Gizmodo, Passant Rabie, May 3, 22, Helga and Zohar are headed for a trip around the Moon on an important mission, measuring radiation risks for female astronauts for the first time.
The inanimate pair are manikins modelled after the body of an adult woman. For the Artemis 1 mission, in which an uncrewed Orion capsule will travel to the Moon and back, one of the manikins will be outfitted with a newly developed radiation protection vest. Helga and Zohar, as they’re called, won’t be alone, as they’ll be joined by a third manikin that will collect data about flight accelerations and vibrations. Artemis 1 is scheduled to blast off later this year.
The Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years, but this time the space agency has vowed to land the first woman on the dusty lunar surface.
Tested by Crisis: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Nuclear Policy Community
Has the pandemic jeopardized growth in the nuclear policy community? The short answer: it has. The National Interest, by Alexandra B. Hall, 24 Oct 21, The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly had drastic effects on the workforce and, in particular, on women and people who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) in the workforce. For the past year and a half, studies have shown that many of these effects are not going to be simple to reverse and will in fact have generational effects on many communities……….
The report’s findings show stark differences across gender identities in how the pandemic has impacted the lives—both personal and professional—of those working in nuclear policy. One of the core findings Brosnan points to is that “among women who had their work hours reduced due to the pandemic, eighty-six percent of reductions were attributed to an increased burden of care work, and that was true for zero percent of men.”
The burden upon caregivers only increased during the pandemic as childcare or eldercare facilities shut down. They found this burden impacted caregivers across all age groups, including ‘late career’ women executives.
Not only were women in the field finding themselves faced with a choice of staying in their job or finding something with more flexible work hours, but many were also simply pushed out of the field. One respondent noted that in an organization where layoffs occurred “everyone up to this month who left was a woman or person of color.” Survey respondents who identified as BIPOC reported they were “almost twenty percent more likely to have experienced financial hardship due to the pandemic than their non BIPOC peers,” Cater adds………… https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/tested-crisis-impact-covid-19-nuclear-policy-community-195480
New NASA radiation standards for astronauts seen as leveling field for women, Science, By Anil OzaJun. 29, 2021
A blue-ribbon panel has endorsed NASA’s plans to revise its standard for exposing astronauts to radiation in a way that would allow women to spend more time in space.
A report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released on 24 June encourages NASA to proceed with its plans to adopt a new standard that limits all astronauts to 600 millisieverts of radiation over their career. The current limit is the amount of radiation that correlates with a 3% increase in the risk of dying from a cancer caused by radiation exposure—a standard that favored men and older astronauts whose cancer risk from radiation was lower. The proposed standard would limit all astronauts to the allowable dosage for a 35-year-old woman.
The changes are in line with current data and puts women on an equal footing, says Hedvig Hricak, a radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “There’s no evidence for significant gender difference in the radiation exposure, and associated risk of cancer,” she says.
The new standard comes as NASA gears up for renewed exploration of the Moon and, eventually, a mission to Mars. The change should remove gender from the list of factors used to decide who gets chosen for those missions, says Paul Locke, an environmental health expert at Johns Hopkins University who was not on the committee. “Women will not be penalized because they are, under the old model, at higher risk,” he says.
Whereas some experts lauded NASA’s intentions, others worry the proposal ignores the complexities and uncertainties of deep space travel. “I think they’ve pulled together the best data they have. But again, I think, more research is going to be needed,” says Albert Fornace, a radiobiologist at Georgetown University. With so few people having traveled beyond low-Earth orbit, most of the data for setting radiation exposure limits in space come from survivors of the atomic bombs in Japan and studies of people, like uranium miners, who work in conditions with high exposure to radiation. The long lead time for voyages to Mars also gives scientists time to develop ways to shield astronauts from higher levels of radiation, Fornace adds.
Francis Cucinotta, a biophysicist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, doesn’t agree with the report’s backing of a single dosage level. Instead, the former chief scientist for NASA’s radiation program thinks equity should come in the form of equal risk rather than equal dosages of radiation.
“[It] sounds like they’re just going to ignore the science and try to make it comfortable for everybody,” Cucinotta says, arguing that age, sex, and race affect an individual’s risk of developing cancer and should be factors when determining the amount of time astronauts can spend in space. “When they’re selected to be astronauts, there’s a lot of things where it’s not equal—it’s based on performance capability. But they’re not applying that model here.”
Cucinotta would stick with the 3% increase in the risk of dying of cancer. For a Mars mission, which is expected to expose astronauts to 1000 millisieverts, he proposes raising that maximum risk to 5% after conducting research on countermeasures and weighing genetic markers that lower an astronaut’s risk of developing cancer……….. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/new-nasa-radiation-standards-astronauts-seen-leveling-field-women
the continued use of nuclear energy that has forced us into this Faustian bargain in the name of mitigating climate change, is both unnecessary and downright harmful.
A growing body of evidence supports a grim reality: that living in radioactively contaminated areas over multiple years results in harmful health impacts, particularly during pregnancy.
This is borne out in a recent study by Anton V. Korsakov, Emilia V. Geger, Dmitry G. Lagerev, Leonid I. Pugach and Timothy A. Mousseau, that shows a higher frequency of birth defects amongst people living in Chernobyl-contaminated areas (as opposed to those living in areas considered uncontaminated) in the Bryansk region of Russia.
Because the industry and governments are pushing to spend more money on new nuclear reactors — or to keep the old ones running longer — they have been forced to come up with a deadly workaround to surmount the strongest argument against nuclear power: its potential for catastrophic accidents.
Even the nuclear industry and the governments willing to do its bidding understand that you cannot really clean up after a nuclear catastrophe. For example, in Japan, where the March 2011 nuclear disaster has left lands radioactively contaminated potentially indefinitely, there is an attempt to mandate that people return to live in these areas by claiming there are no “discernible” health impacts from doing so.
Bodies that are supposed to protect health and regulate the nuclear industry, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the International Commission on Radiological Protection and Nuclear Regulatory Commission are raising recommended public exposure limits, considering halting evacuations from radiation releases, and encouraging people to live on, and eat from, contaminated land.
The public justification for continued nuclear energy use is, ostensibly, to address the climate crisis. The reality is more likely a desperate last-ditch effort by the nuclear industry to remain relevant, while in some countries the nuclear energy agenda remains inextricably linked to nuclear weapon programs.
Forcing people to live on and consume produce grown from radioactively contaminated land is contrary to scientific evidence indicating that these practices harm humans and all animals, especially over the long-term. By the time these health impacts are unearthed, decades later, the false narratives of “harmless low radiation doses” and “no discernible impact” have solidified, covering up the painful reality that should be a touchstone informing our debate over nuclear power.
