What is the Impact of Radiation on Children Living Near Chernobyl?

[theroyprocess]

GAMMAwatch Geiger Counter

Not just for James Bond anymore:

GAMMAWATCH Geiger Counter

http://www.gammawatch.com/geiger.htm

GEIGER COUNTERS

http://www.geigercounters.com/

 

[theroyprocess]

Depleted Uranium Contamination

UMRC Information Bulletin
February 6, 2004

Warning of uranium contamination risks to NGO staff, Coalition forces, foreign contract personnel and civilians in Iraq

February 6, 2004 – Recently completed laboratory analyses show two members of Uranium Medical Research Centre’s (UMRC) field investigation team are contaminated with Depleted Uranium (DU). The two field staff, one from Canada and the other, Beirut, toured Iraq for thirteen days in October 2003; five months after the cessation of Operation Iraqi Freedom’s aerial bombing and ground force campaign. Using mass spectrometry, UMRC’s partner laboratory in Germany measured DU in both team members’ urine samples.

The UMRC team surveyed US and British controlled combat areas and bomb-sites in southern Iraq, including Baghdad, An Nasiriyah, As Suweiriah and Al Basra (details can be found at UMRC.net, Abu Khasib to Al Ah’qaf: Field Investigation Report). The conditions responsible for the team’s DU contamination are considered to be inhalation of resuspended ultra-fine soil and dust particles saturated with uranium and airborne uranium oxides and metallic particulate. Uranium was used in anti-tank penetrators, suppression ordnance and bunker-defeat warheads deployed during the 26 days of Operation Iraqi Freedom by both US and UK forces. The contamination of UMRC’s team members occurring over a two-week period, many months after the main conflict, represents a risk to civilians, non-governmental organisations’ staff, Coalition armed forces and foreign contractors and diplomatic staff.

In 1997, UMRC was the first study group to detect DU in the urine of Canadian, British and US troops who served in Gulf War I. The urinary excretion of battlefield uranium was identified six years following exposure. In January 2004, the US Department of Veterans Affairs admitted it had detected DU in the urine of US forces who are not retaining DU shrapnel, in 2000, eight years after Desert Storm. In 2001 and again in 2002, UMRC measured high concentrations of artificial uranium containing the synthetic isotope, 236U, in Afghan civilians exposed to the detonation plumes of bombs deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom.

In November 2003, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) released a formal statement to the Guardian disclaiming UMRC’s Operation Telic findings of high levels of radioactivity in British-led battlefields. The MOD stated unequivocally that battlefield uranium residues remain stable inside defeated Iraqi tanks and cannot be made biologically available to humans. Since then, the MOD has found unusually high concentrations of uranium excreted in the urine of its 1st Armoured Division troops who served in Basra (September 2003, UK DU Oversight Board Meeting minutes, Gulf Veterans Illnesses Unit, UK Ministry of Defence). The MOD’s recent findings in its troops now deployed back to Germany, coupled with the contamination of UMRC’s staff demonstrate the need to initiate immediate solutions to protect exposed civilians and foreign personnel in Iraq.

Preliminary results of UMRC’s laboratory analysis of field samples of civilian urine, soils and water samples indicate uranium contamination in several Iraqi cities and battlefields. Details of UMRC’s findings from US and British controlled battlefields and bombsites will be released later this month (February 2004). UMRC has offered its assistance to the United Nation’s Environment Program (UNEP) to guide UNEP’s post-conflict study team to radiologically contaminated bombsites and battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. UMRC urges UNEP to undertake immediate studies and lead the implementation of a radiation protection program for Iraqi and Afghan civilians as well as a supervised environmental clean-up program, as early as possible.

For information:
T Weyman
Iraq Field Team Lead
Info@UMRC.net





* See also: NucNews Links and Archives (by date) at http://nucnews.net * (Posted for educational and research purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107) *

 

[theroyprocess]

FATAL FALLOUT Film Screening

http://www.radiation.org/index.html

THE FATAL FALLOUT PROJECT
Join us for a
FILM SCREENING &
PUBLIC HEALTH FORUM

NEW YORK · BOSTON

FILM
SCREENING

BE
THERE

New York City
February 11, 2004
6:00 pm screening
9:00 pm screening
Symphony Space
2537 Broadway @ 95th Street
New York, NY 10025-6990
Telephone: (212) 864-1414
Box Office: (212) 864-5400

Boston, MA
February 12, 2004
6:00 pm screening
8:30 pm screening
Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Telephone: (617) 876-6837
Box Office: (617) 876-6838

THE
FILM

THE
DANGER
IS
REAL
"Fatal Fallout," A Documentary Film
by Gary Null, Ph.D.

