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Notes taken from Deadly Deceit: Low Level Radiation- High Level Cover-up by Jay M. Gould and Benjamin A. Goldman published by Four Walls Eight Windows 1990 The Chernobyl nuclear reactor catastrophic accident of April 26, 1986, offers an opportunity to consider whether the price for the continued operation of nuclear reactors is too great a price for society to pay. Studying the Chernobyl accident reveals that low-level radiation from nuclear reactors may do irreversible harm to future generations. Nuclear physicists recognized as early as 1943 that fission products could enter the food chain and when ingested accelerate the deaths of millions worldwide. The accident involved a normal population, not one that was subjected to a traumatic event such as Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It involved exposure to extremely low doses of radiation. It involved accurately measured amounts of radiation in the diet. It involved internal radiation exposure as a result of inhaled or ingested radioactive fission products released from reactors. Statistics show the establishment of a dose-response relationship at extremely low-doses encountered in the normal environment. The data show that protracted internal exposure at low doses lead to an increased marginal effect as compared to brief but high exposures. They also show that there is no safe threshold for small exposures. The supra-linear curve rises more rapidly at low doses than high doses. The radiation from the Chernobyl disaster reached the United States in May 1986. There followed an extraordinary mortality rate of over 40,000 excess deaths in the summer months, particularly affecting the very young and very old. Statistically significant increases were reported in infant deaths, a wide range of immune deficiency disorders including AIDS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, thyroid diseases, cancer epidemics and mortality from pneumonia and a conspicuous rise in Down's Syndrome among children conceived during May 1986. Noted scientists Rachel Carson, Linus Pauling, Andrei Sakharov, John Gofman, Arthur Templin, Alice Stewart, Thomas Manusco, Karl Morgan, Carl Johnson and Ernest Sternglass all saw the lethal nature of low-level radiation. Since Nobel Prize winner Herman Muller began experimenting with fruit flies in the 1920's, radiation has been known to accelerate the mutation of organisms. Dr. Abram Petkau, a Canadian radiation biologist reported in 1972 on the dangerous effects of free radicals created by exposure to low-level radiation. Free radicles are charged particles that can penetrate and destroy the blood cells of the immune system, especially at low-levels of radiation. These scientists warned that continued reliance on nuclear technologies may pose an on-going threat to life on earth. Radiation releases do not stay at their source. They enter the atmosphere and come down as precipitation as the clouds travel across the planet. May 9, 1986, nine days after the Chernobyl accident monitoring stations in the State of Washington, 9,000 miles from Ukraine, found radioactive iodine-131 in the rainfall. By May 16th, low-level radiation was recorded by about 50 Environmental Protection Agency milk-monitoring stations that received the Chernobyl rain. Radioactive isotopes cesium-137, strontium-89, strontium-90, and barium-140 were also identified. The ingestion of fission products, including radioactive iodine damages fetal thyroids. Radioactive strontium concentrates in the bone marrow damaging the immune system and can cause death. The National Center for Health Statistics estimate the number of deaths in the four summer months of 1986 at 674,000- a 2.5 % increase over 1985. This is a statistically significant number. Researchers at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory in California, where precipitation from the Chernobyl cloud produced a heavy rainfall on May 6, reported a massive and unprecedented reproductive failure of most species of landbirds at the Palomarin Field Station during the summer of 1986. The number of young birds captured in their standardized mist-netting program was 37.7 percent of the previous ten-year mean. In Eureka, California Dr. Ralph saw a 60 percent decrease in newly-hatched sparrows compared to the previous four years. Vermont Yankee like most nuclear reactors is placed in a rural, agricultural area. Dairy and agricultural farms are in close proximity. Dairy products and vegetables are shipped throughout New England. Noone can know for certainty where their milk, vegetables or meat products come from and what radioactive elements they have been exposed to. The adverse effect of low-level radiation from ingested radionuclides has been the subject of dozens of laboratory studies referred to throughout this book. Unfortunately much of this information has been withheld from the public and is largely ignored in the discussion about nuclear power. It is our responsibility to know and share this information. Citizens Awareness Network www.nukebusters.org 413-339-5781
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