MWM: So far the media-ocracy and politic-ocracy is feeding a lot of crappy information which uses ignorant boogle-heads like Obamma and newscasters to pooh pooh the concerns about the radiation leaks, while Tokyo Electric Inscrutible Stiff Upper Lip avoids telling us anything about how desparate they are with the total devastation into which their nuclear reactor plant has fallen. They continue to talk about how pumps and electricity will get the situation under control but anybody who looks at the pix in detail can readily see that some of the reactors are a tangled mangled colllapsed mess which isn't going to hold much water, not even for Jesus, meanwhile thousands of fuel rods are burning into melted pools somewhere deep and only the debbil knows if and when they can merge to some kind of queer criticality for exploding vociferously. JAPAN IS TOTALLY FUBARED. HERE IN THIS PACKET IS SOME IMPORTANT REAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE DANGER OF EVEN DILUTED DUST PLUMES. Remember, if you can, we have had desert storms from Mongolia get picked up into the Jet Stream and delivered over Arizona to render magnificant red sunsets as the dust diffracted the the rays of the Sun. Anybody who tells you there is only a minimal threat from Japan simply is ignorantly blowing farts out of his face. The truth is we don't know but this is so big and the stakes are so immense - your health and life - you really shouldn't play Russian Roulette here.
From: Naia One Heart
Subject: Fwd: Plume hits West Coast Friday - Risk Assessment
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 02:04:46 -0700
Here's another. Lots of info on radiation, and as you see, plume hits west coast now, though it looks the really nasty stuff will take a bit longer.
Begin forwarded message:
Date: March 17, 2011 11:44:53 PM MST
Subject: Plume hits West Coast Friday - Risk Assessment
PLUME FORECAST:
The United Nations Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization provided a projection of the plume's path to member states, but on Wednesday it refused to release it news organizations. Fortunately, the New York Times obtained a copy from another source and published it the same day. It shows the first fallout reaching the West Coast early Friday morning:
[]
[]
See an animation of the forecast here:
<http://www.nytimes.com/
More info here:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/
Here's a comment on the issue from the CTBT:
<http://newsroom.ctbto.org/>ht
TRACK THE PLUME (almost) LIVE:
<http://www.zamg.ac.at/pict/
Article on CA monitoring:
<http://www.ktla.com/news/
RISK ASSESSMENT:
Watch out - you are being misled! All of the reporting on the risk to public health that I've seen is focused on radiation levels, and how low they are, and how the radiation levels are way too low to pose a danger to public health. THIS IS IRRELEVANT! Direct levels of radiation are going to be extremely low, as they are from all fallout, regardless of source, when measured many miles from the source. This is due to the effects of dilution caused by the dispersion of the cloud. BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT!!! The danger to public health from fallout is not direct radiation, it's from the absorption into the body of radioactive particles - the radioactive dust itself. The media is choosing to focus on something that is not a concern - levels of direct radiation, and neglecting to mention that all people in the path of the fallout will be inhaling and otherwise absorbing microscopic radioactive dust particles, that will lodge in the body. Some of those particles, especially plutonium, cesium, iodine and strontium, WILL CAUSE SIGNIFICANT NEGATIVE HEALTH EFFECTS. In years to come, THEY WILL CAUSE CANCER IN A LOT OF PEOPLE.
Sure, you won't feel a thing and you won't keel over dead when the plume blows overhead, but you will be inhaling particles that will significantly increase your risk of cancer. And later you will be eating contaminated food and drinking contaminated drinks that will significantly increase your dose.
Consider the difference between sitting in front of a fire, and feeling the heat on your face: that's direct radiation. Then imagine you're downwind of the fire, and you inhale the smoke. That's fallout. Now most smoke particles from a fire will be cool by the time you inhale them, but in the case of radioactive dust clouds, some of those particles will remain radioactive for months, years, or for your entire lifetime (and way beyond, in the case of plutonium).
A rule of thumb is, if the authorities report a "minor" "insignificant" rise in radiation levels in your area (as they have already in Alaska), you know you are breathing in dangerous radioactive dust particles.
