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THE Radiation / Radioactive Thread Pt. 2

Re: Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Unread postby Cid_Yama » Wed 29 Oct 2014, 04:01:20

We who were alive back then are survivors of a 'peaceful' nuclear war. Those who were children at the time are now dying from it.
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Re: Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Unread postby Cid_Yama » Wed 29 Oct 2014, 09:11:44

All casualties of this 'peaceful' nuclear war are the result of late and early expression cancers. The ones dying now are the late ones.

Remember all those bald headed children in the commercials in the late 60's and 70's urging you to fight childhood leukemia? Those were the early expression cancer casualties.

All of those deaths shall not go unacknowledged.
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Re: Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Unread postby TemplarMyst » Wed 29 Oct 2014, 10:24:51

Cid,

Did you get a chance to review the American Cancer Society slides? They trace cancer incidence over time, going back to 1930 in Slide 4. There is an increase for several types of cancer mid century, and perhaps the fallout isotopes account for some of those, but the slope had started at the very beginning, c. 1935. It slopes up for Leukemia, Liver, and Pancreatic cancers, then Leukemia and Pancreatic cancers largely levels off to this day. The cancers most closely correlated with radiation are Leukemia and Thyroid. If there were a bump because of the fallout or other man-made radionuclides that should be present in the datasets.

I don't see those. I feel you are making an a priori assumption that ingested man-made particulates are the sole source of cancers and/or other ill health effects. I don't see how this can be warranted, particularly when the cancers most associated with these isotopes are amongst the lowest level cancer occurrences traced. Slide 4 shows the huge cancer spike in Lung cancers, far and away above the levels for Leukemia. The generally accepted explanation for this is smoking, not the ingestion of man-made radioactive isotopes. Alternatively, Stomach cancers have had a huge decrease over this time frame. Would it be appropriate to say the isotopes were responsible for that decrease? No, I don't think so either.

In a similar vein, to claim it is Strontium-90 which is the cause of untold health ills is to again assume there are no other explanations for the increases in heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and myriad other difficulties modern industrial humans face. So diet, exercise, chemical, and smog particulates played no role? It HAS to be the radionuclides?

This just doesn't seem a warranted position to me.
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Re: Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Unread postby Cid_Yama » Wed 29 Oct 2014, 10:59:33

In December 1958, a group of visionary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, working with the citizen group Committee for Nuclear Information, began collecting baby teeth, locally and across the country. They obtained federal grants to cover their costs, and generated large numbers of volunteers to help with tooth collection. Schools, PTAs, churches, scout groups, dental societies, libraries and clinics all took part. Children were rewarded for donating teeth with a small button bearing a likeness of a boy with a gap in his front teeth, with the phrase "I Gave My Tooth to Science."

A staggering total of about 320,000 teeth were collected over the next dozen years. Lab tests found that children born in 1963 had about 50 times more Sr-90 in teeth than those born in 1950. Washington University officials used their results in testimony to the U.S. Senate leading to the Partial Test Ban Treaty signed by President John F. Kennedy, ending all above-ground atom bomb tests.

Testing had ended, but the thorny question of health hazards to Americans -- especially children -- remained. U.S. childhood cancer rates had climbed in the 1950s and early 1960s, but scientists were stumped as to why. Studies of the fallout-cancer link were only conducted after the Cold War had ended. A 2002 U.S. Centers for Disease Control report calculated that fallout caused 15,000 U.S. cancer deaths, a figure some believed was a gross underestimate. The following year, a blue ribbon European panel reported 61,600,000 cancer deaths worldwide from fallout.

The St. Louis tooth study was seemingly headed for the history books, until 2001, when Washington University officials stumbled upon 85,000 teeth not used in the study in a remote storage area. The school donated the teeth to the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a research group conducting its own study of Sr-90 in baby teeth, near U.S. nuclear reactors. Each tooth is enclosed in a small envelope attached to a card identifying the tooth donor.

RPHP scientists recognized that these teeth could help answer the long-awaited question of fallout's harm to the health of Americans. The tooth donors, now in their 40s and 50s, could be tracked at current addresses or through death records. And Sr-90 could still be measured in each tooth, as the chemical decays very slowly.

