Brain damage risk to astronauts from radiation
Could deep space cause BRAIN DAMAGE? Radiation could permanently destroy an astronaut’s attention span
- Rats were exposed to radiation levels similar to that found in deep space
- Serious lapses in attention occurred in 64% of the sensitive animals
- Increase in impulsiveness took place in 45% and slower reaction in 27%
- Difference based on a rat’s specific resilience after exposure to radiation
- If same proves true in humans, scientists could identify those more susceptible to radiation before the brain becomes permanently damaged
Daily Mail, By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD, 30 April 2014 Researchers came to the conclusion after exposing rats to high-energy particles that simulate the conditions astronauts could experience in deep space.
After exposure, a team at John Hopkins University in Maryland made the rats perform a fitness test similar to the ones astronauts, pilots, and soldiers have to take prior to a mission. …....‘In our radiated rats, we found that 40 to 45 percent had these attention-related deficits, while the rest were seemingly unaffected,’ said study leader Dr Robert Hienz……The radiation-sensitive animals all showed evidence of brain damage that began at 50 to 60 days after exposure…..
Currently, astronauts are not as exposed to the damaging effects of radiation because the International Space Station flies in an orbit low enough that the Earth’s magnetic field continues to provide protection.
But several years ago brain scans of Nasa astronauts who spent more than a month in space revealed damage to their eyeballs and brain tissue. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2616792/Could-deep-space-cause-BRAIN-DAMAGE-Radiation-permanently-destroy-astronauts-attention-span.html#ixzz30Ur2J9NG
Medical authorities overwhelmingly agree that low-level ionising radiation is harmful to health
The view that low-level radiation is harmless is restricted to a small number of scientists whose voice is greatly amplified by the nuclear industry – in much the same way as corporate greenhouse polluters and their politicians amplify the voices of climate science sceptics.
Chernobyl – how many died?, The Ecologist Jim Green – Nuclear Monitor 26th April 2014“………Little scientific confidence on quantifying radiation risk While the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion holds that there is no threshold below which radiation exposure is harmless, there is less scientific confidence about how to quantify the risks.
Risk estimates for low-level radiation exposure are typically based on a linear extrapolation of better-understood risks from higher levels of exposure. This ‘Linear No Threshold’ (LNT) model has some heavy-hitting scientific support. For example a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states:
“Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.” [1]
Likewise, the 2006 report of the US National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) states that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.” [2]
Uncertain risk does not equal zero risk Continue reading
How many deaths were caused by the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe?
A number of studies apply that basic method – based on collective radiation doses and risk estimates – and come up with estimates of the Chernobyl cancer death toll varying from 9,000 (in the most contaminated parts of the former Soviet Union) to 93,000 deaths (across Europe).
unqualified claims that the death toll was just 50, should be rejected as dishonest or uninformed spin from the nuclear industry and some of its scientifically-illiterate (in this field if not in others) supporters.
And sadly, that has to include every last one of the self-proclaimed ‘pro-nuclear environmentalists’ – among them James Hansen, Patrick Moore, Mark Lynas, George Monbiot, Stephen Tindale and James Lovelock.
Chernobyl – how many died?, The Ecologist, Jim Green – Nuclear Monitor 26th April 2014“………Fifty immediate deaths
About 50 people died in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl accident. Beyond that, studies generally don’t indicate a significant increase in cancer incidence in populations exposed to Chernobyl fallout.
Nor would anyone expect them to because of the data gaps and methodological problems mentioned above, and because the main part of the problem concerns the exposure of millions of people to low doses of radiation from Chernobyl fallout.
For a few fringe scientists and nuclear industry insiders and apologists, that’s the end of the matter – the statistical evidence is lacking and thus the death toll from Chernobyl was just 50.
If they were being honest, they would note an additional, unknown death toll from cancer and from other radiation-linked diseases including cardiovascular disease. Continue reading
NASA just doesn’t get it – that ionising radiation is a killer
Cosmic ray radiation could prevent humans from travelling to Mars, Herald Sun, STAFF WRITERS NEWS.COM.AU APRIL 25, 2014
A NEW report has exposed one of the big problems confronting our ambition to send humans to Mars – galactic cosmic ray radiation.
Cosmic rays consist of high energy particles. When humans leave the earth’s atmosphere, these rays can kill cells and even cause cancer. They’re also extremely difficult to shield against, Wired reports.
