~ Straight Truth on Nuclear Fallout ~

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Straight truth on nuclear fallout
Long, unwieldy and not to be missed!!

Yes, this means YOU.  

Have a read for a bit.  It's time for you to see the raw, bold truth - nuclear fallout is hell.  It is war against all the people's of the world.

So I've posted the unvarnished TRUTH.  Hard to take if you are only interested in pleasure or getting relief from an "unkind" world as your points for living.  

But FACTS must be faced.  So here's some information you need to advance the cause of a sane planet to live on.

For a 'scientific' paper, what is below is not hard to follow.

Are you in a comfortable chair, playing at activism? Or just not concerned? 

Or can we persuade you to take this as a call to arms

to end a conspiracy of silence

a web of deceit, lies and misdirections

to keep a system alive that is killing millions.

As I type, 30 million people in Tokyo are facing possible extinction

years of genetic mutation

following illness and suffering for vast numbers of people.

As the planet prepares for nuclear war against Iran, Syria, North Korea sits "on the table" can you show your concern? 

As increasing numbers of people are exposed to depleted uranium and the contaminants spread ever wider onto the planet are you willing to speak up long and HARD?

As the risk of a nuclear "accident" just gains momentum as earth changes are upon us can you see the need to be wary, but VOCAL?

Thinking about the effects this might have on YOU?

Just what effects might this have on offspring born into your families?

You cannot CONTAIN Nuclear fallout.
There is no such thing as a "tiny nuke"!!
Depleted uranium's use is JUST as bad, maybe far far worse.

Hydrofracking the search for methane hydrates releases nuclear fallout.
There are children dieing of uranium poisoning in America, being badly deformed at birth.

And we must all fight together. For much is at stake.  Silence is complicity when it comes to facing insane threats to our health, happiness and well-being, so let's get this straight - WHO NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

Who's TELLING YOU??

Surely not YOUR government!!!

Ever REALLY wondered what happened to the Chernobyl victims and to other radiation victims as well??
Ever wonder how you would REALLY find out about it??
Did the information mysteriously go missing "under the radar?"
Did they fund any studies?
If so, who did them, and DID THEY AGREE?
Were findings and results published?
Are we going to be TOLD what nuclear fallout did to us ALL, seeing as how it cannot be contained?
Why are Russians, Ukrainians and other groups still pouring into Canada and other places at ever faster rates?
Just how are those Chernobyl children and others like them now? - we were warned it wouldn't be "pretty".
Were things in place to help out and how?

and maybe most important of all questions:

Can the planet learn from this lesson??
and stop making horrible bombs

and having horrible "accidents"
Can we put a 'face' on it?

Pretty obvious, if you don't really follow scientific principles, then the lessons are going to come at you incomplete.

And then there is that gnawing, never before possible to answer question:

HOW AM I GOING TO FEEL WHEN I FIND OUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENS to the survivors and to their children??

Finally, some answers to assist you as you get to feel your feelings. The events were gut wrenching for the entire world and each time we grew more traumized. Please go towww.shockdoctrine.com and watch the video.  We are being victimized by a conspiracy of SILENCE.

The effects of the radiation that has been covered up, but are made available to you from the Low Level Radiation Campaign.

When you are through digesting this may WE,

fellow earthlings

suggest
you pass this on, that maybe
you begin discussing this and
Maybe have a very good cry about it all

But don't fail to get angry at the coverup

Begin to write, email, fax, call
the media and ask them and the politicians

Why is no one telling me this?

When you are through, you may email Richard at his email below
Tell him you are now INVOLVED
in saving this precious, precious planet

Don't fall for the snow job!!

Demand an end to uranium mininng,
To nuclear power plants,
to the proliferation of nuclear weapons
the use of depleted uranium
hydrofracking and the search for methane hydrate

DO NOT BE CONNED BY THE DEAFENING SILENCE
taking place on this issue.

The children of earthlings are counting on you to speak out.

Fukushima explosion
Detailed advice will be issued as more information about possible releases becomes available. Meantime we warn that reassurances from all agencies including IAEA and national offices of nuclear safety are based on the invalid and discredited radiation risk model of the International Commission or Radiological Protection (ICRP), according to which the Chernobyl disaster can not have caused any observable health effects in the general population.
Immediate precautions for populations downwind of Fukushima are to stay indoors. Do not eat local produce; drink bottled water.

And with that note, We ask you to think about the consequences

of the fact that the government of JAPAN

did not listen to warnings or pleas.

They ignored this report.
So here it is is

And please stick with this

International campaign "low-level" radiation

It can be difficult to grasp the sheer scale of the deception that the Commission continues to practise upon the public through its failure to apply scientific method. It amounts to nothing less than a Nelsonian blindness to the health impacts of contaminating the environment with low concentrations of radioactivity, and the theft of mankind's collective opportunity to learn from the post-war nuclear arms race and the Chernobyl disaster.

Here we are not embarking on a rehearsal of all the arguments and all the evidence. It is clear that the Commission is impervious to such submissions. At the same time silence must not give consent. For economy we concentrate on the overarching matter of scientific method.

Scientific method requires countervailing evidence to be addressed. In this respect the Commission fails. Studies of the effects of weapons test fallout and Chernobyl are not cited. In fact the word "Chernobyl" is notably absent from the consultation draft and its key supporting documents, Annexes A and B. The single exception (a study highlighting the difficulty of reconstructing thyroid doses) is cited because of the Commission's obsessive concern with dose. ICRP clings to the outworn dogma that the assessment of radiation doses is fundamental to radiological protection despite robust criticism even from within its own ranks which, characteristically, it ignores. Thus the CERRIE Majority Report is cited in various contexts but not in the context of its attack on the concept of absorbed dose):- 

..... There are important concerns with respect to the
heterogeneity of dose delivery within tissues and cells from
short-range charged particle emissions, the extent to which
current models adequately represent such interactions with
biological targets, and the specification of target cells at risk.
Indeed, the actual concepts of absorbed dose become
questionable, and sometimes meaningless, when considering
interactions at the cellular and molecular levels.
(CERRIE Majority Report Chapter 2.1 paragraph 11).

The work of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR 2003 [1)) is not cited. Neither is IRSN's recent report on the ECRR (IRSN 2005 [2]) although ICRP shares staff with IRSN and although IRSN states: 

Various questions raised by the ECRR are quite pertinent and
led IRSN to analyze this document with a pluralistic approach.
a. Besides natural and medical exposures, populations are
basically undergoing low dose and low dose rate prolonged
internal exposures. But the possible health consequences under
such exposure conditions are ill-known. Failing statistically
significant observations, the health consequences of low dose
exposures are extrapolated from data concerning exposures
that involve higher dose rates and doses. Also, few
epidemiologic data could be analyzed for assessing inner
exposure effects. The risks were thus assessed from health
consequences observed after external exposure, considering
that effects were identical, whether the exposure source is
located outside or inside the human body. However, the
intensity, or even the type of effects might be different.
b. The pertinence of dosimetric values used for quantifying
doses may be questioned. Indeed, the factors applied for risk
management values are basically relying on the results from
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors' monitoring. It is thus
not ensured that the numerical values of these factors translate
the actual risk, regardless of exposure conditions, and
especially after low dose internal exposure.
c. Furthermore, since the preparation of the ICRP 60
publication, improvements in radiobiology and
radiopathology, or even in general biology, might finally
impair the radiation cell and tissue response model applied to
justify radioprotection recommendations. It was thus justified
to contemplate the impact of such recent observations on the
assessment of risk induced by an exposure to ionizing
radiation.

and 

The phenomena concerning internal contamination by
radionuclides are complex because they involve numerous
physico-chemical, biochemical and physiological mechanisms,
still ill-known and thus difficult to model. Due to this complexity,
the behaviour of radionuclides in the organism is often ill
described and it is difficult to accurately define a relationship
between the dose delivered by radionuclides and the observed
consequences on health. This led the radioprotection specialists
to mostly use the dose/risk relationships derived from the study
of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors, exposed in conditions very
different from those met in the cases of internal contaminations.
This fact raises numerous questions, which should be considered
with caution because a wide part of the public exposure in some
areas of the world is due to chronic internal contaminations and
very few data concern these situations.
[…] the questions raised by the ECRR are fully acceptable, … "

and 

… we do not possess, in the current state of knowledge, the
elements required to improve the existing radioprotection
system.