Here is an excellent and very thorough report on the effects of Chernobyl:
<http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/
And some more info:
<http://www.ratical.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Of high concern, especially to children, is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
There is a way to protect the thyroid from radioactive iodine by saturating the gland with NON radioactive iodine before the plume hits your area. The two most effective substances to do this are Potassium Iodide and Potassium Iodate. They do the same thing, but the required dosage is different (adult dose 170 mg/day of iodate vs 130 mg/day for the iodide). Iodate is a little less toxic.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Those dosages are full blocking doses: something that will saturate your thyroid with iodine, preventing it from absorbing any more, which would be good if you are exposed to I-131. However, you can't take that much iodine per day for very long before you will suffer significant negative health effects from the iodine itself. Perhaps it would be better to take half or lesser doses - but will that provide any protection? I wish I knew but I don't.
Be aware that the blocking doses given for potasssium iodide and iodate deliver (I THINK) 100 mg of elemental iodine per day. THAT IS A LOT OF FREAKING IODINE!! The US RDA for iodine is 150 mcg (millionths of a gram). Some people take up to 20 times that, or 3 mg per day, with no ill effects. But doses of as little as 4.5 mg/day or more will produce negative side effects in most people if taken on an ongoing basis. These include: mouth sores, metallic taste, swollen salivary glands, diarrhea, vomiting, headache, rash, hypothyroidism and breathing difficulties.
Note that while there are serious side effects to saturating your thyroid with iodine, they may be less bad for you than absorbing iodine-131. Nonetheless you should inform yourself. It is not safe to take a full blocking dose for more than a few days, and unfortunately we probably will be exposed to low levels of fallout for many weeks to come:
<http://preparedness.com/
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/
<http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/
http://www.campingsurvival.
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
One side effect of taking a lot of iodine is that the thyroid will produce less thyroid hormone ("hypothyroidism"), and so if you are taking a "thyroid blocking" dose of iodine (or even a lesser dose) for more than a few days, you should have your thyroid hormone levels checked. Since I have hypothyroidism and have to take thyroid medication, I can tell you that the cheapest way to get a level check is to order the test yourself online. I recommend this one:
<http://www.healthcheckusa.
Before you order the test, check that there's a lab near you where you can get the blood drawn:
<http://www.healthcheckusa.
healthcheckusa uses LabCorp, which has blood draw locations all over the place. So if the above link doesn't reveal a nearby lab, check the LabCorp site: <http://www.healthcheckusa.
If you can't get hold of either potassium iodide or iodate, any nontoxic form of iodine supplement may help, but the problem is getting the right dose. Most supplements have too little to help (you have to saturate the gland before being exposed to I-131 in order to be protected).
Thyroid Cancer Effects in Children:
<http://www.iaea.org/
Another isotope of great concern is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Plutonium will lodge in the lungs where it will remain radioactive for several tens of thousands of years. It will cause lung cancer in many people.
<http://www.boston.com/
Fears about health risks rose dramatically in Japan Tuesday with news of a greater radiation release and renewed warnings to remaining residents within 20 miles to stay indoors.
By Marilynn Marchione
AP Medical Writer / March 15, 2011
Japanese officials said that more radiation was released at a nuclear plant disastrously damaged by last week's tsunami. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said radiation had spread from four reactors.
"The level seems very high, and there is still a very high risk of more radiation coming out," he said.
Thyroid cancer is the most immediate risk, and the Japanese government made plans to distribute potassium iodide pills to prevent it. Worse case scenarios -- lots of radioactive fallout -- can lead to other cancers years later.
Even a meltdown would not necessarily mean medical doom, experts said. It depends on the amount and type of radioactive materials.
Donald Olander, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, said even the much higher levels of radiation are "not a health hazard."
The world has seen two big nuclear reactor scares -- in 1986 at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine, and in 1979 at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.
At Three Mile Island, even though a quarter of the reactor core melted, the steel containment structure held. The radiation released was so minuscule that it did not threaten health - the equivalent of a chest X-ray to local folks.
At Chernobyl, where there was no containment vessel, far more radioactive material was released, and of a more dangerous type than at Three Mile Island. It stayed in soil and got into plants in the Ukraine, contaminating milk and meat for decades. Thousands of children developed thyroid cancer from radiation exposure, and scientists are still working to document other possible health problems.
The lessons have not been lost on the Japanese as they grapple with the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, whose cooling systems failed after a power outage from the massive earthquake last week.
They have evacuated 180,000 people from areas near the troubled reactors, where relatively minimal fallout was mostly confined at first. They've told people still in the area to wear masks, which can keep radioactive particles from being inhaled.
Most importantly, they have stockpiled and are making plans to give out potassium iodide -- pills that can keep radioactive iodine from being taken up by the thyroid gland and causing cancer.
