Radioactive material from reactors is 2 billion times more toxic than industrial poisons
US Gov’t: Radioactive material from reactors is 2 billion times more toxic than industrial poisons — Harm caused by nuclear disaster “greater than for any work of man” other than atomic bomb — Top Expert: Radiation “like explosions going off in cell… blows hole in DNA” (VIDEO)http://enenews.com/govt-document-radioactive-materials-reactors-2-billion-times-toxic-common-industrial-poison-harm-nuclear-disaster-greater-work-man-other-atomic-bomb-top-expert-radiation-like-explosions-going-ce?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
Dr. Bill McBride, UCLA School of Medicine Vice Chair for Research in Radiation, Principle Investigator of UCLA’s Center for Medical Countermeasures Against Radiation — National Institutes of Health, Jan 27, 2014 (emphasis added):
- 19:45 – There are some unique things about ionizing radiation when it comes to the interaction with biological systems… Energy is deposited ubiquitously in cells and in tissues… in little packets of energy… These [are] like many explosions going off in the cell… If you can think of these little explosions going off all over a cell, if it happens to take place in DNA, there’s really quite a high chance this will blow a hole in the DNA. Ionizing radiation is a very powerful cytotoxic agent… You get these lesions which are formed within DNA which are really quite complex lesions… We’re talking 0.0000000000000001 seconds for the ionization to take place… Cell cycle arrest, cell death by apoptosis or mitotic catastrophe… take place very rapidly after exposure.
- 37:30 – What’s happening following ionizing radiation? You get these little explosions going off very rapidly… But mitochondria get hit as well… With time, you actually get these mitochondria leaking more free radicals than [the] ionizing radiation, by orders of magnitude… This concept is one which is growing very strongly in radiation biology now. The effects are not all over in 24 hours… you initiate a cascade of biological responses which can go on for a long period of time, even years.
- 46:00 – You get long-term immune dysfunction… If you inject flu virus into mice [it] will eventually kill the [irradiated] animals… in normal animals this isn’t the case. So the immune system is compromised for long periods of time after radiation exposure.
- 51:00 – The concept is that we’re generating damage which is cascading forward to mitochondria and other cellular structures, in addition to DNA… Radiation is not just a powerful cytotoxin, it initiates signaling cascades that are taking place against a radiation damage background… Radiation damage is often remembered within the cells. We’ve shown, at least in brain and lung and other tissues, you get these kind of pro-inflammatory responses… This is underlying a lot of effects in radiation exposure.
- 52:00 (appears to be on verge of crying) – At UCLA we have over 100 people who are in our center… They’re interested in radiation now — they never were before. I think that we’re kind of moving animal models slowly forward to things which are really kind of very precise and very accurate and I think do reflect a lot of things that we will see in humans… who’ve been exposed to radiation.
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (pdf), 1968: The total amount of debris released during routine atomic processes and conceived as possible from accidents is minuscule when compared with the amount of pollutants produced throughout the world by combustion. The extraordinarily poisonous nature of the radioactive materialsinvolved, however, dictates that even small quantities be treated with respect. For instance, it has been estimated that some of the radioactive materials found in a reactor are 3 million to 2 billion times as toxic as chlorine, the most common poison used by industry... if it were possible for all the many controls and safety features in a large power reactor to fail so as to produce a disastrous release of radioactivity, this release could conceivably kill thousands… Although, in actual practice, such an accident is made to have a vanishingly small probability of occurring, the theoretical potential for such an accident is probably greater than for any work of man other than the explosion of a fission or fusion weapon.
One soldier’s story of radiation exposure on Pacific nuclear test site KALAMA ISLAND,
by terryrs, 12 Feb 15 I am a first hand victim of radiation exposure when I was assigned to the DOE designated nuclear test site at KALAMA ISLAND, Johnston Island. I experienced many detonations and was on island where plutonium debree was bured both on island and in the ocean. Our nation admitted to their responsibility and enacted the EEOICPA ACT to provide for victims, unfortunately it was exclusive in that only DOE workers were provided, DISCRIMINATION!. I worked for the DOD which operated under a joint effort with DOE.
I applied for medical assistance under RECA but it also denied and failed to provide medical or equal compensation as that of EEOICPA.
Subsequently we have learned we are denied because we are just too “expensive”. Can you imagine when they needed us we were cheap and now we are to expensive?
President Clinton authorized continued funding for EEOICPA and cited that our nation must be responsible but still signed an act that denies and is exclusive.
