agency in February 2014.
Safecast operates using measurements captured by volunteers. Data is verified and validated when two randomly selected people take the same measurement of the same place. Safecast’s reliable system means local people could count on its data and stay informed. Around 3,000 Safecast devices are deployed worldwide, and 100 to 150 volunteers regularly contribute their time and effort to the project. “How do you make a trustworthy system where the people don’t have to trust each other?” Azby Brown, Safecast’s lead researcher, asked during a recent interview at its Shibuya office.
As Safecast’s power and influence in society — both inside and outside of Japan — expanded, so did its technologies. The group’s first mobile device, named “bGeigie” with b standing for bento (boxed lunch), was built and deployed in April 2011. The first of these needed to be tethered to a laptop for data collection. But the group soon developed all-in-one devices. They were gradually shrunk, and the “bGeigie Nano” sold as a kit is now the organization’s main machine. It’s compact and able to accumulate all of the data it captures onto a memory card.
In December, Safecast members were given a special tour of Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings’ gutted Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The operator allowed them, for the first time ever, to bring their sensors on site and openly measure radiation there during the hourlong tour, with the clear understanding that they would publish the data and radiation maps openly online. “We consider it an important step towards transparency on Tepco’s part,” Brown said in an email. Then in January, Safecast managed to install a “Solarcast Nano,” a solar-powered real-time radiation monitor, on the fence of an abandoned facility for the elderly about 2 km from Fukushima No. 1. It is the closest independent real-time data-collection point to the crippled plant. Over the years, the group has collected over 90 million data points worldwide. Each data point comes with a string of data containing the time, GPS coordinates and a radiation measurement.
It’s been seven years since the devastating earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent meltdown of the nuclear power plant, so why is Safecast’s work still relevant today?
“We are a pro-data group, we are not an activist group,” said Pieter Franken, another Safecast founding member. Safecast is constantly supplying local people with up-to-date information on radiation conditions, allowing them to make crucial decisions such as where and when evacuees can move back. Many locals are also volunteers, motivated by their emotional attachment to the area and determined to do their part in rebuilding their hometown, the group said.
While most of Safecast’s volunteers in Japan are Japanese who wanted to help out as much and as quickly as they could with the skills that were available, the unique composition of the group’s core members — many of whom are non-Japanese and hailing from diverse academic and professional backgrounds — has given the group the advantage of an outside perspective, and an agility that locals lacked. Franken is a computer scientist who has worked in the financial industry for over 25 years, while another founding member, Sean Bonner, has worked in community activism and is currently an associate professor of media and governance at Keio University. And Brown, who is a senior adviser at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology and also teaches at other Japanese universities, is a design and architecture expert. “A true Japanese company would have spent two years making the perfect Geiger counter before they would have released anything,” said Franken. “You need a little bit of extra impulse,” he added. “I think that is where, if you look at the composition of this group, some of us were in a unique position because of our ability to work in Japan, but also work with people outside to provide that spark to go and do it.”
In fact, as Brown explained, they have the ability to work as foreigners in Japan — without facing the social consequences of speaking out, criticizing or breaking rules that have prevented many Japanese and local firms from being able to help out as much as they wanted to. At the same time, most key members of Safecast are long-term residents of Japan and their desire to help amid the disaster was deeply rooted. “Not one of us flew away or would even think of abandoning our home just because there is a disaster. We live in Japan; this is our home,” said Joe Moross, a Safecast engineer and expert on radiation and environmental sensors.
Unfortunately, the environmental effects of the nuclear disaster will persist for decades. Brown believes that because cesium is known to migrate slowly into the soil, there is a possibility that some plants and trees will show higher levels of radioactivity in five to 10 years as the cesium reaches their roots.”We have to keep the pressure up and the only way to do this is to consistently keep on going, even if there is no disaster,” explained Franken. Holding workshops for high school and college students both in Japan and around the world, Safecast is continuing to expand its dominance in the field of independent radiation monitoring. Franken explained that by hosting these events, Safecast hopes to increase its volunteers and people’s awareness about the nuclear issues at hand.
“It’s been an amazing experience to be able to create something positive out of something so negative,” Franken said.
There’s no slowing down for Safecast. “Globally, we still have a lot to fill in,” said Bonner, noting there are still many places that have no or little data, such as Russia and China. “(At the) beginning of last year we started to measure air quality as well, so that’s another effort that we’re starting to reach out to. Between those two things, that’s a significant amount of stuff.
“We haven’t finished what we started,” he said. “We can’t even begin to think of what’s the next thing. We still have a lot of work to do that we’re still deeply engaged in doing.”
In Cumbria 9th March 2018, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority funds have helped two UK businesses
develop a small drone to measure radiation levels in the damaged reactor
building of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. The lightweight
drone uses lasers to self-navigate deep inside hazardous facilities where
GPS signals cannot reach, and has already been used successfully at
Sellafield.
