Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Obama Approves New Exposure Guidelines for Nuclear Emergencies


Majia here: These new guidelines are alarming as they significantly increase the levels of radiation that will be allowed in our food and water after nuclear emergencies.

Caldicott, Helen (2013) Obama Approves Raising Permissible Levels of Nuclear Radiation in Drinking Water. Civilian Cancer Deaths Expected to Skyrocket', Global Research, http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-approves-raising-permissible-levels-of-nuclear-radiation-in-drinking-water-civilian-cancer-deaths-expected-to-skyrocket/5331224

[Excerpted] The White House has given final approval for dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs....

...Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) allow cleanup many times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. 


...The version given approval late last Friday is substantially similar to those proposed under Bush but duck some of the most controversial aspects:

In soil, the PAGs allow long-term public exposure to radiation in amounts as high as 2,000 millirems. This would, in effect, increase a longstanding 1 in 10,000 person cancer rate to a rate of 1 in 23 persons exposed over a 30-year period;

· In water, the PAGs punt on an exact new standard and EPA “continues to seek input on this.” But the thrust of the PAGs is to give on-site authorities much greater “flexibility” in setting aside established limits... [end] 



Majia here: I strongly recommend reading the entire article linked above.

It is of note that Caldicott holds Gina McCarthy - former assistant administrator for air and radiation now nominee to direct the EPA - as responsible for developing these new guidelines.


Caldicott's analysis shows that the new Protective Action Guidelines for emergency situations allow death from cancer for 1 in 23 persons exposed over a 30-year period. 

Keep in mind that the radiation from an emergency will last thousands of years. For example, only half of cesium-137 deposited in March 2011 will be gone in March 2041. Strontium, plutonium, and uranium will be around much longer.

So, the guidelines essentially normalize very high levels of radiation in our food and water.

In practice, they will allow even higher levels of exposure to occur as the radiation added by each new accident is calculated in a vacuum, ignoring the 'left over' radiation from previous accidents.

So, deaths from cancer will grow and grow.

Caldicott was using the EPAs own dose-effects risk calculus. Dominant risk-models may very well under-state the biological effects of radiation because they fail to adequately address internal exposure effects, as well as the dose-effects from bio-accumulation and bio-magnification processes.

Steve Wing et al (1991) found incremental relative risks for all cancers is about 5% per millisievert, which is about 25 times greater than the risk estimate in BEIR V(2) for low-dose exposure if their recommended DREF of 2 for low-dose rate is applied. (Wing, S., Shy, C.M., Wood, JL, Wolf, S, et al (1991)mortality among works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: evidence of radiation effects in follow-up through 1984. J. of American Medical Association, 265, 1397-1402).

And cancer is not the ONLY disease produced by radiation exposure. Radiation exposure also causes and contributes to a lot  more diseases than cancer by producing oxidative stress throughout the human body, which breaks DNA strands and interferes with epigenetic signalling.


I really want to know if THOSE NEW PROTECTION ACTION GUIDELINES are in PRACTICE right now?

Moreover, I want to know whether the government is using national security as a rationale for lack of transparency about the extent of fallout in the US from Fukushima and other ongoing nuclear problems domestically?

Finally, I want to know WHY the the government, which is supposed to ensure the security of the people - is allowing for destruction of the human genome?


 

1 comment:

  1. This must be the true meaning of "Obamacare", to support the endless growth of the predatory "health-care" industry in USA.

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