Barry Commoner, scientist and influential environmentalist, dies at 95

Barry Commoner, a visionary scientist and author who helped launch the environmental movement in the United States and whose ideas influenced public thinking about nuclear testing, energy consumption and recycling, died Sept. 30 at a hospital in New York. He was 95 and lived in Brooklyn...

A biologist by training, Dr. Commoner showed that traces of radioactive materials could be found in the teeth of thousands of children. With Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, he circulated a petition in the 1950s calling for an end of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. More than 11,000 scientists signed the petition.

He was credited with creating the momentum that led to the passage of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1963.

Along with “Silent Spring” author Rachel Carson, Sierra Club leader David Brower and scientist-author Aldo Leopold, Dr. Commoner is considered one of the primary founders of the modern environmental movement. The Washington Post

Radio interview: Fukushima contamination and health effects

Cindy Folkers of Beyond Nuclear and Kimberly Roberson of Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN), a coalition of groups concerned about food contamination after the Fukushima fallout hit the U.S. last year, were interviewed on Political and Personal, on WDGR Central Vermont, Monday, October 1.  This interview follows the publishing of Roberson’s book Silence Deafening, Fukushima Fallout…A Mother’s Response earlier this year. Folkers and Roberson discuss the on-going accident in Japan, the inadequacy of health regulations and monitoring in both Japan and the U.S., and what concerned people can do to protect their families and prevent further contamination.

Great Lakes events in resistance to uranium fuel chain, atomic reactor & radioactive waste risks

The Great Lakes comprise 20% of the world's surface fresh water, providing drinking water to 40 million people in the U.S., Canada, and a large number of Native American First NationsFrom the "Nuclear Labyrinth" conference in Huron, OH Oct. 4-6, to an Oct. 11 "Entergy Nuclear Watch" presentation in Kalamazoo, Michigan (bridging resistance from Vermont Yankee to Palisades), to"A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" summit in Chicago Dec. 1-3, strong resistance to the uranium fuel chain in the Great Lakes is building! Beyond Nuclear is proud and honored to be a co-sponsor and active participant in all three events.

NRC's Nuke Waste Confidence EIS will delay reactor licenses for at least two years!

Cover of Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet "A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High"The five Commissioners who direct the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have just ordered NRC Staff to carry out an expedited, two-year long Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process to revise the agency's Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision (NWCD) and Rule. Critics have charged the NWCD is a confidence game, which for decades has prevented environmental opponents of new reactor construction/operation licenses, as well as old reactor license extensions, from raising high-level radioactive waste generation/storage concerns during NRC licensing proceedings, or even in the federal courts. This EIS process and NWCD revision will thus delay any final NRC approval for new reactor construction/operation licenses, or old reactor license extensions, for at least two years.

The Court's ruling mandated that NRC give a "hard look" at the health, safety, security, and environmental risks and impacts of extended (not years or decades, but centuries or even permanent) storage of high-level radioactive waste at reactors sites, in pools and/or dry casks.

The "Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" conference in Chicago Dec. 1-3 will serve as a launch pad for generating public comments to NRC on this EIS, as well as to push back against the nuclear establishment's backlash proposals to begin "Mobile Chernobyl" irradiated nuclear fuel shipments by road, rail, and waterway to "consolidated interim storage." See Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet on high-level radioactive waste (cover reproduced at left). More.

Deception in Sieverts: how a measure of radiation damage can actually be used to hide damage

According to a research letter sent this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), levels of internal cesium contamination after Fukushima are “low…much lower than those reported in studies years after the Chernobyl incident”.  However, longer-term, internal exposure to even low levels of cesium can cause a range of diseases and pre-disease conditions, including cancer. The contamination levels found in the people examined in this research are within this range of concern.

For this letter to the editor (Tsubokura, et al.) researchers used actual counts of gamma radiation coming from people’s bodies. Roughly, this count per second of gamma (given in the unit Becquerels or Bq) is then divided by the person’s weight, given in kilograms (kg).  This gives a whole body count that is used to derive the amount of radioactive cesium inside the person.  While not entirely a direct measurement, fewer assumptions and estimates are associated with Bq/kg than with the more highly favored Sievert (Sv).

The Sievert is an estimate of radiation damage based on a number of assumptions (not all of which are correct or applicable to any specific individual) and can end up hiding health damage depending on how it is used.  In this letter, the researchers claim that, even though some cesium concentrations were as high as 196.5 Bq/kg, just one person had an estimated dose above 1.0 millisievert (mSv) – a dose that is considered low by nuclear experts. That dose was 1.07 mSv.

However, in the early 2000’s, a medical doctor in Belarus, Yuri Bandajevski, examined 3000-4000 tissue samples from approximately 400 deceased individuals. Disease or pre-disease conditions were compared to radioactive cesium contamination levels (in Bq/kg) of those same individuals. He replicated his results in animals and also examined a number of living people. There were strong associations between (pre-) pathologies observed, and cesium contamination levels in Bq/kg, across all study subjects.

Bandajevski says “We should pay particular attention to the fact that the presence of even relatively small amounts of Cs-137 in children from 10-30Bq/kg…leads to a doubling in the number of children with electrocardiographic disorders.” Cesium-137 can cause “…in relatively small doses (20-30 Bq/kg); a breach of the regulatory processes in the body. This contributes to the emergence of pathological processes and diseases. This emergence is based on the latent genetic predisposition due to mutagenic action, including the same Cs-137, on gametes of the parental generation.”

For adults the concentration of cesium in the Tsubokura letter ranges from 2.3 to 196.5 Bq/kg. 200 Bq/kg, in a pregnant woman can result in fetal death according to the Belarus studies. For children, the concentration of cesium ranges from 2.8 to 57.9 Bq/kg, which is within the range of concern shown, including impacts on the heart and hormone imbalance shown in the Belarus studies.

Therefore, to imply that internal cesium contamination at the levels found after Fukushima are low and of little concern, doesn’t account for what previous research has demonstrated based on the Bq/kg measurement. And while nuclear experts and proponents can claim that 1 millisievert is a “small” amount, it is obviously well within the range that can cause health problems. These health problems can be compounded with continued exposure, to even small amounts of cesium, across generations, indicating that the longer someone stays in a contaminated area, eats contaminated food and/or raises a family in these conditions, the more damage will accumulate and the more, even what were once considered small doses, will have great detriment on health.

In this way, the Sievert as a unit of damage is obviously not precise or foolproof enough to accommodate the many natural variations among humans and exposure scenarios. It can, in fact, lead to misleading assessments about just how dangerous exposure to radioactivity is. A more direct measurement like Bq/kg equated with disease is, at least for cesium, a much truer representation of damage.