uranium news

Fallout From Atomic Bombs Still Causing Health Problems Washington Post By Alan Mozes March 14, 2008 –” Among Japanese survivors of the atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those exposed to radioactive fallout as young children appear to face a greater risk of developing adult cancers than those exposed while still in the womb, new research suggests.

To date, the risk posed by radiation exposure while in the womb has been a little-studied subject, even though many pregnant women worldwide face radiation exposure through their work or as patients. …………….

………….Initially called the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF)’s mission is to examine the long-term impact of radiation exposure among Japan’s 120,000-plus survivors of the bombings………

…………the new study focused on survivors who were between the ages of 12 and 55 between 1958 and 1999. Nearly 2,500 of the male and female participants were in utero when the bombs fell, while nearly 15,500 were below the age of 6 at the time……………………………………………Preston and his team found that 336 men and 407 women had developed cancer during the study period, with diagnosis rates increasing dramatically after the age of 40. Cancers of the digestive system were most common, accounting for 70 percent of male and 30 percent of female malignancies. Tumors of the breast and reproductive system accounted for 48 percent of malignancies in women.

……………………………………Preston and his colleagues concluded that early childhood atomic bomb exposure was linked to a greater risk for adult cancers than exposure in the womb. . ….”

Aishah Ali’s interview with geoscientist Leuren Moret Tehran Times March 18, 2008 (Source: Madame Chair Magazine) “…………….The February War Crimes Conference in Kuala Lumpur is the most recent of the annual events organized by the Perdana Global Peace Forum. …..Among the eloquent speakers was geoscientist and international radiation specialist Leuren Moret, who gave a startling revelation about the effects of radiation and how our global environment has been contaminated from atomic bomb testing since 1945 to the present ……………

…………Leuren Moret: ‘When a nuclear bomb explodes or when a DU weapon burns, it produces radioactive poison gas. Uranium when it burns is hotter than the sun and it forms extremely tiny particles. These particles stay in the air until rain or snow removes them and they contaminate our soil and water. Areas where there is high rainfall such as Hawaii, or the coastal areas in Southeast Asia, have much higher levels of radiation rained out into the local environment. Of course, this damages all living things, not just humans. ………

……….the radioactive effect where nuclear particles disturb the cells. Our cells communicate with one another but what happens is the radiation damages the signals and cells start to malfunction. The third and most serious effect of DU is the nanoparticle or “particulate” effect. Because the suspended DU particles which travel around the world are so tiny, they disturb the signaling and information flow in the cell processes and functions of the body. ……………

…………….DU is radioactive trash from the atomic weapons project and the nuclear power industry. It is a radioactive metal and occurs in three isotopes (forms of a chemical element differing in their atomic weight) — Uranium 238, Uranium 235 and Uranium 234.

They all behave the same chemically because they have the same number of electrons in the outer shell, but they are slightly different in mass.

The isotope that scientists want is Uranium 235 because it will explode in nuclear bombs like the Hiroshima bomb. Today they mine the uranium and take 0.5 per cent out of U235 from the ore to make into nuclear reactor fuel.

The rest is trash. It’s called depleted uranium or DU because they have removed the half percent of U235.It’s a bomb tester’s term. It does not mean it is depleted in radiation. It is depleted in U235 because the vital half a per cent has been extracted. …………………………..This is in huge junk piles stored in drums in solid metal at the Department of Energy sites in the U.S. The U.S. is using thousands of tons of DU in dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets all over the Middle East and Central Asia. We’re importing it from Canada, Belgium and South Africa.

It is very profitable and so investment firms invest in corporations manufacturing DU weapons because they may get as much as a 35 percent return annually on the investment. We have to take the profit out of war in order to end this global, permanent war economy, which is destroying the earth.

Fortunately the Belgian Parliament has just passed a law abolishing all DU weapons manufacturing, testing, storage and sales. It is the first country in the world to do this.