Today is International Women’s Day “a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.”
There are many such women in the anti-nuclear movement. For example..
Mary Olson is the Founder of the Gender and Radiation Impact Project and is clear her life’s mission is to bring to light the disproportionate impact of radiation on girls and women. Over her long career, Olson has studied radiation health consequences with some of the leading radiation researchers of the 20 th Century including Rosalie Bertell, Alice Stewart, Helen Caldicott and Wing, and was featured in the educational film “ The Ultimate Wish: Ending the Nuclear Age” Through her work as a staff biologist and policy analyst at Nuclear Information and Resource Service , she has worked for decades to improve public policy on highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel and plutonium
Below is an excellent fact sheet from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service
little girls (age 0 — 5 years) are twice as likely to
suffer harm from radiation (defined in BEIR VII
as cancer) as little boys in the same age group. iii
In October 2011, NIRS published a briefing paper
Atomic Radiation is More Harmful to Women iv
containing more details about these findings. The
numbers in the BEIR VII tables are the source of
this new information. Gender difference is not
discussed in the report text.
Not every dose of radiation results in detectable
harm–cells have repair
mechanisms. However,
every exposure carries the potential for harm; and
that potential is tied to age of exposure and
gender.
Radiation Exposure Standards Based on Adult
Male Body
While we cannot see or
otherwise detect radiation with
our senses, we can see its
damage….
When the first regulations were made, it was because
soldiers and scientists in the U.S. (virtually all
male to begin with) were working on building
nuclear weapons. The first standards were
“allowable” limits for exposing these men to a
known hazard.
Radiation Levels v Dose
Geiger counters and other devices can detect
levels of radiation and concentrations of
radioactivity. It is much more difficult to say how much of that energy has impacted a living body (dose). Dose is calculated based on body size, weight, distance from the source and assumptions about biological impact. Gender is not factored in a typical determination of a dose. Historically the “dose receptors” were male, and were of a small age range. It is somewhat understandable that the “Reference Man”v was based on a “Standard Man”–a guy of a certain height, weight and age. Clearly such assumptions are no longer valid when there is such a striking gender difference– 40% to 100% greater likelihood of cancer or cancer death (depending on the age) for females, compared to males.vi
Not Only Cancer
Radiation harm includes not only cancer and leukemia, but reduced immunity, reduced fertility, increases in other diseases including heart disease, birth defects including heart defects, other mutations (both heritable and not). When damage is catastrophic to a developing embryo, spontaneous abortion or miscarriage of a pregnancy may result.vii
Gender Mechanism Not Yet Described
Perhaps the reason that the National Academy of Sciences does not discuss the fact that gender has such a large impact on outcome of exposure to radiation is that the causal mechanism is not yet described.
Dr. Rosalie Bertell, one of the icons of research and education on radiation health effects, suggests that one basis may be that the female body has a higher percentage of reproductive tissue than the male body. Dr. Bertell points to
studies showing reproductive organs and tissues are more sensitive to radiation. Nonetheless, Dr. Bertell is clear: “While research is clearly needed, we should PROTECT FIRST.”
Ignoring Gender Results in More Harm
The NAS BEIR VII findings show that males of all ages are more resistant to radiation exposure than females, and also that all children are more vulnerable than adults. The only radiation standard certain to protect everyone is zero. Given the fact that there is no safe dose of radiation, it is an appropriate goal. Any additional exposure above unavoidable naturally occurring radiation should include full disclosure and concurrence of the individual. It is time to adopt non-radioactive practices for making energy, peace, security and healing.
03/10/2012 Mary Olson, NIRS Southeast maryo@nirs.org / 828-252-8409
i See http://www.nirs.org/radiation/
ii BEIR VII, Table 12D‐3 page 312, National Academy Press (Washington, DC) 2006.
iii BEIR VII page 311, Table 12‐D 1.
iv NIRS: Atomic Radiation is More Harmful to Women http://www.nirs.org/radiation/radhealth/radiationwomen.p df
vICRP Publication 23: Reference Man: Anatomical, Physiological and Metabolic Characteristics, 1st Edition
vi IEER: The use of Reference Man in Radiation Protection Standards and Guidance with Recommendations for Change http://www.ieer.org/reports/referenceman.pdf
vii Non‐cancer health effects are documented in classic works of John Gofman, for instance Radiation and Human Health (Random House 1982) and digital documents available: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/overviews.html#CNR and Dr. Rosalie Bertell’s classic work No Immediate Danger, Summer Town Books, 1986.
RESEARCHERS at The University of the West Indies (UWI) are working assiduously to gather information to educate Jamaicans about the risks of treatments that involve too much exposure to radiation.
