Archive for the ‘health’ Category

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Uranium mining- a dangerous industry with a doubtful future

January 29, 2012

Uranium Sector Hit by Mining Safety Fears  Oil Price, By Dave Forest , 10 January 2011    “…..  the Electrical Trades Union of Queensland and the Northern Territory is banning its members from working in any nuclear-related facilities. Including uranium mines and nuclear power stations.

The Union is worried about the health dangers of uranium and nuclear power. In an anti-uranium video released by the group, the narrator notes, “This is dangerous stuff. It has no place in society.”

Union spokesman Peter Simpson further says, “We are sending a clear message to the industry and the wider community that vested interests in the uranium and nuclear industries are trying to hoodwink us about this dangerous product and industry.”…..  a group of this stature taking such a heavy-handed stance against uranium cannot be ignored.

Ultimately, this could be a setback for the Aussie uranium business. Particularly if other workers follow the electricians’ suit.

In the bigger picture, the Union’s move illustrates the huge challenges the world faces in bringing on new uranium supplies. Right or wrong, the radioactive metal will always be viewed in a more cautious light by workers, local communities and governments.

Anti-uranium protests are inevitable, and will probably slow or stop completely some of the world’s yellowcake projects. One more hurdle for an industry that’s already having a hard time finding new, economic deposits in order to meet global demand. …. exploration and development companies will need to think hard about what projects they pursue. Not only are size, grade and infrastructure a consideration. Companies will also have to think about the surrounding communities, the attitudes of the regional populace, and the stance of host governments when it comes to uranium.

Throw all of these factors in the mix, and it’s going to be extra tough to make new mines.  http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Uranium-Sector-Hit-By-Mining-Safety-Fears.html

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Effects of depleted uranium on Fallujah’s children

January 29, 2012

he US and UK militaries have sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, but Iraqi doctors like Alwachi and Alani, and along with researchers, blame the increasing cancer and birth defect rates on the weapon.

Abdulhaq Al-Ani, author of Uranium in Iraq, has been researching the effects of depleted uranium on Iraqis since 1991. He told Al Jazeera he personally measured radiation levels in the city of Kerbala, as well as in Basra, and his Geiger counter was “screaming” because “the indicator went beyond the range”.

Fallujah babies: Under a new kind of siege, Doctors and residents blame US weapons for catastrophic levels of birth defects in Fallujah’s newborns, Al Jazeera, Dahr Jamail   06 Jan 2012  Fallujah, Iraq - While the US military has formally withdrawn from Iraq, doctors and residents of Fallujah are blaming weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorous used during two devastating US attacks on Fallujah in 2004 for what are being described as “catastrophic” levels of birth defects and abnormalities.

Dr Samira Alani, a paediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital, has taken a personal interest in investigating an explosion of congenital abnormalities that have mushroomed in the wake of the US sieges since 2005. ”We have all kinds of defects now, ranging from congenital heart disease to severe physical abnormalities, both in numbers you cannot imagine,” Alani told Al Jazeera at her office in the hospital, while showing countless photos of shocking birth defects.

As of December 21, Alani, who has worked at the hospital since 1997, told Al Jazeera she had personally logged 677 cases of birth defects since October 2009. Just eight days later when Al Jazeera visited the city on December 29, that number had already risen to 699.

“There are not even medical terms to describe some of these conditions because we’ve never seen them until now,” she said. “So when I describe it all I can do is describe the physical defects, but I’m unable to provide a medical term.”

‘Incompatible with life’

Most of these babies in Fallujah die within 20 to 30 minutes after being born, but not all. (more…)

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Environmental disaster of uranium pollution at Port Hope

January 2, 2012

“Contrary to statements provided by federal government agencies, no level of radiation is safe and it is cumulative — each dose adds to the risk of cancer. Children are 10 to 20 times more radiosensitive than adults, and fetuses are extremely sensitive,”

Port Hope Uranium Plant Contamination Circumstances Contain Similarities to Huntington’s Buried Uranium Plant, December 29, 2011  BY TONY RUTHERFORD HUNTINGTON NEWS Port Hope has a water treatment plant supplying its drinking water. Incredibly, adjacent to this water treatment plant, is a huge factory which emits uranium gas and dust into the air and Lake Ontario. (more…)