In the draft Recommendations [3] preceding the present one paragraphs 37, 41, 42, 44, 46, 47, 48 , 49 and 50 gave detailed discussion of the circumstances where heterogeneity of energy distribution compromises absorbed dose. Paragraph 51, immediately following, presented a bizarre and risible contradiction in asserting (or re-asserting) that 

The definition of the protection quantities is based on the mean absorbed dose …

The present consultation draft has reorganised or vanished the material from the paragraphs listed. It does not seem worth making a detailed analysis of the fate of this material since the Commission clings to its original conclusion about the assessment of radiation doses. However, we note one example (selected at random, not according to any ranking). 

Paragraph (44) of the 2004 draft read: 

Absorbed dose is defined based on the expectation value of the
stochastic quantity e, energy imparted, and therefore does not
consider the random fluctuation of the interaction events. It is defined
at any point in matter and, in principle, is a measurable quantity, i.e. it
can be determined experimentally and by computation. The definition
of absorbed dose has the scientific rigour required for a fundamental
quantity. It takes implicitly account of the radiation field as well as of
all of its interactions inside and outside the specified volume. It does
not, however, consider the atomic structure of matter and the
stochastic nature of the interactions.

The final sentence with its inherent caveat about heterogeneity of energy deposition has vanished from the analogous paragraph of the present draft. 

Section 4.4.5.1 of Annex A, Supralinear low dose responses, discusses a number of disputed areas of radiation risk, citing the CERRIE Minority Report but not the Minority Report [4]. This cannot be dismissed as an oversight, in view of the overlapping membership of CERRIE and the ICRP Task Group which wrote the Annex. We see it as an exercise in misrepresenting the status of a scientific dialogue. 

A feature of the technique is that it attacks the work of individuals in a manner that allows them to be identified by the cognoscenti but does not cite them overtly — a propaganda technique rather than science. 

The topics so treated in Section 4.4.5.1 are dismissed in terms of 

The Task Group agree[ing] with the general view expressed by the majority of CERRIE members that none of the proposals on the gross underestimation of risk that were considered have a sound scientific basis and that some are demonstrably flawed. The following points illustrate the views of the Task Group:

a) the interpretation of selected epidemiological datasets.

The Annex glosses this as 

The epidemiological evidence cited did not provide consistent evidence that risk of childhood leukaemia from nuclear test fallout was seriously underestimated by established radiation risk models.

XXXX points should be noted. 1) The principle of Popperian falsification holds that a single genuine counterexample is enough to require a hypothesis to be modified. It is not a question of having to provide consistent evidence of a serious underestimate. 2) Rather than accepting the unsupported statements of the Task Group, readers should refer to detailed discussion of the childhood leukaemia in the CERRIE Minority Report pp.30-2. 3) In fact just as much attention was given to INFANT leukaemia post-Chernobyl. The CERRIE Majority Report handled this in a farcical manner which has been analysed in a number of submissions (e.g LLRC to CoRWM) and published in Radioactive Times Vol 6 no 1 without being rebutted. A version is appended as Appendix 1. 4) CERRIE cannot be represented as a thorough examination of even a substantial proportion of the epidemiological datasets available. It is particularly noteworthy that two Russian Academicians attended the 3-day international workshop convened by CERRIE in 2003. They recommended that there were tens of thousands of papers in Russian which were relevant to the Committee's remit and they asked that the Committee should recommend translation of at least the abstracts to make them more widely accessible. The Majority Report ignored this entire topic, but the Minority Report included translations of about 100 summaries showing supralinear effects, both experimental and epidemiological, tending to falsify ICRP's risk estimates. This work has now been augmented in publication of a far larger volume of work from Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine [5]. A summary is appended as Appendix 2. b) biophysical proposals on the mode of action of certain internal radiations.

The Annex glosses this as 

The so called Second Event Theory cited in support of higher than expected cancer risk from 90Sr and particulate forms of alpha-emitters [which the majority felt] was inadequately formulated and inconsistent with a wellestablished body of biological data.

The manner in which this was treated by CERRIE was highly unsatisfactory. An external reviewer was appointed without reference to the Committee; the criteria he applied were not satisfactory and omitted some key issues. As the Minority Report reveals [6], Committee members failed to understand key aspects of the debate. Crucially, it was never contended that the Second Event Theory has to be valid in order to demonstrate that there is something badly wrong with the ICRP's modelling. The epidemiological data, allied to the caveats uttered by the ICRP itself, take precedence; the Theory stands as a possible explanation of why the epidemiological data fail to conform to simplistic assumptions based on external irradiation and average dose. This it shares with the next category: 

c) the role of induced genomic instability/bystander signalling in cancer development;

Jury out. It is said that if these mechanisms play a role in radiation induced disease they are already subsumed within existing radiation risk factors. This is hard to sustain since they have potential to cause a far larger range of disease than are currently assumed to be radiogenic — cf ECRR 2006.

d) the fitting of bimodal or polymodal dose-responses to epidemiological and experimental data.

The Annex glosses this as 

The data relating to bimodal/polymodal dose responses were generally weak, statistical analyses were inadequate and the phenomena, if real, had no obvious mechanistic basis.

Many of the post-Chernobyl reports in ECRR 2006 and the CERRIE Minority Report show bimodal/polymodal dose responses. The Commission fails to examine these data, just as CERRIE did; CERRIE did not undertake enough analysis to allow the conclusion that statistical analyses were inadequate. One does not know how much analysis ICRP has carried out since it cites no post-Chernobyl evidence. It has been pointed out that some of the data sets cited by ICRP and other conventional agencies (e.g. of nuclear industry workers) show anomalously high effects at low dose, though these points are usually dismissed as outliers. Mechanistic bases for bimodal responses have been proposed, including during CERRIE. An example is to be found on page 58 of the CERRIE Minority Report. We know of no logical rebuttal, as contrasted with the Annex's unscientific opinion mongering.

This section of the ICRP's Annex A concludes: 

Epidemiology takes precedence over theory, and the post-Chernobyl epidemiology falsifies this statement.

The Commission assumes on the basis of the LSS external irradiation studies that effects are limited to a small range of disorders. Post-Chernobyl studies showing a wide range of non-cancer diseases falsify this assumption, as does Whyte's metaanalysis of infant mortality at the time of the weapons test fallout (not cited by ICRP). ICRP itself admits that no specific judgement on low dose risk of non-cancer diseases is possible. [7]

Conclusion

The Commission's approach is fundamentally unscientific. The Commission's obsession with absorbed dose as an average and its refusal to consider any studies where dose cannot at least be inferred conflict with opinions about the limitations of absorbed dose from a range of authorities including the Commission itself.

On the basis of copious epidemiological evidence radioactive contaminants appear to be acting as toxins irrespective of dose considerations, irrespective of whether biological mechanisms are known, and irrespective of assumptions based on the LSS studies about which types of disorder are inducible by radiation. 

Appendix 1 

INFANT LEUKAEMIA: AN ACID TEST 

A sharp increase in infant leukaemia was observed in several countries after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. It was extensively discussed by CERRIE. 

Leukaemia is recognised as an early indicator of radiation damage; more specifically, infant leukaemia (i.e. diagnosed before a baby’s first birthday) signals damage acquired in the womb. Scientific journals have published papers by different research teams showing post-Chernobyl increases of between 20% and 330% in various countries as far apart as Belarus and the USA (Busby 2000; Gibson 1988; Ivanov 1998; Mangano 1997; Michaelis 1997; Petridou 1996 [8]).

This is a crucial challenge to conventional radiation risk estimates because only the Chernobyl fallout can have caused the disease in this very precisely defined subset of the population. The number of sick babies was small but they are in effect miners’ canaries, suggesting that radioactive discharges are contributing to the global epidemic of cancer. 

All the post-Chernobyl studies show between 150 and 800 times more leukaemia than expected. We argued in CERRIE that this was prima facie evidence against the external risk model. Our opponents set out to show it could be ignored. 

They argued that the statistical power of the individual studies was so low that no reliance could be placed on the overall observation. One strand of this argument depends on ignoring studies of Scotland and Wales where excess risks were high and statistically significant. 