"Those are all preventable cancers" if the protective pills are taken right after exposure, said University of New Mexico radiologist Dr. Fred Mettler. He led an international group that studied health effects of the Chernobyl disaster and is a U.S. representative to the United Nations on radiation safety.
At Chernobyl "they had millions of square kilometers to cover and it was all rural areas and they didn't really have anything stockpiled," he said.
The Russian reactor also lacked a containment vessel like those in Japan and the United States to prevent or minimize release of the more dangerous types of radioactive materials, Mettler said.
"Right now it's worse than Three Mile Island," Olander said, but isn't near the Chernobyl situation. Some radioactive iodine was released before the latest crisis Tuesday. Iodine is relatively short-lived, and potassium iodide pills can be used to block its uptake.
Of greater concern is the release of cesium, which officials had said was released in small amounts earlier. Cesium is absorbed throughout the body -- not just by the thyroid -- and stays in organs, tissue and the environment much longer, Mettler explained.
Cesium particles are relatively large and heavy, so they would not likely travel far in a plume. Much of it would drop near the reactor site, and officials hope, may be carried by winds east over the Pacific Ocean where it would fall harmlessly, Mettler said.
Any release of cesium is a concern environmentally and for health, said Jacqueline Williams, a radiation biologist and safety expert at the University of Rochester Medical Center in upstate New York.
"Prior to Chernobyl, we believed that the cesium would be diluted out, that once the cloud went through and it rained, the cesium would be washed out. What we found out was there was an accumulation of cesium in certain types of vegetation, and it accumulated rather than diluted," she said.
Animals fed on the vegetation and became contaminated, and meat and milk were affected.
"You can't be quite so blase about the fallout," Williams said.
At Three Mile Island, however, "the public health risk was close to zero because the radiation was contained within the site itself," Williams said.
Mettler agreed. The research he led in Russia documented 6,000 to 7,000 additional cases of thyroid cancer in people who were children and teens when Chernobyl occurred, "and there are questionable increases of leukemia in the cleanup workers but it's not certain."
And were there long-lasting problems from Three Mile Island?
"Not that most of the scientific community believes," Mettler said.
------
Online:
EPA: <http://1.usa.gov/gt46aP>http:
NRC: <http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/
Three Mile Island: <http://www.nrc.gov/reading-
http://www.eoearth.org/
Health effects of the Chernobyl accident
Published: July 24, 2008, 9:04 pm
Edited: July 24, 2008, 9:04 pm
Lead Author:
Content Source: <http://www.eoearth.org/
This article has been reviewed by the following Topic Editor: <http://www.eoearth.org/
Introduction
April 26, 2006, was the 20th anniversary of the <http://www.eoearth.org/
In 1990, four years after the Chernobyl accident, an increase in thyroid cancer was found in children exposed to fallout from the accident. Two years later, the first reports in the Western literature of an increase in childhood thyroid cancer (CTC) in Belarus were published. In 2000, about 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer had been reported in those exposed as children in the former Soviet Socialist Union, and in 2005, the number was estimated at 4,000; the latest estimate for the year 2056 ranges from 3,400 to 72,000. The effects are not limited by national borders; Poland has recorded cases in spite of a rapid precautionary distribution of stable <http://www.eoearth.org/
This dramatic contrast between the two incidents is in part due to the different types of radiation exposure, but both show that the effects of massive exposures to radiation are immensely complex. In comparing the health effects after <http://www.eoearth.org/
The most prominent tissue-specific dose is that to the thyroid, largely from 131I, with a smaller contribution from short-lived isotopes of <http://www.eoearth.org/
Firmly established health consequences
Thyroid carcinoma
By far, the most prominent health consequence of the accident is the increase in thyroid cancer among those exposed as children. The medical authorities in Belarus and Ukraine were aware in 1990 that the incidence of the rare (typically about 1/106children/year) CTC was increasing, particularly in children living close to the <http://www.eoearth.org/
The first reports of the increase in Belarus were received with skepticism by the scientific community, but the risks were shown to be real. Analysis of thyroid carcinogenesis after X-ray exposure also showed clearly that the younger the subject at exposure, the higher the risk. The almost complete lack of children in the Swedish studies thus accounted for the apparent lack of a carcinogenic risk from 131I. It has since become increasingly clear that 131I is as carcinogenic in children as X rays. The child’s thyroid is one of the most sensitive human tissues to cancer induction by radiation. Because iodine is a volatile element, its release from fractured fuel rods is inevitable.