This is extremely significant because Belgium was exporting DU weapons to the U.S.; it is the headquarters of NATO and the seat of the European Parliament. ………………………………’………………………………………………………..”

Child cancer risk higher near nuclear plants: study BERLIN (Reuters) Dec 8, 2007 -

A German study has found that young children living near nuclear power plants have a significantly higher risk of developing leukemia and other forms of cancer, a German newspaper reported on Saturday.

‘Our study confirmed that in Germany a connection has been observed between the distance of a domicile to the nearest nuclear power plant …. and the risk of developing cancer, such as leukemia, before the fifth birthday,‘ Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted the report as saying.

The newspaper said the study was done by the University of Mainz for Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BFS).

The researchers found that 37 children within a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius of nuclear power plants had developed leukemia between 1980 and 2003, while the statistical average during this time period was 17, the paper said.

The newspaper cited an unnamed radiation protection expert familiar with the study who said its conclusions understated the problem. He said the data showed there was an increased cancer risk for children living within 50 kilometers of a reactor…………………………

Germany plans to prematurely shut down all of its nuclear power plants by the early 2020s.

Muslim Peacemaker Teams: Depleted Uranium Crisis in Najaf
Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq – MHRI
Uruknet infoJanuary 8, 2008 This was not an exhaustive study because of the limits of personnel, resources and equipment. But it did rely on accumulated public data, thorough research, and a major contribution of time and energy. The focus was Najaf, a city of over one million people, and the rural areas in the governate. The area is about 180 miles from where DU was used in the First Gulf War.

Starting in 2004 when the political situation and devastation of the health care infrastructure were at their worst, there were 251 reported cases of cancer. By 2006, when the numbers more accurately reflected the real situation, that figure had risen to 688. Already in 2007, 801 cancer cases have been reported. Those figures portray an incidence rate of 28.21 by 2006, even after screening out cases that came into the Najaf Hospital from outside the governate, a number which contrasts with the normal rate of 8-12 cases of cancer per 100,000 people. Sami Rasouli, Dr. Najim Askouri and Dr. Assad Al-Janabi, members of Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT) in Najaf, visited with Christian Peacemaker Teams CPT) in Suleimaniya, Kurdish Iraq, on December 10 and 11. The visit was an opportunity to report the recent activities of the respective peacemaker groups and learn to know new people. But the primary activity was a forum on depleted uranium (DU) presented by Drs. Assad and Najim.

Dr. Assad is the director of the Pathology Department at the 400-bed public hospital in Najaf. Dr. Najim is a nuclear physicist, trained in Britain, and one of the leading nuclear researchers in Iraq until his departure in 1998. They have worked as an MPT team documenting information about the health impact on Najaf of depleted uranium weapons used during the 1991 and 2003 Gulf wars. …..Two observations are striking. One, there has been a dramatic increase in the cancers that are related to radiation exposure, especially the very rare soft tissue sarcoma and leukemia. Two, the age at which cancer begins in an individual has been dropping rapidly, with incidents of breast cancer at 16, colon cancer at 8, and liposarcoma at 1.5 years. Dr. Assad noted that 6% of the cancers reported occurred in the 11-20 age range and another 18% in ages 21-30. ……………………………..Dr. Najim began his report by noting that Coalition Forces, mostly U.S., used 350 tons of DU weapons in about 45 days in 1991, primarily in the stretch of Iraq northwest of Kuwait where Iraqi troops were on their retreat. Then in 2003, during the Shock and Awe bombing of Baghdad, the U.S. used another 150 tons of DU.

When DU hits a target it aerosolizes and oxidizes forming a uranium oxide that is two parts UO3 and one part UO2. The first is water soluble and filters down into the water aquifers and also becomes part of the food chain as plants take up the UO3 dissolved in water. The UO2 is insoluble and settles as dust on the surface of the earth and is blown by the winds to other locations…………………………….”.

