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Experts write on the risks of low-level radiation
Public release date: 1-May-2012 Experts write on the risks of low-level radiation
Los Angeles, CA (May 01, 2012) – Each time a release of radioactivity occurs, questions arise and debates unfold on the health risks at low doses—and still, just over a year after the disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station, unanswered questions and unsettled debates remain. Now a special issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, examines what is new about the debate over low-dose radiation risk, specifically focusing on areas of agreement and disagreement, including quantitative estimates of cancer risk as radiation dose increases, or what is known as the linear non-threshold theory (LNT). The issue, which includes essays written by the top experts in their fields, does not claim to put the argument to rest—however, it does provide an indispensible update of the existing literature.
As Jan Beyea, guest editor and nuclear physics and epidemiology expert, says: "The reader will be ready to join the debate armed with a broad-based view of the epidemiologic evidence and its differing interpretations, along with an awareness of the stakeholder and researcher landscape." Beyea personally contributes to the issue and deconstructs the low-level radiation debate, unpacking all its parts and illuminating what deserves more attention and scrutiny...
From 1st of May, the articles are free of charge for one month and can be accessed at http://bos.sagepub.com/. Members of the media can sign up for complimentary subscriptions by contactingpr@sagepub.co.uk for details.
Disproportionate Harm: Women and Children are more Vulnerable.
The Helen Caldicott Foundation: Disproportionate Harm, Initial Talking Points
There has been a lot of discussion about the spent fuel at Fukushima, especially now - about the reactor #4 spent fuel pool. The harm this could cause should it collapse is incalculable. But, the truth is we are getting sick and dying from radiation exposure already, and it is happening in disproportionate numbers. We need to keep referencing that this is happening now in Japan, and everywhere around the world. We are asking for your help in making this widely known. Please join us!
Disproportionate Harm: Women and Children are more Vulnerable.
This year the Helen Caldicott Foundation in partnership with NIRS, and all other groups who want to join us (national and international), will embark on the start of a major education to action campaign on the effects of radiation exposure on the health of all people. But, its particular focus will be the disproportionate risk radiation exposure poses to women and children. Buried in the literature to date is the fact that men are more resistant to radiation. The safety standards, which time has shown protect no one, were designed at the time of the Manhattan Project to protect young, healthy, western, men. Presumably, military men expected to accept a certain degree of risk in exchange for protecting their country.
Insufficient as it is, even the National Academy of Sciences BEIR V11 Report, widely accepted as the industry standard, clearly states:
- There is no safe dose of ionizing radiation. Any exposure can trigger cancer.
- Although the reasons are not yet clearly understood, women and children are significantly more vulnerable.
- Women are 40-60% more likely to get cancer than men, given the same exposure. They are about 50% (half again) more likely to acquire a fatal cancer from this exposure. This means that for every two men who die of radiation related cancer, three women will die given a similar exposure.
Children between the ages of 0-5 are more vulnerable than all adults, both men and women. But what is almost never discussed, also from the BEIR V11 Report, is that in this age group little girls are twice as vulnerable as boys. This means that for every boy, there will be two girls who will acquire a fatal or non-fatal cancer...
After Fukushima, fish tales
In November of 2011 the Japan Fisheries Agency found that 65% of the Japanese fish catch tested positive for cesium. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency found that 60% of fish had detectable levels of radionuclides but stated they were not concerned about levels. However, cod (18%), sole (22%), seaweed (33%), and eel (21%) caught in November exceeded the radiation ceiling of 100 becquerels/kilogram that Japan will implement this April (after this fall and winter fish catch?) and 1 in 5 of the fish catches tested exceeded this level.
While Canada's level for radiation in food is much higher (and why is that?), 1000 becquerels/kilogram, experts still worry:
"I would probably be hesitant to eat a lot of those fish," said Nicholas Fisher, a marine sciences professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
The pacific ocean provides food for a billion+ people just in Asia, and considerably more, internationally, as fish migrate and fish and fish products are shipped around the world. The Fukushima accident has released 10-100 times more radioactive contamination into the ocean than Chernobyl according to a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution study.
"It's completely untrue to say this level of radiation is safe or harmless," said Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
Edwards pointed a finger at the powerful Canadian nuclear lobby as the source of this seeming unconcern about contaminated food. "The reassurances have been completely irresponsible. To say there are no health concerns flies in the face of all scientific evidence."
