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Thyroid cancer rates are alarming | LoHud.com | The Journal News
New research reveals that thyroid cancer rates near the Indian Point nuclear power plant are among the highest in the nation. Government statistics show that, compared to the U.S., thyroid cancer rates are 106 percent higher in Rockland County; 102 percent higher in Putnam County; 87 percent higher in Orange County; and 42 percent higher in Westchester County.
These figures are alarming. Unfortunately, Westchester County Health Commissioner Joshua Lipsman maliciously attacks this research, done by the Radiation and Public Health Project. RPHP, which I direct, comprises professional scientists. Our research is factual, while he has no proof to support his statements. My colleagues and I have published 25 papers on radiation health risk in scientific journals, including the esteemed Lancet and British Medical Journal. All papers were peer-reviewed by expert scientists who found them to meet high professional standards. Lipsman never published a single journal article on radiation health.
We will quit if uranium mine opens, say doctors
DOCTORS at the only Aboriginal medical service in Alice Springs have threatened to leave if the Federal Government allows a Canadian company to mine uranium near the town.
Protesters will press Northern Territory MPs to stop their support when Parliament sits in Central Australia tomorrow. They say it threatens the town's future and could set a precedent for other urban centres.
Hibakusha: 'Mankind has yet to fully understand the terrifying effects of radiation' - The Mainichi Daily News
A deeply-indented coastline glittered in the autumn sun as 63-year-old Yoko Nakano, an A-bomb survivor exposed in utero, walked the streets of Genkai, Saga Prefecture, home to the Genkai Nuclear Power Plant.
The rice had been harvested from the paddies, and a crisp breeze blew. The vicinity of the municipal government building was empty despite it being noontime on a weekday, and one couldn't help but notice the number of shuttered shops in town. The only young man we passed on the street was a postal worker.
Growing concern over humanitarian situation in Fallujah
The fifth anniversary of the second attack on Fallujah by US forces has seen an upsurge in interest in the lingering humanitarian problems resulting from the conflict. Both the US and UNEP have roles to play in clarifying exactly what happened and ICBUW calls on them to accept this responsibility.
19 November 2009 - ICBUW
ICBUW is deeply concerned by press reports of a steep rise in birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq, following the two attacks by US forces in 2004. Such stories are sadly familiar to anyone who has followed the history of Iraq after the wars in 1991 and 2003, and it has long been thought that the use of uranium weapons – so-called ‘depleted uranium’ – in both conflicts has played a role in the rise in deformities among newborns.
Sick worker advocates seek rules changes | knoxnews.com
According to info distributed by the Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups, ANWAG and the action groups at Linde Ceramics are petitioning NIOSH and the Dept. of Labor to make rules changes in the administration of the sick nuclear worker compensation program.
"Congress never intended this program to develop into the ongoing and overwhelming burden it has become for sickened nuclear weapons workers or their survivors," Terrie Barrie of ANWAG said in a statement. "Congress was well aware when they passed EEOICPA that the Department of Energy did not keep adequate exposure records, particularly for chemicals and heavy metals. Yet, DOL requires claimants to provide proof of exposure where none exists. It is long past due to return this program to the original intent of the law."
Uranium weapons - all roads lead to the World Health Organisation
Last December, 141 states supported a General Assembly resolution requesting that the United Nation’s agencies - the WHO, IAEA and UNEP - update their positions on the potential threat to human health and the environment posed by the use of uranium weapons. Of these, it seems to be that of the WHO which will prove the most influential.
17 November 2009 - Doug Weir and Gretel Munroe
This was the second NAM resolution on uranium weapons in recent years and it garnered more support than its 2007 predecessor. Abstentions were down as Finland, Norway and Iceland voted in favour while France, Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom were left more isolated than ever.
Following the vote, the UK justified its position by stating that all the research that has ever needed to be undertaken into the potential health impact of uranium weapons has been completed and that we can now therefore ignore the subject.
AdelaideNow... Maralinga test site returned to people Maralinga Tjarutja people
LAND in outback South Australia used for nuclear weapons testing in the aftermath of World War II will be handed back to the traditional Aboriginal owners.
Environment and Conservation and Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation Minister Jay Weatherill today told Parliament the final section of the Maralinga test site would be returned to the Maralinga Tjarutja people.
"The Maralinga nuclear test occurred during a period in our history when little regard was given to Aboriginal people and their connection with the land," he said.
