Multigenerational effects of exposure to radiation

Denuclearize or lose our species: Multigenerational effects of exposure to radiation

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/10/23/denuclearize-or-lose-our-species-multigenerational-effects-of-exposure-to-radiation/

by Christopher Busby and Majia Nadesen

“PRESS RELEASE: Atomic Test Veteran Children and Grandchildren affected by fathers’ exposures to internal radiation from Uranium and Plutonium at the test sites”–Christopher Busby

To hear it from Jim Stone, Fukushima poses no serious risk to civilization or to the survival of the human species. The idea is merely a profit-making myth.
“Fukushima was bad, but it is Japan’s problem. All the stories about the Pacific dying are bold faced lies spewed for ratings to generate ad revenue. You still cannot go into many of the nuclear testing zones in Russia because it is too radioactive.
“America was more careful, and does not have similar problems. The 30 KM radius around Fukushima (which extends out 100 km to the North) is Japan’s equivalent of Russia’s old testing zone, which is a big disaster for Japan. But as far as the rest of the world? It is meaningless and will stay that way no matter what happens at Fuku.”
The problem is that real experts on radiation and health, such as Christopher Busby, internationally acclaimed expert on precisely this subject, and Majia Nadesen, who has just published a book about Fukushima, have a very different story for us–one with ominous implications for the future.
Interview with Majia Nadesen on “The Real Deal” (15 October 2014):
New research has disclosed that exposure to radiation turns out to have cross-generational DNA effects that current regulations and policies do not reflect, which was not the result that was expected; and that, if we continue to rely upon nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, the survival of the species is in jeopardy, after all. Read and weep.

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New Study questions Japanese data underpinning current radiation risk model

by Christopher Busby

The results of a study of the health of children and grandchildren of British servicemen stationed at the atomic weapons test sites at Maralinga in Australia and Christmas Island in the Pacific will be published in the open peer-reviewed journal Epidemiology this week. Christopher Busby and Mireille Escande de Messieres conducted a case-control and cohort study of 605 children and 749 grandchildren of members of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA) and compared congenital defects and cancer incidence with 311 control children and 498 control grandchildren of age-matched individuals. Results showed that, compared with controls:

1. There was three times the number (105) of miscarriages in wives of veterans.
2. There was 9.7 times adverse congenital conditions (57) in veteran children.
3. There was 8.4 times adverse congenital conditions (46) veteran grandchildren.
4. These rates were confirmed also by comparison with national EUROCAT data.
5. The existence of the same highly statistically significant rate in both generations points to genomic instability as likely cause, a trans-generational genomic switch discovered after Chernobyl and shown in animal studies to affect many generations.
6. The cause is argued to be Uranium, the main atom bomb constituent, which rained out at the test sites as sub micron particles in “black rain”. Recent research shows Uranium causes genomic effects at very low radiation doses because it binds to DNA and amplifies the radiation damage both through proximity and in other ways.
7. Black rain of Uranium was also a feature of the Hiroshima Atomic bomb and Uranium has been measured several kilometers from the Hiroshima epicenter. The authors re-analyse adverse birth outcome rates in the official Hiroshima database and show that rates in the control groups defined in the study as “zero dose” have twice the rate than all Japan for the post A-bomb period.
8. The Ministry of Defence, in arguing recent court cases rely upon the fact that dosimeters at the test sites show low doses. However these devices do not register Uranium or other alpha emitters. Uranium was not looked for at the sites.
9. The study findings are supported by similar genomic effects found in Iraq populations exposed to Depleted Uranium particles (e.g. Fallujah sex-ratio, cancer and birth defects), USA and UK Gulf veterans, Uranium miners and workers and Navajo and other local populations living near Uranium waste tailings. All of these groups show chromosome defects consistent with their exposures to Uranium.

Speaking from Riga, Latvia, Dr Busby remarks: This multi-generational effect is an unexpected finding. There are implications for the current radiation risk models which legally underpin all nuclear power development and also the use of radioactive weapons. Although weakly radioactive, when ingested and inhaled Uranium has properties which enable it to directly damage DNA in ways that are not incorporated into current legislation. Uranium was not measured at the test sites and is not routinely measured near nuclear sites or in the environments either.