The recent joint study, whose implementation, says Korsakov, would not have happened without the support and efforts of co-author Mousseau, found that birth defects like polydactyly (having more than five fingers or toes), and multiple congenital malformations (including those that are appearing for the first time — called de novo), were “significantly higher… in newborns in regions with elevated radioactive, chemical and combined contamination.”
Uniquely, Korsakov also examines areas contaminated by both Chernobyl radioactivity and industrial chemicals. Multiple congenital malformations (MCM) were much higher in areas of combined contamination, indicating an additive and potentially synergistic effect between pollutants for these birth defects.
Congenital malformations (CM) are thought to originate in the first trimester of pregnancy and represent a main cause of global disease burden. They are considered “indicators of adverse factors in the environment,” including radioactive pollution, and can afflict numerous organs (heart, brain, lungs, bones, intestines) with physical abnormalities and metabolic disorders. Counted among these are clubfoot, hernias, heart and neural tube defects, cleft palate and lip, and Down syndrome.
CMs are the leading cause of infant mortality in many developed nations, accounting for 20% of U.S. infant deaths. For those living past infancy, the effects can be lifelong. While a number of CMs are obvious early in life, some may not be identified until later, even into adulthood. Countries of low- and middle-income are affected disproportionately.
In the Bryansk region of Russia, birth defects were examined over the 18-year period from 2000-2017. For areas contaminated with radiation alone, dose estimations from Chernobyl radiation (released from the 1986 nuclear catastrophe) ranged from 0.6 mSv to 2.1 mSv per year, while in areas contaminated with radiation and chemicals, dose ranges were 1.2 to 2.0 mSv per year.
As the Bryansk study authors point out, “[n]early all types of hereditary defects can be found at doses as low a [sic] 1–10 mSv indicating that current radiation risk models are inadequate for low dose environments.”
In comparison, Japan and the U.S. maintain that there is little risk to resettling or inhabiting areas contaminated by nuclear catastrophe where estimated doses would range from 5-20 mSv/year. Yet harm was found among Bryansk populations exposed to doses far lower than the much higher ones proclaimed “livable” by nuclear proponents.
One explanation for the disconnect between the expected and actual health effects is an underestimate of the impact of ingesting or inhaling manmade radioactive isotopes, particularly beta emitters, a large source of exposure following radiation releases from nuclear power catastrophes.
A number of these isotopes mimic nutrients that our bodies need such as calcium (radiostrontium) and potassium (radiocesium), so our body doesn’t know to avoid them. Of course, nuclear proponents recognize that economic recovery of polluted places will be difficult without being able to grow, sell and consume food that might be contaminated with isotopes that give off this radiation,.
Korsakov et al. point to yet another explanation for the disconnect — the assumption that dose reconstruction models properly fit all realistic exposures. When experts estimate doses they often do so without adequate knowledge of local culture and habits. Therefore, they fail to capture variations in exposure pathways, creating enormous errors in dose reconstruction. As a starting point, radiation science would be better served by directly measuring contamination levels where people actually live, play, breathe and eat.
But it seems dose models also fail to adequately represent the damage done to fetuses and neonates, not least because damage can be random (stochastic) making it difficult to predict. Stochastic health impacts include cancer and other genetic damage, and may be severe even at low doses. During pregnancy, one hit from radiation could damage or destroy cells meant to form entire organs, making accounting for stochastic impacts during fetal development extremely important — especially as fetal tissue collects some radionuclides in greater amounts than maternal tissue.
Health impacts in the Bryansk region could be a result both of direct radiation exposure during pregnancy and of cumulative impact over a “series of generations (genetic load)” raising the specter of heritability of genetic damage. Past studies have indicated that radiation damage can be heritable — passing from parents to offspring; that living in environments of elevated natural background radiation will increase mutations and disease; that the ability to withstand radiation doses appears to diminish as continually-exposed generations progress; and that doses from catastrophic releases should be accounted for across generations, not just in the generation initially exposed.
These currently sparse, yet growing data, support long-held conclusions that humans do not differ significantly from every other animal and plant — they, too, suffer heritable damage from radiation.
The Korsakov study projects that overall, multiple congenital malformations will increase in the next few years in the contaminated regions. Increases in birth defects are occurring despite access to free in-depth medical exams for pregnant women residing in areas of higher contamination and, if warranted, pregnancy termination. Such access has apparently greatly decreased the number of stilbirths in the region, as did a similar program at the end of the 1990s in Belarus, the country which bore the brunt of radioactive Chernobyl contamination. But even with such programs, overall birth defects have increased in the contaminated areas in Russia.
So not only is it unhealthy to live in radiologically-contaminated areas, attempts at mitigating the effects, particularly those on pregnancy, have limited impact. Encouraging, or worse yet, forcing people to live in contaminated areas and eat contaminated food, is foolishly cruel (particularly to people of reproductive age who may face wrenching decisions about wanted pregnancies) and not in the interest of public health.
Meanwhile, the continued use of nuclear energy that has forced us into this Faustian bargain in the name of mitigating climate change, is both unnecessary and downright harmful.
My Six Mentors, by Mary Olson, Gender and Radiation Impact Project, 1 January 20121
“……………. Rosalie Bertell, PhD
It was Rosalie who most let me know that I am able to contribute original work towards the day that People, to decide not to split atoms any more. Human beings began splitting atoms in Chicago, in 1942. Rosalie, a PhD in mathematics and member of the Order of Gray Nuns, knew more than anyone else I have worked with, that all of it—every last nuclear license, and radioactive emission, all the waste and all the bombs and all the money congress gives to nuclear activities are choices. People made, and continue to make these decisions…and we can change our mind.
Rosalie studied radiation impacts and was committed to service on behalf of future generations. She won the Right Livelihood award for her work with communities impacted by nuclear industry. Often called the “alternative Peace Prize” – she was one of the first women to be honored. As a laureate, she was encouraged to find and mentor students. Rosalie hoped that I, and my coworker Diane D’Arrigo would go to graduate school and she could be our mentor. We decided since we were already in our 50’s to simply study with her, informally. We traveled, 5 or 6 times to the Mother House where she resided and she generously met with us in the last two years of her life. She was always small in stature, but at that point her back was bent and she barely came up to my chest, but still had the intensity of a wolverine!
It was Rosalie Bertell who helped me tackle one of the biggest challenges I have faced. After a public talk on radioactive waste policy that I gave during this time, a woman asked me if radiation was more harmful to women, to her, compared to a man. Even though I had studied and known many of the top independent radiation researchers, including Bertell, I had never heard that biological sex could be a factor for harm—other than in reproduction (pregnancy)—but that is more about the embryo and fetus than the woman. I told her that I was sorry, I did not know and would get back to her. In fact, I forgot.