The second strand began with using wrong data and ended in nonsense. The first draft of the CERRIE Majority Report said radiation doses in Germany were the same as in Greece. This had the effect of reducing the apparent significance of the German study and CERRIE concluded that 

… the only study to show a large discrepancy with the predictions of
external radiation risk estimates is the Greek … study.

However, we knew from UN monitoring that fallout in Greece was roughly four times higher than in Germany (Savchenko 1995). We told CERRIE’s Chairman that the stated doses were obviously wrong and the Majority Report was changed. As published, it contains the correct doses but, untenably, still concludes that only the Greek study is out of line with expectation. 

The third strand of the CERRIE case is an unsubstantiated slur on the quality of data collection in Greece. This was never discussed in Committee, but the Report’s implication is that the Greek study can therefore be ignored. 

The fourth concerns the study from Belarus, where fallout levels from Chernobyl were more than seven times higher than in Greece ‘though the increase in infant leukaemia was smaller than anywhere else in mainland Europe. The Majority Report says the Greek study (the only one supposed to be an anomaly) is 

... statistically inconsistent with … the study in Belarus where the highest
doses from Chernobyl contamination were received.

Statistically inconsistent with … is code, meaning that the observations challenge the dogma that dose and effect are always linear. We had consistently argued in CERRIE that there are good reasons why disease may not always show linear relationships with dose. Infant leukaemia is just one example. It starts in the womb, so babies carried by pregnant women in high fallout areas will suffer more damage than in low fallout areas. As a result more babies will be miscarried or stillborn or will die before leukaemia is diagnosed. A high fallout area will therefore inevitably have a lower incidence of leukaemia per unit dose than a low dose area and possibly an absolutely lower incidence as well, as in the case of Belarus. Thus we have further evidence of the invalidity of the ICRP linear risk model.

The Majority Report thus used a combination of wrong and selective data, innuendo and dependence on assumptions which CERRIE itself had been set up to test, to find that the increase in each country could have happened by chance, so the overall increase could have happened by chance. This ignores the classic scientific dictum of “instance confirmation”; that is, studies which consistently show a trend increase our confidence that the trend is real. The Chernobyl infants’ studies satisfy Professor Sir Austin Bradford Hill’s famous features of reliable epidemiological studies (Bradford Hill 1965: extracts in italics. This discussion of Bradford Hill was part of the CERRIE process — it was as near as CERRIE would get to discussing the philosophy of science, or How do you know what you know?):-

• “strength” (Is the observed increase in risk large enough, relative to unexposed people, to draw a firm inference about causation?

On this Bradford Hill cautions 

We must not be too ready to dismiss a cause-and-effect hypothesis merely on the grounds that the observed association appears to be slight.)

• “consistency” (Has it been repeatedly observed by different persons, in different places, circumstances and times?)

• “specificity” (Is there a specific association between the disease and the type of exposure?),

• “temporality” (Does the disease follow the exposure?)

• “plausibility” (Is the causation we suspect biologically plausible, bearing in mind that the association we observe may be one new to science or medicine and we must not dismiss it too light-heartedly as just too odd.)

• and “coherence” (Does the cause-and-effect interpretation of our data …. seriously conflict with the generally known facts of the natural history and biology of the disease?)

The Biological gradient criterion is not satisfied, but Bradford Hill envisages circumstances in which a linear dose response would not be seen, and I have already given good reason why infant leukaemia would not display one. As the CERRIE Minority Report’s appendix of studies from the Chernobyl affected territories of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine shows, many disease phenomena show non-linear relationships with dose.

Statistical significance, so crucial to CERRIE’s dismissal of the infant leukaemia, is of minor importance according to Bradford Hill. Nonetheless, we can amalgamate the statistical tests contained in the various studies. The Scottish, Greek and German studies combined, for example, have a p value of 0.00065, meaning that an event on this scale occupying a two year period would not happen by chance in more than two thousand lifetimes. Common sense says that if the events were truly random, at least some of the data points would have been below the dotted line. 

FOUR-WAY SPLIT NOT EXPLAINED 

On this key issue the Majority Report shows a bizarre four-way split: 

In the judgement of a large majority of Committee members, it is
likely that radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident resulted
in an increased risk of infant leukaemia in the exposed populations.
A substantial fraction of members thinks that this increase is at the
level anticipated from current risk models. However, another
substantial fraction feels that these models may have underestimated
the level of this increased risk. Of this latter group, two members
further believe that the evidence for infant leukaemia suggests that
the current risk estimates are appreciably in error. The remainder of
the Committee believes that there exists relatively little evidence that
lends support to this view. There is a consensus within the
Committee that leukaemia incidence in infants post-Chernobyl
merits further study. [CERRIE Majority Report Chapter 4 para. 26]

The reasoning behind some of the views remains a mystery even to CERRIE members, since the Committee never went through an open process of identifying members’ opinions. One faction - its size is not stated - seems to think Chernobyl had no effect on how many babies got leukaemia. Most members thought it did have an effect, but were split three ways on how big it was; some thought all the data points could be interpreted as being in line with ICRP expectations, others thought the risks might have been higher, but the report doesn’t say how much higher, nor who thought so, nor why. Two members insisted that the various scientific papers unequivocally show radiation is at least 100 times and maybe up to 1000 times more dangerous than conventional estimates. The majority felt there was relatively little evidence of this.

The Committee’s remit required differences of opinion to be explained, but the Majority Report leaves the reader only to guess whether there were any scientific grounds for this wide divergence (as opposed to the obvious political motivations). The implications are huge, for if the risk factors are so grossly in error we have an explanation not only for the Seascale leukaemia cluster but for the global epidemic of cancer which started when the nuclear industry began to spread radioactive pollution around the planet. On this key issue, as on many others, the Majority Report completely fails to produce any reliable advice for policy makers. 

The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment colluded with the cover-up. Professor Bryn Bridges, Chairman of COMARE, attended every meeting of CERRIE as an observer. Professor Eric Wright was a member of both CERRIE and COMARE and also sat on the COMARE sub-Committee shadowing CERRIE, so despite the opacity of CERRIE’s treatment of the infant leukaemia, COMARE was fully aware of its importance. However, its 9th Report, which advises ministers on CERRIE’s findings, contains not a word about it. Professor Bridges retired as Chair of COMARE at the end of 2004 but he defends his report against this criticism. In an email to LLRC he cites a paragraph which refers to the forthcoming European Childhood Leukaemia/ Lymphoma Incidence Study (ECLIS). This he says

will investigate trends in incidence rates of childhood leukaemia and
lymphoma in 20 European countries, in relation to [...] Chernobyl [...]
Such large studies are much more likely to produce firm results than
those proposed in the CERRIE report.

As ECLIS is unpublished it does not falsify studies published up to 18 years ago. CERRIE’s own study is part of the body of evidence which the Majority Report misrepresents.

Appendix 2

ECRR 2006 contains a vast amount of information on conditions that could be described as generalised ill-health. We summarise some of them here. The discussion commences: 

Since 1986, in the USSR, life expectancy has noticeably decreased.
On average, infant mortality has noticeably increased, as well as
death rates for those of advanced ages. There is no proof of a
direct connection between these parameters and the Chernobyl
catastrophe, but THERE IS PROOF OF SUCH CONNECTIONS FOR
PARTICULAR POLLUTED TERRITORIES.

AFTER 1986, IN THE RADIOACTIVELY POLLUTED AREAS OF UKRAINE,BELARUS AND RUSSIA, THERE IS AN INCREASE IN GENERAL MORTALITY BYCOMPARISON WITH NEIGHBORING AREAS. (EMPHASIS added.) 

The following list of conditions has been taken from Chapter 1 of ECRR 2006. The presence of a condition here indicates that the parameter has worsened since the accident and many of the studies report a dose dependent relationship [9]. 