The new study, published in the scientific journal PLOS One, says astronauts could receive doses of cosmic ray radiation exceeding their lifetime limit after just 18 months (for women) or two years (for men) on the International Space Station.
“The type of tumours that cosmic ray ions make are more aggressive than what we get from other radiation,” says radiation expert Francis Cucinotta, who wrote the report.
That conclusion obviously has wider repercussions for extended space travel. If we’re going to send anyone to Mars, we’d better be able to protect them against the effects of this radiation. Cucinotta estimates that, as technology currently stands, an astronaut’s lifespan would be shortened by 15-24 years by a trip to the red planet.
NASA does take steps to ensure its astronauts don’t vastly increase their chances of dying from cancer. Once an astronaut has spent too much time accumulating radiation in space, they’re grounded, Wired reports……..http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/science/cosmic-ray-radiation-could-prevent-humans-from-travelling-to-mars/story-fnjwlbuf-1226895669558
NASA Chief: Mars Mission Necessary For Human Survival Http://Www.Abc22now.Com/Shared/News/Top-Stories/Stories/Wkef_vid_19784.Shtml
Ultimately, Bolden said, the human race will need to become colonists.
“If this species is to survive indefinitely we need to become a multiplanet species,” Yahoo quotes Bolden as saying. “We need to go to Mars, and Mars is a stepping stone to other solar systems.”
Bolden said a journey to Mars should be possible by the 2030s, with modest increases to NASA’s budget.
Mars Astronauts could be allowed more radiation: oh well, they won’t be coming back anyway
Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs
I think that it’s a terrific idea to weaken the radiation standards for people going to Mars. The beauty of this is that the middle-aged white men who plan this know that they themselves will be quite safe from any court action. When the poor sucker Mars -dwellers get their cancer – it’ll be just too hard to mount a legal case from Mars. And they can’t come back anyway, so we can all forget about them
Radiation exposure standards might be relaxed for Mars trip Asbury Park Press, 23 April 14, WASHINGTON — One of many factors complicating a trip to Mars is the space radiation that would bombard astronauts during the approximately two years they would spend getting to the planet, exploring it and returning home……….
NASA is aiming for a landing in the early 2030s. Even with two decades to prepare, such a journey to a planet millions of miles away requires hundreds of steps every day.
One such step involves calculating an acceptable level of radiation for astronauts, a question NASA took to the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies.
“We’re pushing not only the technology that helps protect the (astronaut) but also looking at the requirements we have,” Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration told the Humans to Mars Summit. “Are they really realistic requirements? Or has today’s medical environment allowed us to do things differently?”
The institute’s answer, issued by a committee earlier this month, is that current medical standards for radiation exposure should remain in effect, though exceptions could be granted “in rare circumstances.” If an exception were permitted, NASA would be ethically bound to provide astronauts with health care beyond the end of their missions, the committee said…….http://www.app.com/article/20140422/NJNEWS17/304220086/Radiation-exposure-standards-might-relaxed-Mars-trip
Non ionising radiation is also a cause for health concern
92% Sure: Non-ionizing Cell Phone Radiation Cancer Potential Found in 76 of 80 Studies Peer Reviewed Scientists find cell phone radiation exposure creates cellular imbalances known to cause cancer in 92% of peer reviewed studies on ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species). RF Safe suggest precautionary measures to reduce excessive RF exposure even at athermic levels. San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 22, 2014
According to RF Safe, Scientists confirm non-ionizing cell phone radiation and ionizing UV radiation from the sun both produce a common bio-effect in living cells, the overproduction of chemically reactive molecules containing oxygen known as ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species) which are proven to damage DNA – a precursor for cancer and many other health effects.
“Unexpectedly, a strong non-thermal character of biological effects” has been documented, the group of scientists wrote.
In the peer reviewed editorial “Low intensity radio-frequency radiation: a new oxidant for living cells” in the scientific journal “Oxidants and Antioxidants in Medical Science” on March 29th 2014 a group Scientists reported that of 80 studies, they had assessed, 92,5 % (= 76 studies) confirmed that mechanisms of inflicting cellular damage happened at below thermal levels.http://www.ejmanager.com/mnstemps/65/65-1394615302.pdf?t=1398177912
Low intensity radio-frequency radiation (RFR) emitted by wireless phone devices “could lead to mutagenic effects through expressive oxidative damage of DNA”, because “the substantial overproduction of ROS in living cells under low intensity RFR exposure could cause a broad spectrum of health disorders and diseases, including cancer in humans”………. http://www.prweb.com/releases/cell-phone-radiation/cancer-studies-ros-dna/prweb11784604.htm
USA now abandoning the brave sailors who helped out in Fukushima nuclear emergency
Is America Abandoning its Bravest Heroes Yet Again?, WhoWhatWhy By Karen Charman on Apr 21, 2014 “…….U.S. sailors who went on an idealistic mission three years ago to help the Japanese cope -…….