Two years later, when nuclear reactors exploded in Japan at a site called Fukushima Daiichi, I remembered that question and knew it urgently needed an answer. I was unaware that Dr Arjun Makhijani and a team had written on sex differences in radiation harm in 2006 (see www.ieer.org ) and also did not turn that up as I searched for any information on differences between males and females. My findings, five years later are an independent confirmation of the IEER work.
Since I found nothing on a basic google dive, I called Rosalie, who was at that point nearing the end of her life, to ask if she had studied biological sex. She had not, and the one report she pointed me to was out of print. It was my second call, a week later, that prompted her to tell me that I would have to look at the data myself.
I had no idea that the National Academy of Science (NAS) had published tables with 60 years of data on cancers and cancer deaths among the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rosalie told me to find out for myself. I was shocked. I had stopped any formal study of math in the 6th grade…she was a mathematician—I asked her to do it, and she reminded me that she was dying. I protested again. It was her next words that pushed me. Rosalie said, “The data is divided by males and females so you can look at this question—and if there is a difference, it will be a simple pattern. It is good you do not have more math because if there is a difference, you will find it and not make it more complicated than it is.” She said to get a few pencils, a sharpener, an eraser and lots of paper, and go to it. I did.
The result was my first paper on the topic, “Atomic Radiation is More Harmful to Women,” (October 2011) published to the web in time for Rosalie to congratulate me. Three years later the paper was the basis for my invitation to speak at the global Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons. Three years later as the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was in the work, I founded the Gender and Radiation Impact Project. Rosalie is the one who put rocket fuel in my determination to help. If the world decides to base radiation protection on Refence Little Girl—make every regulation in terms of protecting females who are infants—five years old, future generations have a chance. Rosalie is the one who modeled for me that it is possible to reach for the best possible outcome, and, indeed, we have an obligation to do so………..…… https://www.genderandradiation.org/blog/2020/12/31/my-six-mentors
My Six Mentors, by Mary Olson, Gender and Radiation Impact Project, 1 January 20121
…in these atomic times…
[September, 2020] I was born in 1958—full-on Cold War… my family lived upwind of the Nevada nuclear weapons test site in California and even there air quality was the reason my parents gave when they moved our family back to the Midwest… I was in kindergarten in a tiny town in Illinois during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when a bomb drill caused me to become aware of nuclear annihilation at that age. I opted out: that very night I got sick and stayed chronically ill dropping out of kindergarten and was mostly homeschooled for the next 12 years. I am fortunate that my brilliant parents were my teachers and I learned a lot on that journey. When I emerged well enough to go college and work, I learned even more from amazing women. These six, my MENTORS:
Diana Bellamy, MFA
At Reed College I majored in Biology—focused on evolution, and History of Science. As a Junior I fulfilled an arts requirement by taking a theater course, for the first time. Professor Diana Bellamy was a working actor, and in her Introduction to Acting class I discovered that embodiment of an experience is something that others can see and recognize, and at times, experience with the actor. My ability was spotted by Bellamy. She invited—urged me–to change my major and come to the Theater Department, even so late in my coursework. I was shocked into an evaluation of my own priorities and goals.
The following summer was a deep-dive into determining whether to stay the course in my original science major, or jump. The process of discernment, largely via discussions with my father, brought me to a deep understanding of WHY I was studying science: I knew that society’s decisions and actions would be, more and more, made in the worlds of research and technology, and I also knew that ordinary people do not speak those languages. I wanted to become fluent enough in that world to be able to help translate for those who are affected, but outside that bubble. Eventually, ten years out, I attained that role…and have stayed with it.
Diana’s recognition of my ability to project experience challenged me to find the reason I would stay in Biology besides a more stable work-life. It was an empowerment for me to find how to use my gift as a communicator. I bow to her every time I take the stage to speak to 10’s or to 1000’s of people, and help them experience the vital importance of what I am there to say. …………
Sharon Barry, CPA
As I left research behind at age 25, I needed stability, clean air and water, and a different kind of stress as I rebuilt my health. In 1986 I got a job running the retreat, conference center, and camp in Michigan where my parents had been summer staff when I was a toddler—and I had attended camp. Circle Pines Center is both legendary, and unknown. I created, and served on a Management Team for five years and built a strong tool-box of non-profit organizational skills. That portfolio includes business management and administration. It was my dear friend and mentor, Sharon who helped me learn. Our relationship was not easy—but Sharon stood by me as she taught me the craft, and helped with the art by serving on the Finance Committee of the Board. We rebuilt the Center which had been in tough shape…to its strongest financial footing in decades. Sharon went on to win her own CPA and has been part of my financial life ever since as my accountant. I am not wealthy, but I am also deeply committed to accountability. Sharon taught me, and continues to support me in this. It is her strength I pull on to get through my own tough times. THANK YOU!
Judith Johnsrud, PhD
I met Judy in 1990 at the Backyard Eco Conference in Michigan. I left my submersion job at Circle Pines and drove to the gathering, expressly to hear Johnsrud speak about radioactivity in the environment. I had been recovering from my radiation exposure, and learning about new proposals from the federal government to deregulate a large share of the radioactive waste generated in the processing of uranium for nuclear fuel, and the operation of nuclear reactors for energy and nuclear weapons materials production. The Below Regulatory Concern Policy would put metals, building materials, soil and many other materials that were measurably radioactive into unregulated county landfills and also allow recycle into consumer products, with no warning or label. The deregulation is what I wanted to talk to her about. It seemed to me that what happened in the lab with a tiny plastic petri dish might happen in a Walmart to someone who never knew what had happened since radioactivity is invisible, has no smell or taste…
When I got to the conference, event organizers were looking for a volunteer to drive Judy across the state to the airport near Detroit. I immediately volunteered—it was a 5 hour drive and that gave us plenty of time to get to know each other. Judy remained my friend, my confidant and my teacher for the next 20 years as I moved into working at the national and global level for the peaceful end of the nuclear era—ending the production of more nuclear waste and better protection for our living systems from the waste we already have made. Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) was founded by a small group, including Judy Johnsrud. I was hired in 1991 as Staff Biologist and Radioactive Waste Specialist, and Judy was always there—and in the first decade, we were often the only women in the room. Judy died in 2014; I retired from NIRS, five years later, in 2019.