"Fatal Fallout" is a documentary feature film that examines the potentially catastrophic consequences of a meltdown from a mechanical failure or terrorist attack at nuclear power plants located near major cities - such as New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Experts have stated that a meltdown or major radioactive release at such plants could result in chronic radiation sickness, cancer, or death for tens if not hundreds of thousands of the regions' citizens, and render much of these metropolitan areas permanently uninhabitable. Equally compelling, the film brings to light the dangers that low-level radiation emissions from the currently 103 operating nuclear power plants across the country pose to the health of people every day, given that populations living near nuclear reactors exhibit higher rates of breast and thyroid cancers, childhood leukemia, lower birth weights and higher infant mortality. Additionally, the documentary offers a hopeful vision for the future in its overview of safe energy alternatives, such as solar and wind, making "Fatal Fallout" not just a film, but a public health project.

THE
PROJECT

NEW YORK

BOSTON
The Fatal Fallout Project

"The Fatal Fallout Project" is a program that will screen in theaters in New York and Boston--two cities located within fifty miles of nuclear power plants. Following the screening, audience members at each location will be able to view and participate in a live public health forum. Communication is the purpose, the film exhibition program the vehicle, for raising public awareness of this vital public health issue.

Fatal Fallout film on VHS video coming soon:

Thanks for your interest in the film. It will be available online at www.garynull.com in a few weeks. It will sell for $19.95.

*******************************************************

FATAL FALLOUT


"Keep them confused."
-President Eisenhower, in a memo to advisers when asked what to tell the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons testing and the construction of nuclear power plants.

Since 1895, and the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, scientists have known about the dangers of exposure to low-level radiation. Yet even after 100 years of incontrovertible evidence that the products of nuclear fission pose a severe and fatal threat to the human species, nuclear reactors and weaponry across the country and around the globe continue to operate and proliferate. Meanwhile, the atmospheric fallout from weapons testing and nuclear accidents, such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, continues to plague the health of human populations on a geographic scale as far west as Nevada and Wyoming, and as far east as Belarus and China.

Low birth weights, infant and breast cancer mortality rates, and leukemia - not to mention the widespread poisoning of our food, milk and drinking water predicted by Rachel Carson - are just some of the legacies of atmospheric bomb tests and power plants. The United States is now buckling under the sheer weight of the evidence against it and paying out-of-court settlements to people who were exposed to radiation. But then why does the Bush administration want to license new nuclear power plants and renew the license of as many as 103 nuclear power plants currently in operation? New York Times bestselling author, Gary Null, Ph.D., an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and syndicated radio host, investigates this deadly deception.

------------------------------------------------------

Neutralize Nuclear Waste, Plutonium & Dirty Bomb Elements

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0308/S00219.htm

 

[russ_watters]

American Death Statistics Yearly accidental deaths from:

Transportation (all types) accidents: 46,749
Falls (furniture, stairs, ladders, ice, etc): 13,322
Mechanical (guns, machinery, fireworks, falling objects): 2,768
Drowning: 3,482
Other soffocation (choking, smothering, etc): 5,648
Electricity (shock, heat): 419
Smoke/fire: 2,776
Forces of nature: 1,223
Poisoning: 12,757

Total: 97,900

 

[hitssquad]

Originally posted by Nereid
theroyprocess,

Do you have any URLs which give the radiation levels of the particulates in a) smoke from industrial plants (e.g. chemical, oil refineries, heavy metal smelting), b) coal-fired powerplant smoke

--
Coal contains 10 ppm uranium, 25 ppm thorium, and also has much
larger quantities of aluminum, iron, sulfur, magnesium, titanium,
arsenic, mercury, & cadmium, all of which are quite poisonous, and
have half-lives of FOREVER. The burning of coal produces free
sulfur, dioxin, sulfur dioxide, CO2, and traces of many other
carcinogenic and mutagenic compounds. Burning coal produces acid
rain directly. Since current coal consumption is 5000 million tons
annually, simply using the 10 ppm and 25 ppm figures above,
therefore the burning of coal atomizes, releases and efficiently
disperses 50,000 tons of Uranium into the environment, and 75,000
tons of Thorium into the environment, annually. Do the math, and
have a good day.

Regards,

Paul[/color]
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Know_Nukes/message/4961



--
Environ Sci Technol. 2002 Dec 1;36(23):4943-7.