At least 79 of those sailors now suffer serious health effects consistent with radiation exposure. Some of the sailors have filed a class action lawsuit against the Japanese power company, accusing it of hiding what it knew about the escaping radiation and seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, as well as $1 billion for a fund to cover their medical monitoring and treatment. Some of them also blame the U.S. Navy, which denies that its sailors were exposed to harmful levels of radiation.
They Came Out Cooked
Paul Garner, the lead attorney on the case, told WhoWhatWhy that a much larger group of military personnel were exposed to radiation, and he expects the number signing on to the lawsuit to rise as more people develop symptoms. He reeled off a long list of alarming health complaints among the nearly 100 former Operation Tomodachi participants he’s interviewed. So far, about half have developed cancer—of the brain, eye, testes, thyroid, or blood (leukemia). “These kids were first responders,” Garner says. “They went in happily doing a humanitarian mission, and they came out cooked.”
Radiation Déjà vu
The situation these sailors find themselves in is all too familiar in the annals of the nuclear age. Over the past 75 years, claims of harm by many people exposed to radiation through no fault of their own have been officially downplayed or denied. For example: Victims of fallout from atom bomb testing, workers routinely exposed at a nuclear weapons facility, people living near one, and those caught downwind of reactor meltdowns at nuclear power plants, as in the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania and the 1986 Chernobyl reactor explosion……..
Official Estimates Don’t Compute
A DOD report lays out how the Navy reached its conclusions about the doses that 17,000-plus sailors received. But according to nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, a former industry vice president who blew the whistle for radiation safety violations at his former employer, Nuclear Energy Services, as with the previous accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, nobody knows how much radiation has been released from Fukushima—because most of the radiation monitors did not survive the accidents. That means assumptions rather than real data were used to calculate the total amount of radiation released—resulting in estimates that Gundersen believes are much too low.
Another outside expert charges the Navy’s reconstructed doses are meaningless. Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and former deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Energy, who has spent several years auditing radiation dose reconstructions on ailing U.S. nuclear weapons workers, says the only way to get an accurate internal and external dose on any individual is to take continual measurements throughout the time they are exposed. People must wear special monitoring equipment and undergo a regular regime of monitoring. This is especially important in trying to assess the health effects from a multiple meltdown situation with large explosions involving reactor cores, as occurred at Fukushima.
Alvarez says that based on the illnesses that Operation Tomodachi participants are reporting, the real radiation doses were likely very large. “We’re hearing the same kinds of complaints that I was hearing from the people exposed to fallout from the bomb testing program—the metallic taste in the mouth, loss of hair, and sudden and unexpected illnesses,” he says. Symptoms like that indicate “tissue-destructive doses.”
A February 2014 report by Kyle Cleveland, an American sociologist at Temple University in Japan, affirms Alvarez’s assessment. The report includes a transcribed telephone conversation Cleveland received from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which reveals that monitors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan picked up radiation levels 30 times higher than normal out at sea 100 miles from the reactors. The nuclear expert quoted in the transcript was surprised to detect anything at that distance and says radiation levels were high enough to damage people’s thyroids after ten hours of exposure.
If the Navy’s questionable dismissal of radiation exposure is troubling, the actions of the Tokyo Electric Power Company are even more so. The Japanese Diet (Japan’s parliament) tasked an independent commission, known officially as the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, with figuring out what caused the multiple meltdown.