Amendment legislation has been on going for many years only to die in committees. You wonder whether the authors are interested in votes or to really help victims harmed by America.
I lost my bladder and prostrate, stage 4 cancer and was given months to live without removal. I payed all medical expenses even though my employer was supposed to provide compensation. It appears they did not and now I am in a lawsuit. I wonder if the courts will be just as past history demonstrates they are not. Most all cases were dismissed for lack of evidence, “the cloak of secrecy” our nation uses.
The result of all of this is ” WE WILL DIE WAITING “
Fukushima radiation in Pacific monitored by Canadian citizen scientists
B.C.’s citizen scientists on alert for radiation from Japan, Vancouver Sun BY AMY SMART, TIMES COLONIST JANUARY 25, 2015 Since October, citizen scientists have been dipping buckets into the waters of B.C.’s coast, looking for fallout from the 2011 nuclear meltdown in Japan.
At the centre of the search are two man-made isotopes, Cesium-134 and Cesium-137, which act as “fingerprints” for radiation specific to the Japan disaster. Both isotopes were released when the reactors failed in the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami, just as they were during nuclear testing in the mid-20th century.
While Cesium-137 has a half-life — the time it takes for the radioactivity to fall to half its original value — of 30 years, Cesium-134’s is only two years. That means that if Cesium-134 is found in a sample, scientists can be certain it came from Fukushima.
“It’s been sufficiently long since atmospheric weapons testing last century or the Chernobyl disaster that we don’t see traces of [Cesium-134 from those sources] anymore,” said University of Victoria ocean chemist Jay Cullen. “So if we detect it in seawater or an organism, then we know that sample has been affected by Fukushima.”
The radiation is as close as 100 kilometres, with levels expected to peak over the next two years. But so far, members of the InFORM Network — citizen scientists, and representatives from academia, government and non-governmental organizations — haven’t found anything in seawater samples collected by volunteers at 14 coastal locations.
“The models of ocean circulation that the physical oceanographers have put together suggest that we are going to see it along the coast and we can expect it to arrive over the next couple of years, the heart of that contaminated plume,” said Cullen, who leads the network.
InFORM is also monitoring marine life, which can absorb radiation. The first results, from sockeye salmon and steelhead trout selected for their known migration paths, showed traces of Cesium-137, but no Cesium-134……….
John Smith, a senior research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, agrees that the health risks are likely to be “extremely low.” At its peak, the radiation in the plume is expected to be three to five becquerels per cubic metre of water. Canadian guidelines for safe drinking water impose a limit of 10,000 becquerels per cubic metre, he said.
For Smith, who began monitoring the plume’s spread in 2011, it provides a “dye test” for testing theories about ocean currents. The results will have implications for all kinds of models, including understandings of climate change, he said.
“This was a unique oceanographic event in that a large quantity of radioactivity was deposited into the ocean off Japan at a given moment in time and at a given location. It was a tremendous disaster. But it has provided an oceanographic tracer for currents that has never occurred before.”…….. www.vancouversun.com/health/citizen+scientists+alert+radiation+from+Japan/10758982/story.html
North Dakota citizens angry at plan to increase allowable levels of radiation at dump sites
Raising radiation limits draws citizens’ anger Bismarck Tribune January 21, 2015 By LeAnn Eckroth A state Health Department plan to track and dispose of radioactive waste from the oil patch drew nearly 130 people to a two-hour hearing Wednesday in Bismarck. A majority who testified said the plan had serious gaps in public safety.
Signs against higher levels of TENORM — technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material — at special landfill sites were taped to the walls of the Environmental Training Center and even hung over a few attendees’ necks.
Dakota Resource Council members and members of area tribes said the state Health Department had given inadequate notice and education about the plan to increase TENORM levels allowed at radioactive disposal sites from 5 picocuries per gram to 50. They demanded more hearings, saying the Feb. 6 deadline for comments was not enough time…..
Audience members challenged whether the state agency had enough staff and money to fully regulate TENORM disposal sites.
“You told me that the industry came and asked you for this. I know no North Dakota citizen came to you asking for an increase in radioactivity to poison themselves, their children or grandchildren,” said Joletta Birdbear, a member of the Mandan Hidatsa and Arikira tribe and a DRC member.
Gene Wirtz, a farmer from Underwood, said the levels shouldn’t be raised. He said county commissioners voted against a radioactive waste site near his home.