Malignancies Cancer research: misspent money, wasted efforts and unconscionable profits ZNet Globe and Mail by Andrew Nikiforuk 20 Nov 07 Review of The secret history of the war on cancer By Devra Davis, basic Books “………………..the cancer establishment has retreated from the truth faster than Canada’s commitment to a greener country. What began as sincere investigation into the economic root causes of a complex set of 200 different diseases, at the turn of the 20th century, quickly degenerated into a single-minded focus on treatments after the Second World War, argues Devra Davis, one of North America’s sharpest epidemiologists……………………..

In the process, industry and its propaganda hit men have used every opportunity to discredit, dismiss or disparage information on cancer hazards in the workplace or at home………..

Consider the invasion of computerized imaging technology (CT scans) in modern medicine. Since its invention in the 1970s, CT scanning has become a $100-billion industry that creates nifty three-dimensional images, yet exposes patients to radiation.

CT scans have become such a favoured technology that one in every three scans recommended for children is probably unnecessary

In the last 25 years, the amount of radiation zapping North Americans from scanning and the like has increased fivefold. ……….

‘Modern America’s annual exposure to radiation from diagnostic machines is equal to that released by a nuclear accident that spewed the equivalent of hundreds of Hiroshimas across much of Russia and Eastern Europe.’

Most physicians don’t know that a typical CT scan equals 400 chest X-rays. A group of researchers at Yale now estimate that radiation from CT scans of the head and abdomen will kill 2,500 people a year……………..”.

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Russian villagers living the horror of a nuclear explosion 50 years ago THE ASAHI SHIMBUN BY MASAMI ONO, Tetsu Kobayashi in Tokyo also contributed to this article i: December 20,2007) CHELYABINSK, Russia- “An explosion at the Mayak nuclear plant here that devastated the southern Ural region a half-century ago still casts a shadow over Russians living in the area. The 1957 blast is regarded as having caused the worst contamination in the former Soviet Union until the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The facility also dumped radioactive waste into a river or lakes nearby for many years.

At present, the Russian government is taking measures to strengthen the nuclear industry. However, the history of the Mayak facility shows that those measures can pose dangers.

On Sept. 29, 1957, a cooling system for a tank that stored liquid radioactive waste exploded at the Mayak nuclear plant. The facility had manufactured the Soviet Union’s first plutonium for atomic bombs.

The blast scattered radioactive matter over 20,000 square kilometers. In total, 270,000 residents of 217 villages were affected, according to a report compiled by environmental protection group Greenpeace Russia, based on the government’s data and other materials. The worst affected were some 10,000 residents of 23 villages. Their areas were so badly contaminated that they were secretly forced to be relocated to other areas……………………………………………..

The Mayak plant became the source of environmental pollution not only with the explosion, but also with the dumping of radioactive waste into the Techa river between 1949 and 1951. Because of the dumping, the living areas of 124,000 people were contaminated.
In addition, the Mayak area was hit in 1967 by airborne mid-level radioactive waste which was scattered from a contaminated lake near the Mayak plant after the lake had dried up. In that case, the living areas of 42,000 people were contaminated.
……………………………………..In spite of the growing openness to the media, however, local environmental groups warn that a large amount of liquid radioactive waste dating back to the 1960s is still stored there.
Nuclear accidents, such as leakages of radioactive substances, have also taken place. One occurred in late October of this year.
Mid-level radioactive liquid waste spilled from a tank while being transported from one building to another, contaminating a road and adjacent areas in the compound of the facility.
Local residents are also concerned about a group of lakes into which radioactive waste has been dumped.
……………………………………..The Mayak case shows how troublesome radioactive waste is. Once a leak occurs, contamination can continue for decades.
Even if the waste is stored inside the facilities, it must be strictly controlled under cool conditions when it is high-level radioactive waste.
All countries, including Japan, should heed the lessons of the Mayak case.

