Source: foodandwaterwatch.org
Health risks of the releases of radioactivity from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors
Health risks of the releases of radioactivity from the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear reactors: Are they a concern for residents of the United States?
Prepared by Seth Tuler
going to have any radiological material that, by the time it traveled those large distances,
could present any risk to the American public.”
What is one to think? Is there really no risk whatsoever to the American public, as the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman claims? Actually, things are more complicated
than what he says, even though he is mostly right (at the moment – things could get worse,
or they might not).
Read More: PSR.org
Threat posed by radioactive milk tough to measure | California Watch
Analyses indicate radiation from Japan’s nuclear “fallout” has found its way into the California milk supply.
Government officials were quick to say the levels were low and posed no risk.
“Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a miniscule amount compared to what people experience every day,” wrote Patricia Hansen, a Food and Drug Administration scientist, in response to the milk findings.
“For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round-trip cross-country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials,” she wrote.
There was an almost immediate backlash to her statement.
A coalition of scientists and environmentalists insisted ingesting radiation is not the same as background exposures from airplane flights.
“The FDA spokesperson should have informed the public that radioiodine provides a unique form of exposure in that it concentrates rapidly in dairy products and in the human thyroid,” wrote Robert Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser to President Clinton’s U.S. Secretary of Energy.
“The dose received, based on official measurements, may be quite small, and pose an equally small risk," Alvarez said in a statement. "However, making a conclusion on the basis of one measurement is fragmentary at best and unscientific at worst. As the accident in Fukushima continues to unfold, the public should be provided with all measurements made of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima reactors to allow for independent analyses.”
According to a fact sheet I found from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the half-life of the chemical doesn't matter when chronic exposure occurs, “because new releases occur continuously.”
Therefore, a contaminated milk supply represents a continuous and chronic exposure.
So, what does that mean? Do the isotopes biomagnify – or concentrate – as they move up the food chain, as dioxins and some other toxins do? And will fatty milk, or cream, have more radioactive nucleotides than skim milk?
Getting concrete answers for these questions was difficult.
Here's what I found: Cows, sheep and other grazing animals ingest radiation when radioactive particles drift and drop onto grass and feed. If rainwater is contaminated, that can increase the concentration of radioactive particles an animal is exposed to.
Once the animal has ingested the contaminated particles, some is released into its milk. And according to the Agency for Toxic Substances, different animals have different concentration levels of radioactive particles. For instance, goat and sheep’s milk have higher levels of iodine 131 than cow’s milk. Whether that is due to their size, or the fat concentrations in the milk, I was not able to determine.
Paul Carroll, a nuclear expert with Ploughshares Fund, a San-Francisco-based international nuclear security foundation, said the information on long-term chronic exposure and food chain effects is murky.
Scientists learned a lot from the bombs that dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, and from Chernobyl. But a lot of the questions we ask now about radiation exposure we didn't know to ask back then. And long-term epidemiological studies on people can't always give definitive answers to questions such as, "How much radiation causes cancer?" or "How long do you have to be exposed?"
The bottom line, he said, is that “any additional exposure to radiation will increase your risk of developing cancer.”
Therefore, a contaminated milk supply represents a continuous and chronic exposure.
So, what does that mean? Do the isotopes biomagnify – or concentrate – as they move up the food chain, as dioxins and some other toxins do? And will fatty milk, or cream, have more radioactive nucleotides than skim milk?
Getting concrete answers for these questions was difficult.
Here's what I found: Cows, sheep and other grazing animals ingest radiation when radioactive particles drift and drop onto grass and feed. If rainwater is contaminated, that can increase the concentration of radioactive particles an animal is exposed to.
Once the animal has ingested the contaminated particles, some is released into its milk. And according to the Agency for Toxic Substances, different animals have different concentration levels of radioactive particles. For instance, goat and sheep’s milk have higher levels of iodine 131 than cow’s milk. Whether that is due to their size, or the fat concentrations in the milk, I was not able to determine.
Paul Carroll, a nuclear expert with Ploughshares Fund, a San-Francisco-based international nuclear security foundation, said the information on long-term chronic exposure and food chain effects is murky.
Scientists learned a lot from the bombs that dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, and from Chernobyl. But a lot of the questions we ask now about radiation exposure we didn't know to ask back then. And long-term epidemiological studies on people can't always give definitive answers to questions such as, "How much radiation causes cancer?" or "How long do you have to be exposed?"
The bottom line, he said, is that “any additional exposure to radiation will increase your risk of developing cancer.”
Source: CaliforniaWatch.org
Tepco offers average of $12 per person to fallout stricken towns
Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to pay provisional compensation by the end of the month to residents and farmers living around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant as their livelihoods have been heavily impacted by the emergency, Tepco officials said Tuesday.
The utility began paying relief money last Thursday in ¥20 million installments to nine municipalities where residents have been ordered out because of the nuclear crisis, company officials said. All nine towns and villages are located within the 20-km evacuation zone.
However, the municipal government of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, north of the Tepco plant, has refused to take the money, saying damages payments to residents should be made first, according to Kosei Negishi, a Namie official.
Negishi said the town has a population of about 26,000, so each resident would receive only ¥2,000 ($12 USD) if the ¥20 million from Tepco was distributed equally.
Russia, NASA to hold talks on nuclear-powered spacecraft
Muscovites have the balls but not the money
In previous reports, Perminov has been quoted as saying that the "engine" design now being worked on is of the type known as "megawatt-class nuclear space power systems" (MCNSPS). This refers specifically to use of a nuclear reactor to generate electricity, but other previous remarks regarding a propulsion capability suggest that the Russian engine could also use reactor heat to eject reaction mass, providing thrust as well as electrical power. Reactors normally generate a large surplus of heat energy over and above their electrical output, so the scope is there to do both propulsion and power generation at once: nuclear rockets using reactors to heat reaction mass were tested decades ago. Because they can use reaction mass selected to be good reaction mass – rather than being forced to accept what chemical fuels can produce – they can get much more shove out of a given weight of fuel.
Source: theregister.co.uk
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