Radiation and Radioactivity: Effects of Radiation and the the REAL TRUTH

High Levels of Radiation High levels of radiation dose have killed. There is no doubt about that. However, there are myths on the subject.

Most people who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not die from the radiation; most died from the blast of the bomb and subsequent fires.

Still, despite these high-profile myths, a large amount of radiation does kill.

Here are some events that have occurred since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings:

On March 1, 1954 fallout from an American hydrogen bomb test contaminated a Japanese fishing boat. Some members of the crew became ill, and one of the men died of the consequences of radiation sickness.

Between 1958 and 1964, six criticality incidents (in which radiation is released in an uncontrolled manner) occurred in the U.S. The consequences of these accidents were 2 fatalities and 16 significant exposures to radiation. In each incident, the fatalities were within 3 feet of the incident site and the significantly exposed persons were within 30 feet of the incident site; these incidents can therefore be considered to be localized, or confined to a small area.

On September 29, 1957, in the Soviet Union, at the Mayak military nuclear plant, in the Southern Urals, (40 kilometers from Kyshtym and 100 kilometers from Sverdlovsk), a storage tank containing 300 cubic meters of liquid radioactive waste exploded. The chemical explosion blew 10 percent of the waste (7 to 8 tons) into the air. An estimated 20,000,000 curies of radioactive waste were released (a quarter to half of what 30 years later would be released in Chernobyl) and were carried up to 300 kilometers down wind. 11,000 people were contaminated and 1,500 received a high enough dose to become sick. It is not known whether there were any deaths.

On October 7, 1957, fire broke out in a British military production reactor at Windscale (now called Sellafield). A large area was contaminated -- principally with iodine. There was no plutonium contamination because of the safety filters installed in the stacks. The most significant effect was the destruction of 2 million liters of milk because of radioactive iodine-131 contamination. 25 years after the fire, a first official estimate of radiation and contamination noted that the event could have caused 13 additional cancers. Later, that figure was increased to 32, although even this number would not have been noticable compared to the very large number of cancers occuring from other causes.

On April 26, 1986, unit four of the nuclear power station near Chernobyl in the Ukraine exploded. The estimates of the radioactivity blown into the air range from 20 to 80 million curies, the most cited value being 50 million curies. 32 firefighters and operators, who received high doses immediately following the accident, died. There were also a number of children who contracted leukemia in the neighborhood of the reactor site. The health consequences in areas other than the Ukraine were minor. However, cases that might have been thought to be dangerous -- exposure to plutonium, for example -- have not been.

At the end of 1944 and during 1945, 29 employees of the Manhattan Project were exposed to plutonium. 25 seriously contaminated people were monitored medically during later years. They had about a thousand times more plutonium in their lungs than is allowed now. By 1972, nobody had contracted lung cancer.

In January 1963, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory an employee got plutonium on his skin. The plutonium entered his body through a wound. In 1966, the man developed cancer and in 1968 his left arm and part of his left shoulder were amputated. This number of incidents in the first half-century of a new technology is remarkably small. More people die and more families are disrupted each day in mining coal throughout the world -- more people die and more families are disrupted in a single day on the roads of the United States.

Nevertheless, factually, high levels of radiation can kill.

http://www.aboutnuclear.org/view.cgi?fC=Radiation_and_Radioactivity...

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Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 11:02pm: Yes, when two people contact each other in attempt to influence others and to attempt to elevate themselves above others; is known as a conspiracy of fellows. Just what 12160 was created to combat...misinformation and obfuscation.

Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 10:29pm: Just to clarify, I also can easily stand on the other side of the aisle as well, but that would not have sparked a lively debate, which was the sole purpose of this post.

Low level radiation and health

http://www.llrc.org/health/healthframes.htm

Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 10:23pm: I too appreciate a frsh perspective from someone that has a working knowledge and is able to share this with the rest of the community. That was my point, and I stand behind my statements, sir. Either "lower" yourself to give a few facts, or go away. Otherwise it is counter-productive.

Now, when taking into account each and every source along with your expertise....the end result is a pile of theories that show obfuscation at every level of science and of course, the government. Truthfully, there is no one consensus on this subject, but you did raise one very salient point. You state that there are non-cancer diseases related to radiation exposure. Could you please elaborate?