‘Safe’ uranium that left a town contaminated They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer – and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crimeDavid Rose in Colonie, New York
Guardian Umlimited November 18, 2007
“……………………………………………The US federal government and the firm that ran the factory, National Lead (NL) Industries, have been assuring former workers and residents around the 18-acre site for decades that, although it is true that the plant used to produce unacceptable levels of radioactive pollution, it was not a serious health hazard.

Now, in a development with potentially devastating implications not only for Colonie but also for the future use of some of the West’s most powerful weapon systems, that claim is being challenged. In a paper to be published in the next issue of the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment, a team led by Professor Randall Parrish of Leicester University reports the results of a three-year study of Colonie, funded by Britain’s Ministry of Defence.

Parrish’s team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.

The small sample size precludes the drawing of statistical conclusions, the journal paper says. But to find DU at all after so long a period is ’significant, since no previous study has documented evidence of DU exposure more than 20 years prior… [this] indicates that the body burden of uranium must still be significant, whether retained in lungs, lymphatic system, kidneys or bone’. The team is now testing more individuals…………

……………………..Inside the body DU travels around the bloodstream, accumulating not only in the lungs but also in other soft tissues such as the brain and bone marrow. There, each mote becomes an alpha particle hotspot, bombarding its locality and damaging cell DNA. Research has shown that DU has the potential to cause a wide range of cancers, kidney and thyroid problems, birth defects and disorders of the immune system……………………………..”

Prior to her death from leukemia in Sept. 2004, Nuha Al Radi , an accomplished Iraqi artist and author of the “Baghdad Diaries” wrote “The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas.”

Inside the nuclear underworld: Deformity and fear
CNN.com 12 Sept 07 By Matthew Chance

CNN Editor’s note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. CNN’s Matthew Chance was given rare access to Kazakh villages where above-ground nuclear tests have left generations scarred. Here, he describes what he saw for CNN.com.

“SEMEY, Kazakhstan (CNN) — Kazakhstan’s nuclear orphans are a distressing sight. The first child I met in the local orphanage was lying limply in his crib. His giant, pale head was perched on his tiny shoulders, covered in bed sores, like a grotesquely painted paper-mâché mask. Peering out, a pair of tiny black eyes darted around.
It took me a few seconds to understand what I was seeing. The doctor told me he was 4 years old.

Through the bars in the next crib, I saw another child, twisted with deformities. His fragile legs and arms turned in impossible contortions.
These are the children of Kazakhstan’s terrifying nuclear past. Decades of Soviet nuclear testing unleashed a plague of birth defects……………………………Almost every family in Seriqkaisha’s village, 20 miles from the old test site, is affected — from cancers to impotency to birth defects and other deformities………………

……………The genetic defections and illnesses that afflict so many here are frequently a source of shame. The doctor told me that people hide their deformed family members from outsiders. For decades, they have felt like animals in a zoo, she said, and had grown to distrust prying eyes.
The region also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, according to local health officials. Tragically, many young men who discover they are impotent — one of the effects of nuclear fallout — end their own lives………………….

…………………..The problem of defects is so big, there’s even a museum of mutations at the regional medical institute back in Semey, the largest city near the old nuclear testing site. It’s a small room filled with jars containing deformed fetuses and human organs preserved in formaldehyde.
It’s hard to look at them — babies with bulging eyes and malformed brains, or conjoined twins locked in a contorted embrace.
The head of the institute, Tolebae Rakhipbekov, showed me around and told me how this house was more than just a grim collection of anomalies It was the reality for some parents, and a real fear for everyone who lives here……………………….”.

500 YEAR NUKE CURSE NUKE TEST VICTIMS: THE PROOF Shock new study of more than 1,000 veterans proves soldiers who were forced to watch British A-bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s will pass on crippling health problems to families for 20 generations

Sunday Mirror UK By Susie Boniface 16/09/2007 – “A major scientific study into the families of soldiers used as guinea pigs in Britain’s first nuclear tests shows they will suffer acute health problems for TWENTY generations.
Relatives of up to 22,000 servicemen who witnessed tests in the 1950s have been cursed with massive genetic damage which will be passed on for at least 500 years.