Joanna Macy
The paths of Joanna Macy and I have crossed and re-crossed—I first met her work in her first book, ‘Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age,’ published in 1983, before my radiation accident…I actually met her in-person, briefly at that time because of her leadership in the Buddhist Peace Fellowship… and our paths crossed again, briefly, when she and her husband Fran introduced me to their concept of Nuclear Guardianship. It was not until a younger friend and protégé of mine convinced me to attend a short-course at Schumacher College in Devon England (1998) led by both Fran and Joanna that I got to know her…a little. It was a two-week session rooted in community work that formed the later book, ‘Coming Back to Life’ (1998). I include Joanna here, as a Mentor, even though we have spent little time together, because when I open my mouth to speak, it is most often her influence I hear. The basic insight that we are all one is a foundation for me—and she brings that insight to the nuclear work. I honor her, and in doing so, I hear echoes of her in me…… https://www.genderandradiation.org/blog/2020/12/31/my-six-mentors
According to Kyrgyz official data, the gamma radiation on tailings pit surfaces are within 17-60 mR/hr; however, in the damaged areas, radiation levels reach 400-500 mR/hr. An exposure to 100 mSv a year (a millisievert, mSv, is equal to 100 milliroentgens, mR) or 10,000 mR is the point where an increase in cancer is clearly evident. At 400-500 mR/hr this would be achieved in 20-25 hours, or just one day. Radionuclides and heavy metals from these tailing pits and dumps are seeping into the surface and groundwater, polluting water and farmland and increasing the risk of cancer for local people.
Birth anomalies are an additional indicator of environmental radioactive contamination. A study by the Institute of Medical Problems showed that the incidence of birth defects in Mailuu-Suu was three times higher than in the country’s second largest city of Osh. Studies have correlated birth defects to the distance of the parents’ residences from radioactive waste sites. Polluted water is the major factor causing the development of congenital malformations, according to research by the Institute of Medical Problems.
Countries must set aside territorial disputes and work together to clean up radioactive waste seeping into rivers and farmland in the Ferghana Valley – causing an environmental and health catastrophe for people living in the region Janyl Madykova, September 2, 2020 Political tensions between countries in Central Asia have intensified since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Along with border conflicts and water disputes, problems have arisen from residual radioactive waste located in the Kyrgyz town of Mailuu-Suu in the Ferghana Valley, which has caused widespread pollution of river and farmland, and led to major impacts on the health and economy of people in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Industrial-scale uranium mining began in Mailuu-Suu during the Soviet era in 1946 and lasted until 1968. Uranium ore from Europe and China was also processed in Mailuu-Suu during this time.
As a result, the small town of 24,000 people is now surrounded by about 3 million cubic metres of uranium waste left in 23 tailings pits and 13 dumps. These sites have contaminated the Mailuu-Suu river, a major tributary of the Syr Darya which flows through Kyrgyzstan and into Uzbekistan, carrying radioactive waste into the densely populated Ferghana Valley.
The biggest problem is that earthquakes, landslides and heavy rainfall events have intensified in recent years, destroying uranium tailing storage sites along the river and mountain slopes, contaminating surrounding areas. A number of international organisations have worked to prevent further disasters in Mailuu-Suu. The World Bank has allocated more than USD 11 million to clean up uranium tailings. The European Commission launched an initiative in 2015 to remediate the most dangerous sites in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
However, the pollution remains, and Central Asian countries must cooperate to prevent further environmental disasters in the Ferghana Valley, as well as mitigate economic damage and resolve political issues.
A town built on radioactive waste
According to the state surveys there are 92 radioactive and toxic storage facilities across Kyrgyzstan today. The most dangerous of these are the Mailuu-Suu uranium sites, because of numerous hazards threatening the tailing pits. Were these tailing pits destabilised, they would have potentially catastrophic environmental consequences for Kyrgyzstan and the neighbouring countries of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, with the radioactive waste contaminating the river as well as the soil and irrigated farmland surrounding it.
Uranium was first discovered in the region in 1933, and within 20 years 10,000 tonnes of uranium oxide was extracted in Mailuu-Suu. Residual radioactive waste in southern Kyrgyzstan currently poses a major environmental threat to the densely populated parts of the Ferghana Valley, home to about 14 million people.
Landslides are the major risk. There are more than 200 landslide-prone locations around Mailuu-Suu. There was little such threat in the 1940s, but landslide activity has intensified since 1954 due to increased rainfall. Landslides in Mailuu-Suu occurred several times in 1988, 1992 and 2002, damaging infrastructure and altering water flow. The most dangerous landslide is Koi-Tash, which happened in 2017 and could block the riverbed and spread radioactive contamination down the river.
The 1950s saw one of the most salient examples of the danger posed by vulnerable waste dumps. In April 1958, as a result of rainfall and high seismic activity, an alluvial dam collapsed into tailings pit #7 in Mailuu-Suu, pushing more than 400,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste into the Mailuu-Suu river, which then spread 30-40 km downstream in irrigated farmland in Uzbekistan. The effects of this disaster have lasted to this day, with the radioactive contamination of the river and surrounding soil and vegetation causing major health problems and fatalities. Such disasters also heighten tensions between the regional states. Continue reading →
US official: Research finds uranium in Navajo women, babies, https://apnews.com/334124280ace4b36beb6b8d58c328ae3?fbclid=IwAR2UqarRiUTIPwnRCA_DGkjKuahfFO4T_l9iFrXxb1P8qL5AnmrTc1m61W8By MARY HUDETZ, October 8, 2019, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — About a quarter of Navajo women and some infants who were part of a federally funded study on uranium exposure had high levels of the radioactive metal in their systems, decades after mining for Cold War weaponry ended on their reservation, a U.S. health official Monday.
The early findings from the University of New Mexico study were shared during a congressional field hearing in Albuquerque. Dr. Loretta Christensen — the chief medical officer on the Navajo Nation for Indian Health Service, a partner in the research — said 781 women were screened during an initial phase of the study that ended last year.
Among them, 26% had concentrations of uranium that exceeded levels found in the highest 5% of the U.S. population, and newborns with equally high concentrations continued to be exposed to uranium during their first year, she said.
The research is continuing as authorities work to clear uranium mining sites across the Navajo Nation.
“It forces us to own up to the known detriments associated with a nuclear-forward society,” said U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, who is an enrolled member of Laguna Pueblo, a tribe whose jurisdiction lies west of Albuquerque.
The hearing held in Albuquerque by U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, Haaland and U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, all Democrats from New Mexico, sought to underscore the atomic age’s impact on Native American communities.
The three are pushing for legislation that would expand radiation compensation to residents in their state, including post-1971 uranium workers and residents who lived downwind from the Trinity Test site in southern New Mexico.
The state’s history has long been intertwined with the development of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, from uranium mining and the first atomic blast to the Manhattan project conducted through work in the once-secret city of Los Alamos. The federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, however, only covers parts of Nevada, Arizona and Utah that are downwind from a different nuclear test site.
During the hearing, Haaland said one of her own family members had lost his hearing because of radiation exposure. At Laguna Pueblo, home to her tribe, the Jackpile-Paguate Mine was once among the world’s largest open-pit uranium mines. It closed several decades ago, but cleanup has yet to be completed.