“I see this as an end run to get that dump back,” he said. “No amount of radiation is good. Anytime you raise the amount of radiation you are exposed to, you are going to raise the risk of cancer.”……..
A meeting was held Tuesday in Williston and a third was to be held Thursday at the Fargo Public Safety Building at 4630 15th Ave. N.
Radig said the state health officials will consider extending the public comment and education period on the draft regulations.
The ruthlessness of radiation, and its danger to astronauts
These Are The 2 Big Hurdles To Setting Up A Mars Colony, Business Insider, JESSICA ORWIG 16 Jan 15 “…….. Ruthless Radiation
“The first [hurdle] is the radiation that you’re exposed to when you’re in deep space……….Since 2008, more than 40 scientists at institutions across the country have been studying what space radiation does to the human body and how to mitigate those effects. Moreover, NASA has established nearly a dozen specialised centres of research in this field.
The sun is primary source of harmful radiation that astronauts would face on their way to Mars. Powerful bursts from the sun called solar flares, like the one shown below, release lethal doses of radiation with the power of 160 billion megatons of TNT.
We are safe here on Earth because our planet’s magnetic field and thick atmosphere protect us from these radiation blasts, but there’s no protection in space. During deep space flights, astronauts would be bombarded by dangerous, high-energy radiation, like x-rays and gamma rays, from solar flares.
The human body can handle certain kinds of radiation in small doses, but the longer you are exposed the more likely your body will blow past those “safe” radiation levels into the danger zone. The result is a series of scary symptoms like vomiting, fatigue, changes to white blood cell count, and impaired immune system, all of which could jeopardize an astronaut’s ability to do much else.
Long term, radiation exposure will increase astronauts’ risk of developing cancer and can also lead to damaged cardiovascular system, eyes, and central nervous system……….http://www.businessinsider.com.au/two-big-hurdles-to-setting-up-a-mars-colony-2015-1
Neutron radiation from Fukushima has been grossly underestimated
Fukushima Released 13,000,000,000 Times More Neutrons than Initially Estimated http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-released-13000000000-times-more-neutrons-than-initially-estimated/5424619
“Neutron radiation is the most severe and dangerous radiation” known to mankind January 14, 2015
We estimated a lower limit of 5.2 × 1021 slow neutrons m–2 sec–1 [m–2 sec–1 = per sq. meter per second] were emitted from the nuclear fuel rods to the sea water injected in the reactors
- Priyadarshi et al. (2011) have estimated a release amount of 4 × 1011 slow neutrons m–2. The large difference with our estimation [13,000,000,000 times higher] comes from the intrinsic limit of the box model study by Priyadarshi et al.
- Our model directly estimates the amount of material released from the reactor core
- The estimated… number of neutron represent a lower limit of the amount of radiation emitted from the nuclear reactors… These values can be used as a proxy to the total amount of radiation emitted since the melt down
- [The authors] express their gratitude to… the Japanese Ministry of Environment…Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Technology (MEXT)… [and] the Cabinet Office
Priyadarshi et al.: Evidence of neutron leakage at the Fukushima nuclear plant… Despite the obvious implication for human health… there are no quantitative estimates of the neutron flux leakage… [T]ons of seawater were used as a coolant… A consequence is that salts and minerals present in seawater become radioactive by reaction with thermal neutrons… We calculated the total number of neutrons that leaked from the reactor core [and] estimate that a total of 4 × 1011 neutrons per m2 were released before March 20.
Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Coordination: Neutron radiation is a kind of ionizing radiation which consists of free neutrons… Neutrons readily pass through most material, but interact enough to cause biological damage. Neutron radiation is considered to be the most severe and dangerous radiation available. Neutrons can travel great distances…
Solar radiation – hazards to sun-bathers and astronauts
Sunlight Can Kill You!https://planetpailly.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/sunlight-can-kill-you/We all know the Sun produces U.V. rays and that if you spend too much time sunbathing, you’ll probably get skin cancer. Well, the Sun spews a lot of other stuff into space too. Ultraviolet radiation may be the least of your worries if you happen to live in space.
In addition to U.V. rays, the Sun also produces:
- X-rays: sort of like U.V. rays, only with more energy and, therefore, more harmful.
- Gamma rays: even more energetic and harmful than X-rays.
- Solar ejecta: solar flares and other nasty explosions on the Sun can accelerate protons, electrons, and other little bits and pieces of atoms to ludicrous speeds. Do not stand in their way!