Much has been made of the fact that differentiated thyroid cancer is an eminently curable disease. Only a very small number of deaths from <http://www.eoearth.org/
Acute radiation sickness
A small group of liquidators and plant workers received very high whole-body <http://www.eoearth.org/
Psychological consequences
Psychological effects are of considerable importance. They arise from an understandable fear of exposure to an unknown amount of an intangible but potentially dangerous agent, fear for exposed children, mistrust of reassurances from the authorities, and for hundreds of thousands of people, the consequences of forced evacuation from home and land. For some, the stress from these experiences has precipitated psychological illness; for others, an increased consumption of alcohol and cigarettes; and for still others, dietary changes to avoid perceived contamination. Some deaths from suicide, cirrhosis, or lung cancer could be regarded as indirect consequences of the accident and the subsequent measures taken. Whatever the view the nuclear industry may have about the irrationality of these consequences, they are real and have an important impact on public health, and so deserve greater attention.
Genetic consequences
Another consequence, not as firmly established as thyroid cancer, is mini-satellite instability (MSI) in children born to exposed fathers after <http://www.eoearth.org/
These issues are particularly relevant in view of developments in radiobiological research over the past 15 years. The apparently simple relationship between radiation dose and its effects are being reappraised. In the early 1990s, two previously unacknowledged effects of radiation were reported, genomic instability and the bystander effect. These effects are not accommodated by the current theoretical framework. Also in 1986, the risk per unit dose accrued from Chernobyl would have been assumed to be half that estimated from the atomic bombs in Japan. A recent detailed analysis of the Japanese experience suggested that the risk for those exposed to the lower doses could even be supralinear. Furthermore, the accuracy of the standard models for inferring doses from internal exposure have been questioned by the U.K. Committee Examining Radiation Risk of Internal Emitters. There is, therefore, considerable uncertainty in translating collective dose to health detriment and fatalities.
Unanswered issues
Birth defects
There have been many claims of an increased incidence of congenital anomalies in children born shortly after the accident. Some cases reported in the press show abnormalities similar to those following the use of thalidomide in pregnancy, and thalidomide was apparently available in the Soviet Union. It is not possible to separate <http://www.eoearth.org/
Leukemia
Intensive efforts have been made to detect an increase in leukemia, which is strongly associated with radiation. No statistically significant increases of those forms associated with radiation have been reported, but increases in chronic lymphatic leukemia, a no-radiation-related disease of older age, may testify to increased case ascertainment. However, the level of increase expected, given the received <http://www.eoearth.org/
In the future
Experience from Japan shows that many effects of whole-body radiation exposure may not be apparent for decades. While the short initial latent period associated with the thyroid carcinoma after <http://www.eoearth.org/
The full complexity of the exposure regime has not been adequately explored, and the estimation of whole-body and many tissue-specific <http://www.eoearth.org/
In the light of this level of uncertainty, the case is compelling for international research surveillance of the millions of people exposed to fallout from <http://www.eoearth.org/
Editor's Note
This article is derived largely from Keith Baverstock and Dillwyn Williams, <http://www.ehponline.org/
Further Reading
* Baverstock, K., Egloff, B., Pinchera, A., Ruchti, C. and Williams, D., 1992. Thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Nature, 359(6390):21–22.
* Cardis, E., Krewski, D., Boniol, M., Drozdovitch, V., Darby, S.C., Gilbert, E.S., et al., 2006. Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer, 119(6):1224–1235. doi 10.1002/ijc.22037.
* CERRIE, 2004. <http://www.cerrie.org/report/
* IAEA, 1991. <http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/
* IAEA, 1996. <http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/
* UN, 2002. <http://www.undp.org/dpa/
* UNSCEAR. 1988. <http://www.unscear.org/docs/
* UNSCEAR, 2000. <http://www.unscear.org/docs/
* Westermann, A., van den Brink, W., et al., 1997. <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.
* WHO, 1995. Health Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident. Results of the IPHECA Pilot Projects and Related National Programmes. Summary Report. Geneva: World Health Organization. <http://www.amazon.com/dp/
* WHO, 2005a. <http://www.who.int/ionizing_
* WHO, 2005b. <http://www.who.int/
Citation
Biomed.central (Content Source);<http://www.eoearth.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Status of the Nuclear Reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant:
<http://www.nytimes.com/
1 comment:
These facts are really unknown for me. Thanks for sharing.
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