The report, released in 2012, is damning in its conclusions. Unlike the U.S. Navy, the Commission characterizes Fukushima as a “severe accident that ultimately emitted an enormous amount of radioactive material into the environment.”…….http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/04/21/america-abandoning-bravest-heroes-yet/
Radiation exposure leads to one cancer, and to another one, later on
Link between radiation exposure and first and second cancers exposed by researchers http://www.naturalnews.com/044750_radiation_exposure_cancer_tumors.html, April 17, 2014 by: David Gutierre (NaturalNews) Large-scale population studies of survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have confirmed that radiation exposure can lead to multiple cancers that manifest separately over the course of years or decades — a finding with implications not just in cases of nuclear accidents or attacks but also for radiation-based cancer treatments.The landmark study was conducted by researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the National Cancer Institute, and published in the journal Cancer Research in September 2010. It found that the risk of developing a second cancer from radiation exposure was nearly identical to the risk of developing a first.
“Our findings suggest that cancer survivors with a history of radiation exposure should continue to be carefully monitored for second cancers,” said researcher Christopher I. Li, MD, PhD.
Certain organs more vulnerable
Radiation causes cancer when it damages the DNA of a cell but does not kill that cell outright. If the cell is unable to repair itself, it will continue to produce other mutated cells every time it divides. Eventually, this cluster of mutated cells may progress into clinical cancer.
Although the link between radiation and cancer is undisputed, researchers have been unsure to what degree a single radiation exposure can produce more than one cancer. To answer this question, researchers analyzed data from the Life Span Study of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors who had been followed from 1950 through 2002. Out of 10,031 people who survived a primary cancer, 1,088 eventually developed another form of cancer unrelated to the first (a “second primary cancer”).
“We found that radiation exposure increased the risks of first and second cancers to a similar degree,” Li said. “People exposed to radiation who developed cancer also had a high risk of developing a second cancer, and the risk was similar for both solid tumors and leukemias in both men and women, regardless of age at exposure or duration between first and second primary cancers.”
The most common first and second cancers to develop as a result of radiation were of the stomach, lungs, liver and female breast. Primary cancer survivors were also particularly prone to cancers of the colon, thyroid, bladder and blood. All these organs are known to be especially sensitive to radiation.
The study’s findings have obvious implications for the long-term care of people exposed to large amounts of radiation, whether through workplace exposure or through a nuclear accident such as at the Fukushima power plant in Japan.
“We greatly appreciate having the opportunity to conduct this unique research with our Japanese colleagues who, through innumerable publications, have truly transformed the tragedy of the atomic bombings to fundamental scientific advancements that have impacted radiation protection standards and policies worldwide,” Li said.
Implications for medicine
But the findings also have major implications for modern medicine, which is responsible for nearly half of all total radiation exposure experienced by the U.S. population, and well over half of the non-natural exposure experienced by most regular citizens.
“If irradiated at a young age, the lifetime risk is much higher than for those irradiated when older, and the risk is higher for females,” Lawrence said.
Action of S Louis County women prods EPA into testing for radiation
EPA to test for radiation at West Lake Landfill http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/2014/04/16/epa-radiation-testing-west-lake-landfill/7797061/Allison Sylte, KSDK7:28 p.m. CDT April 16, 2014 BRIDGETON, Mo. (KSDK) –The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to test for radiation outside the West Lake Landfill.
This news comes after a group of neighbors announced that if the EPA wasn’t going to do it, they were going to test for radiation themselves.
A lawyer donated $16,000 to help them buy a “mobile radiation detector.”
The EPA insists the radioactive waste at West Lake is not a threat to the surrounding area. Testing will begin in less than six months.
The community group is holding an informational meeting Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. at the Union Hall on Hollenburg Drive in Bridgeton.
St Louis County women organise radiation monitoring
Video: Moms want to test for radiation in Bridgetonhttp://www.ksdk.com/story/news/2014/04/15/bridgeton-landfill-radiation-testing/7762985/Casey Nolen, KSDK10:55 p.m. CDT April 15, 2014 ST. LOUIS COUNTY (KSDK) – If the federal government won’t test for radiation, some West Lake Landfill neighbors say they’ll do it themselves.
Dawn Chapman and her group, Just Moms STL, plan to deploy radiation detectors in St. Louis County by the end of the week.
They hope to monitor the air for any possible high levels of radiation that they believe could be coming from the nearby West Lake Landfill, where old nuclear waste is buried.
Politicians purchased Geiger counters for these birdhouse-like stationary sensors.
Tuesday, an attorney, who is suing the landfill, gifted the group a $16,000 portable radiation detection lab called Gamma Pal. Chapman says they’ll hire a certified contractor to operate it – paid for with community dollars.
Chapman says she’d rather not use the device at all. She’s told the EPA she has it, and hope that will encourage the agency to start its own testing sooner than it plans.