Fortunately, Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protect us from most of the Sun’s deadly radiation. Even the crew of the International Space Station are in a low enough orbit that Earth still keeps them safe. Well, safe-ish.
But all this radiation makes human space exploration beyond low Earth orbit extremely hazardous. Before sending astronauts to the Moon, NASA had to wrestle with their collective conscience over how much radiation exposure should be considered acceptable. Now, NASA is wrestling with its conscience again as it plans to send astronauts to Mars.
Current technology cannot protect humans from solar radiation. The problem gets worse with increased solar flare activity. One of the things science fiction writers (like myself) have to figure out is how to keep our characters from dying of radiation sickness within the first few chapters of our books.
P.S.: Starlight can kill you too. In addition to solar radiation, astronauts have to worry about cosmic radiation: radiation from other stars, quasars, and God knows what else.
The distinctive “fingerprint” of the Fukushima radiation fallout
The real fallout from Fukushima, Maclean’s Colby Cosh January 8, 2015 On the verge of the new year, scientists from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans issued the first systematic report of measurements on the spread of radioactive seawater from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor to the coast of British Columbia. …….Accurate measurements of the Fukushima plume are possible because humans wisely stopped testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere in 1980. There is still a “fallout background” of radiation lingering in the world’s oceans from these nuclear tests—and, of course, from those two nuclear explosions that did not quite have the character of tests. But every kind of radioactive isotope has a different rate of decay, usually expressed as a “half-life,” and the short-lived ones from nuclear testing are all gone.
This means that the 2011 Fukushima disaster left a distinctive “fingerprint” of fast-decaying radioactives that cannot be attributed to any other source. So that’s what the scientists measuring the plume look for—fanning out between Vancouver Island and Japan on Canadian Coast Guard oceanographic vessels, gathering up seawater from various depths, and pumping it through ion exchangers to extract the telltale radioactive cesium that spewed out of the damaged reactor.
In 2011, the measurements along the B.C.-Japan line looked just like usual. But the levels of cesium-134, which can only have come from Fukushima, suddenly increased about 1,500 km off the continental shelf when samples were taken in 2012. In 2013 the “fingerprint” of Fukushima seems to have reached the shelf itself.
Cesium-134 degrades fast. What physicists and doctors have been concerned about is the equal amount of cesium-137 spilled at Fukushima: that isotope has a half-life of 30 years, so most of whatever reaches B.C. now will be around for a while. The radiation emitted by the fallout background—the cesium-137 presently left in the ocean by past nuclear testing—works out to about one becquerel per cubic metre of seawater. That figure has now doubled. The total peak level of ocean radioactivity off Canada’s Pacific Coast is expected to reach somewhere between three to five becquerels per cubic metre before beginning to drop back down……..
Overall, the authors of the paper expect the Fukushima plume to make B.C. ocean water as radioactive as it was in the 1980s…….
How radioactive paint contaminated workers
Pappy’s Undark Girls Ghost Stories 2012 – 2014 by Lost Dutchman Ghost“…….The Radium Luminous Material Corporation used radium from carnotite ore to make luminous paint, which was sold under the brand name ‘Undark‘. The paint was used on military watches and compasses. Plant workers were told the product was safe and encouraged to handle the substance with their hands and mouth. When the girls went to the clubs after work, the paint was blazon on their lips and shone brightly in the darkness. They were very popular, but their looks could kill.
After several workers became ill with radioactive poisoning, plant workers (Grace Fryer and four others) sued for damages. A media sensation surrounded the case of the Undark Girls. It established several legal precedents and triggered the enactment of regulations governing labor safety standards; in addition to the historic reference of ‘provable suffering’.
Several of the plant workers died before the litigation was complete. The company enacted safety procedures and the illness ceased. Even after death, the bodies of the victims were so contaminated that radiation can still be detected at their grave sites, using a Geiger counter…….http://lostdutchmanghosthunters.blogspot.com.au/
Buesseler and other scientists are calling for more monitoring of Pacific Coast radiation
Scientists: Test West Coast for Fukushima radiation Tracy Loew, USA TODAY March 9, 2014 SALEM, Ore. — Very low levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster likely will reach ocean waters along the U.S. West Coast next month, scientists are reporting.
Current models predict that the radiation will be at extremely low levels that won’t harm humans or the environment, said Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who presented research on the issue last week.
But Buesseler and other scientists are calling for more monitoring. No federal agency currently samples Pacific Coast seawater for radiation, he said.