Uraninite and fullerene in atmospheric particulates.

Utsunomiya S, Jensen KA, Keeler GJ, Ewing RC.

Department of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2104, USA.

Particulates emitted from coal-burning power plants typically contain very small amounts of uranium (<10 ppm). Because of the extremely low concentrations, the form of the uranium has been unknown. Using a variety of advanced electron microscopy techniques, we have identified for the first time nanocrystals of uraninite, UO2+x, encapsulated in carbonaceous matter (< or = 50 nm) similar to fullerene. We have also identified, for the first time, closely associated fullerenes, C60. The "carbon-caged" nanocrystals of uraninite are protected from the immediate oxidation that would lead to increased mobility of uranium in the environment. Still, the presence of uranium in the very fine fraction of atmospheric particulates provides another pathway for radiation exposure.

PMID: 12523404[/color]
--
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=search&db=pubmed&term=coal+AND+(uranium+OR+radiation)




--
J Environ Radioact. 2002;61(2):191-201.

Evaluation of technologically enhanced natural radiation near the coal-fired power plants in the Lodz region of Poland.

Bem H, Wieczorkowski P, Budzanowski M.

Institute of Applied Radiation Chemistry, Technical University of Lodz, Poland.

Radionuclide releases together with escaping fly ashes (from 45 x 10(6) kg in previous decades to 8 x 10(6) kg annually in 1996) from the main local and several small coal-fired power plants resulted in a relatively small increase in natural radioactivity levels in the Lodz region. The natural gamma terrestrial radiation dose rates (1 m above ground level) were measured at 82 points including in the vicinity of power plants, in the center of the town and on edge of the town. The average dose rate value for the first area was 36 +/- 1.2 nGy h (-1), whereas the same dose rate for the edge of town was slightly lower 30 +/- 0.9 nGy h (-1) but this difference was statistically significant. Further confirmation of the technologically slightly enhanced exposure of the local population to natural radionuclides was achieved by gamma-spectrometry measurement of the uranium and thorium decay series radionuclides in the surface soil profiles (up to 30 cm depth). The average increase of 226Ra and 232Th radionuclides in the top layer of soil (0-10 cm) according to the 20+/-30 cm depth layer was 21% and 17%, respectively. However, due to the relatively low levels of 232Th (14.3 Bq kg (-1)) and 238U (16.8 Bq kg (-1)) in this area, the annual average effective dose from the natural terrestrial radiation for the local population is also relatively low, 0.28 mSv only.

PMID: 12066980[/color]
--
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=search&db=pubmed&term=coal+AND+(uranium+OR+radiation)



The first hit returned by the following Google search is a modern classic in the genre of documentation of radiation emissions from coal-fired power plants:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=search&db=pubmed&term=coal+AND+(uranium+OR+radiation)


--
...from the expected combustion of 111,716 million tons of coal with the release of 477,027,320 millicuries in the United States... Global releases of radioactivity from the predicted combustion of 637,409 million tons of coal would be 2,721,736,430 millicuries.

For comparison, according to NCRP Reports No. 92 and No. 95, population exposure from operation of 1000-MWe nuclear and coal-fired power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal plants and 4.8 person-rem/year for nuclear plants. Thus, the population effective dose equivalent from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants.
[/color]
--
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html



Physicists Richard Garwin and Georges Charpak, in their 2001 book Megawatts and Megatons, calculate total exposures over 10,000 years for coal vs. once-through fuel-cycle nukes vs. closed fuel-cycle nukes. Coal doesn't come out looking so bad in that analysis:

             ________________________________________
  Table 7.2 Collective effective dose to the public from
  effluents of the nuclear fuel cycle. Dose commitment
  in person-Sv per GWe-yr of operation.
             ________________________________________
            
                  Local and Regional Component:
             ________________________________________

                                    Once    Reprocessing
Source                            through    and recycle   Coal
             ________________________________________
Mining                              1.1          0.9       0.002
Reactor operations (atmospheric)    1.3          1.3        20
Total local and regional            2.4          2.2        20


                Solid Waste and Global Component:
             ________________________________________
Mine and mill tailings                
(release over 10,000 yrs)           150          120        
Reactor operations, disposal        
of immediate waste                  0.5          0.5
Reprocessing solid waste disposal   0            1.2        125
Reprocessing, globally dispersed                      (use of ash)
radioluclides (to 10,000 years)     0            217
Total for solid waste
and global component                150          339        125
             ________________________________________
Grand total                         152          341        145

(Garwin and Charpak. Megawatts and Megatons. 2001. p198.)
http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/garwin/


Multiplying those figures by the IRCP standard of .04 lethal cancers per person-Sievert, we see that the average once-through, the average closed-fuel-cycle, and the average coal plant kill 6.08, 13.64, and 5.8 people, respectively, per power plant unit year of operation.