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Disastrous health effects of uranium mining, on the people of Jharkhand, India

January 2, 2012

the financial benefits are meaningless when weighed against what his group says is an alarming rise in stillbirths, birth defects, and adults and children diagnosed with cancer, kidney disease, and tuberculosis.

report showed a far greater incidence of congenital abnormality, sterility, and cancer among people living within 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) of the mines than those living 35 kilometres away. Mothers in villages close to the mine sites were also twice as likely to have a child with congenital deformities, 

India’s uranium mines cast a health shadow,Google News,  By Ammu Kannampilly (AFP), 5 Dec 11,  ”… Environmental groups say the mining company is polluting the groundwater by dumping radioactive waste inside three so-called tailings ponds that hold the sludge produced by the mining process …..

Jharkhand is one of India’s poorest states, with more than 40% of the population living on less than $2 a day, according to 2007 World Bank figures. Ghanshyam Birulee, founder of the Jharkhand Organisation Against Radiation, believes the financial benefits are meaningless when weighed against what his group says is an alarming rise in stillbirths, birth defects, and adults and children diagnosed with cancer, kidney disease, and tuberculosis. (more…)

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India’s uranium mining area: cancers, birth defects, sterility rates higher than in other areas

January 2, 2012
Koodankulam struggle: Western nations are learning from their mistakes, India is not, The Weekend Leader,   By Nityanand Jayaraman & Sundar Rajan, 30 Nov ”…..In Jadugoda, Jharkhand, where India’s uranium is mined by the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd, the effects of radiation among the local adivasi population are horrendous.

Indian Doctors for Peace and Development, a national chapter of the Nobel-winning International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, recently published a health study on Jadugoda. The study found that:
• Primary sterility is more common in people residing near uranium mining operations.
• More children with congenital deformities are being born to mothers living near uranium mining operations.
• Congenital defects as a cause of death of children are higher among mothers living near uranium mines.
• Cancer as a cause of death is more common in villages surrounding uranium operations.
• Life expectancy of people living near uranium mining operations is lower than Jharkhand’s state average and lower than in villages far removed from the mines.
• All these indicators of poor health and increased vulnerability are despite the fact that the affected villages have a better economic and literacy status than reference villages….. http://www.theweekendleader.com/Causes/833/Nuking-myths.html

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Rare earths processing plant leaves cancerous radioactive legacy

November 28, 2011

Industrial health expert T Jayabalan told FMT that he lived in Bukit Merah for three years during the 1980s, “collecting data” on the residents there. According to him, Lai Kwan and Cheah were only two of the many people he studied before presenting his findings to Malaysian courts. “Birth defects still exist,” he said, “and the number of miscarriages is incredibly high. Even if a foetus survives, it can still be born with leukemia and brain damage.”

“I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. I’ve seen the suffering of these people. The only good thing about Lynas is that it hasn’t happened yet.”

(includes VIDEO)  Inside the world of a radiation victim, Free Malaysia Today Patrick Lee,  November 24, 2011 VIDEO  Tan Chui Mui’s short documentary is also about a mother’s undying love. Cheah was born in 1983, a year after Lai Kwan worked as a bricklayer at the Mitsubishi rare earth plant in Bukit Merah, Perak.

Cheah has multiple congenital defects, including a hole in the heart. He is also mentally deficient and virtually blind. And Lai Kwan is beside her son nearly every hour of her life, as portrayed in a short film entitled “Lai Kwan’s Love”…..

she tells the camera that she had no idea that the rare earth plant where she worked was handling toxic materials. (more…)

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The health toll of depleted uranium

November 28, 2011

Gulf War Syndrome and the Army’s Depleted Uranium Training Videos, Motherboard by DerekMead , Nov 12, 2011 Depleted uranium, a bi-product of enriched uranium that was used in American munitions, was the focus of military preparations before the war. We dug up some old Army videos for “Depleted Uranium General Awareness Training” that shows just how under-prepared soldiers may have been to the hazards of this potentially pretty nasty stuff. (more…)

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Gulf War veterans contaminated with depleted uranium