• Stillbirths, miscarriages, infant mortality, general mortality, cancer mortality, sudden deaths.
• Thyroid cancer.
• The 40 % increase in all malignancies between 1990 and 2000 correlates with radioactive fallout levels. The list of cancer sites includes retinoblastoma, lung, intestines, colon, kidneys, female breast, bladder, respiratory organs, nervous system, pancreas, all cancers in children.
• Psychological diseases correlate with levels of radioactive pollution. There is a steep and continuing increase in diseases of the nervous system, e.g. congenital convulsive syndrome, brain circulation pathology, general neurological diseases, short-term memory loss, deterioration of attention function in school-children.
• In adults there is growing evidence of a syndrome marked by deteriorating memory and motor skills, occurrence of convulsions, and pulsing headaches. This is caused by the destruction of brain cells and in the region has been dubbed Chernobyl
• dementia.
• In the Chernobyl territories cataracts have become a common disease.
• Urogenital illnesses correlate with levels of radioactive pollution, and include interruption of pregnancy, gestosis, premature birth, inflammation of female genitals, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroma, menstrual irregularities, kidney infections, kidney stones, stones in urinary passages, infringements of sexual development, complications of pregnancy and births, failures of pregnancy, medical abortions, infertility, pathology of sperm, sclerocystosis, early impotence in men aged 25 - 30, structural changes of testiculus, spermatogenesis disturbances, lactation in 70- year old women, and delayed puberty as well as accelerated sexual development.
• Diseases of the cardio-vascular system and blood are one of the most common consequences of the Chernobyl radioactive pollution:- anaemia, illnesses of the blood circulation system, arterial hypertensia or hypotensia, disturbances of heart rhythm and digestive systems, macrocitosis of lymphocytes, diseases of the blood and circulatory organs in adults, early atherosclerosis and ischemic heart disease, leucopenia, infringement of the blood supply in legs, changes in abundance and activity of leukocytes.
• There is much evidence correlating fallout levels with endocrine/hormone diseases, e.g. incidence rate for Type 1 diabetes mellitus in Belarus. Similarly thyroid gland diseases (autoimmune thyroiditis, thyrotoxicosis, diabetes etc.). In 1993 more
• than 40 % of the surveyed children in the Gomel area of Belarus had an enlarged thyroid gland. Experts think up to 1.5 million people in Belarus are at risk of pathology of the thyroid gland.
• In some of the Chernobyl-polluted territories immune systems are compromised, with changes to cellular and humoral immunity, decreased maintenance Т- and В- lymphocytes, reduced resistance to infections and other diseases, raised frequency and expressiveness of tonsillitis, lymphadenopathies and lowered resistance to cancer.
• In the radioactively polluted territories the typical consequence of infringement of the immune system appears as an immuno-deficiency. An increase in frequency and intensity of both acute and chronic diseases is observed everywhere in the Chernobyl polluted territories. Sometimes the weakening of the immune system in these radioactively polluted territories is referred to as Chernobyl AIDS.
• There is accelerated ageing among the people in radioactively polluted territories in the Ukraine: their biological age exceeds their actual age by 7 - 9 years. In highly polluted territories in Belarus the mean age of men and women who died from heart attacks was 8 years younger than the average across Belarus.
• The array of diseases commonly considered exclusive to the elderly is now typical for children in all of the heavily polluted territories. The immune system activity of these children is similar to the type of immune system activity experienced in old age. The pathology of the digestive system epithelium in children from the polluted areas of Belarus also shows similarities with elderly people.
• There are many studies showing a wide range of chromosomal aberrations in the Chernobyl radioactively polluted areas. Examples:- higher frequency of chromosomal aberrations in somatic cells, lowered mitotic index in polluted districts, increased mutation rates in satellite DNA, chromosomal aberrations and satellite DNA mutations increased in children with thyroid cancer, chromosomal mutations de novo higher in polluted territories.
• In the polluted territories, compared with clean ones, there is increasing morbidity by intestinal toxicosis, gastro-enteritis, dysbacteriosis, sepses, respiratory viruses, herpes infections, trichocephalisis, pneumocistis, cryptosporidosis, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. Microsporia occur in the radioactively polluted territories of the Bryansk areas (Russia) more frequently and in a more virulent form.
• There are increases in children’s general morbidity, and increases in rare illnesses in the Chernobyl polluted territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia;
• It is clear that children in heavily radio-polluted territories really do suffer,
• to a much greater degree, from a variety of diseases.
• Practically all forms of studied nosology are more prevalent […] [there is] a
• convincing picture of sharply worsening health in children from the polluted
• territories.
• Conditions listed under this heading are:- chronic gastritis, chronic duodenitis, chronic gastro-duodenitis, bilious dyskinesia, vegeto-vascular and cardiac syndrome, astheno-neurotic syndrome, chronic tonsillitis, caries, chronic periodontitis.
• Total child morbidity in Ukraine increased by 2.9 times between 1986 and 2001, newborn morbidity in Belarus increases year-on-year at a rate of 9.5% with greatest increases in the most polluted Gomel area. The spectrum of children’s noncancer
• illnesses in the polluted territories includes lowered birthweight in those irradiated in utero in Ukraine, reduced head circumference in newborns in the polluted territories of Ukraine and Belarus, infringements of the rate of physical development in those irradiated in utero, premature birth more common in the polluted territories of Belarus, delayed rate of growth in the radioactively polluted parts of Belarus.
• Respiratory system diseases occurred everywhere in the polluted territories and tend to correlate with levels of radioactive pollution:- asphyxia was observed in half of the 345 surveyed newborns irradiated in utero in Ukraine 10. Other pathologies
• were latent bronchospasm, bronchial asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic nasopharyngeal pathology, acute respiratory diseases.
• Cardiovascular system diseases in children occurred more frequently in the polluted territories, including infringements of cardiac rhythm, infringements of vegetative regulation of cardiac activity, arterial hypertension, reduced numbers of В- and Т—lymphocytes, lymphopenia, brachycardia, lymphoid hyperplasia, haematological disease, heart conductivity, and reduced elasticity of arterial vessels even in apparently healthy children.
• Dental diseases in children are more frequent in the Chernobyl radioactively polluted territories. The frequency of some dental diseases correlates with levels of radioactive pollution.
• Congenital malformations. Increased rates of teratogenic effects all over Europe, with a dose dependent relationship found in a Bavarian study. It reports that in Europe there were also widespread increases in still birth, premature birth, low birth weight, Down's Syndrome, perinatal and neonatal deaths, and reduced birth rate. In Belarus, according to the Belarus National Genetic Monitoring Registry, there were post-Chernobyl increases in anencephaly, spina bifida, cleft lip, cleft palate, polydactyly, limb reduction, oesophageal atresia, anorectal atresia and multiple malformations. Many of the authors explicitly state that these phenomena are radiogenic. One, a researcher known for her caution, says only a third of congenital deformities of the face and jaw could be attributed to radiation. But it is a third, and those which are so attributed are said to be anomalously severe.
• The proportion of children with impaired intellectual development is consistently greater in polluted areas. Irradiated children have not kept pace with other children. Disorders of intellectual development in children irradiated in utero in the polluted territories

1. are described as

the most tragic consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe’s impact on health.

The ECRR 2006 book has an entire chapter on the topic. Its author observes that the official French agency IRSN has recognised that the Central Nervous System is radiosensitive. Children irradiated in utero whose mothers had been evacuated or who lived in a zone contaminated with between 5 and 40 Ci/km2, suffered a greater frequency of neurotic disorders, CNS pathology and delay of mental development, compared with children in the less polluted areas of Belarus. The depression of intellectual development was massively greater in the irradiated group than in the controls; pathologies include neurotic disorders, asthenic syndrome, vegetative dystonia, CNS organic pathology, delayed mental development, EEG pathology, delayed development of speech, lowered psycho-emotional development, low IQ indices, deviations in mental development, memory impairment, immaturity for school, organic pathology of the brain, decreased and delayed psychomotor development, epilepsy and epilepsy-related conditions, and schizophrenia.

Overview of health in Lugyny district

Here are some health statistics for one remote Ukrainian administrative district from the Zhytomir area – Lugyny district, which is not one of the most contaminated regions. Comparison is made between two years just before the accident (1984 – 1985) and 1995 - 1996, ten years after. All the medical information for this study was collected by the same people in the Central Hospital before and after the catastrophe, using the same equipment and the same protocols.