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Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization?

by Majia Nadesen

We pose the question starkly: Humanity must choose between denuclearization or dispossession.
We document that nuclear power and weapons are connected and their complex fundamentally dispossesses citizens of liberal guarantees, including rights to property, free speech, and the pursuit of happiness.
We explore crisis management of the Fukushima disaster to demonstrate dispossession of rights of property, free speech, and the pursuit of happiness, through examples that include lost livelihoods and Fukushima children’s rising rates of thyroid cancer, among other topics: See Oiwa, Yuri (2014, August 24), Thyroid cancer diagnosed in 104 young people in Fukushima. The Asahi Shimbun,
We examine the history of radiation health effects to demonstrate historical conflicts between nuclear industry safety-guidelines and scientific studies of the biological effects of “internal emitters,” which are ingested and/or inhaled radionuclides.
We describe distortions in nuclear industry safety models deriving from invalid modeling techniques.
We demonstrate that nuclear power is market distorting because it externalizes its true costs and relies extensively on generous government subsidies.
We show that governments too often prioritize nuclear interests over democratic principles and practices: For example, we investigate media and popular resistance within Japan to the newly passed “state secrets” law, which is seen by many as directly threatening free speech and public health: See Toshihiro Okuyama and Hiroo Sunaoshi (2013, December 17) State secrets law raises concern about safety of nuclear power plants. The Asahi Shimbun,
We disclose strong public support in Japan and elsewhere for decentralized alternative energy production and we describe oligarchic energy industries’ efforts to maintain centralized control when challenged by the decentralizing production tendencies of alternative energy, such as solar: See Ex-Japanese PM on How Fukushima Meltdown was Worse than Chernobyl and Why He Now Opposes Nuclear Power. (2014, March 11). Democracy Now.
We are concerned that in the absence of public activism the choices made by governments and industry will prioritize short term profits and vested interests. “Dispossession” is the cumulative effect of these decision criteria in action.
Nuclear remains seductive in our Hobbesian world of vying nation-states, despite myriad acknowledged hazards, including aging and decaying infrastructures, recurrent nuclear “accidents,” unceasing contamination, and terrorism. Nuclear seduces even when its effluents threaten the ecosystem and, perhaps, even the human genome.

Fukushima Steaming? August 13 2014

Vested nuclear interests reign, but democracy is not yet vanquished. We see public demand for systematic denuclearization as critical for long-term human sustainability. The time for political action wanes as scientists predict nuclear power plant accidents will occur with regular frequency: See Severe nuclear reactor accidents likely every 10 to 20 years, European study suggests (2012, May 22). Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Mikhail Gorbachev noted in his Memoirs that prior to the Chernobyl disaster there had been 151 significant radiation leaks at nuclear power plants around the world.[i] He warned that one or two more accidents would produce contamination far worse than after a nuclear war.[ii] With Fukushima we are living in a highly contaminated age as research subjects with no options to discontinue the experiment.
Change in energy policy is necessary for human sustainability. If we do not denuclearize, we are going to be dispossessed.
WHO WE ARE
We are a diverse group of scholars living on four continents. What unites us is our vision for a sustainable future based in decentralized, sustainable energy.
Contributing editors to Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization? are Antony Boys, Andrew McKillop, Majia Nadesan and Richard Wilcox. Harvey Wasserman, Christopher Busby, Paul Langley, Adam Broinowski, Christian Lystbaek, and The Fukushima Five contribute chapters. Cover artwork by William Banzai7.
Proceeds from the book: Proceeds from the book will be donated to the Fukushima Collective Evacuation Trial Team, a team of lawyers who are fighting in the courts in northern Japan to have children in Koriyama City, quite badly contaminated with radiation after the March 11, 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, evacuated to safe areas at government expense.

References
[i]  M. Gorbachev (1995) Memoirs. (London: Doubleday), p. 191.
[ii]  C. Neef (24 March 2011) ‘This Reactor Model Is No Good’ Documents Show Politburo Skepticism of Chernobyl’, Spiegel.

Christopher Busby is an internationally acclaimed British scientist, a member of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, known especially for his studies of the negative health effects of very low-dose ionising radiation.

Majia Nadesen is a professor of communication in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and an expert on the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. Her previous books include Fukushima and the Privatization of Risk.