“I would love nothing more than at the end of this week, somebody to say ‘my god, this community is desperate, someone help them right now,'” she said. The EPA said it does plan to start testing for radiation for the first time, outside West Lake’s boundaries.
They say the timeline could be less than six months. The agency still insists that the site is safe.
Japanese government’s double dealing on radiation data
Japan’s Radioactive Potemkin Village: The Government’s Double-Dealing Data, rense.com. By Richard Wilcox, PhD, 4-12-14 I stand to be corrected but what I recently witnessed first hand and face to face in the city of Nihonmatsu can be interpreted as nothing other than scientific fraud and blatant misrepresentation of the facts on the part of the Japanese government regarding gamma radiation levels, leading to the early deaths of tens of thousands of residents . I visited a large nuclear refugee camp in a beautiful location near Nihonmatsu, a modest sized city just outside the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 (FNPP#1) disaster site . Continue reading
Personal account from Tokyo, of government’s duplicity in radiation readings
Japan’s Radioactive Potemkin Village: The Government’s Double-Dealing Data, rense.com. By Richard Wilcox, PhD, 4-12-14 “…….Can You Trust The Government?
According to the Japanese government official website, the Nuclear Regulation Authority , gamma radiation in Tokyo is just 0.034 microsieverts per hour (mcr sv pr hr) . This reading is taken 22 meters above the ground, in Shinjuku, a main hub of urban Tokyo. As luck would have it, I live not far from there and took a reading out my window several stories up in my apartment building and it regularly reads 0.13 mcr sv pr hr. According to the government chart, an estimated reading of 0.061 mcr sv pr hr is given for one meter above ground level. I measured one meter above ground where I live and the reading was 0.12 mcr sv pr hr.
What accounts for the noticeable discrepancy? Could it be the equipment or the location of measurement? The government chart gives an average reading for the ENTIRE CITY OF TOKYO, of 0.061, as if that is remotely accurate. I believe the government and authorities use two main tactics:
1. The place measurement monitoring devices high above the ground where it won’t read the worst radiation which naturally settles on the ground or in ditches;
2. They scrub and decontaminate the area in the immediate vicinity of the monitoring device in order to create a lower reading.
It could also be that tampering with the way devices are calibrated in order to get lower readings, or manipulating published data could occur, but I have no personal proof of these speculations.
Much of the problem with radiation science promoted by the nuclear establishment and their minions is that they limit the factors involved in their methodology and avoid the precautionary principle when drawing conclusions. In other words: don’t worry, be happy (even if your mitochondrial DNA is being damaged).
After the Fukushima accident I personally measured my kid’s school grounds. My readings were consistently higher what was reported by the school who simply measured above the ground in order to avoid the worst radiation.
When I was in the midwest in the US in March, I took outdoor readings above and on the ground that measured between 0.08 to 0.13 mcr sv pr hr. We now live in a manmade radioactively contaminated world due to above ground nuclear tests, nuclear power plant emissions, and nuclear accidents, in addition to natural background radiation from the sun or soil.
What I have witnessed first hand in Nihonmatsu is scientific fraud and misrepresentation of the facts. This is verified by my own dosimeter readings, and by the testimony of both Mr. Honda, the head of the temporary housing facility, and the experienced construction and decontamination worker who I talked with…..”
* Richard Wilcox is a Tokyo-based teacher and writer who holds a Ph.D. in environmental studies and is a regular contributor to the world’s leading website exposing the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Rense.com. He is also a contributor to Activist Post. His radio interviews and articles are archived at http://wilcoxrb99.wordpress.com and he can be reached by email for radio or internet podcast interviews to discuss the Fukushima crisis at wilcoxrb2013@gmail.com. http://www.rense.com/general96/jpsradioctv.html
Health danger from electromagnetic radiation, as well as from ionising radiation
New Studies Show Health Risks from Wireless Tech: Warnings from the BioInitiative Working Group http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140411005708/en/Studies-Show-Health-Risks-Wireless-Tech-Warnings April 11, 2014 RENSSELAER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)--The BioInitiative Working Group says evidence for health risk from wireless tech is growing stronger and warrants immediate action. The Group released a mid-year update covering new science studies from 2012 to 2014.