US drops safety claim for island / World / Home - Morning Star
Residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques celebrated at the weekend after a US agency dropped claims that no health hazards had been caused by decades of US military exercises on and around the island.
Some 7,000 past and current Vieques residents have filed a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in compensation for illnesses that they say are linked to the use of the island as a bombing range.
The US Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has now admitted that it must "modify" its earlier research on Vieques, which had purported to show that there had been no health risks generated.
Toxic munitions 'may be cause' of baby deaths and deformities in Fallujah - Middle East, World - The Independent
Evidence was growing this weekend that babies born in the Iraqi city of Fallujah – scene in 2004 of one of the few set-piece battles of the invasion – are exhibiting high rates of mortality and birth defects.
In September this year, say campaigners, 170 children were born at Fallujah General Hospital, 24 per cent of whom died within seven days. Three-quarters of these exhibited deformities, including "children born with two heads, no heads, a single eye in their foreheads, or missing limbs". The comparable data for August 2002 – before the invasion – records 530 births, of whom six died and only one of whom was deformed.
The Associated Press: US health agency to take 'fresh look' at Vieques
A U.S. agency has overturned its 2003 research that said no health hazards were caused by decades of military exercises on Vieques, a bombing range-turned-tourist destination off Puerto Rico's east coast.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said Friday it intends to "modify" some of its earlier research on Vieques, where the U.S. and its allies trained for conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq.
The agency, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used its own studies to conclude in 2003 that there was essentially no health risk from the bombing range — a conclusion widely criticized by academics and residents on the 18-mile-long island of less than 10,000 people.
solomonstarnews.com - Compo unlikely for Bikini Islanders, fears lawyer
The lawyer acting for Bikini Islanders says there is little hope their case will go to the US Supreme Court as they seek compensation for the 23 US nuclear weapons tests carried on their atoll.
The Bikinians filed suit in the US Federal Court of Claims in 2006 after a Nuclear Claims Tribunal issued a 563 million US dollar damage award in their favour but did not have the money to pay it.
The Bikinians contend that the US Congress cannot take away their US Constitution Fifth Amendment protections for just compensation payments for
damage the nuclear tests did to their islands.
But the US Justice Department said in earlier court hearings that the US Congress provided a full and final settlement through a 150 million US dollar compensation fund in a Compact of Free Association approved by the US and Marshall Islands governments in 1986.
The Tribunal proved incapable of paying even one percent of the compensation.
The atoll is still uninhabited because of radiation contamination.--RNZI
NRC- NRC Cites Wal-Mart for Violations in Handling Tritium Exit Signs
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., with four violations concerning improper disposal and transfer of tritium exit signs at its stores throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
The violations, issued Oct. 28, concerned the improper transfer or disposal of 2,462 signs from Wal-Mart stores in states under NRC jurisdiction between 2000 and 2008, and the improper transfer of an additional 517 signs between various Wal-Mart facilities. The company also failed to appoint an official responsible for complying with regulatory requirements and failed to report broken or damaged signs as required.
Exit signs containing tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, pose little threat to public health and safety and do not constitute a security risk. However, the NRC requires proper recordkeeping and disposal of the signs because a damaged or broken sign could cause minor radioactive contamination of the immediate vicinity, requiring environmental clean up.
The improper transfer or disposal of the 2,979 signs and failure to appoint a responsible official were determined to be a Severity Level III problem under NRC’s enforcement policy, and the failure to report damaged signs is a Severity Level IV violation, the lowest on the NRC’s enforcement scale.
Native American Uranium Miners Still Suffer, As Industry Eyes Rebirth - Working In These Times
On the Navajo Nation, almost everyone you talk to either worked in uranium mines themselves or had fathers or husbands who did. Almost everyone also has multiple stories of loved ones dying young from cancer, kidney disease and other ailments attributed to uranium poisoning.
The effects aren’t limited to uranium miners and millers; whole families are usually affected as women washed their husbands’ contaminated clothes, kids played amidst mine waste and families even built homes out of radioactive uranium tailings.
A new demand for uranium power brings concerns for Navajo groups - washingtonpost.com
Uranium from the Grants Mineral Belt running under rugged peaks and Indian pueblos of New Mexico was a source of electric power and military might in decades past, providing fuel for reactors and atomic bombs.