The shocking new study shows how children and grandchildren suffer limb deformities, tumours, heart, eye and hearing problems, epilepsy, autism, brain deformities, twisted spines, missing organs, extra fingers and toes and a range of rare conditions
The survey, of more than 1,000 veterans and their families, has just been completed by radiation expert Dr Chris Busby of the University of Liverpool. The statistics show that compared to the rest of the population children of veterans are:

Ten times more likely to have an inherited genetic deformity
Five times more likely to die as infants
Three times more likely to be stillborn And their grandchildren are:
Eight times more likely to inherit a defect
Twice as likely to get childhood cancer

The findings show that the men who witnessed Britain’s first atom-bomb tests have “scrambled DNA” which has been passed to their descendants. The study, the biggest scientific survey ever carried out on the veterans’ descendants, provides the most damning evidence yet of the horrific legacy of the tests….

….Now campaigners say this new study is the final proof of the horrific cost to their health.
Hundreds of trial atomic and hydrogen bombs were detonated in the South Pacific, America and Australia between 1952 and 1967 as Britain joined the nuclear arms race.

The veterans in Australia and New Zealand are still fighting our MoD for compensation as their governments say it is our responsibility.

Dr Busby says the effects on the British men were similar to those seen in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear power station leak in 1986. He says: ‘The main finding is that the grandchildren are suffering at almost the same rate as the children of veterans. In normal genetics, with each generation the effects would be less as new DNA is added to the family line. But with radiation exposure, what happens is that a kind of instability is passed down – like an alarming message in a bottle passed from mother to child. It tells the child to scramble its genes randomly in all directions, so you get many children with strange deformities’….”.

U.S. nuke work afflicted 36,500 Americans Rocky Mountain News.com By Ann Imse August 31, 2007
“The U.S. nuclear weapons program has sickened 36,500 Americans and killed more than 4,000, the Rocky Mountain News has determined from government figures.
Those numbers reflect only people who have been approved for government compensation. They include people who mined uranium, built bombs and breathed dust from bomb tests.

Many of the bomb-builders, such as those at the Rocky Flats plant near Denver, have never applied for compensation or were rejected because they could not prove their work caused their illnesses. Congressional hearings are in the works to review allegations of unfairness and delays in the program for weapons workers.

More than 15,000 of the 36,500 are workers who made atomic weapons. They were exposed to radiation and toxic chemicals that typically took years to trigger cancer or lung disease. Others were civilians living near the Nevada test site during above-ground nuclear tests; soldiers and workers at test sites; and uranium miners and millers who breathed in radioactive dust until 1972 when the government stopped buying uranium………..

……………..At least 4,000 of the 36,500 died. This number reflects cases where survivors could be paid only if their relative died of the covered illness.
Many more of the 36,500 likely also have died of the deadly diseases triggered by their work. But in most of the compensation programs, the government does not track deaths or cause of death, so the true number who gave their lives to support the nuclear bomb program probably will never be known.
Some were contaminated through accident or ignorance. But government documents have revealed that officials at times risked the health of civilians, soldiers and workers because they believed national security demanded it.
One early Atomic Energy Commission director, Lewis Strauss, wrote to a civilian who had been downwind of atomic test fallout that the danger of fallout was ‘a small sacrifice compared to the infinite greater evil of the use of nuclear bombs in war’…………….”

Chernobyl’s grim legacy lingers in Brooklyn By Mattlee Davis – COURIER LIFE 06/02/2007 “It began 21 years ago in the Ukraine and became known as the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history, but the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have traveled world-wide and have made their way to Brooklyn’s doorstep ‘My specialty is thyroid surgery, and we started seeing people coming in who were from the Chernobyl area with thyroid problems,’ said Daniel Branovan, M.D. of the NY Eye and Ear Infirmary in Manhattan.