New studies intensify medical concerns about malignant brain tumors from cell phone use. “There is a consistent pattern of increased risk for glioma (a malignant brain tumor) and acoustic neuroma with use of mobile and cordless phones,” says Lennart Hardell, MD, PhD at Orebro University, Sweden, according to studies released in 2012 and 2013. “Epidemiological evidence shows that radiofrequency should be classified as a known human carcinogen. The existing FCC/IEEE and ICNIRP public safety limits are not adequate to protect public health.”
The BioInitiative reports nervous system effects in 68% of studies on radiofrequency radiation (144 of 211 studies) in 2014. This has increased from 63% in 2012 (93 of 150 studies) in 2012. Studies of extremely-low frequency radiation are reported to cause nervous system effects in 90% of the 105 studies available in 2014. Genetic effects (damage to DNA) from radiofrequency radiation is reported in 65% (74 of 114 studies); and 83% (49 of 59 studies) of extremely-low frequency studies.
Mobile wireless devices like phones and tablets are big sources of unnecessary biological stress to the mind and body that can chip away at resilience over time. The Report warns against wireless in schools. Schools should provide internet access without Wi-FI.
“It is essentially an unregulated experiment on childrens’ health and learning. Microwave from wireless tech disrupts thinking – what could be worse for learning? Technology can be used more safely with wired devices that do not produce these biologically-disruptive levels of microwave radiation,” said Cindy Sage, Co-Editor of the BioInitiative Report.
Federal programs like ConnectED and E-Rate are calling for wireless classrooms while ignoring the health evidence. Hyperactivity, concentration problems, anxiety, irritability, disorientation, distracted behavior, sleep disorders, and headaches are reported in clinical studies.
Government reviews on health impacts of wireless radiofrequency radiation from the European Union and Australia continue to be inconclusive largely because they require certainty before issuing warnings. The FCC review of health impacts from wireless technologies is still underway, but has not affected the federal push for wireless classrooms.
Contacts
BioInitiative Working Group
David O. Carpenter, MD
(518) 525-2660
dcarpenter@albany.edu
info@bioinitiative.org
www.bioinitiative.org
The exposure of US sailors to radiation, near Fukushima
Navy Sailors: Frozen Fukushima steam blanketed ship; Crew suffered massive radiation doses, dozens have cancer — Calls for it to be sunk… still too radioactive; Navy: There’s some contamination, but it’s ok — Tepco: No way US officials would rely on information we were telling to public http://enenews.com/navy-sailors-frozen-fukushima-steam-blanketed-uss-reagan-crew-suffered-massive-radiation-doses-dozens-now-have-cancer-report-calls-for-ship-to-be-sunk-still-too-radioactive-navy-says-contam
AP, Apr 7, 2014: Nearly 80 U.S. sailors are […] alleging [Tepco] lied about the high level of radiation in the area [and] repeatedly said there was no danger to the crew when they were actually being blanketed with radiation that has since led to dozens of cancer cases and a child being born with birth defects [Tepco] said that there was no way the commanders of the aircraft carrier would have relied on the utility […] “It’s wholly implausible… military commanders in charge of thousands of personnel and armed with some of the world’s most sophisticated equipment, relied instead only on the press releases and public statements of a foreign electric utility co.”
Orange County Register, Apr. 6, 2014: Sailors on the flight deck said they felt a warm gust of air, followed by a sudden snow storm: radioactive steam. Freezing in the cold Pacific air. Blanketing their ship. And there they remained for two days, until […] aircrews returning [from] near Sendai identified levels of radioactivity [and] the Navy ordered the carrier to reposition much farther away […] the lawsuit contends, the crew had already suffered massive doses of radiation. […] dozens have developed cancers, at least one has borne a child with birth defects [Their lawsuit is] raising very strange and disturbing questions: Could the Reagan – one of the most advanced nuclear aircraft carriers in the U.S. fleet – really not know that it was being showered with massive doses of radiation? […] Some critics on the ecological front say the Reagan, now stationed in San Diego, is still so radioactive that it needs to be sunk. It floated around the Pacific for many weeks after the Fukushima humanitarian mission ended, as no Pacific Rim country would give it permission to dock. [It’s] slated to move to a new home port this year. In Japan.