Now, interest in carbon-free nuclear power is fueling a potential resurgence of uranium mining. But Indian people gathered in Acoma, N.M., for the Indigenous Uranium Forum over the weekend decried future uranium extraction, especially from nearby Mount Taylor, considered sacred by many tribes. Native people from Alaska, Canada, the Western United States and South America discussed the severe health problems uranium mining has caused their communities, including high rates of cancer and kidney disease.
New research suggests how low doses of radiation can cause heart disease and stroke
A mathematical model constructed by researchers at Imperial College London predicts the risk of cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, stroke) associated with low background levels of radiation. The model shows that the risk would vary almost in proportion with dose. Results, published October 23 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, are consistent with risk levels reported in previous studies involving nuclear workers.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and one of the leading causes of disability in developed countries, as reported in the paper and also by the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/whosis/en/). For some time, scientists have understood how high-dose radiotherapy (RT) causes inflammation in the heart and large arteries and how this results in the increased levels of cardiovascular disease observed in many groups of patients who receive RT. However, in the last few years, studies have shown that there may also be cardiovascular risks associated with the much lower fractionated doses of radiation received by groups such as nuclear workers, but it is not clear what biological mechanisms are responsible.
Study of baby teeth yields new findings on nuclear fallout
Joan Ketterer still recalls the button her son Edward got for donating his baby teeth to what was then a ground-breaking study looking at the effect of nuclear fallout on children born in the St. Louis-area in the 1960s.
"I Gave My Tooth To Science" proclaimed the button, which Edward or "E.J." as his parents called him, proudly wore for days.
But the button was eventually put away. Edward grew up, got married and opened a successful orthodontics practice in Houston. And Joan Ketterer forgot all about the study.
But Tuesday, a New York-based research group released new findings that suggest male tooth donors who ended up with cancer as adults had double the amount of a radioactive isotope created by nuclear fallout than healthy donors who participated in the original St. Louis study.
Uni radiation probe to be published - Manchester Evening News
A REPORT into a possible radiation link to the deaths of Manchester University staff will be published today.
Ernest Rutherford, known as the father of nuclear physics, won the Nobel prize for research carried out at the university in the early 20th century.
Campaigners believe his former laboratories, which are now used as offices, may have been contaminated by harmful materials in his pioneering experiments.
The deaths of six university workers have been linked to the radiation scare
Commentary: Childhood cancer near nuclear power stations - 7thSpace Interactive
In 2008, the KiKK study in Germany reported a 1.6-fold increase in all cancers and a 2.2-fold increase in leukemias, among children living within 5 km of all German nuclear power stations. The study has triggered debates as to the cause(s) of these increased cancers.
This article reports on the findings of the KiKK study; discusses past and more recent epidemiological studies of leukemias near nuclear installations around the world, and outlines a possible biological mechanism to explain the increased cancers. This suggests that the observed high rates of infant leukemias may be a teratogenic effect from incorporated radionuclides.
Doses from environmental emissions from nuclear reactors to embryos/fetuses in pregnant women near nuclear power stations may be larger than suspected and hematopoietic tissues may be considerably more radiosensitive in embryos/fetuses than in newborn babies. The commentary concludes with recommendations for further research.
North West Evening Mail| Radiation questions
MP Tim Farron will call for Sellafield’s compensation scheme for radiation-linked diseases to be extended to the wider population.
The nuclear industry scheme to compensate workers or their dependents for diseases which may be radiation-linked was set up by BNFL and the unions at Sellafield in 1982.
Compensation is paid on a balance of possibilities (20 per cent and over) that a cancer may have been induced by occupational exposure to radiation.
A total of £6.2m has so far been paid out. Many of the cases were linked to Sellafield, but the scheme has now been widened to include all nuclear radiation workers.
Radiation Free Lakeland is calling for the scheme to be extended to the wider population – within at least a 5km radius of Sellafield.
Mr Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, will ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change if he will bring forward proposals to extend the scheme for radiation-linked diseases.
What about health risk from Calvert Cliffs? -- baltimoresun.com
Whenever I read anything in the newspaper about the proposed purchase by Electricite de France of 49.99% of Constellation Energy's nuclear business, I cringe. The French company wants to build a double-size third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs. The mere existence of any nuclear reactor causes unimaginable harm to the public and environment every-single-day.
Plutonium is considered weapons-grade when it contains 93 percent Pu-239. The plutonium that would be used in the new reactor is 94 percent Pu-239. A single speck of Pu-239 in the lung will cause lung cancer. Pu-239 has a half life of a bit over 24,000 years. This is a major health risk.
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