Earlier this month, the first results of the RPHP health study were released in an article in the International Journal of Health Services. Baby teeth of St. Louis baby boomers who died of cancer by age 50 had more than double -- 122 percent more -- the Sr-90 concentration than did Boomers who are alive and healthy. This research, known as a case-control study, is the first evidence that bomb tests harmed Americans using actual levels of fallout in human bodies. It is not yet possible to estimate the number of cancer victims from fallout, but it appears that the CDC estimate of 15,000 deaths is too low.

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Re: Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Unread postby sparky » Wed 29 Oct 2014, 19:55:18

.
Sid , death happen , some causes are noticeable but below a certain level , pretty hard to trace with certainty
there is no good number for the casualties due to very low doses , usually it is extrapolation of fatality curves for high dosage
at restricted sites of nuclear accidents and weapon testing , the fauna and flora seems to recover quite fast .
it would tend to prove that nature cope better if humans are removed
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Re: Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Unread postby TemplarMyst » Wed 29 Oct 2014, 20:55:21

At the end of the day this comes down to what sources one finds credible. I had a brief conversation on this over at Nature Bats Last at one point, and wound up accepting the fact that perceptions of credibility lie entirely with the beholder.

On the one side, there are the NRC, IAEA, UNSCEAR, WHO, and SARI, and the hundreds, more likely thousands, of scientists, engineers, physicians, and health care workers who support these various organizations, and others, in their work assessing and applying the lessons learned from the impact of radiation on human health and the environment.

On the other are groups like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, NRDC, and such researchers as Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Michio Kaku, and Arnie Gundersen, as well, of course, as many, many others (again, quite probably in the thousands), who are doing the same.

Both sides publish information. Both sides claim to have a view of truth about radiation and its impact on human health.

So it comes down to which group, researcher, or set of data one finds credible. Realizing my own limitations, I read as much of the material as I can and try to make my best assessment. In that assessment I tend fairly strongly towards the first group over the second, I admit.

To the specific link concerning Strontium-90 and infant teeth you mentioned, Cid, I have to admit I found the NRC assessment to be fairly persuasive. In particular, their summary of the issue with the Radiation Public Health Project (RPHP) study covers the key points to me:

There are a number of questions about the Health Project studies with regard to methodology, assumptions, and conclusions. Generally, these studies have not followed good scientific principles. Frequently, they have

  • not established control populations for study;
  • not examined the impacts of other risk factors;
  • used very small sample sizes to draw general conclusions;
  • not performed environmental sampling and analysis;
  • selectively chosen to ignore data in certain geographic locations or during certain periods of time because they did not “fit”;
  • not subjected their data to the independent peer review of the scientific community as a whole; and
  • used an incorrect half-life for Sr-90 which gives a false impression that strontium levels in the environment are decaying more rapidly than in baby teeth.


Now the most common response I receive to referencing the NRC, from someone who favors the second group of researchers above, is that of course the NRC (and the others) are lying, because they are too close to the nuclear industry and would of course gloss over or disregard any evidence which contradicts their research.

And given the history of secrecy and other types of nefarious behaviors which can be reasonably attributed to some within the nuclear industry I certainly understand why folks might not give the first group much credence either.

At the end of the day, one has to make the assessment oneself. I've personally found the second group to be less persuasive than the first. I certainly understand those who see it the other way around.
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Re: Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks

Unread postby sparky » Thu 30 Oct 2014, 02:20:53

.
a clear link between high radiation background and death rate is not simple
http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in ... amsar.html
an example not mentioned is my very own Sydney beaches
As an instrument tech I had to calibrate a cesium source used at my factory for measuring slurries density
I took the Geiger counter home to check on radon exposure , it was OK ,
took it to Coogee beach ,down the road ,it literally screeched !!!!
apparently the sand is full of Monazite
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management failure to control the radiological hazard

Unread postby dohboi » Sun 03 May 2015, 12:37:38

Watching the Watchmen
On the origins of a radioactive leak at WIPP


“management failure to fully understand, characterize and control the radiological hazard.” In other words, the cause was human error.

The report continues, “The cumulative effect of inadequacies in ventilation system design and operability compounded by degradation of key safety management programs and safety culture resulted in the release of radiological material from the underground to the environment, and the delayed/ineffective recognition and response to the leak.”


In other words, the cause of the radioactive leak at WIPP was human error.