“I’m not trying to be alarmist,” Buesseler said. “We can make predictions, we can do models. But unless you have results, how will we know it’s safe?”……………
There are three competing models of the Fukushima radiation plume, differing in amount and timing. But all predict that the plume will reach the West Coast this summer, and the most commonly cited one estimates an April arrival, Buesseler said.
A report presented last week at a conference of the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences Section showed that some Cesium 134 has already has arrived in Canada, in the Gulf of Alaska area.
Cesium 134 serves as a fingerprint for Fukushima, Buesseler said.
“The models show it will reach north of Seattle first, then move down the coast,” Buesseler said.
By the time it gets here, the material will be so diluted as to be almost negligible, the models predict. Radiation also decays. Cesium 134, for example, has a half-life of two years, meaning it will have half its original intensity after that period.
In Oregon, state park rangers take quarterly samples of surf water and sand at three locations along the coast. The water is analyzed for Cesium 137 and iodine 131. Both of those already exist in the ocean at low levels from nuclear testing decades ago.
The monitoring began in April 2012, when tsunami debris began arriving along the Oregon coast. So far, all of the tests have shown less than “minimum detectable activity,” or the least amount that can be measured.
Results of the most recent samples, taken in mid-February, won’t be available until mid-March, Oregon Health Authority spokesman Jonathan Modie said.
Washington does not test ocean water for radiation.
“We have none happening now and we have none planned,” said Tim Church, communications director for the Washington State Department of Health. “Typically that would be something that would happen on the federal level.”
California regularly samples seawater around the state’s nuclear power plants to determine whether the plants are impacting the environment. Those results all are below minimum detectable activity.
Some citizens and scientists are taking sampling into their own hands. Cal State Long Beach marine biologist Steven Manley has launched “Kelp Watch 2014,” which will partner with other organizations to monitor kelp all along the West Coast for Fukushima radiation.
And Buesseler recently offered the services of his lab at Woods Hole in Massachusetts.
His project — titled “How Radioactive Is Our Ocean?” — will use crowd-sourced money and volunteers to collect water samples along the Pacific Coast, then ship them across the country to be analyzed.
So far, results are in for two locations in Washington and three in California. They show that the plume has not yet reached the coast.
Meanwhile, West Coast states are winding down their tsunami debris response efforts.
Oregon’s coastline is seeing less debris from the tsunami this winter than in the past two years, Oregon State Parks spokesman Chris Havel said.
If that doesn’t change, officials likely will disband a task force that was mobilized to deal with the debris.
Last year, Washington suspended its marine debris reporting hotline.
Loew also reports for the (Salem, Ore.) Statesman Journal http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/09/scientists-test-west-coast-for-fukushima-radiation/6213849/?utm_content=buffer51957&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Fukushiama radiation reaching USA West Coast – at this stage, not a health problem
“My take home is always, don’t trivialize it or dismiss it, but also don’t exaggerate what the effects might be,” says Woods Hole’s Ken Buesseler.
Radiation from Fukushima is reaching the West Coast — but you don’t need to freak out, WP By Chris Mooney December 29 “…….many Americans have been concerned — sometimes overly so — that radiation from Fukushima, traveling through the vast Pacific ocean, would eventually make its way to the waters off the West Coast of the United States and Canada. And according to a new scientific paper just out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that has indeed happened.
The paper, by John N. Smith of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (a government agency) and several colleagues, is the “first systematic study…of the transport of the Fukushima marine radioactivity signal to the eastern North Pacific,” and concludes that radiation reached the continental shelf of Canada by June of last year, and has increased somewhat since.
But– and here’s the good news — the levels of radiation are very low, well below levels that public health authorities cite as grounds for concern. The radiation “does not represent a threat to human health or the environment,” reports the paper.
The new study is not the first to reach that conclusion. Continue reading
USA: EPA now allows much higher, much less safe, radiation levels in drinking water!
Obama Increases Allowable Levels of Radiation in Drinking Water “Dramatically”http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-increases-allowable-levels-of-radiation-in-drinking-water-dramatically/5420787
In Time for Massive New Dumping of Daiichi Radiation
The Nuclear Industry calls this their “new normal,” according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
The EPA has issued radiation guides called Protective Action Guides or PAGs which allows more radiation than any American has ever been exposed to. Within the guides, are instructions for evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.”
Wouldn’t the massive break down of reactor number one at Fukushima be considered a ‘radiological emergency?”
Shunichi Tanaka, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, made the comment Dec. 12 about dumping radioactive waste into the ocean.