“They need funds,” Haaland said. “They job was not completed.”
David Gray, a deputy regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said the mine illustrates uranium mining and milling’s lingering effects on Indian Country.
On the Navajo Nation, he said, the EPA has identified more than 200 abandoned uranium mines where it wants to complete investigation and clean up under an upcoming five-year plan, using settlements and other agreements to pay for the work that has taken decades.
Udall, who chaired the hearing, acknowledged federal officials had shown progress but that the pace of cleanup has proven frustrating for some community members.
“They feel an urgency,” Udall said. “They feel that things need to happen today.”
In her testimony, Christensen described how Navajo residents in the past had used milling waste in home construction, resulting in contaminated walls and floors.
From the end of World War II to the mid-1980s, millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted from the Navajo Nation, leaving gray streaks across the desert landscape, as well as a legacy of disease and death.
While no large-scale studies have connected cancer to radiation exposure from uranium waste, many have been blamed it for cancer and other illnesses.
By the late 1970s, when the mines began closing around the reservation, miners were dying of lung cancer, emphysema or other radiation-related ailments.
“The government is so unjust with us,” said Leslie Begay, a former uranium miner who lives in Window Rock, an Arizona town that sits near the New Mexico border and serves as the Navajo Nation capital. “The government doesn’t recognize that we built their freedom.”
Begay, who said he has lung problems, attended the hearing with an oxygen tank in tow. The hearing held in the Southwest was especially meaningful for him after traveling in the past to Washington to advocate for himself and others, he said.
Associated Press reporter Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, contributed to this report.
By North Asia correspondent Jake Sturmer and Yumi Asada in Fukushima nside a laboratory in Fukushima, Japan, the whirr of sophisticated equipment clicks, beeps and buzzes as women in lab coats move from station to station.
Key points:
Mothers in Fukushima set up a radiation testing lab because they didn’t trust government results
The women test food, water and soil and keep the public informed about radiation levels
A major earthquake and tsunami caused a nuclear accident at the Fukushima power plant in 2011
They are testing everything — rice, vacuum cleaner dust, seafood, moss and soil — for toxic levels of radiation.
But these lab workers are not typical scientists.
They are ordinary mums who have built an extraordinary clinic.
“Our purpose is to protect children’s health and future,” says lab director Kaori Suzuki.
In March 2011, nuclear reactors catastrophically melted down at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, following an earthquake and tsunami.
Driven by a desperate need to keep their children safe, a group of mothers began testing food and water in the prefecture.
The women, who had no scientific background, built the lab from the ground up, learning everything on the job.
The lab is named Tarachine, a Japanese word which means “beautiful mother”.
“As mothers, we had to find out what we can feed our children and if the water was safe,” Ms Suzuki says.
“We had no choice but to measure the radiation and that’s why we started Tarachine.”
After the nuclear accident, Fukushima residents waited for radiation experts to arrive to help.
“No experts who knew about measuring radiation came to us. It was chaos,” she says.
In the days following the meltdown, a single decision by the Japanese Government triggered major distrust in official information which persists to this day.
The Government failed to quickly disclose the direction in which radioactive materials was drifting from the power plant.
Poor internal communications caused the delay, but the result was that thousands fled in the direction that radioactive materials were flying.
Former trade minister Banri Kaieda, who oversaw energy policy at the time, has said that he felt a “sense of shame” about the lack of disclosure.
But Kaori Suzuki said she still finds it difficult to trust the government.
“They lied and looked down on us, and a result, deceived the people,” Ms Suzuki says.
“So it’s hard for the people who experienced that to trust them.”
She and the other mothers who work part-time at the clinic feel great responsibility to protect the children of Fukushima.
But it hasn’t always been easy.
When they set up the lab, they relied on donated equipment, , and none of them had experience in radiation testing. There was nobody who could teach us and just the machines arrived,” Ms Suzuki says.
“At the time, the analysing software and the software with the machine was in English, so that made it even harder to understand.
“In the initial stage we struggled with English and started by listening to the explanation from the manufacturer. We finally got some Japanese software once we got started with using the machines.”
Radiation experts from top universities gave the mothers’ training, and their equipment is now among the most sophisticated in the country.
Food safety is still an issue
The Fukushima plant has now been stabilised and radiation has come down to levels considered safe in most areas.
But contamination of food from Japan remains a hotly contested issue.
Australia was one of the first countries to lift import restrictions on Japanese food imports after the disaster.
But more than 20 countries and trading blocs have kept their import ban or restrictions on Japanese fisheries and agricultural products.
At the clinic in Fukushima, Kaori Suzuki said she accepted that decision.
“It doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong. I feel that’s just the decision they have made for now,” she says.
Most results in their lab are comparatively low, but the mothers say it is important there is transparency so that people know what their children are consuming.
Fukushima’s children closely monitored after meltdown
Noriko Tanaka is one of many mothers in the region who felt that government officials were completely unprepared for the unfolding disaster.
She was three months pregnant with her son Haru when the disaster struck.
Ms Tanaka lived in Iwaki City, about 50 kilometres south of the power plant.
Amid an unfolding nuclear crisis, she panicked that the radioactive iodine released from the meltdown would harm her unborn child.
She fled on the night of the disaster.
When she returned home 10 days later, the fear of contamination from the invisible, odourless radioactive material weighed deeply on her mind.
“I wish I was able to breastfeed the baby,” she says.
“[Radioactive] caesium was detected in domestic powdered milk, so I had to buy powdered milk made overseas to feed him.”
Ms Tanaka now has two children —seven-year-old Haru and three-year-old Megu. She regularly takes them in for thyroid checks which are arranged free-of-charge by the mothers’ clinic.
Radiation exposure is a proven risk factor for thyroid cancer, but experts say it’s too early to tell what impact the nuclear meltdown will have on the children of Fukushima.
Noriko Tanaka is nervous as Haru’s thyroid is checked.
“In the last examination, the doctor said Haru had a lot of cysts, so I was very worried,” she says.
However this time, Haru’s results are better and he earns a high-five from Dr Yoshihiro Noso.
He said there was nothing to worry about, so I feel relieved after taking the test,” Ms Tanaka says.
“The doctor told me that the number of cysts will increase and decrease as he grows up.”
Doctor Noso has operated on only one child from Fukushima, but it is too early to tell if the number of thyroid cancers is increasing because of the meltdown.
“There isn’t a way to distinguish between cancers that were caused naturally and those by the accident,” he says.Dr Noso says his biggest concern is for children who were under five years old when the accident happened.The risk is particularly high for girls.
Even if I say there is nothing to worry medically, each mother is still worried,” he says.
“They feel this sense of responsibility because they let them play outside and drink the water. If they had proper knowledge of radiation, they would not have done that,” he said.