These figures can vary dramatically within the realm of practicable variance in power plant management, and within the realm of practicable application of hygiene among the members of the affected populations (e.g., optimum anti-senescence diet; optimum supplementation with radioprotective antioxidants and chelators; optimum sleep quantity and quality; optimum stress reduction; etc.).




-Chris

 

[theroyprocess]

Low Dose Radiation Health Effects

Low Level Radiation Campaign email briefing. Please forward to other campaigners

TV researcher finds new cluster of childhood cancers and leukaemia far worse than Seascale

Twenty years on from the Yorkshire TV programme "Windscale the Nuclear Laundry" in which James Cutler revealed the existence of the notorious cluster of childhood leukaemia at Seascale near Sellafield, a researcher from HTV has done the same thing for the radioactively contaminated Menai Strait, which lies between the island of Anglesey and north Wales. Like YTV, HTV has identified the children involved and has interviewed them and their parents in a documentary to be broadcast on the Welsh language channel S4C 10th February. These are real children, so it will be hard for the authorities to deny the data. The cluster is more severe than Seascale and its statistical strength is far greater.

In the seaside town of Caernarfon leukaemia in the 0 - 14 year old age group is 28 times the UK national average (compared with Seascale's 12-fold excess). The excess risk is not confined to the town of Caernarfon. In the 34 wards surrounding the Menai Strait there were 6 cases of leukaemia 0-4 from 2000-2003, a Relative Risk (RR) of 7.8; between 1996 and 2003 there were 9 cases of brain and spinal cancer; RR = 5.4. The cancers include 3 cases of the rare eye cancer retinoblastoma on Anglesey. All are teenagers. In Conwy (another seaside town) there are two further cases, both under ten years old. Caernarfon has a further case, a child born in 1999 and diagnosed at age 3. Retinoblastoma has been associated with radioactivity since the Seascale cluster of leukaemia is accompanied by a 20-fold excess of retinoblastoma in children of Sellafield workers. The relative risks for retinoblastoma in the HTV research are uncertain because so far we only have one of the diagnosis dates, but a conservative calculation shows that excess risks for the area, compared with average rates, are between 5 and 15-times (this covers separate calculations for Anglesey and the whole of the county of Gwynedd). The statistical significance of all the results is high, so this is not a chance occurrence (for the detail see the report itself on www.llrc.org).

This news blows to shreds any credibility COMARE (Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment) may have. COMARE was set up on the recommendation of the Black Committee which investigated the way in which the Seascale cluster was found. COMARE's deliberations have resulted in nothing but two decades of denial, hanging on the single flimsy premise that on "current knowledge" of the relationship between radiation and leukaemia, the level of dose local people were exposed should not have caused so many cases. Parents of young cancer patients in north Wales consistently comment that when they take their children to hospital they are surprised by the sheer numbers of children who come from the same areas. Workers at the Low Level Radiation Campaign were alerted by such anecdotes to look at data leaked to us by Wales Cancer Registry (WCR). We found anomalously high cancer rates along the Irish Sea coast, and inferred that radioactivity migrating onto the shore was the cause and that the dose/effect relationship cited by COMARE was simply wrong. COMARE has failed to conduct a proper investigation of our findings, fearing that to do so would increase our credibility and "open the door for others to lean on COMARE to recommend research." COMARE failed to ask the Welsh Cancer Intelligence Unit (WCISU - WCR's successor) how and why they wiped large numbers of cases off the WCR databases, in effect going back two decades to cure people. The whole sorry story is on www.llrc.org and there you can also download the report in which Dr Chris Busby has analysed the statistical status of what the HTV researcher found. You can even see the minutes of the COMARE meeting which listened to the Director of WCISU but not to us. LLRC is calling (not for the first time) for COMARE to be disbanded, as well as the other watchdog which was set up on Black's recommendation. This is SAHSU, the Small Area Health Statistics Unit; surely it would be best for public health problems such as Seascale to be found by official bodies routinely monitoring official data, rather than in embarrassing TV documentaries?