The US governments PAGs allow long-term public exposure to radiation in amounts as high as 2,000 millirems. This would, in effect, increase a longstanding 1 in 10,000 person cancer rate to a rate of 1 in 23 persons exposed over a 30-year period. Many experts are expecting elevated cancer rates due to these “allowable” levels of radiation exposure.
The PAGs are the work of Gina McCarthy, the assistant administrator for air and radiation whose nomination to serve as EPA Administrator was only approved by the Senate a few months ago.
It is suggested that these PAGs have been in the works for over two years and are just recently available for public view.
PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said:
“This is a public health policy only Dr. Strangelove could embrace. If this typifies the environmental leadership we can expect from Ms. McCarthy, then [the] EPA is in for a long, dirty slog.”
“No compelling justification is offered for increasing the cancer deaths of Americans innocently exposed to corporate miscalculations several hundred-fold.”
Less radiation for breast cancer makes sense for some patients
For Some, Less Radiation for Breast Cancer Makes Sense Live Science Dr. Lucille Lee, North Shore-LIJ Cancer Institute | December 18, 2014 Dr. Lucille Lee is an attending physician in the Department of Radiation Medicine at North Shore-LIJ’s Cancer Institute and is a board-certified radiation oncologist specializing in the treatment of breast and prostate cancer. She specializes in multiple techniques including partial breast irradiation and breast hypofractionation. She contributed this article to Live Science’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Once physicians are accustomed to practicing in a certain way, changing that paradigm can be difficult to embrace — even when scientific evidence increasingly supports the change.
That’s likely what’s holding back more radiation oncologists in the United States from implementing a shorter course of radiation therapy for early-stage breast cancer patients who’ve undergone breast-sparing lumpectomy surgery. New research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that two-thirds of these U.S. patients are still receiving six to seven weeks of radiation therapy after a lumpectomy instead of a shorter course of radiation that’s been shown to be just as effective………
How can early-stage breast cancer patients find out they’re eligible for the shorter course? Increasingly educated on medical matters, patients need to speak up and ask their doctors. And physicians themselves need to accept that feeling comfortable about how they have practiced medicine for so long doesn’t justify holding on to outdated ideas.
In this case, it’s quite clear that fewer radiation treatments can be just as effective for early-stage breast cancer patients as the “traditional” longer course. When patients receive more therapy than they actually need, it’s no longer therapeutic
— it’s simply overdone. http://www.livescience.com/49180-doctors-should-prescribe-less-radiation-for-breast-cacner-treatment.html
Unnecessary radiation given to elderly breast cancer patients
Most elderly breast cancer patients receive unnecessary radiation, Medical News Today, by James McIntosh 8 December 2014 In 2004, a randomized clinical trial supported the omission of radiation treatment in elderly female patients with early-stage breast cancer. Despite this evidence, a new study reports that almost two-thirds of this group of patients still receive this treatment today. The randomized clinical trial – often regarded to be the “gold standard” in evidence-based medicine – demonstrated that the administering of radiation to patients who had received surgery and the drug tamoxifen did not improve 5-year recurrence rates or survival rates in elderly women diagnosed with early-stage tumors.
Radiation therapy has been considered the standard treatment for early-stage breast cancer for many years. However, it appears that practitioners are reluctant to change their ways. In the new study, published inCancer, the authors state that the omission of radiotherapy has not been widely adopted into clinical practice.
They cite a recent assessment of the nation’s largestcancer registry, the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database. Among women aged over 70, 76.5% received radiation treatment, and little change was observed in treatment practice before and after the publication of the 2004 study………
The American Society for Radiation Oncology have recommended against using whole-breast radiotherapy in women aged over 50 for early-stage breast cancer without first considering a shorter treatment schedule.
“Although shorter treatment schedules are more convenient for patients and less costly for the health care system, the omission of radiotherapy in women aged >70 years with early-stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer would achieve these goals while sparing patients the potential acute and late toxicities associated with radiotherapy,” write the authors.
Results for the trial published last year indicate that recurrence rates were still low in patients that had not received radiation therapy. …..http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/286539.php
Study into effects of chronic exposure to radiation in food: Chernobyl wolves as an example
ECOVIEWS: Chernobyl wolves reveal radiation’s impact, Tuscaloosa News, December 5, 2014 How do scientists determine what the long-term impacts would be to humans living in a radiation-contaminated environment? An ecological study of wolves in the Ukraine may provide the answer……….
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- May 2026 (126)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 