The medical use of radiation is known for being the largest, man-made contribution to the overall annual radiation dose of humans receive.
An overview of the researchers’ study mentioned that, according to the World Health Organisation, more than 3.6 billion diagnostic examinations, 37 million nuclear medicine procedures and 7.5 million radiotherapy treatments are executed annually.
Head of the materials and Medical Physics Research Group, Professor Mitko Voutchkov, explained to the Jamaica Observer that radiation damages the (deoxyribonucleic acid) of the healthy tissue cells in one’s body.
“Cancer is the tissue cells that don’t have biological function. Interestingly, they grow quickly and the cancer spreads all over the body. So this is the radiation effect-radiation damage the cells,” he said.
In addition to this, radiation can also cause hair loss, redness of the skin, radiation burns, fatigue, and even osteoporosis, which is a medical condition in which a person’s bones become brittle and fragile.
“The risk comes from the medical diagnostics, especially if you go very frequently to CT (computed tomography) scan. If you do one or two per year it’s fine, but sometimes it [one’s illness] will require much more,” Professor Voutchkov explained.
“MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is not so much damaging. If they can have an MRI instead of CT scan, let them choose that,” he added.
With the rapid advancements in technology, modern medical radiation equipment are emitting higher radiation doses. The researchers are concerned about people’s risk of overexposure to this man-made radiation.
The research group’s priority is creating a radiation safety culture in medical radiation imaging and radiotherapy. A part of this mandate requires them to carry out “regular quality control and calibration of medical radiation equipment”.
A survey was done on radiological safety practices in diagnostic centres in Jamaica, to assess their compliance with the Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Act. Additionally, a control study was conducted in a New York hospital to compare the radiation safety and management practices to that of Jamaica.
The recommendation arising from these studies is that, a management system is needed to keep records of the dose measurements, storage of dosimeters (a device that keeps track of a person’s exposure to radiation), and their safe use.
It is Professor Voutchkov’s notion that Jamaica’s patients need to be educated on the effects that radiation can have on them when they do treatments at diagnostic centres.
“I travel abroad and I see everywhere that they have videos, they have brochures, so the patients, they get prepared, so they accept the risk. Here, we have nothing,” he said.
With adequate information, he told the Sunday Observer, patients can decide whether or not to consult their general practitioner about alternative treatments, where possible.
As for the diagnostic centres, the professor recommends that equipment be checked for radiation levels to which patients are exposed. He asserted that new diagnostic techniques are developed to lower radiation dose, because radiation use during medical diagnostics should be limited.
Now 10 Workers Contaminated With Radioactive Waste At Hanford, OPB, by Anna KingFollow Northwest News Network Feb. 22, 2018
As many as 11 workers may have ingested or inhaled radioactive contamination at the Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition site at Hanford in southeast Washington state. Ten workers are confirmed to have tested positive and one needs more testing to confirm the results.
That’s up from the previous count of six.
The amounts of that contamination are small when compared with an average person’s yearly background exposure. The majority have between 1 and 10 millirems. The average person gets 350 millirems per year from natural and man-made substances.
Hanford cars deemed clean, test positive for radiation, A Hanford employee was told their family car filter was clean, but an independent scientist determined it tested positive for radiation. King5.com Susannah Frame, February 21, 2018
A veteran worker of the Hanford nuclear site has learned that a car filter removed and tested by a scientist in Boston came up contaminated with the radioactive isotope of americium 241. The worker’s car had been deemed “clean” in surveys conducted in December and February by the Hanford government contractor, CH2M Hill.
“I’m just stunned. I’m angry, but that goes without saying. Now I wonder, ‘How far has it gone? Did I take it home? How long has this been going on?’” said the worker who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation.
Five filters total were collected by the Seattle-based watchdog group, Hanford Challenge, and sent to Kaltofen. The two that came up with radioactive isotopes had previously been declared free of contamination, said Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge.
“Americium is a rare radioactive element, and does not belong in anybody’s engine compartment,” said Carpenter. “The fact that vehicles were checked and released to these workers, only to find that they were still contaminated, raises disturbing questions about the credibility of Hanford’s program.”
“The kind of materials we’re talking about at Hanford are suspected to cause cancer or known to cause cancer. A person’s personal car shouldn’t contain radio-isotopes for weapons manufacturing. That’s pretty simple,” said Kaltofen.
Americium is a radioactive material used in the production of plutonium for nuclear bombs at Hanford from World War II through the Cold War. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), americium-241 emits alpha particles “poses a significant risk if enough is swallowed or inhaled. Once in the body…it generally stays in the body for decades and continues to expose the surrounding tissues to radiation. This may eventually increase a person’s chance of developing cancer.”
“I’ve driven to Oregon and others have taken their cars out of state. We have no idea how far we’ve spread (radioactive matter),” said the worker with americium on the car filter.