Mums and doctors fear for future of Fukushima’s children
After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, the incidence of thyroid cancers increased suddenly after five years….
“In the case of Chernobyl, the thyroid cancer rate increased for about 10 years. It’s been eight years since the disaster and I would like to continue examinations for another two years.” …….
“Some children who evacuated from Fukushima living in other prefectures are being bullied [so badly that they] can’t go to school,” Noriko Tanaka said.
“The radiation level is low in the area we live in and it’s about the same as Tokyo, but we will be treated the same as the people who live in high-level radiation areas.”
Noriko is particularly worried for little Megu because of prejudice against the children of Fukushima.
“For girls, there are concerns about marriage and having children because of the possibility of genetic issues.”
Age and Sex Bias in Radiation Research—and How to Overcome It http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/60/4/466.full, 1 Apr 19, Britta Langen, Department of Radiation Physics, Institute of Clinical Sciences, Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
For correspondence or reprints contact: Britta Langen, Department of Radiation Physics, University of Gothenburg, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gula stråket 2B, SE-413 45 Gothenburg, Sweden. E-mail: britta.langen@gu.se
Basic research is the driving force behind medical progress. As successful as this relation has been, an intrinsic dilemma persists to this day: each study design frames reality—yet the conclusions seek general validity. This dilemma crystallizes into major bias when conclusions are based on selected groups that do not represent the reality of biologic diversity. Ironically, while striving for a future of highly personalized treatments, we have overlooked the obvious features that make an individual, stratify a cohort, and influence outcome: age and sex.
A current example of this issue are molecular biomarkers that may bring the next quantum leap in clinical practice. Biomarkers such as transcripts, proteins, or metabolites can easily be sampled from blood, quantified, and used for biologic dosimetry, risk estimation for postradiation therapy diseases, or screening in radiation hazard events. Still, most studies that use novel “omics” or “next-gen” methods for screening harbor pitfalls similar to previous methodologies and neglect age and sex as important factors. This can compromise the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of biomarkers, leading to erroneous diagnosis and treatment planning.
Sex bias in biomedical research is not a new revelation (1). Surprisingly, it stems not only from the use of single-sex cohorts but also from omitting sex as a factor altogether. Although other fields, such as neuroscience research, have started to tackle this issue (2), it remains largely unaddressed and underrepresented in radiation biology and related medical fields. For instance, sex-specific radiation sensitivity is known in principle yet is rarely considered in study designs beyond this particular research question. The bias in our knowledge base becomes even more worrisome when considering the nonlinearity of age between humans and mice (3). Do we relate age according to sexual maturity, onset of senescence, or total life span? It is reasonable to assume that the answer is, “depending on the research question and biologic endpoint.” However, this issue is usually neglected altogether and the age of the animal is chosen for purely practical reasons. Recently, research on age and sex bias has shown that radiation responses can differ largely between male and female mice, as well as between adolescent and adult specimens (4). If only one group had been used in the proteomic screening for blood-based biomarkers, the conclusions on dose–response would differ and poorly represent radiobiologic effects for other sex and age groups. Most importantly: if neglected, the bias would remain unknown and create large uncertainties that ultimately lead to avoidable risks for patients in radiotherapy and nuclear medicine.
It will be difficult to update our knowledge base to consider these basic factors systematically; in the end, a large body of evidence will still include age and sex biases. Nevertheless, the sooner we start taking action to overcome age and sex bias in our field, the less will misleading information contaminate the knowledge base. Each of us can partake in this effort according to our opportunities. For example, researchers can plan studies with male and female cohorts, principal investigators can establish such cohorts as the group standard, and manuscripts and grant applications can address these possible biases and highlight measures on how to control them. Reviewers can identify age and sex bias and consider it a methodologic limitation, and editors can establish submission forms that require disclosure of age and sex as preclinical study parameters. Lecturers can inform about these potential biases in research and raise students’ awareness when working with source material. Finally, students and PhD candidates can take initiative and, if presented with biased data or methodologies, address age and sex as important factors.
Undoubtedly, using both male and female cohorts and different age groups in research is resource-intensive. It is paramount that funding agencies support these efforts by rewarding points for rigorous research designs that consider age and sex as essential factors. Some large international funding agencies have already started to include dedicated sections on the age and sex dimension in grant applications, but this change needs to be consistent across all funding bodies on the national and regional levels.
By committing to a higher methodologic standard, we can reduce critical bias in our field and in radiation research as a whole. Ultimately, our effort will increase the quality of diagnosis and treatment and improve the odds for therapeutic success for every patient.
Radiation for dummies, Space Daily, by Staff Writers, Paris (ESA) Jan 28, 2019Meet Helga and Zohar, the dummies destined for a pioneering lunar flyby to help protect space travelers from cosmic rays and energetic solar storms.
These two female phantoms will occupy the passenger seats during Orion’s first mission around the Moon, going further than any human has flown before.
Fitted with more than 5600 sensors, the pair will measure the amount of radiation astronauts could be exposed to in future missions with unprecedented precision.
The flight test will take place during NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, an uncrewed trip to the vicinity of the Moon and back to Earth.
Radiation poses a major health risk to people in space. Astronauts on the International Space Station receive doses 250 higher than on Earth. Away from Earth’s magnetic field and into interplanetary space, the impact on the human body could be much higher – up to 700 times more.
Two sources of radiation are of concern: galactic cosmic radiation and virulent solar particle events. This radiation could increase the crew’s risk of cancer and become a limiting factor in missions to the Moon and Mars.
Helga and Zohar The two phantoms simulate adult female torsos. Both Helga and Zohar are made up of 38 slices of tissue-equivalent plastics that mimic the varying density of bones, soft tissue and lungs. Similar dummies are used in hospitals to quantify the right dose of radiation for cancer therapies.
“We chose female phantoms because the number of women astronauts is increasing, and also because the female body is typically more vulnerable to radiation,” explains Thomas Berger, lead scientist of the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE) at the German Aerospace Center, DLR.
Sensors have been fitted in the most radiation-sensitive areas of the body – lungs, stomach, uterus and bone marrow. While thousands of passive dosimeters will record the radiation dose from launch until return to Earth, a set of 16 active detectors will map the radiation dose both on the phantoms’ skin and internal organs during flight.
Study: Atomic bomb radiation raised teens’ risk of breast cancer http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201810270001.html, By SONOKO MIYAZAKI/ Staff Writer October 27, 2018 Women from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had their first periods around the time of the atomic bombs are at an increased risk of developing breast cancer, a study has found.The findings by researchers from Japan and the United States were released by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) on Oct. 15, and published in the U.S. academic journal Radiation Research in the same month.
Past studies have revealed patients have a higher risk of breast cancer when they start menstruating earlier or receive doses of radiation in their early years.