Again, Jeff, you have made my point for me in the original article, and for that I thank you.

Comment by Jeff on March 24, 2011 at 9:38pm: I think I'm qualified to address radiation exposure. I just finished writing a 300+ page book on Ionizing radiation and human exposure, a 300+ page book on the USGS dust samples at Ground Zero, NYC, and a smaller 45 pages document submitted to NIOSH for the CDC and DHS. To do so I collected not just IAEA data but the data accumulated by the Japanese National Institute of Health of the Ministry of Health and Welfare as well as further data from all of the various nuclear scientists involved in studying Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Chernobyl (Chornobyl). I collected over 10,000 pages of information across the internet and by mail. I also used Oncology, Hematology and Blood web sites for various medical data and did mt best to provide a realistic and easy to understand picture for the average person since radiation exposure is becoming more common.

Low level exposure is still being debated even though we're 60 years beyond Hiroshima/Nagasaki and almost 25 beyond Chornobyl. The debated question is “what are the effects of low doses of radiation delivered at low dose rates”? This is the kind of exposure that arises from the environment both in the form of natural radiation and man made sources, such as releases from nuclear reactors. This is an exposure range in which epidemiology is rather a limited and blunt tool. Regulatory bodies which control the exposure of the public to these sources of radiation assume that no exposure, however small, is without a finite risk. This is known as the “Linear No Threshold” or LNT, hypothesis.

There is much misunderstanding as to what this means but essentially we can say that it dictates that at low doses, <50mGy, the dose response will be linear from zero dose. What LNT does not stipulate is the slope of that line and there is no implications regarding how to interpolate from this dose range to the higher doses (>200mGy) where the epidemiological data are more secure. The International Commission on Radiological Protection, ICRP, assumes, for cancer, that this initial dose response would have half the slope of the direct linear extrapolation of the Japanese bomb survivor data. This is contested as there is no specific evidence to support it.

Some argue that there is evidence that at low doses there is in fact a threshold and some even that low dose exposures can be beneficial.

There are a few specific circumstances where there appears to be a threshold; bone cancer after internal exposure to radium-226 is an example, and in general the LNT hypothesis applies. In this area selective use of the evidence can be used to support almost any argument. Of course for very low doses the risks are also very low and thus, there being few aspects of life that are without risk, some level of risk should be regarded as acceptable. This emphasizes the importance of understanding the effects of ionizing radiation in order to confidently assess risk in the many circumstances in which unavoidable exposures might arise.

For example, we have Leukemia spikes across a 30+ year period with higher rates appearing in 1952, 1960, 1966, 1970, 1972 and 1975 and low rates occurring in the years in between from Hiroshima. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were different types of radiation exposure events. Hiroshima was a uranium-235 devise and Nagasaki a plutonium-239 device, each giving off different types of radiation signatures and thus the exposures and types of diseases seen were markedly different.

At Ground Zero NYC, another nuclear event, we have 51 cases of Thyroid cancer reported in 2005 across a cohort of 10,000 First Responders which makes the Thyroid cancer rate as of that time 500/100,000 whereas the general population rate is in actuality 3.0-15 per 100,000. Even if we use the full cohort of 40,000 First Responders we still get a rate of 125/100,000. These are unprecedented rates.

With Myeloma deaths, we have 134 deaths across a cohort again of 40,000 First Responders as of March 1st, 2011. Myeloma occurs in the general population at a rate of 3.0-15 per 100,000 but Ground Zero First Responders experienced Myeloma at a rate of 334/100,000. More interesting is that the average age of Myeloma victims is 71 with 99% over the age of 65 while all Ground Zero Myeloma victims were between 37 and 60.

By 1985 we had diagnosed 1,838 cases of Leukemia directly related to atomic bomb radiation exposure in Japan. That's across a 35-year span. We're still studying the effects of radiation exposure, as is evident.

To state that, "I know the effects of low level radiation" would put you in a class alone, a genius among the nuclear physicists of the world. That's highly unlikely. No one knows the effects of low level radiation exposure and the various medical teams volunteering to study Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chornobyl are still studying, compiling data and writing about the exposed populations to this day and that data is still highly debated.

With the Japanese atomic bombings we saw other types of cancers emerging 25 years later and it wasn't until 45 years after that that we began seeing non-cancer diseases related to radiation exposure.