The US Dept. of Energy, which owns Hanford, and its contractor CH2M Hill, have been plagued with a spread of radioactive particles from a demolition project that was supposed to be completed by September 2017. Instead, the project to take down the historic and lethally contaminated Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) is on hold as Hanford officials try to find ways to continue the work in a safe manner………..
Since June, the Dept. of Energy reports that 41 PFP workers have tested positive for internal contamination. Forty-three more test results are yet to be returned. In the December loss of control of radiation, 27 government-owned vehicles were found to have contamination on them in addition to the seven private cars.
“The agreement is very assuring, as we will be able to receive support for efforts on the safety and security of the region,” Gov. Masao Uchibori said during the signing ceremony at the prefecture’s office on the same day.
It is the 15th time the unit of Japan Post Holdings Co. has concluded an agreement with a prefectural government.
Under the plan, Japan Post’s delivery minivehicles will be equipped with radiation gauges. Data will be collected automatically and wirelessly transmitted to the prefectural government. The prefecture’s coast was heavily damaged by the March 2011 mega-quake and tsunami, while much larger parts of it were contaminated by radiation by the subsequent core meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.
In addition, the two parties agreed that posters to promote Fukushima goods will be put up at post offices in areas around Tokyo, in Fukushima and five other prefectures in the Tohoku region.
Japan Post’s delivery staff will also alert the prefectural government and others when several days’ worth of newspapers are seen accumulating outside of the homes of elderly people, and when damage to roads is observed.
“We will provide maximum assistance for Fukushima Prefecture’s revitalization,” said Kunio Yokoyama, president of Japan Post.
A better direction for low-dose radiation research, BAS, Jan Beyea 12 Feb 18,
With bipartisan support, the US House Science, Space, and Technology Committee recently passed a bill to revitalize low-dose radiation research. The bill, which would authorize an estimated $96 million in funding, has also garnered support from researchers and groups with opposing views on the seriousness of effects of ionizing radiation in the low-dose region, defined as being below 100 millisieverts—roughly the amount of radiation from 10 CT scans.
Studies of excess cancers among survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings have estimated a 1 percent increase in long-term cancer risk for adults receiving a dose of 100 millisieverts (the risk is higher for children), with the risk below that level declining in proportion to the dose. However, stakeholders and researchers with different hypotheses continue to debate whether or not downward extrapolation by dose magnitude—the “linear no-threshold” model deemed most reasonable by a National Research Council committee of experts—is the best way to estimate risk. ……
The hope of many supporters of the proposed legislation, voiced by Rep. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, is that it may assist “the development of nuclear energy opportunities,” in part by reducing the size of nuclear plant evacuation zones. The bill’s supporters presume that the finding of a threshold or hormesis region would demonstrate that the existing linear no-threshold model is an over-protection that, as Northwestern University radiation biologist Gayle E. Woloschak wrote in a letter of support for the bill, “may be wastefully expensive and deplete funds that could be used for other strategic goals for the nation.”
Past research by the Energy Department to upend the linear model has failed to fulfill that dream, finding health effects below 100 millisieverts from even protracted exposures. There is so much existing epidemiological data from exposed workers, patients receiving medical diagnostics, and residents living around the Soviet nuclear complex—as well as the Japanese atomic bombing survivors—that new research, whatever it shows, will need to be interpreted in the light of all the evidence.
That will likely leave stakeholders and experts debating for a long time, and the public confused.
Inherent uncertainty. New radiation research is likely to carry uncertainties, which means government policy must be conservative in its choice of the best dose-response model to use. Why is it difficult to tease out risks at low doses? Individual risks from medical diagnostics and from the (fortunately) limited releases of radioactivity at Fukushima are generally low under the linear extrapolation model. They are small compared with background disease rates, challenging epidemiological methods. The difficulty of finding effects among background cancers is actually good news for exposed individuals. However, the social risk is sufficiently large to justify keeping doses as low as reasonably achievable and balancing risks against benefits.
My colleagues and I call radiological events “reverse lotteries”: The individual risk of drawing a cancer-causing “ticket” from an event such as the Fukushima meltdowns is small, but because so many people are part of the lottery, real people do get impacted when they draw losing tickets.
Prospective risks and retrospective risks are perceived differently. If I learned that my family and I had already been exposed to a 1-in-1,000 cancer risk, I would be angry, but I would realize that the odds were highly in our favor; none of us would likely be injured. However, if you asked me to relocate to contaminated land where my children would be exposed to a 1-in-1,000 chance of cancer, I would want to stay away unless there were major benefits associated with the move, or if I thought I couldn’t afford to do otherwise. Risk tradeoffs are personal, and families can be painfully split on the best decision, as happened at Fukushima……… https://thebulletin.org/better-direction-low-dose-radiation-research11500
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