The proportion of detected tuberculoses which were of a very aggressive type doubled. Endocrine pathology in children increased 10-fold. Goitres were not registered before the accident but ten years later were found in 12 or 13 children per 1000. Neonatal morbidity increased between 4 and 13-fold. Total mortality increased from 10.9 per 1000 to 15.5. Life expectancy declined from 75 years to 65.

Life-expectancy remaining to a patient in Lugyny District after being diagnosed with lung or stomach cancer shrank from 38 – 62 months before the accident to 2 – 7 months afterwards. The CERRIE Minority Report (p. 126) observes that this reduction in life expectancy runs counter to the view that increased incidence of cancer since the Chernobyl accident has been an artefact caused by increased vigilance and hence better ascertainment. Better ascertainment ought to mean earlier detection and hence more effective treatment and a better prognosis. In the Lugyny overview we see a dramatically worse prognosis — after a lung or stomach cancer diagnosis the average patient now survives for only 4½ months, instead of between 3 and 5 years before Chernobyl. Only four explanations are readily apparent: 

• doctors are not looking for cancer as assiduously as before Chernobyl, so they
• detect it very late in its course;
• treatment resources are much reduced;
• cancer patients fear that their cancer was caused by radiation;
• the post-Chernobyl cancers are of a more aggressive type.

The first of these is contrary to the general pattern. The second is possible and should be investigated. The third is, to put it mildly, contentious. The fourth is consistent with many observations in the region including non-cancer diseases.

Low Level Radiation Campaign,
Richard Bramhall,bramhall@llrc.org 

Contact us

by post:

LLRC,
The Knoll,
Montpellier Park,
Llandrindod Wells,
Powys LD1 5LW
United Kingdom

---

by 'phone or fax:

01597 824 771 in United Kingdom
44 1597 824 771 from outside UK

15th September 2006 



[1] 2003 Recommendations of the ECRR The Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses and Low Dose Rates for Radiation Protection Purposes: Regulators’ Edition Edited by ChrisBusby with Rosalie Bertell, Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, Molly Scott Cato and Alexei Yablokov. Published on Behalf of the European Committee on Radiation Risk Comité Européen sur le Risque del’Irradiation, Brussels by Green Audit, 2003. ISBN: 1 897761 24 4

[2] DRPH/2005-20: Health consequences of chronic internal contamination by radionuclides. Comments on the ECRR report “The health effects of ionising radiation exposure at low doses for radiation protection purposes” and IRSN recommendations.

[3] 2005 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection

[4] Minority Report of the UK Department of Health / Department of Environment (DEFRA) Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE); Sosiumi Press Aberystwyth. ISBN 0- 9543081-1-5

[5] ECRR Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident. European Committee on Radiation Risk Documents of the ECRR 2006 No1 Edited by C.C.Busby and A.V. Yablokov Published on behalf of the European Committee on Radiation Risk Comité Européen sur le Risque de l’Irradiation, Brussels by Green Audit, 2006. ISBN: 1-897761-25-2

[6] CERRIE Minority Report Technical Annex 2

[7] Table 7.1 of Annexe A

[8] For references to this section see Radioactive Times Vol 6 No 1 on www.llrc.org

Find out more about how survivors of Chernobyl have coped with the effects of the disaster:

Interviews on Chernobyl from Chernobyl.info
“Chernobyl Journey”—For the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Belarusian journalist Vasily Semashko travels through the Chernobyl region and reports on his impressions about everyday life of the people living in the contaminated area
NPR: ‘Voices of Chernobyl’: Survivors’ Stories

More info about Chernobyl:
Chernobyl.info
wikipedia entry on “Chernobyl Disaster”
In Focus : Chernobyl (International Atomic Energy Agency)
Chernobyl Children’s Project

Read articles in New America Media category: Environment

NOW the time to take out a pen and start writing.

Energy and Climate Campaign Nuclear power is not a solution to climate change! Six myths about nuclear energy | Uranium mining | Safe Energy for Europe (FoE Europe) | Climate & Energy Campaign (FoE Europe) |Stop climate change (FoE International)

Nuclear Disarmament Campaign for the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons Mayors For Peace | Nuclear information | Nuclear Weapons: An introduction | Abolition 2000 Europe | Citizens' Weapons Inspections

Depleted Uranium Campaign against the use, production, and financing of Depleted Uranium weapons International Coalition to Ban Depleted Uranium Weapons

Sign Women Title Holders petition!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois

Must watch videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&feature=related

Chernobyl Decay and Deformed children

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101OEaksU0s&feature=related

Chernobyl 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ooj0-pWuTs

Explosion at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHfR_wybvw0

Huge explosion at Japan nuclear plant

NO MORE NUCLEAR THREATS!!!!

Send this out. Go through your email list and send it to everyone you know. You can easily find this at:

http://ladybroadoak.blogspot.com/2007/09/please-forward-as-far-as-possible.html

and please mirror this site.

Please add YOUR links to the bottom
and personalize it by making YOUR remarks known.

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>> <<:>> <<:>> 

When anyone, anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of Earthlings Anonymous to always be there. And for that, I AM Responsible.
You are part of the ONEiverse. As I love the ONE I love you as I am now able.

Grant us the courage to change what we can, the serenity to accept what we cannot change- and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Killing Must Stop Save our Mother Earth Consume less and share more Take some time for an earth walk today Save our sacred spaces save all totem as well as all other animals NO MORE POISONS

Some sloganz:
Less babble, more DO.
Who we are and what we do MATTER.
Always do your best.
Should your wish to join, you must provide us with an email address from your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

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FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE videos for activists

The space program and the military industrial complex
The video, Arsenal of Hypocrisy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TILB9DaMRt4
Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DNxhVBfvyI&feature=related
Part 2

War from Space
Voices of the global Network
World peace forum
Vancouver, Canada June 2006

Linda McQuaig comments on Canadian nuclear arms policy

WEAPONS PROLIFERATION

TheStar.com | comment | Canada edges toward deadly nuclear embrace

Canada edges toward deadly nuclear embrace

Nov 21, 2007

Anthony Salloum - Toronto Star

The growing uncertainty over the status of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is another reminder that these weapons continue to threaten the world, and suggests why Canada should be pushing for the elimination of all nuclear weapons, worldwide.

There has never been a more important time for Canada's voice to be heard in support of nuclear disarmament, but if recent votes at the United Nations last month are any indication, Canada is slowly shifting toward embracing nuclear weapons.

Traditionally, Canada has been a champion of nuclear disarmament. But last month, our position was put to the test on a key UN vote to diminish the risk of nuclear war, and Canada sat silent.

Our ambassador, on instructions from Ottawa, abstained on an important UN resolution "calling on Nuclear Weapons States to lower the operating status of nuclear weapons." This was the first time such a motion had made it to a vote.

The intent of the motion, championed by retired Canadian senator Douglas Roche and his organization, the Middle Powers Initiative, was to lengthen the time required for a nuclear launch, reducing the risk of an accidental or premature launch.

But the Harper government doesn't see it that way. In explaining Canada's silent abstention, our ambassador said that while

"reducing operational readiness remained important ... at the same time, deterrence remained an important element of international security and a fundamental part of the deterrence policy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)."

In other words, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided that NATO's nuclear deterrence policy reigns supreme.

At the urging of anti-nuclear organizations such as the Canadian Pugwash Group, last spring then-foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay reported to Parliament that he had raised concerns about NATO's reliance upon nuclear weapons at a meeting of the alliance.

Then the government shifted tactics, and a few weeks later then-defence minister Gordon O'Connor told Parliament:

"We are a member of NATO and we stand by NATO's policies. NATO, at this stage, has no policy of disarming from nuclear weapons."

Not surprisingly, the old policy supporting "the complete elimination of nuclear weapons" was changed on the foreign affairs department website to say that Canada's policy is

"consistent with our membership in NATO."

But the reason for this shift may have less to do with NATO itself than with acquiescence to the United States' interests in keeping the door open to a renewal of nuclear weapons testing.

Equally worrisome this year was Canada's reticence to put its name behind a motion to prevent nuclear weapons testing. Last year, Canada co-sponsored a resolution calling for a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

In October, Canada failed to co-sponsor the resolution that stressed

"the vital importance and urgency of signature and ratification, without delay and without conditions, to achieve the earliest entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty."