Suffice it to say SAHSU has never found anything. When asked to investigate the concerns of local people they ignore the way radioactive discharges are unevenly distributed by prevailing winds and by local topography, rivers and tides. When challenged (as they were recently at Bradwell in Essex) to look more realistically at data on cancer around an area of contamination they apply the totally inappropriate technique of Bayesian Smoothing to smudge the data out so that nothing can be seen. Take away the Bayesian smudging and the truth speaks clear - radioactive mud blows onshore and kills people. This observation cannot be accounted for using the radiation protection standards advised by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP).

We have consistently looked at the dose/response relationship on the basis of low dose radiation effects (e.g. infant leukaemia post-Chernobyl) and found it to be in error by two orders of magnitude. Consider one example; on the basis of what COMARE and NRPB say, doses at Seascale are 300 times too small to have caused the leukaemia cluster, but nobody denies that the cluster is real. What caused it? Was it the radiation? We think so and we think ICRP's model is wrong in the very low dose end and for radioactivity when it gets into the body - this part of ICRP's modelling is, after all just guess work. Now, thanks to HTV, we have even more evidence that we are right. There are massive implications for all aspects of nuclear policy everywhere. One of those implications is that SAHSU and COMARE must go - they have stood out against scientific advance and the interests of the public for far too long. We will produce further briefings soon.

Richard Bramhall
Low Level Radiation Campaign
bramhall@llrc.org
The Knoll
Montpellier Park
Llandrindod
Powys LD1 5LW U.K.
+44 (0)1597 824771



* See also: NucNews Links and Archives (by date) at http://nucnews.net * (Posted for educational and research purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107) *

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by hitssquad
--
Coal contains 10 ppm uranium, 25 ppm thorium, and also has much
larger quantities of aluminum, iron, sulfur, magnesium, titanium,
arsenic, mercury, & cadmium, all of which are quite poisonous, and
have half-lives of FOREVER. The burning of coal produces free
sulfur, dioxin, sulfur dioxide, CO2, and traces of many other
carcinogenic and mutagenic compounds. Burning coal produces acid
rain directly. Since current coal consumption is 5000 million tons
annually, simply using the 10 ppm and 25 ppm figures above,
therefore the burning of coal atomizes, releases and efficiently
disperses 50,000 tons of Uranium into the environment, and 75,000
tons of Thorium into the environment, annually. Do the math, and
have a good day.

Regards,

Paul[/color]
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Know_Nukes/message/4961

As I've said before, coal is the real enemy here. In the US, 50% of our electricity comes from coal.

In the seaside town of Caernarfon leukaemia in the 0 - 14 year old age group is 28 times the UK national average (compared with Seascale's 12-fold excess). The excess risk is not confined to the town of Caernarfon. In the 34 wards surrounding the Menai Strait there were 6 cases of leukaemia 0-4 from 2000-2003, a Relative Risk (RR) of 7.8; between 1996 and 2003 there were 9 cases of brain and spinal cancer; RR = 5.4.

Theroyprocess, that's a classic case of abuse of statistics. When the number of occurrences of something (anything) is so low, such statistical analysis is either a meaningless misunderstanding or intentionally misleading. In the case of a special interest group with a clear adjenda, these studies are more often than not intentionally misleading. http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Table5.htm is a similar example easily created on demand using statistics available on the web. Many many ominous sounding things can be said about these statistics. For example:

-From 1998 to 2001, the number of fatal airline accidents per year in the US increased sixfold.

-Your odds of dying any time you flew in 2001 were 531 times higher than in 1998.

While factually accurate, that analysis is utterly meaningless because plane crashes are so rare in the US, one or two happening in the same year will throw off the statistics. In 2001 for example, 4 of the 6 crashes were part of the same event - 9/11. The 2001 numbers are given an asteresk in the table because a hijacking isn't really an "accident."

Applied to the cancer rates, with random distributions, lots of different types of cancer to look at, and lots of cities to choose from to look at, its a statistical certainty that you will find clusters (if single digit quantities can be considered a "cluster") of certain types of cancer. What studies like this don't tell you is that with similar analysis you can show lower incidences of certain types of cancer clustered around nuclear plants if you want to.

 

[theroyprocess]

Chernobyl Heart Film Wins Oscar

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/entertainment-oscars-documentary.html

(exerpt)

Also on Sunday, Maryann DeLeo won the Oscar for
best short-subject documentary for ``Chernobyl
Heart,'' the story of the health impacts on
children living in the area of the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor, site of a 1986 disaster.

``I feel you are also honoring the people of
Chernobyl who are suffering the effects of
radiation still, 18 years later,'' she said.

* See also: NucNews Links and Archives (by date) at http://nucnews.net * (Posted for educational and research purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107) *