November 28, 2011
Gulf War vets wounded and angry,CNews By Kris Sims, Parliamentary Bureau, 10 Nov 11 OTTAWA — All of Louise Richard’s hair fell out after she came home from the Gulf War. ”Ninety-five percent of the casualties we dealt with were Iraqi prisoners of war,” the former army nurse said. “They were obviously totally contaminated with depleted uranium, they had shrapnel, we operated on them, so here we were — hands in guts and breathing all of these things.”
Gulf War veterans say they have been suffering for 20 years after being exposed to depleted uranium in the Persian Gulf in 1991. 
“Many have died or are dying of various cancers, auto immune diseases, neuromuscular diseases, neurological diseases,” Richard said. “This government has done everything to keep a tight lip, lie and deny; our war has never been acknowledged officially, nor have they acknowledged the seriousness of the health consequences.”

It has been two decades since the United States and its allies pushed Saddam Hussien’s forces out of neighbouring Kuwait, pursuing them into Iraq. Canada joined the fight, being deployed into combat overseas for the first time since Korea.

While the battle was short, the fallout of chemicals and elements that wafted into fighters’ clothing and vehicles and blew on desert winds has plagued modern war vets…

Canadian Gulf War vets say they get next to no response from the feds in Ottawa.

Pascal Lacoste, 38, a Bosnian vet, ended a hunger strike in Quebec after Veterans Affairs Minister Steve Blaney promised to ask a panel of experts to study the affects of depleted uranium on troops.

“I find it despicable, criminal, that a veteran who put his life on the line for this country has to resort to threatening to end his life for attention,” said Richard. “We have been crying for help since we went on these missions.”

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/11/09/18947436.html

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Dying soldier’s case against depleted uranium

November 4, 2011

Depleted uranium, used in some types of ammunition and military armour, is the dense, low-cost leftover once uranium has been processed….

A high-ranking official from Veterans Affairs says a handful of vets mistakenly believe their bodies have been damaged by depleted uranium…..

the Federal Court of Canada has found depleted uranium to be an issue.  The court ruled the Veterans Affairs Department must compensate retired serviceman Steve Dornan for a cancer his doctors say resulted from exposure to depleted uranium residue.

Poisoned soldier plans hunger strike at minister’s office in exchange for care, Montreal CTV.ca Andy Blatchford, The Canadian Press, 30 Oct 11,  MONTREAL — An ex-soldier who says he was poisoned while serving overseas is planning to go on a hunger strike outside the office of Canada’s veterans affairs minister until he gets medical treatment.

Or until he dies.

Pascal Lacoste, who believes his steady decline in health began after he was exposed to depleted uranium in Bosnia in the 1990s, intends to stop eating on Nov. 5. (more…)

Posted in Depleted uranium, health | 1 Comment »

Australia’s National Register of radiation doses does not count Northern Territory uranium workers

October 30, 2011

NT URANIUM WORKERS STILL NOT ON NATIONAL REGISTER, GREENS SAY, Safe To Work, By Cole Latimer  20 October 2011  Uranium miners in the Northern Territory are still not on the National Radiation Dose Register, Greens senator Scott Ludlam says.  It comes five months after Ludlam originally brought the issue to bear in May, with Ludlam today again quizzing representatives from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency on this issue.

“In July 2010 the register began collecting data on the radiation doses to which workers had been exposed. There are now over 18,000 workers on the database – covering about five years – but there is no information at all on the radiation workers have been exposed to at the Ranger Mine in the Northern Territory. We revealed this in May, and urged the Territory and Federal authorities to address it. ARPANSA told us today that nothing has changed, and to raise the issue with the office of energy and resources minister Martin Ferguson,” Ludlam said in a recent statement.

“We will write to Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson to encourage urgent action to fix this problem.”  The national register was created as a central database to track radiation dose histories of miners….. Under this new development, information on radiation doses will be sent to a central register, where miners can then access their personal records.

“Excluding work in the Northern Territory is a huge crack in the system, and it was revealed five months ago and NT uranium mine workers are still off the radiation dose radar. The system will only have integrity if all radiation doses are included,” Ludlam says…..  http://www.safetowork.com.au/news/nt-uranium-workers-still-not-on-national-register

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