Alina V. Brenner, a senior scientist at RERF, said the correlation between onset of menstruation and radiation exposure ages and the radiation-derived risk suggests breast tissue is more sensitive to radiation around the emergence of secondary sexual characteristics.
In the latest study, RERF tracked 120,000 hibakusha atomic bomb survivors and non-hibakusha, and analyzed radiation doses received and the ages of women suffering from breast cancer when they had their first period.
The results showed a 70-year-old woman who first menstruated at the age of 15 and was affected by radiation at 30 has twice as high risk of breast cancer as radiation-free individuals, while the risk for a 70-year-old female survivor who had both a radiation dose and her first period at 15 is 2.4 times higher than non-hibakusha.
Working as a flight crewmember can put a pregnancy at risk, particularly during the first trimester, notes the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH points to three hazards that could imperil a pregnancy—circadian rhythm disruption (jet lag) or shiftwork, physical job demands, and cosmic ionizing radiation.
While pregnant workers in many occupations do shiftwork and heavy lifting, exposure to high levels of cosmic ionizing radiation is probably an occupational hazard that is unique to flight crews. The problem for pregnant flight attendants is that it cannot be avoided while flying.
What Is It?
Cosmic ionizing radiation comes from outer space with a very small amount reaching the earth. At flight altitudes, passengers and crewmembers are exposed to higher levels on every flight. The World Health Organization says that ionizing radiation causes cancer as well as reproductive problems, but NIOSH believes the issue warrants additional study.
“We don’t know what causes most health problems that could be linked to radiation, including some forms of cancer and reproductive health issues like miscarriage and birth defects,” states NIOSH. “If you are exposed to cosmic ionizing radiation and have these health problems, we can’t tell if it was caused by your work conditions or something else. We don’t know what levels of cosmic radiation are safe for every person.”
Unsafe Levels
Despite these reservations, NIOSH does not dismiss the risk. For example, one NIOSH study found that exposure to 0.36 millisievert (mSv) or more of cosmic radiation in the first trimester may be linked to an increased risk of miscarriage. If this estimated is accurate, the risk to flight crewmembers is high. The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements report that aircrew have the largest average annual effective dose (3.07 mSv) of all U.S. radiation-exposed workers. Other estimates of annual aircrew cosmic radiation exposure range from 0.2 to 5 mSv per year.
There are no official radiation dose limits for aircrew in the United States; however, there are national and international guidelines. For example, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends a dose limit of 20 mSv/year averaged over 5 years for radiation workers and 1 mSv/year for the public. For pregnant radiation workers, the ICRP recommends a dose limit of 1 mSv throughout pregnancy. The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements has a 0.5 mSv recommended monthly radiation limit during pregnancy.
Solar Particle Events
Flying through a solar particle event doesn’t happen often; pilots fly through about 6 solar particle events in an average 28-year career. Still, a pregnant crewmember who flies through a solar particle event can receive more radiation than is recommended during pregnancy by national and international agencies. Also, avoiding exposure to solar particle events is difficult because they often happen with little warning. One helpful resource is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Nowcast of Atmospheric Ionizing Radiation System ((NAIRAS), which was developed to report potentially harmful flight radiation levels to flight crews and passengers.
Recommendations
NIOSH says it recognizes that controlling one’s flight crew responsibilities to reduce exposure to high-altitude radiation is not a simple solution and one that can be constrained by job seniority, lifestyle, and personal issues. However, there are several actions pregnant crewmembers can consider:
Try to reduce time working on very long flights, flights at high latitudes, or flights over the poles. Calculate usual cosmic radiation exposures. The Federal Aviation Administration has developed a tool to estimate the effective dose from galactic cosmic radiation (not solar particle events) for a flight (https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/aeromedical/radiobiology/cari6).
If pregnant or planning a pregnancy, consider work exposures, including cosmic radiation. If pregnant and aware of an ongoing solar particle event when scheduled to fly, consider trip-trading or other rescheduling actions if possible.
More than 60 studies have shown increases of childhood leukemia around nuclear facilities worldwide. Despite this finding, there has never been independent analysis in the US examining connections between childhood cancer and nuclear facilities. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had tasked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct such a study, but then withdrew funding, claiming publicly that it would be too expensive.
n fact, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process reveal that NRC employees had already determined the study would show no impact. Internal emails indicate that staff was presupposing a conclusion for which they had no evidence, demonstrated by statements like “even if you found something that looked like a relationship [between cancer and radiation], you wouldn’t know what to attribute it to,” and “[m]ost people realize that all the evidence shows you’re not going to find anything.” The evidence, however, had not yet been fully collected and examined.
Not protective and unaccountable
While the NRC claims it protects public health, its radiation exposure standards fail to account fully for:
impacts on the placenta
impacts on fetal blood forming cells
impacts on fetal and embryonic organs
estrogenic impacts
disproportionate impacts on women
genetic impacts past the second generation
cumulative damage of repeated radiation exposure
NRC exposure data and modeling is designed to demonstrate compliance with the NRC’s regulations but not to assess health impacts. The NRC has already stated numerous times that it believes low doses of radiation, the kind NRC claims its licensees are allowed to release, pose risks so low that health impacts may not be discernible. We don’t know if NRC’s claims of no discernible or attributable public health impact from nuclear power are actually true since no one has ever looked properly.
Studies in other countries show association between nuclear facilities and childhood cancer. However, given the demonstrable bias of the US NRC toward low doses having no health impact, it is essential that a US study go forward under the auspices of outside, independent experts, in order to examine what is happening in the US.
Ground-breaking study plans were threat to current health assumptions
Under the original and now canceled study, the NRC had tasked the NAS to use the most advanced methods in order to update the study the NRC currently uses to claim its reactors are safe. That study, published in 1990, had several shortcomings including the way the authors define and examine disease, assumptions about doses, location of cases, and who is examined.
The NAS was considering two study designs, one examining specifically children. This study type, dubbed by one expert as a case-control nested in a cohort, is very similar in basic design to studies conducted in France and Germany, which show increases in childhood leukemia around nuclear power facilities.
The NRC scuttled the NAS study in 2015, dubiously claiming it would have cost too much and taken too long. Upon examination, however, it is clear that the NAS study would have challenged the fundamentals of the NRC’s health assessment regime.
To date, most radiation studies have routinely suffered from a host of improper methodologies, making it impossible to discern health impacts. The NAS was considering using new ways of examining the issue by implementing a more detailed, more thorough, publicly shared research protocol. The protocol included:
Making the study process and underlying assumptions public while the study was being conducted
Allowing public comment during the study process
Standardizing raw health data and making it available to researchers and the public
Standardizing and verifying pollutant data
Integrating independently collected pollutant and meteorological data
Examining and redoing the current health models
Tailoring health studies to local conditions
Creating new health models, specifically for the radionuclide carbon
14, which concentrates in fetal tissue more than maternal tissue.