But the US and Canadian governments persist in denying the danger, as the Canadian government claimed ignorance about debris from Japan (which may also be contaminated by radiation from Fukushima) washing up on the coastline. Despite the fact that people are finding it, the government claims it won't arrive until next year. This seems a tack of desperation rather than logic. It is always better (and less expensive) to protect and prevent, than to scramble around after trying to clean up and cure. Once again it is left to us, the people of the world, to rise up and point out that there is danger, and we must do something about it.
ALEX ROSLIN / Montreal GAZETTEJANUARY 13, 2012
After the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years, authorities in Canada said people living here were safe and faced no health risks from the fallout from Fukushima.
They said most of the radiation from the crippled Japanese nuclear power plant would fall into the ocean, where it would be diluted and not pose any danger.
Dr. Dale Dewar wasn’t convinced. Dewar, a family physician in Wynyard, Sask., doesn’t eat a lot of seafood herself, but when her grandchildren come to visit, she carefully checks seafood labels.
She wants to make sure she isn’t serving them anything that might come from the western Pacific Ocean.
Dewar, the executive director of Physicians for Global Survival, a Canadian anti-nuclear group, says the Canadian government has downplayed the radiation risks from Fukushima and is doing little to monitor them.
“We suspect we’re going to see more cancers, decreased fetal viability, decreased fertility, increased metabolic defects – and we expect them to be generational,” she said.
NIRS Briefing Paper: ATOMIC RADIATION IS MORE HARMFUL TO WOMEN
Foodwatch: Calculated Fatalities from Radiation Officially Permissible Limits for Radioactively Contaminated Food in the European Union and Japan
Nuclear Janitors Risk Health and Safety
"The statistics illustrate that as the industry grows older it relies more and more on the willingness of temporary and sometimes desperate workers to risk their health to keep ailing power plants on line...
...Another serious problem is the increasing number of jumpers working at several plants in one year. This increases the worker's total exposure to radiation and the possibility of birth defects, cancer, and leukemia. NRC records indicate that some jumpers worked at as many as five nuclear plants during one calendar year. At the present time the responsibility for reporting past radiation exposure rests solely with the jumpers."
A lot has been written post-Fukushima about Japan's "disposable workers." This is a terrible thing, where men desperate for work take on the worst, most dangerous nuclear jobs; virtually insuring a dangerous level of radiation exposure. The truth is, this has been going on as long as the nuclear industry. Warnings have been issued, suggestions have been made, but the industry couldn't function without them. So, nothing has been done. Laws exist to protect them, but they are not enforced. Records could be kept, but they are not. In a tragic version of "don't ask, don't tell"- few questions are raised by the utilities, and the workers, in dire need of money, have no incentive to come forward. If they did, they would probably bear the brunt of any consequences.
To illustrate just how long this has been a serious issue, here is an excellent piece from 1984. It is still, sadly, quite topical. Almost everything discussed in it is still happening. And it still inspires horror, outrage, and great sadness. Even worse, despite the intervening years, there is almost nothing (accessible) out there that has been written about it. Even this was difficult to find.
MultinationalMonitor.org l Veta Christy February 1984 V5, No 3
They are known as glow-boys or jumpers in the nuclear industry. Since the early 1970s, thousands of temporary workers have been recruited to perform a number of high-risk maintenance and repair tasks, such as detecting leaks, welding and refueling, and waste cleanup and removal. But while federal standards permit jumpers to absorb about ten times the amount of radiation that the general public is exposed to, concerned scientists and industry critics are questioning whether these levels are necessary or socially justifiable.
The jumpers are hired by contractors like Atlantic Nuclear Services of Norfolk, Virginia (an estimated 23,000 have passed through their door since 1974) or directly by reactor manufacturers like Babcock and Wilcox or Westinghouse, which contract repair and maintenance services to more than half of the nation's utilities. Estimates of the number of jumpers this year are as high as 40,000.
"We've had people from a variety of backgrounds, from college professors to bartenders, work for us," says Melvin Miller, a spokesman for Nuclear Services. "They do it because it pays well. Maybe they make a jump and then have some extra money for a vacation that year, or maybe it helps them through rough times in between jobs."
Other jumpers are recruited from the ranks of the construction unions who build the plants when construction work is slow. But the majority are typically people with few job skills and little or no prospects for jobs elsewhere.
Two more recent posts with references to this issue:
Gamma sponges, glow boys, suicide squads, jumpers, bio-robots and liquidators: It's all the same...
