| Bullets, bombs and nuclear power plants |
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| by Janette D. Sherman, M.D. | |
| Tuesday, 10 April 2007 | |
Imagine the chaotic scene of men shooting into the air. Rat-a-tat-a-tat, over and over, they aim at nothing in particular. Whether in celebration or anger, we do not know. What we do know is that Newton was correct about gravity: Bullets aimed into the air fall to earth. But where and what do they hit? The damage is random: a car, a pregnant woman, a child, a man’s lung, the family dog. Is the damage fatal, permanent, repairable or just an “inconvenience”? Is the damage greater where the celebrants shoot their guns or is the resultant harm farther away? If it is farther away, how far?  NO NUKES! This simple array of a single windmill and three solar panels generates enough electricity to power a very large house and greenhouse operation – in a cold climate. Imagine declaring your independence from PG&E – no more bills and no need for power plants spewing deadly pollution, either from nuclear or fossil fuel. Concern about fossil fuels as a cause of global warming has led some people to push once again for construction of new nuclear power plants. But with the easy availability of solar and wind power and the certainty that nuclear power kills people, we must revive the rallying cry, “No nukes!” The San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Diego, wedged between I-5 and the ocean, is a disaster waiting to happen. The radiation damage to Mr. Litvinenko was relatively brief before it killed him. Death from radiation exposure is rarely as swift. If the result of exposure is cancer, sickness and debility can extend for years. In the interim, treatment can involve surgery, pharmaceutical chemicals and. ironically, more radiation. Still there is no guarantee of cure, and the cancer plus the “treatment” can severely disable or kill the person. Many deaths of those living downwind from the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster that occurred in April 1986 are unrecorded, but a conservative estimate is that in just Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine, the releases resulted in an estimated 200,000 additional deaths between 1990 and 2004. Few realize that all who live in the northern hemisphere were exposed to the Chernobyl fallout as the radioisotopes circled the globe. Unrecorded, too, are the illnesses and deaths of men, women and children who live in the vicinity of “normally” functioning nuclear power plants situated in our neighborhoods. Epidemiological studies in the U.S. and abroad clearly point to increased numbers of cancers occurring in the vicinity of nuclear emissions. While epidemiological studies are useful, it is difficult to prove contamination until specific tests are done to determine if nuclear isotopes are in a person’s body. The U.S. Atomic Energy Committee and its successor, the Department of Energy, denied any harm from bomb fallout, but in 1997 the National Cancer Institute released a report that showed doses of Iodine-131 (I-131) more than 100 times greater than earlier government estimates. The report had been completed in 1992, but five years elapsed before the Secretary of Energy released it. The massive 100,000-page report estimates exposure to I-131 from the Nevada bomb tests of the 1950s and 1960s. The data are broken down according to place of residence, birth date, gender and milk consumption. The DOE admitted that sufficient radioactive iodine had been released from nuclear tests to account for between 11,000 and 212,000 Americans developing thyroid cancer. While an admission that significant amounts of radioactive iodine were released, the report did not account for other radioisotope emissions that are part of bomb testing and routinely released from nuclear power plants. These include Cesium-137 (CS-137) with a half-life of 30 years, which is distributed in all soft tissue, including the breast and pancreas, Tritium (H-3) and Carbon-14 (C-14) with half-lives of 12 years and 5,175 years. Yes, years! These distribute themselves throughout the bodies of all living things, plants and animals alike. If there is a problem from “normally” functioning nuclear power plants, consider what could happen if one of them is hit by a bomb or airplane, either by accident or intentionally. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled 5-0 against a petition from the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los Angeles nonprofit group that requested nuclear plants be protected by shields made of steel I-beams and cabling, as well as steps to prevent leaks in case of an air attack (Washington Post 1/3/07, p. A-4). Many isotopes are difficult to measure as they do not last long in the environment or in the body, but one exception is Strontium-90. Sr90 never existed anywhere on earth before the first atomic bomb was tested at the Los Alamos test site in 1945. Following were the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs and then extensive nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific and at the Nevada test site. Sr90 is carried with the winds and precipitates out with rain and snow onto the land and water, entering the food chain. Sr90 belongs to the same chemical family as calcium, so, like calcium, it is taken up by dairy cows and excreted in their milk. When a pregnant woman drinks milk, the Sr90 is carried into her body and then to her unborn child, where it concentrates in the developing teeth and bones. When the child sheds those teeth at about age six, the teeth can be tested for Sr90. Indeed such testing was done in the late 1950s in an extraordinary undertaking in St. Louis, Mo. Some 85,000 baby teeth were collected and the Sr90 levels measured. It was determined that the Sr90 levels had increased with each year as more and more bomb fallout accumulated in the environment. Fortunately, this revelation led to the signing of the aboveground test ban by President Kennedy and USSR’s Gorbachev. Unfortunately, the accumulation of Sr90 did not stop as the United States moved to build nuclear power plants. In 2001, Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Group (RPHP) received a call, telling him that collected, but untested, baby teeth had been discovered in storage at Washington University in St. Louis. They were ultimately transferred to RPHP, and preliminary publicity about the teeth resulted in several hundred contacts from people who had donated teeth as children. Many reported cancers in themselves and in their children. The most common type was thyroid cancer, which is strongly linked to bomb test fallout. But with no funding available to test the remaining St. Louis teeth, an opportunity to document the accumulation of radioactive fallout in American children was lost. With the nearly four decades that have passed since the study ended, and with the ability to obtain health information and death records via internet contacts with tooth donors, it is the perfect time to complete the study. A second opportunity is to monitor the teeth of children born in the vicinity of all nuclear power plants. This was done by the RPHP until recently when it became impossible to obtain continued funding, even though the test of a single tooth costs less than $100. Results from the RPHP scientists’ studies linking cancer and proximity to nuclear power plants have been published in peer-reviewed journals. They can be found at www.radiation.org. Is it too costly to test children’s teeth for Sr90 fallout? Not when one considers that the American public evidently finds it reasonable for advertisers to spend up to $2.5 million for a 30-second spot on the Super Bowl program. The answer to documenting the link between nuclear radiation and cancer is at hand. Can it be that government officials and the nuclear industry are afraid of the results? As for the public, how much are we willing to spend to determine the risks to our children and grandchildren as a result of radiation from bomb testing and nuclear power plants? Are we willing to decrease our use of energy and support non-nuclear and non-oil dependent energy sources? Solar and wind power technology is already available with lowered costs. How much are we willing to spend to spare our families the tragedy of cancer? Are we willing to stop bomb testing and nuclear power plants? Will we do it, given the economic and political power of what President Eisenhower termed the “military-industrial complex”? At this juncture in our nuclear age, we must realize that the isotopes from both bombs and nuclear power plants, like the bullets shot into the air, are pulled to earth by gravity. They may be slower and quieter as they enter our bodies, but they are just as deadly. Janette D. Sherman, M.D., is a physician and toxicologist, specializing in chemicals and nuclear radiation that cause cancer and birth defects. She is the author of “Chemical Exposure” and “Life’s Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer.” She has worked in radiation and biologic research at the University of California nuclear facility and at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory at Hunters Point in San Francisco. From 1976-1982, she served on the advisory board for the EPA Toxic Substances Control Act. Throughout her career, she has served as a medical-legal expert witness for thousands of individuals harmed by exposure to toxic agents. Dr. Sherman’s primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education and patient awareness. She can be reached at www.janettesherman.com
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