Thankfully, the resolution passed, 166 in favour to only one opposed (United States) with four abstentions (Colombia, India, Mauritius, Syria).

Ultimately, Canada voted in favour, but could Canada's decision not to co-sponsor the resolution, as it had done in the past, be related to the U.S. plan to develop new nuclear weapons?

This is a troublesome shift in Canada's policy on nuclear disarmament. One can trace its beginnings to 2005 when the Liberals, trying to curry favour in Washington, started getting cold feet on nuclear disarmament.

In her book Holding the Bully's Coat, Linda McQuaig notes positively that, by 2005, Canadian leadership over several years had led to 13 other countries breaking ranks with their NATO allies and voting with Canada in support of a resolution aimed at ending the deadlock that is paralyzing the UN's Conference on Disarmament.

Consistent with its leadership, Canada announced its intention to support another important nuclear disarmament resolution at the UN First Committee, the body responsible for disarmament. Canada's support of the creative and inspired initiative was intended to try to break the impasse on disarmament talks by proposing new, ad hoc committees that would bypass the deadlock.

But with hours to go, Canada pulled the plug on supporting the UN resolution, and as a result other countries followed suit. The reason: Paul Martin's government succumbed to intense pressure from the White House.

McQuaig notes, "tragically, the moment had been lost."

While Martin's failing may have been an aberration, Stephen Harper's Conservatives may be making a more permanent policy shift.

Parliamentarians and Canadians need to raise the alarm about this shift. It is inconceivable that, at a time of renewed threats from nuclear weapons, Canada would be shifting away from an active role in advancing nuclear disarmament.

It is up to those who feel strongly that such a move is disastrous for global security to hold all parliamentarians accountable for allowing this to take place. It's not too late to stop this shift in its tracks.

TOPOFF exercise checks for nuclear contaminants

Let's read the final report.

Radiological Response:
Assessing Environmental and Clinical Laboratory Capabilities
Staff Report to Chairman Bart Gordon and
Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller
By the Staff of the
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight
House Science and Technology

Summary

To prepare the nation for potential catastrophic events, including terrorist attacks, the
White House’s Homeland Security Council has developed fifteen planning scenarios for
use by Federal, State, and local homeland security officials in order to help them prepare
for, respond to and effectively recover from these potential incidents.1 National Planning
Scenario #11, developed under this inter-agency process, envisions the detonation of a Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) or “dirty bomb” in a major downtown urban area. That scenario was just played out in a national counterterrorism exercise called TOPOFF, mandated by Congress and conducted every two years.

This year, TOPOFF IV (T4) took place from October 14-24, 2007. In the exercise,
involving thousands of federal, state and local officials and sponsored by the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS), terrorists detonated an RDD in Guam, Portland, Oregon
and Phoenix, Arizona. The exercise tested the handling and flow of operational and timecritical
intelligence between agencies and the existing procedures and policies for
domestic incident management of a major radiological event.

One of the key assumptions in National Planning Scenario #11 is that all potentially
exposed individuals (an estimated 100,000 people, including 20,000 victims with
detectible contamination) will be tested for radiological exposure and/or contamination
and that a valid method exists for testing these clinical specimens. Yet, today validated
methods to test clinical specimens in a radiological emergency exist for only six of the 13
highest priority radioisotopes most likely to be used in a terrorist scenario. For those
isotopes for which “validated” methods do exist screening 100,000 individual clinical
specimens in the wake of a radiological attack could take more than four years to
complete due to the current shortfall in radiochemistry laboratories, personnel and
equipment. Environmental sampling could take as long as six years to complete given
the current capacity and capabilities of the U.S. radiochemistry laboratory infrastructure.

1 See National Planning Scenarios, Version 20.1 DRAFT, Created for Use in National, Federal, State, and Local Homeland Security Preparedness Activities accessed here: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/nation/nationalsecurity/earlywarning/National
PlanningScenariosApril2005.pdf
The analytical requirements for responding to a potential radiological emergency are in
stark contrast to the nation’s existing capabilities. This drastic shortfall in current
radiochemistry laboratory capacity, capability and competency is magnified by
bureaucratic inertia in addressing this critical issue and the lack of clear lines of authority
and responsibility for responding to a radiological event. A 2005 Department of
Homeland Security report on radiological response needs highlighted the potential public
health implications of these weaknesses. “Individual dose assessment is essential for
predicting the clinical severity, treatment, and survivability of exposed individuals and
identifying those with minimal or no exposure,” it said.2 But, despite the best efforts of
many of the radiological experts in the trenches at agencies throughout the federal
government the overall government effort to close these gaps have been slow, meek and
cumbersome.

Purpose

Although not a focus of the TOPOFF IV exercise, in any real world event the critical lack
of a sufficient laboratory capacity will delay appropriate public health care actions and
plans, increase public panic, degrade public trust in government officials and increase the
economic losses due to delays in assessment and cleanup.3 The subcommittee hearing on
radiological response will review what steps are underway to address this critical need,
what technologies or resources would help tackle this capacity gap and what federal
agencies responsible for addressing this need have learned from actual radiological
emergencies, such as the recent Polonium-210 poisoning in London that killed former
Russian KGB agent Vladimir Litvinenko last November and the 1987 (accidental)
radiological release in Goiania, Brazil, that killed four people and injured hundreds. It
will also examine why this crucial public health ability has received limited attention and
what more needs to be done to improve the U.S. radiochemistry laboratory infrastructure.

Background

A Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) releases radioactive material through the use of
a conventional explosive, but does not result in a nuclear explosion. Although an RDD
does not result in a mushroom cloud or the massive destruction of buildings it can release
considerable amounts of radioactive material contaminating large downtown urban areas,
for instance, resulting in major economic consequences for the city, state and nation.
Most experts agree that a radiological attack of this kind is not likely to cause massive
casualties or physical destruction. Few people are likely to die as a result. Yet, tens of

2 “Radiological and Nuclear Countermeasures Program: Technology Assessment and Roadmap for the Emergency Radiation Dose Assessment Program (ERDAP),” Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology, June 2005, p.10.
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/S_T_TechAssess_ERDAP_June05.pdf

3 “Creation of a National Radioanalytical Laboratory Response Network,” developed by the Integrated Consortium of Laboratory Networks’ (ICLN) Network Coordinating Group (NCG) Radiological Laboratory Workgroup, Presented by John Griggs, EPA and Robert Jones, CDC, August 16, 2006, p. 7.

thousands of individuals may be exposed to small traces of radioactive materials, more
than half of them may suffer from internal contamination requiring medical treatment and
all of those exposed may be at higher risk of developing cancers and may need to
undergo periodic medical monitoring for the rest of their lives.

While the human health consequences from an RDD attack are likely to be small, the
public outcry for detailed clinical health assessments confirming their lack of radiological
contamination is likely to be tremendous. The need to provide these individuals –
expected to number in the tens of thousands – with a clean bill of health will help to
reassure them psychologically and emotionally that they have not suffered harm and will
enhance their trust in the government’s ability to effectively recover from the incident.
In the event of a major radiological emergency, stationary, mobile and hand held
radiation detectors will help to identify the specific radioisotopes present and the amount
of material released. Sophisticated computer “plume models” can help ascertain the most
likely path of the radiation and possible “hot zones” that should be avoided by the public.
Handheld Geiger counters can begin to help sort those that have been “exposed” to
radiation from those that have not. Yet the only current method for determining internal
contamination is through laborious laboratory analysis, often involving a 24-hour urine
collection, days to process the results and still more time to interpret them accurately.
This will be necessary for the thousands of “exposed” individuals to determine whether
they suffer from internal contamination and to identify appropriate medical treatment.
Clinical analysis may also be demanded by those medically unaffected, but fearful of
contamination nonetheless.

The ability to conduct this analysis currently exists. But the time consuming nature of the
process to analyze samples and the limited number of laboratories available to conduct
this analysis will drastically hinder any response to a large scale radiological emergency
today. There are several research and development efforts that are attempting to create
“high-throughput” environmental and clinical radiochemistry devices that would be
capable of quickly and efficiently processing thousands of samples per day. The CDC
has been developing a Urine Radionuclide Screen that would permit them to take a “spot”
sample of urine, as opposed to a normal and tedious 24-hour urine collection, run the
analysis in hours not days and process up to two thousand samples per day screening for
13 of the highest priority radioisotopes simultaneously. But this effort and almost all
others are years away from being fully developed, vetted and fielded.