SILENT SPRING MEETS THE LONG HOT SUMMER: Kim Roberson
CDC: Emergency Preparedness and Response Radiation Dictionary
Monitoring the Monitors
While not a bad summary of the monitoring situation, the article fails to address why monitoring is still necessary. Ingesting or inhaling radioactive isotopes is a danger that people should understand. They shouldn't be fobbed off with dismissive statements from the government that there is no need to worry. Lower possibility of contaminated food, milk, and water is good, but eating or drinking contaminated food, milk, or water, is still bad, just as it was when radiation levels coming from Japan were higher. If radioactive fallout is spread far and wide, instead of concentrated in one area, it doesn't necessarily mean that fewer people will bear the risk of contracting cancer. It does mean it would be harder to track because they won't all be in one place so it won't show up as an obvious cluster. That is not the same as less danger.
Furthermore, people mistrust the government's refusal to monitor, and when monitoring, their refusal to release information for a reason. Throughout the duration of the Fukushima accident we have been consistently lied to. Both about the radiation levels, and about the danger of internal emitters. This is the cause of the much discussed "panic" the governments are claiming they are trying to avoid creating. The situation in Japan is bad. Pretending that it is not will not reassure anybody. And, fallout from Japan will affect the rest of the world to varying degrees. By the same token, it is important to remember that living in California or Washington is not the same as living in Japan at the heart of the crisis.
Slate l Daniel Krieger June 16, 2011
Who's still tracking radiation from Fukushima? And who should we trust?
Three months have passed since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant spun out of controland began spewing radiation into the air and sea. Things have settled down a bit since the first jittery days, when the Chinese went on a salt-buying spree believing the iodine in it would protect them, Californians snatched up potassium iodide pills to counteract thyroid-gland poisoning, and Geiger counters flew off the shelves everywhere. Uncertainty fueled much of the hysteria. And the question remains: Who can we trust to monitor fallout from Fukushima?
Within Japan, the major monitors are unfortunately all plagued by conflicts of interest. The two main players—the Japanese government and TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company that operates the site—have so much riding on the outcome of the disaster and such a poor record of handling it thus far that a recent poll found 80 percent of Japanese respondents do not trust what the government says about the crisis and nearly 85 percent think TEPCO is doing a lousy job.
The government defends its initial evasions and obfuscations as necessary to prevent panic. But the Japanese public sees downplaying, foot-dragging, and knee-jerk reluctance to share information. In mid-April, for instance, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology raised the acceptable level of radiation exposure for children in Fukushima by a factor of 20. The move was a blatant midgame rule change, intended to calm an anxious public and free the government from undertaking more thorough monitoring, cleanup, and broader evacuations. The prime minister's nuclear adviser, Toshiso Kosako, furious about the government's flouting of established safety protocol, quit in protest. Parents of Fukushima children rose up in revolt. Finally, in late May, the government restored the acceptable radiation threshold to its former level.
Researchers call for nuclear data release
The Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is an international body set up to monitor nuclear weapons tests. They have some of the finest tuned monitoring equipment in the world. Early on in the Japanese crisis CRIIRAD, a french independent radiation monitoring lab, called for release of this data. Now, scientists from around the world are joining in this call.
Sensors from this system picked up not only the much discussed cesium-137 and iodine-131 emissions, but also other isotopes such as niobium-95 and rubidium-103, that suggested the meltdowns only admitted months later by TEPCO and the Japanese. This information was reported to member country governments, so any claims they didn't know how bad the situation was should be taken under advisement.
Now, it is long past time this information be released to scientists, and the public. With the situation in japan far from being under control, or over, it is essential that we know the truth of what is really being released.
Nature l Geoff Brumfiel 14 June, 2011
Shortly after a massive tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 11 March, an unmanned monitoring station on the outskirts of Takasaki, Japan, logged a rise in radiation levels. Within 72 hours, scientists had analysed samples taken from the air and transmitted their analysis to Vienna, Austria — the headquarters of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an international body set up to monitor nuclear weapons tests.
It was just the start of a flood of data collected about the accident by the CTBTO's global network of 63 radiation monitoring stations. In the following weeks, the data were shared with governments around the world, but not with academics or the public. Now scientists working with the CTBTO on behalf of member states are calling for the data to be released, both to give other researchers an opportunity to use them, and to improve the network's performance.
"What I'm after is to make this dataset available to the scientific community," says Wolfgang Weiss, head of the department of radiation protection and health at Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection in Munich. In the coming weeks and months he hopes to persuade member nations overseeing the CTBTO to approve new rules for sharing data with other international bodies and scientific researchers.