The human error factor this incident illustrates always poses a danger; it's even more dangerous when human error happens within systems requiring a fail-safe mentality and design. The DOE's 277-page report on the WIPP incident found that poor management and lapses in safety at the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository contributed to the leak.
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THE Radiation / Radioactive Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Wed 21 Oct 2015, 01:02:34

KJ, where are you when we need you?
Facebook knows you're a dog.
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Re: Underground fire nears radioactive storage

Unread postby Apneaman » Wed 21 Oct 2015, 18:18:23

Toxic link: the WHO and the IAEA

A 50-year-old agreement with the IAEA has effectively gagged the WHO from telling the truth about the health risks of radiation

[/color]



"Fifty years ago, on 28 May 1959, the World Health Organisation's assembly voted into force an obscure but important agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations "Atoms for Peace" organisation, founded just two years before in 1957. The effect of this agreement has been to give the IAEA an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power – and so prevent the WHO from playing its proper role in investigating and warning of the dangers of nuclear radiation on human health."

"Under the agreement, whenever either organisation wants to do anything in which the other may have an interest, it "shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement". The two agencies must "keep each other fully informed concerning all projected activities and all programs of work which may be of interest to both parties". And in the realm of statistics – a key area in the epidemiology of nuclear risk – the two undertake "to consult with each other on the most efficient use of information, resources, and technical personnel in the field of statistics and in regard to all statistical projects dealing with matters of common interest".

The language appears to be evenhanded, but the effect has been one-sided. For example, investigations into the health impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine on 26 April 1986 have been effectively taken over by IAEA and dissenting information has been suppressed. The health effects of the accident were the subject of two major conferences, in Geneva in 1995, and in Kiev in 2001. But the full proceedings of those conferences remain unpublished – despite claims to the contrary by a senior WHO spokesman reported in Le Monde Diplomatique.

Meanwhile, the 2005 report of the IAEA-dominated Chernobyl Forum, which estimates a total death toll from the accident of only several thousand, is widely regarded as a whitewash as it ignores a host of peer-reviewed epidemiological studies indicating far higher mortality and widespread genomic damage. Many of these studies were presented at the Geneva and Kiev conferences but they, and the ensuing learned discussions, have yet to see the light of day thanks to the non-publication of the proceedings."

more


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -chernobyl
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Re: Underground fire nears radioactive storage

Unread postby Apneaman » Wed 21 Oct 2015, 18:54:07

Long-term effects of radiation exposure on health

"Summary
Late-onset effects of exposure to ionising radiation on the human body have been identified by long-term, large-scale epidemiological studies. The cohort study of Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (the Life Span Study) is thought to be the most reliable source of information about these health effects because of the size of the cohort, the exposure of a general population of both sexes and all ages, and the wide range of individually assessed doses. For this reason, the Life Span Study has become fundamental to risk assessment in the radiation protection system of the International Commission on Radiological Protection and other authorities. Radiation exposure increases the risk of cancer throughout life, so continued follow-up of survivors is essential. Overall, survivors have a clear radiation-related excess risk of cancer, and people exposed as children have a higher risk of radiation-induced cancer than those exposed at older ages. At high doses, and possibly at low doses, radiation might increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and some other non-cancer diseases. Hereditary effects in the children of atomic bomb survivors have not been detected. The dose–response relation for cancer at low doses is assumed, for purposes of radiological protection, to be linear without a threshold, but has not been shown definitively. This outstanding issue is not only a problem when dealing appropriately with potential health effects of nuclear accidents, such as at Fukushima and Chernobyl, but is of growing concern in occupational and medical exposure. Therefore, the appropriate dose–response relation for effects of low doses of radiation needs to be established."

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lance ... 9/abstract
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Re: Underground fire nears radioactive storage

Unread postby efarmer » Thu 22 Oct 2015, 11:49:05

The site is largely ore tailings, but the generator also did a lot of isotopes for nuclear medicine
and other work. The Manhattan Project of course created many sites around the nation that have some level of contamination ranging from very hot to very mild. This stuff seems to be very mild, but it was hauled by a company that is no longer around to look at records and the question is open as to if it is only the ore tailings or if nastier stuff in smaller quantities ended up there as well. Both the Missouri Republican and Democratic Senators have created a joint effort to simply find out what is actually
there, and to put the control of it under the EPA rather than a private landfill company.