Still, National Preparedness Guidelines released last month by the Department of
Homeland Security call for the nation’s public health laboratory infrastructure to be able
to rapidly detect and accurately identify chemical, radiological and biological agents and
“produce timely and accurate data to support ongoing public health investigations and the
implementation of appropriate preventative or curative countermeasures.”4 In the event
of a radiological attack, timely, reliable and quantifiable clinical health data regarding the


4 “National Preparedness Guidelines,” Department of Homeland Security, September 2007,
p. 7. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/National_Preparedness_Guidelines.pdf

degree of individual contamination will be critical for determining appropriate medical
interventions and response, as well as for identifying the “worried well” of individuals
who have not been exposed and do not require medical attention. Public policy decisions
regarding evacuation, resettlement and/or destruction of buildings and cleanup
recommendations will also be predicated upon the results of environmental samples from
the scene. Yet, today the ability of the U.S. to meet these challenges is negligible.

The potential adverse human health effects from radiation exposure are dependent upon
the length of time a person is exposed and the amount of radiation absorbed by the body.
There are also tremendous variables in responding to radiological or nuclear scenarios,
depending on the radioisotopes used, the amount of radioactivity dispersed, and where
and how the release occurs. An Improvised Nuclear Device (IND), essentially a “homemade”
nuclear weapon, for instance, would be magnitudes more devastating than the
detonation of a RDD and the laboratory analysis needed would be amplified significantly.
But, in virtually all potential major radiological emergency scenarios the nation’s current
capacity to respond effectively is extraordinarily limited. Under the National Response
Plan the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a lead role for collecting and
assessing environmental samples, decontaminating buildings, neighborhoods and other
areas impacted by a radiological event and determining when it is safe to return to the
area.5 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is tasked with monitoring,
assessing and coordinating follow up medical monitoring on people’s health as a result of
exposure to or contamination with radiological materials in a national emergency.
Yet, at present neither agency has the capability to carry out these formidable tasks. The
CDC, for instance, currently has no capacity to analyze seven of thirteen of the most
likely radioisotopes that would be present in a radiological or nuclear incident, according
to information provided to the Subcommittee. For some of the most likely “dirty bomb”
or RDD scenarios the CDC is currently capable of processing only 65 human samples per
day. At that rate it would take more than four years to process 100,000 clinical samples
as called for in National Planning Scenario #11. A recent report prepared for the
Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate found that
responding to that scenario “dramatically demonstrates major shortfalls in environmental
and clinical laboratory radiological/nuclear capacity in the response to and mitigation of
such an event.”6

A primary reason for these shortfalls is the dwindling radiochemistry laboratory infrastructure
that has occurred over the past decade due to the drawdown in production of nuclear weapons
and the completion of many of the environmental cleanup projects throughout the nuclear
weapons complex. As a result, the need for radiation health physicists and the capacity and need
to monitor workers for radiation exposure has been greatly reduced. “In addition to capacity

5. National Response Plan, includes the Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex, December 2004, p. NUC-28. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/NRP_FullText.pdf

6 “Integrated Consortium of Laboratory Networks (ICLN) Capability Assessment,” Final Report, 30 April 2007, Prepared for Dr. S. Randolph Long of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate by the Homeland Security Institute, p. 11.


gap,” noted an August 2006 joint CDC/EPA presentation, “competency gap at many
environmental radioanalytical laboratories due to loss of expertise, lack of training programs,
inadequate funding for many state laboratories elimination of federal environmental proficiency
testing (PT) programs, etc. will further hinder response efforts.”7

Polonium-210 Poisoning

The lack of domestic radiochemistry laboratory capabilities was driven home last
November when former Russian KGB agent Vladimir Litvinenko was poisoned with the
radioisotope Polonium-210 (Po-210) in London. The CDC identified 160 U.S. citizens
who were potentially exposed to the isotope while staying at the same hotel(s) or eating
in the same restaurant(s) as Litvinenko. In its search to find a lab that could determine if
these individuals had been exposed, the CDC found a single U.S.-based laboratory
capable and qualified to conduct a clinical analysis for potential exposure to Po-210.8 To
run the clinical analysis a 24-hour urine specimen must first be collected. The results of
the analysis are then normally processed within 30-days, but the commercial laboratory
expedited the testing and the results were available in 7-days. Only 31 of the 160 people
contacted by the CDC choose to participate in the test and none of them showed
exposures to Po-210 that was deemed a health risk, although two individuals showed
slight elevations of the isotope in their urine.

Although Polonium-210 is a unique isotope and is unlikely to be used or effective in a
Radiological Dispersal Device, the incident highlighted the extraordinarily weak U.S.
radiochemistry infrastructure. It also emphasized some problems regarding inter-agency
emergency response issues. Although the Department of Energy (DOE) has the ability to
conduct analysis of Po-210 and has done so on DOE workers, it is not CLIA (Clinical
Laboratory Improvement Amendments) certified. Congress passed CLIA in 1988
establishing quality standards for all clinical laboratory testing to ensure the accuracy,
reliability and timeliness of patient test results. But this does not apply to DOE, since the
testing they conduct is for “occupational” exposure. As a result, CDC officials were
reluctant to rely on DOE’s clinical analysis of the Po-210 specimens and turned down the
agency’s offer to conduct the analysis, instead turning to a private lab. It is unclear how
these issues would be resolved in a national radiological emergency even though the
Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex identifies DOE’s role responding to a radiological
event as providing consultation and support to other Federal agencies in the areas of
radiological assessments, population monitoring and medical expertise and advice.
The response to the Polonium incident may be emblematic of other interagency issues. A
recent interagency (draft) report on responding to a radiological attack found that the
specific roles and responsibilities of federal agencies tasked with responding to a

7 “Creation of a National Radioanalytical Laboratory Response Network,” developed by the Integrated Consortium of Laboratory Networks’ (ICLN) Network Coordinating Group (NCG) Radiological Laboratory Workgroup, Presented by John Griggs, EPA and Robert Jones, CDC, August 16, 2006, p. 7.

8 GEL Laboratories, LLC based in Charleston, South Carolina.
http://gel.com/services/env_lab/polonium210.html

radiological event have not been clearly defined in the National Nuclear/Radiological
Incident Annex, upon which these agencies rely.9 “This is a weakness of the Rad Annex
as agencies are not given a specific scope or mandated to allocate specific resources and
funding to fulfill a need during preparedness or response to a radiological incident,” the
report noted. In addition, the report found that both standards for radiological emergency
response and “specific guidelines for performing both external and internal monitoring
and decontamination of potentially exposed members of the general public have not yet
been developed,” the report says. “Following a radiological disaster it is of extreme
importance to screen the public in as timely a fashion as possible. However, current
federal assets are ill-equipped to undertake such an endeavor,” the report concluded.
The U.S. ability to evaluate potential radiological contamination on the environmental
side also lacks the resources to effectively respond to a radiological emergency. White
House National Planning Scenario #11 demands that the EPA be capable of analyzing
more than 350,000 environmental samples in the 12 month period following a
radiological attack. Depending on the radioisotope used in the attack, however, it would
take two to six years to complete that task given the current available laboratory facilities
today, according to a March 2007 draft EPA report.10 “Currently, there is insufficient
capacity for radiochemical laboratories in the United States to process samples generated
as a result of an RDD event,” the report concluded. “There is some certainty that the
numbers of samples calculated in this report are really underestimates of the total
numbers that would be generated.” In addition, the numbers prepared in the report
looked at a single radiological event. However, the scenario exercised in TOPOFF IV
predicts three nearly simultaneous radiological attacks in three separate cities. According
to National Planning Scenario #11, that scenario could demand an analysis of more than
one million environmental samples in the first year and more than 300,000 human
clinical samples in the first few days of an actual radiological emergency.