My proof's, the Physics and Chemistry for the United States Geological Survey Scanning Electron Microscopy sampling data across 35 locations in Lower Manhattan are here:

http://www.box.net/shared/hf1eev4jvv

My book on radiation is in three parts, here:

http://www.box.net/shared/9ilkg3pkfs

http://www.box.net/shared/h5gvyev9q8

http://www.box.net/shared/ctdmz7la4j

A full study of the dust sampling from Ground Zero with various speculative data on the device(s) used, although my book "Ionizing Radiation" provides more accurate speculation, can be found in my book titled, "Dust" in three parts, which is here:

http://www.box.net/shared/9duecajohk

http://www.box.net/shared/td6593g25y

http://www.box.net/shared/td6593g25y

What's even less understood is very low dose at very low levels (as opposed to low dose, low level) and the consequences of very low dose exposure.

In regard to educating and becoming a part of the solution I've done that. However, trying to educate when you don't have the background to do so and then making a claim like, "just go away" is patently foolish and childish. I would expect more from people.

Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 9:14pm: Hide behind my Alias? I am Freedomrox. http://snardfarker.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=3cb9tbw9pwqhp

Now, do a little research, son. By no means will I buzz off my own blog...lol.

And, yes, Radiation Therapy and Chemo killed my Grandmother in 1977. Massive amounts of exposure, so please do not attempt the sympathy card. Gonna try the race card next?

Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 8:53pm: Probably not. I deal in facts, while you bellow that you have so much rsearch, but refuse to share it because you can't be bothered. Oh, no, Illuminated One, only you know what is best for Planet Earth and all we peons who are so ignorant should bow down to your hidden superior knowledge.

You are either mentally un-balanced seeking aggrandizement and acclaim for ascerbic vitriol. Unfortunately for you, I will not grant you your delusions. You act just as the very people I fight against daily do. Either we are in this fight to overthrow the 'Illuminated Ones', or to resist...not to become one. Again, if you act devisive, then don't go away mad....just go away, Mr. Gardasil.

Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 8:30pm: Not upset my friend. See, we are all on the same side here. I do not see any sense in delusions of granduer, or anyone's "messiah' complexes here. Either educate and become a part of the solution, or don't go away mad...just go away.

Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 8:01pm: Yes, O Mighty, Lead us...Tell we poor humans without your keen sense what is best for us, plz! NOT! I have all the files ever created about the Beatles, but never met even one of them, so I am not qualified to write their autbiography. Get a grip.

Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 6:36pm: Leave it to the Thunder God to put it all in perspective. LOL. Vincent, I take no umbrage with you at all sir. As Thor has amply shown that between 1945-1998, 2053 nuclear explosions have been intentionally and unintentionally set off on planet Earth. I am in no way saying that humanity has not been affected by all of these releases of radiation, but my point is that it has already been done.

I am of the mind, that if people had taken a more active role in opposing these tests...life would be much different on this planet. But....the damage has been done and any affected populations have either adapted, absorbed, or otherwise dealt with the affects already. Fukushima does not change that equation in any way.

Now, with that said; if they do not bury that damn plant soon and entomb the rods as well as the reactors, then there will be consequences. It will not be the end of all life, but it will affect just as many as it did in 1986 and Chernobyl, which in my mind is more than can be absorbed when in conjunction with the intentional poisoning of the Gulf, Mid-Atlantic, and now the Bering Sea, as well as the intentional bespoiling of ground water and aquafurs by fracking oil shale across the whole US.

In conclusion, there are so many other factors to be tied into the overall looming catastrophy than focusing on one small event without taking all other factors into consideration. Otherwise, it is just an exercise in futility, full of sound and fury, yet signifying nothing. In this context, Fukushima is just another Weapon of Mass Distraction!

Comment by Freedomrox on March 24, 2011 at 1:46am

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I know the effects of low level radiation, sir. What you do not understand is that PANIC is not warranted at this time. Many things can be done at YOUR home to dissipate any low level effects.

Do you have any idea how many ATOMIC BOMBS were set off above ground and in the atmosphere from 1951 to 1988? I do. We are not extinct yet. This article is a simple expose' to dull a little of the RAMPED UP FEAR FACTOR that so many seem to love. God, I hate what Alex Jones and Jonestown has done to normally discerning people!

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