This detailed and accessible protocol could have opened the NRC’s regulatory regime to exhaustive scrutiny, revealing just how inadequate it is for examining health impacts in the first place, never mind protecting public health. Further, with such careful research, NRC could have feared that the NAS study would point to an association between environmental radiation and cancer, as other studies have, although FOIA documents consisting mostly of internal emails did not specifically demonstrate this fear.
Moribund study could be revived, made better
While the NAS child study design and protocol had much to recommend it, it is unclear whether it would have been free of all of the flaws that have historically plagued radiation health assessments. At the point of study cancellation, independent experts still had concerns.
Historically, industry and radiation regulators have insisted that a causal link must be absolutely established between radiation and disease. For protection of the public, however, experts claim the standard should be a lower bar of association with disease. If this study moves forward under the NAS, it needs to relinquish concepts and methods that favor causation.
To date, researchers have started radiation health studies by presuming that there will be no impact because doses are too low — a contention that, in reality, remains scientifically unproven. Many studies reveal the opposite. Any new such research needs to ensure that the basis for health assessments is a focus on health outcomes, not dose models that are fraught with uncertainties.
While NRC licensees attempt to monitor environmental contamination, the NRC has never incorporated biological monitoring, which might prove useful after spike releases from various facility outages. There are several techniques that have been used in other health studies, which a revived cancer study could weave into any child or adult health assessment.
A truly independent and scientifically robust study would attempt to address these issues in addition to using the other enlightened protocols the NAS was considering. With the public process and protocol review suggested by the NAS for this now moribund study, perhaps these remaining shortcomings would finally have been addressed as well. The NRC made sure that did not happen. However, according to Ourania Kosti, NAS researcher coordinating the study, the NAS has left the door open to completing it. “I think it is important to update the findings of the 1990 study using better methodologies and information,” Kosti said. “This is the reason the Academies agreed to carry out the update. The Academies remain willing to do the study, if asked to.”
Cindy Folkers is the radiation and health specialist at Beyond Nuclear.
John Urquhart 19th July 2018 Miscarriages and their causes are rarely discussed in public but for many women they are an unfortunate fact of life. To be more precise; for every 10,000 pregnancies, an estimated 3,000 end with a miscarriage. Very few people know that a significant proportion of these miscarriages is due to chromosome aberrations in the foetus, particularly Down Syndrome.
Boué examined 1,500 foetuses that had naturally aborted. He found that 38% had Down Syndrome. So on that basis, for every 10,000 pregnancies, 1,114 miscarriages occur due to a Down Syndrome condition in the foetus. On the other hand, the actual number of children born with Down Syndrome is less than 10 in 10,000.
Even allowing for therapeutic abortions, this implies that 99% of all foetuses with Down Syndrome are eliminated before reaching full term. A very comprehensive quality control system that must have developed over thousands of years through natural selection.
The very high number of foetuses that start with Down Syndrome would suggest there is some omnipresent environmental factor to which humans are very sensitive.
The Down Syndrome condition, along with other chromosome aberrations, together account for 50% of all natural miscarriages. The aberrations arise when genes on the chromosomes translocate and this is a form of genomic instability. We now know that one source of such instability is radiation. Could natural background radiation be a major cause of the Down Syndrome condition?
We know that radiation levels can vary significantly at times. Gamma monitoring by the independent Argus Network over the last thirty years reveals that, under certain conditions, washout of radionuclides occurs which significantly increases radiation levels. A dramatic illustration of this phenomenon occurred several years ago when workers outside the Berkeley nuclear power station were caught in a rainstorm outside the plant and subsequently triggered radiation monitors on their way in! It was found that their clothes were covered with short-lived, naturally-occurring radionuclides including alpha and beta particles, which when breathed in, can penetrate deep into the body.
So, is natural background radiation a major source of miscarriages in women? Hardly any research has been done in this area, particularly as miscarriages are not a notifiable condition and records are hardly ever kept. So, it is necessary to concentrate purely on the relationship between radiation and Down Syndrome.
In 1972, Eva Alberman reported research findings which showed that exposure to x-rays of mothers to be increased the likelihood of giving birth to a Down Syndrome child, but only at least six years after exposure.
What happened when all mothers to be in Britain were exposed to an unexpected bout of radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear accident in early May 1986? Three large radioactive plumes from the accident swept south to north over the country and where they were intercepted by rain showers, significant amounts of radioactive debris were deposited. One such area was Wales, which it is generally agreed, had significantly higher levels of fallout.
official figures for Down Syndrome comparing England and Wales between 1983 and 2004. In exactly six years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, Down Syndrome levels in Wales, which previously had matched those in England, increased by about 45% over their English counterparts. This six-year delay effect exactly mirrors the findings of Eva Alberman.
What about other parts of Europe? In “Welcome to Geordiestan” there are detailed facts and discussions of the health impact of the Chernobyl nuclear accident (see details below).
The annual birth defect rates in Belarus, which was heavily contaminated by fallout from Chernobyl: in the most contaminated area, there was a significant jump in birth defects in 1987 and 1988, which could have been caused by exposure of male sperm to radioactive fallout. Levels then return almost to normal but in Belarus as a whole, six years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident the birth defect rate rose to four times the rate before the accident and continued to climb. The impact on the offspring due to parental exposure could be at least ten times higher via women than via men. Once again, there appears to be a six-year effect. These figures cover not only children born with Down Syndrome but all types of birth defects. One of the possible effects of genomic instability is to generate extramutated genes which interact with existing recessive deleterious genes thus bumping up the rate of birth defects.
Clearly, there are many unresolved questions about the impact of radiation on the human female egg but the results from Wales and Belarus suggest that, not only very low levels of man-made radiation may have an effect, but that its genetic consequences are much higher in women than in men.
Yet in the absence of any kind of research into the impact of Chernobyl and other low level radiation sources, the British government has recently announced their goal of increasing the percentage of women working in the nuclear industry to 40%. Could this have the effect of importing a genetic trojan horse into the British nation? Animal studies conducted before and after the Chernobyl nuclear accident show transgenerational effects due to radiation. Ryabokon et al. (2006) showed that, in colonies of bank voles, these effects not only persisted but increased over twenty-two generations.
Genomic instability does not stop at one generation. So women of child-bearing age should seriously consider whether to work in the nuclear industry. Not only for their own sake, but for the sake of their descendants.
Welcome to Geordiestan Published by zencity 2018 ISBN: 978-1-5272-2499-5 UK: £8.99 Now available from bookshops and libraries. For further information email zencity@environment.org.uk
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