TOPOFF IV

During TOPOFF IV the CDC dispatched one of its aircraft to retrieve 100 urine samples
from Portland, Oregon and brought them back to the CDC radionuclide lab in Atlanta. The
samples were then “spiked” with actual radioisotopes in order to test the lab’s ability to
properly and swiftly analyze the samples. This is the type of testing that is critical to assess
and evaluate the U.S. radiochemistry laboratory infrastructure to identify gaps and needs.
But the exercise also confirmed that the current capacity of these labs would be incapable of
responding to the actual onslaught of samples they would be requested to process. In the
TOPOFF exercise the state of Oregon wanted to send the CDC 65,000 clinical samples.

9 “Mission Analysis – Volume One – Revision 1; Emergency (Early) Phase,” Federal Radiological
Monitoring and Assessment Center, An Interagency Document for Implementing the National Response Plan Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex, June 2007 – DRAFT, p. A-1.

10 “Assessment of National Environmental Radiological Laboratory Capacity Gap,” DRAFT report prepared for Dr. John Griggs, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air and Radiation, National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory, Montgomery, Alabama, March 2007. Prepared by Environmental Management Support, Inc., 8601 Georgia Ave., Suite 500, Silver Spring, MD 20910.

Goiania, Brazil

The response capability demanded in a radiological attack in the U.S. is based on large
part on the response to a major accidental radiological release of cesium-137 in Goiania,
Brazil.11 In 1987 two individuals found and removed a shielded radioactive “source
assembly” from a teletherapy unit containing cesium-137 from an abandoned health
clinic in Goiania. The scavengers took the assembly home and attempted to dismantle it
rupturing the source which resulted in radiological contamination. They then sold the
assembly for scrap to a junkyard. Fascinated by the blue glow of the material several
individuals took small fragments of the assembly, the size of a grain of rice, home
spreading the radioactive contamination even further.

Eventually, four people died within four weeks of exposure, including a 6-year-old girl
who had rubbed the shiny blue material on her body. In the end, 28 people suffered
radiation burns, 20 people were hospitalized, 129 people had internal contamination and
were referred for medical care, 249 people suffered external contamination and 112,000
individuals were monitored for radiation exposure. Contamination was tracked over an
area equivalent to 40 city blocks. A total of 85 houses were found to have significant
contamination, some were demolished and contamination was removed from 45 different
public places, including pavements, squares, shops, bars and about 50 vehicles. The
Goiania incident resulted in the highest levels of cesium-137 clinical contamination ever
recorded. The consequences of an intentional radiological attack in a large downturn
urban arena in the U.S. are likely to be far worse.

In a positive step, the TOPOFF exercise will include a Long-Term Recovery Tabletop
Exercise in December that will examine some of the key issues impacting potential
recovery, including our current laboratory capacity. In addition, by the end of the year,
the EPA plans to issue two five-year grants to state radiochemistry laboratories worth a
total of $1.3 million that will include equipment and training to help respond to a
radiological or nuclear emergency. But considering the stated threat and known gaps in
the U.S. radiochemistry infrastructure these steps are helpful but not sufficient.
Despite the threat of a domestic radiological attack in the U.S. cited by government
officials since the 9/11 terrorist attacks attempts to close the gap in U.S. radiological
emergency response efforts have only just begun. Homeland Security Presidential
Directive/HSPD-18 was issued last January which addressed “Medical Countermeasures
against Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The Presidential Directive warned: “Threats
posed by fissile and other radiological material will persist,” and argued that “[o]ur
Nation must improve its biodosimetry capabilities.…” Just last week, another Homeland
Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-21) on “Public Health and Medical Preparedness”
was issued which addressed naturally occurring and intentional “catastrophic health”
events. The directive did not specifically address the laboratory capacity gap, but said
11 “The Radiological Accident in Goiania,” International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria,
September 1988. http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub815_web.pdf
“[i]t is the policy of the United States to plan and enable provision for the public health
and medical needs of the American people in the case of a catastrophic health event.”

Proficiency Testing

But the efforts to close the critical radiochemistry laboratory gap have – at times – taken
one step forward and two steps back. In 2005, for instance, at the same time the
Department of Homeland Security was initiating a new Integrated Consortium of
Laboratory Networks (ICLN) to help enhance the nation’s laboratory response
capabilities it was inexplicably dismantling the Quality Assessment Program (QAP), an
environmental performance evaluation program run by the Environmental Measurements
Laboratory (EML), a DHS lab based in Manhattan. The QAP had been in existence since
the 1970s and provided independent quality assurance testing to more than 150
environmental laboratories throughout the country. The program and the lab were the
subject of a hearing held by the Subcommittee last May.12 Today, the critical need for a
nearly identical program geared towards the emergency response community has been
cited as a clear need by EPA and a report by the Federal Radiological Monitoring and
Assessment Center, an interagency group run by DOE that includes DHS.13 The manager
of Oregon’s state radiation laboratory, which used to participate in the EML QAP
program, told Subcommittee staff that QAP was a critical program for his lab and that
proficiency testing program’s provide the public with confidence that the degree of
environmental contamination being reported by labs that participate are accurate.
A robust quality assurance program also helps re-assure government officials that the
data they receive in order to make critical public policy decisions regarding evacuation,
re-occupation or clean-up are based on solid scientific methods. In order to validate the
number of national labs capable of reliably conducting environmental analysis, for
instance, the draft March 2007 EPA report (cited above) on the national environmental
radiological laboratory capacity gap relied upon data generated by the EML QAP and a
similar program at the DOE’s Radiological and Environmental Services Laboratory
(RESL) in Idaho called the Mixed Analyte Performance Evaluation Program (MAPEP).
But DHS terminated the QAP program in 2005 and the Department of Energy is seeking
to make a decision regarding the privatization of the RESL laboratory in December.
Without the data provided by these programs administration officials and other
government decision makers will have no way to validate or quantify the performance
capabilities of environmental laboratories based on independent analysis. Contracting
out the MAPEP program at RESL has been described by some government officials as
short-sighted. They fear that the government will be inadvertently giving away a critical

12 See: “Transitioning the Environmental Measurements Laboratory at the Department of Homeland Security,” House Science and Technology Committee, Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, May 3, 2007 hearing. http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1806

13 “Mission Analysis – Volume One – Revision 1; Emergency (Early) Phase,” Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center – An Interagency Document for Implementing the National Response Plan Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex, June 2007 – DRAFT, p. 45.


oversight function to ensure that the radiological data government officials receive is
accurate. If a radiological emergency erupts five years from now, for instance, policy
makers may be forced to utilize the services of labs without any valid means of knowing
whether or not the results of their tests can be or should be trusted.

In order to close the radiochemistry laboratory gap and ensure that the government is
capable of effectively responding to a potential radiological emergency, the EPA is
proposing a five-year $36.5 million plan to build a National Environmental
Radioanalytical Laboratory Response Network that would include creation of a national
proficiency testing and audit program. The EPA estimates that once fully established the
network would decrease the average capacity shortfall for environmental samples for the
RDD scenario envisioned in National Planning Scenario #11 by approximately 80%.
The CDC hopes to establish a Clinical (Bioassay) Radioanalytical Laboratory Response
Network as well. A fully functional CDC network would include five state
radioanalytical (bioassay) labs to augment the federal response and cost $20.6 million
over the next five years. If implemented, this network which would include equipment,
personnel, training and its own proficiency testing program, would reduce the time to
analyze the 100,000 clinical samples envisioned in the National Planning Scenario from
two years to less than three weeks.

Unfortunately, both networks exist only on paper today despite the fact that various
federal agencies have highlighted the need to establish these sorts of laboratory networks
for years. A June 2007 interagency (draft) document concludes that major gaps in the
radiochemistry laboratory infrastructure remain.14 This report listed many recommended
proposals that it believes need to be addressed quickly, including providing clarity to the
roles and responsibilities of federal agencies charged with responding to radiological
emergencies. “These proposals need to be quickly implemented and will have an
immediate impact on our ability to protect the health and safety of the American public in
the event of a nuclear/radiological disaster,” it warned. Until that is done, this mix of
problems may be a recipe for creating the ingredients for a radiological Katrina if the
U.S. government is forced to respond to a real-world radiological emergency today.

14 “Mission Analysis – Volume One – Revision 1; Emergency (Early) Phase,” Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center, An Interagency Document for Implementing the National Response Plan Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex, June 2007 – DRAFT, p. xvi.

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