We do need a national nuclear waste repository, but nobody wants it in their state, and so we have
stuff spread out all over in holding ponds and various containment and burial arrangements.
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Re: Underground fire nears radioactive storage

Unread postby Apneaman » Fri 30 Oct 2015, 21:52:43

Residents in St Louis dying in record numbers from World War II radioactive waste


http://www.news.com.au/technology/envir ... 7584692180
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Re: THE Radiation / Radioactive Thread (merged)

Unread postby dohboi » Sun 20 Mar 2016, 16:22:05

Fukushima radiation has fried clean-up robots

(But I'm sure it would be perfectly safe for humans!! :lol: :lol: )

It’s been reported that the robots sent in to remove the melted fuel rods have died — their wiring fried from the high levels of radiation as soon as they got close to the reactor, rendering them useless. These robots were just unveiled two months ago after two years of development.

Many other efforts have been made to clean up and contain the site. Human workers as well as robot counterparts are there everyday, but so far only 10 percent of the mess has actually been cleaned up. Reactors 2 and 3 are thought to have had partial meltdowns, but Reactor 1 is of the greatest concern. It’s believed that the fuel may have burned through the pressure vessel, fallen to the bottom of the containment vessel and into the concrete pedestal below.

http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/fukus ... ign=buffer
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Re: THE Radiation / Radioactive Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 28 May 2016, 07:43:28

For all those who are inclined to believe the worst case scenario's about nuclear power this is a very important well researched paper about the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Belarus. Almost all of the prior research has been done in the Ukraine half of the zone, frequently within the most contaminated 1 percent of the total zone area.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/ful ... %2900988-4

For all species, our statistical models (which included habitat variation; see Supplemental Information) rejected radioactive contamination as an important predictor of mammal density within the PSRER. Although census data do not give direct information on population metrics such as reproductive success or longevity, a scenario in which depressed populations in the highly contaminated areas are supported (on a daily basis) by rapid influx and habitat utilization from less contaminated areas seems highly unlikely. Home ranges of the species examined [6] give length scales smaller than, or of the same order as, route length.

A study of small mammals by Baker et al. [7] also found no evidence of population declines at Chernobyl. However, a previous study of mammals using track counts [3] reported a negative relationship between radiation levels and mammal density. The discrepancy with our data is likely because this previous study [3] covered only 16.1 km of transects examined just once. Our data are derived from transects with a total length that is 20 times larger and repeated in two (21 routes) or three (14 routes) years.
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Re: THE Radiation / Radioactive Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Subjectivist » Wed 26 Oct 2016, 20:14:50

Everyone knows that the dose is critical when you are taking a prescription medication: a small amount can provide significant benefit, but a large dose can kill you. This “non-linear” effect is taken for granted in pharmaceuticals, but is not generally adopted for regulating the risks of radiation. Dr. Edward Calabrese is a professor and toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Department of Environmental Health Sciences. He has spent his career studying non-linear effects in different carcinogens. From hundreds of studies, he has concluded that radiation should be treated more like pharmaceuticals, and regulators needs to change how they think about radiation risks and harm.

What’s the history of the linear-no-threshold, or LNT, framework, and how did it come to be the standard?

The rise of LNT theory was really the result of a political motivation by a group of radiation geneticists. I’m sure they believed that dose response was linear, but they also wanted to scare the hell out of society to increase their stature and grant funding for their research, and they wanted people to think they were the only ones who could save the world from the harms of atomic weapons testings, etc. It was a paternalistic behavior.

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/is ... s-too-much
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Re: THE Radiation / Radioactive Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Subjectivist » Thu 27 Oct 2016, 13:02:56

pstarr wrote:Sub Tanada, thanks for the good work :) You helped me see my errors.

Folks need to consider the wolves of Chernobyl. It is a hopeful story, wildlife can return and repopulate a damaged ecology. Then there are healthy human population where natural background radiation is unusually high; Yangjiang China, Kerala India, Guarapari Brazil, and Ramsar in Iran. Folks live normal lives when they are supposed to be mutated and dead. Not so.


For me the turning point was occupational health studies of people who get much higher than average doses. Take airline flight and cabin crews, they spend most of their working hours at high altitude getting radiation dosages that would freak the media out down wind from a power station. However their cancer and other health markers are if anything slightly better than the average American
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Re: THE Radiation / Radioactive Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 27 Oct 2016, 16:34:25

The same study T is referring to found very high rates of birth defects and miscarriages of deformed fetuses. These go unnoticed in the wild, but would be a source of much agony, at the least, if it were regularly happening to humans.
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