Navy spokesman Lt. Greg D. Raelson: “Low levels of radioactive contamination did enter ventilation systems, which have numerous inaccessible areas difficult to perform radiological surveys and decontamination […] there is no indication that any remaining minimal levels of radiation pose any adverse health concern. Radiological controls are in place to survey, control and remove remaining contamination”
U.S. sailors’ lawsuit: “[Those exposed to radioactive releases from Fukushima Daiichi] must now endure a lifetime of radiation poisoning and suffering which could have and should have been avoided” [TEPCO] lied through its teeth, knowing all along the plant was in full-scale meltdown […] “rendered the plaintiffs infirm and poisoned their bodies.”
Low level ionising radiation could be even worse than we thought
In addition to the detection of statistically significant levels of certain illnesses among the liquidator cohort, they have made the argument that, instead of being linear, radiation health effects are “bi-modal” at certain low dose levels i.e. more harmful than the linear model predicts.
Radiation and the Ronald Reagan, China Matters, 10 April 14, “….. I address the tendency of governments to minimize/mislead/suppress information concerning radiation releases from nuclear accidents and the overall uncertainty pervading their efforts. ….
The biggest minefield in the issue of nuclear accidents is the issue of the health effects of radiation exposure. The international standard for nuclear safety is the “Linear No Threshold” or LNT model, which argues that the negative health impacts of low-level radiation exposure are, well, low. People who give credence to claims of extensive radiation-related illness as a result of nuclear accidents are frequently dismissed as cranks.Interestingly, the only place that is serious about emphasizing the health hazards of radiation is a country very much in the news today, Ukraine. Doing the right thing by Ukrainian citizens after the injustices inflicted by the Soviet Union on the Chernobyl front has been an important part of Ukrainian national identity, and claims of radiation-related illness are given a hearing largely denied to them in the West, Japan, or Russia.
The international pushback against academics trying to make the statistical and biomedical case for extensive Chernobyl-related illnesses has been intense, including the attempt to explain any statistically significant health effects as a combination of “radiophobia” (the debilitating fear occasioned by radiation exposure) and the overall decline in public health in Ukraine following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 2005 a symposium conducted by the IAEA, WHO, and UN concluded that only 50 people had died because of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl accident; that’s quite a distance from estimates of critics who think the toll might be as high as 50,000.In response, scientists such as Russia’s Elena Burlakova have carefully monitored the health of the sizable cohort of Chernobyl “liquidators” (the hundreds of thousands of workers who were exposed to high levels of radiation during cleanup at the plant and in the Chernobyl district) and conducted research to attempt to qualify the LNT standard for measuring the health effects of radiation exposure.
In addition to the detection of statistically significant levels of certain illnesses among the liquidator cohort, they have made the argument that, instead of being linear, radiation health effects are “bi-modal” at certain low dose levels i.e. more harmful than the linear model predicts.
Backhanded support for this challenge to the LNT model comes from a school of thought—“radiation hormesis”—now enjoying a certain vogue in the pro-nuclear crowd in Japan, that draws on the experience of inhabitants of Ramsar, a community of the Caspian Sea with high background radiation levels and low cancer rates, to argue that low levels of radiation are beneficial.
Challengers to the LNT model seem to be making some headway—the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently devoted a special issue to the subject—but there is considerable resistance to qualifying LNT and thereby admitting the possibility of rethinking and perhaps acknowledging the likelihood of extensive health problems from the release of low-level radiation by a nuclear accident.
Cleanup for a nuclear accident is expensive. In an ironic recapitulation of the uncertainty surrounding the magnitude and destination of Fukushima’s radiation releases, the total cleanup bill has been estimated in a range from $10 billion to $50 billion to $250 billion.
To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, ten billion here, ten billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money and the possibility that even rare and occasional nuclear accidents will push up the total cost of nuclear power to unacceptable levels.
Understandably, the nuclear industry and people who have staked their hopes on nuclear power as a greenhouse-gas free alternative to carbon-based electricity generation resist the idea of expanding the accepted definition of significant radiation-related health effects, and with it the cost of any accident.
There is also, perhaps, the temptation to let the radiation illness problem take care of itself i.e. shy away from investigations of radiation sickness that might yield inconvenient or perhaps politically or financially catastrophic conclusions while demographics does its grim work of culling the irradiated herd…… http://chinamatters.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/radiation-and-ronald-reagan.html
1 This Month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
29 Jan. Thursday 7-8 p.m. Webinar – World’s Largest Nuclear Station in Port Hope, ON?
31st January – Challenging the War Machine – a DECLASSIFIED UK SUMMIT
Website of the Week
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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