Branovan said there are between 150 and 200 thousand people in the NY metropolitan area who come from the affected region, and the ‘cancer rates are going up and up,’ he said………………………..The same people who migrated to Brooklyn and other boroughs from Chernobyl have the same risk as those who chose to stay in the Ukraine, according to Branovan.”The rates of cancer are going up over there [in the Ukraine] and the same thing must be happening here.

…...thyroid cancer – a cancer of the butterfly-shaped thyroid gland under the Adam’s apple – is the greatest known consequence of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. In fact, Branovan stated that scientists know from experience – referring to the World War II bombing of Hiroshima – that it takes about 20 years for to thyroid cancer to appear……………. . “

New UN Radiation Warning: Skull & Crossbones - medGadget February 21, 2007 “……A skull and crossbones, a running person and radiating ionizing waves, all on a deep red triangle, joined other more common warning symbols today as part of a United Nations effort to reduce needless deaths and serious injuries from accidental exposure to large radioactive sources………………………

.The symbol is the result of a five-year project conducted in 11 countries and was tested with different population groups — mixed ages, varying educational backgrounds, male and female — to ensure that its message of ‘danger – stay away’ was crystal clear and understood by all……….”

Depleted Uranium: Pernicious Killer Keeps on Killing - Global Research, by Dr. Craig Etchison February 20, 2007 - “…………………something insidious happens when DU munitions are used. How to explain the exploding rates of cancer, birth defects, and radiation poisoning among Iraqis in the Basra region? How to explain a Department of Veterans Affairs study of 21,000 veterans of the Gulf War that found rates of birth defects were twice as great for male vets and three times as great for female vets who served in the Gulf War compared to vets who did not? How to explain a Washington Post report in January of 2006 that 518,00 of the 580,000 Gulf War veterans were on disability, over half on permanent disability. How to explain over 13,000 dead Gulf War veterans when only 250 were killed and 7,000 injured in the war itself?…………………………………………….

A major problem with most DU assessment is that many effects of alpha radiation on cell structure, including DNA proteins that release biochemical signals and important cell metabolic enzymes, are ignored by nuclear physicists who use dose estimates based on uranium dust in mines, a completely inappropriate approach for a battlefield aerosol. Many medical professionals believe the protein problem is responsible for various neurodegenerative diseases evidenced by Gulf War veterans.

As Dr. Bertell writes, ‘Heavy metal exposure (including uranium) can cause loss of cellular immunity, autoimmune diseases, joint disease such as rheumatoid arthritis, and diseases of the kidneys, circulatory system, and nervous system…. Decline in functional mitochondria is most damaging to the heart, kidney, brain, liver, and skeletal muscle, in that order.’ Loss of cellular immunity opens an organism up to viral, bacterial, and mycoplasmal invasions connected to a variety of diseases’.

Equally important, scientists have found that tiny amounts of DU too small to be toxic and only mildly radioactive seem to reinforce each other in terms of causing cancers and risk to offspring. The Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute has even admitted that DU can cause cancer……………………….”

TIMELINE27 June 07 Report details rise in radiation pollution, cancer deaths near Georgia nuclear plantJune 07 USA Radiation and Public Health Project finds high strontium-90 radiation levels in children living near nuke plantsMay 07 UK official documents reveal radiation experiments on humans in 1960sMay 07 UK Parliamentary Inquiry into radiation illnesses in military due to bomb tests in 50sMay 07 US govt may exhume bodies of nuke weapons workers for radiation-caused deathsFeb 07 UN – New radiation warning signFeb 2007 Department of Veterans Affairs study of 21,000 veterans of the Gulf War – high rates of birth defects13 Sept 2001 Elevated radiation readings downwind from the Pentagon U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed that the Pentagon crash site rubble was radioactive and that the probable contaminant was Depleted Uranium (DU).

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