Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Protecting Children from Radiation


I am guilty of sentimentalizing children. They are literally our future. We must not foresake them.

Yet we do, over and over again. And in so many ways.

In particular, their environmental health should be our priority and by environmental I mean social, biological, and physical environments.

But let's focus here on physical environment.

Children are, of course, much more susceptible to injury from environmental hazards than most adults.

This is an established fact.

Yet, environmental protections for children are being loosened in the US and Japan.

The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is loosening mercury restrictions (here). Mercury is a potent environmental toxin with well established adverse impacts on children (here).

In Japan, the government has decided not to uphold expert recommendations that children's exposure to radiation be limited to 1 millisievert.

INTERNATIONAL BACK-TRACKING

Both cases, the US and Japanese, demonstrate back-tracking when it comes to protecting our children.

The Japanese case has caused international consternation, as expressed by UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Baskut Tuncak, who contested the decision by the Japanese government to set the exposure level at 20 millisieverts a year: 

UN envoy: Halt children's return to Fukushima. (2018, October 26) NHK, https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20181026_30/

...The government set the exposure limit at 20 milisieverts per year as a condition for lifting evacuation orders issued for parts of the prefecture after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.

Tuncak criticized the government for not taking into account the council's recommendation that the limit be one milisievert.
The article notes that a Japanese delegate responded to the criticism by saying that the limit of 20 millisieverts was derived from a "2007 recommendation by the International Commission on Radiological Protection."

The delegate also accused Tuncak of slandering Fukushima's reputation.

Japan's efforts to redress international criticism against raising its permissible exposure level for children include making children a "priority" for iodine tablets:
Children to be given priority for iodine tablets against radiation (2018, November 21). The Mainichi,
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20181121/p2g/00m/0dm/078000c

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's nuclear regulation body decided Wednesday to review the nation's prior distribution system of iodine tablets against radiation exposure, with an eye on giving priority to children. Current rules say iodine tablets should be in principle distributed in advance to all residents living within a 5-kilometer radius of 16 nuclear plants in 13 prefectures, where doing so is deemed difficult under emergency situations. But some municipal governments have yet to hand out the tablets to all residents, including children who are more vulnerable to radiation exposure.
Iodine tablets help prevent absorption of radioiodine but do nothing to prevent absorption of other radionuclides, such as radioactive strontium.

Fukushima reportedly produced 1,000 different radioactive isotopes. There are 36 radioactive isotopes that undergo radioactive decay according to Wikipedia (here ). There are 31 known radioactive isotopes of strontium (here). Strontium bioaccumulates in bones (like calcium) and in the brain (strontium confused again with calcium). There are hundreds of other radioactive isotopes in the environment now because of the 3 reactor meltdowns at Daiichi.

Children in Japan will now be exposed to radiation levels 20X times what was previously acceptable. This is a major step backwards in Japan.

In the US little attention is afforded to the impacts on children from mercury and other contaminants.

Indeed, while the radiation monitoring of NETC (which includes EPA radnet data sources) indicates elevated radiation levels in the US -- probably coming from California's fires (especially from Woolsey Fire ) -- NO warnings or provisions are being made to my knowledge regarding protection against contamination:



Are children homo sacer (i.e., without rights? Agamben here)?



RELATED POSTS



Majia's Blog: Fukushima Children



 



20 comments:

  1. MASSIVE NUCLEAR WASTE BLAST IN IDAHO

    http://m.startribune.com/monitors-check-for-radiation-release-after-waste-site-blast/500943471/?fbclid=IwAR0QRkafgrPsYCFtdxFrkjVtL8pkN7GXJaYrLSBdC_ZjimQzI5rQMlv3LdM

    Monitors check for radiation release after waste site blast
     
     
     
     By KEITH RIDLER , ASSOCIATED PRESS 
    November 20, 2018 - 4:05 PM

    BOISE, Idaho — Air monitoring systems were set up Tuesday to check for low-level nuclear radiation and other harmful contaminants following a powerful weekend blast at a hazardous waste site in Idaho that killed a worker, destroyed a building and damaged other structures, an official said.

    Results were not yet available from the monitors installed at the US Ecology site about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Boise, said Albert Crawshaw of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.

    Monitors have also been installed outside the site.

    Officials said it's not clear what caused the explosion. US Ecology takes in low-level radioactive waste, but none of the material was believed to be near the explosion on Saturday, Crawshaw said.

    The facility also accepts contaminants such as arsenic, lead, zinc, cadmium and other metals. It's also unclear if containers holding any of that hazardous waste were damaged in the explosion.

    Some types of waste can emit dangerous gases or create the potential for explosions if they react with other hazardous waste.

    The explosion occurred in a building where hazardous waste is treated. Images appear to show the blast blew out the roof and walls, Crawshaw said.

    "The building was demolished," he said.

    Other buildings at the 200-acre site also sustained damage, and an inspector was examining them to determine if it's safe to enter.

    US Ecology converts contaminants to non-hazardous residues, minimizing the long-term risks of disposal. The company then buries the material at the site.

    Crawshaw said the company reported that low-level radioactive waste at the site already had been buried at the time of the explosion.

    Three workers with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are at the site, EPA spokesman Mark MacIntyre said, adding that the cleanup is being led by the company.

    "We're there to provide oversight," he said. "If there's anything they need to affect a quick and safe cleanup, we will do that."

    US Ecology spokeswoman Ysabel Bilbao said the company had no comment on specific efforts underway at the site.

    "At this point, the investigation continues," she said.

    The company previously identified Monte "Alex" Green of Grand View, Idaho, as the worker who died in the explosion.

    Three other people received treatment for non-life threatening injuries. A total of 15 employees were working when the explosion occurred.

    In 2012, US Ecology agreed to pay a $184,400 fine after the EPA said it failed to submit timely reports on toxic chemical releases at the site, according to the


    Monitors check for radiation release after waste site blast



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They installed radiation monitors, at the site, after the blast. They have not or will not give the results of the monitors. They say powdered magnesium could have caused the explosion.

      Delete
  2. Remember the asses, that said nuclear waste does not generate heat and gas, as dr. Busby maintained. They say nuclear waste  cannot explode from it.

    Spooks , psyops, operatives , paid disinformants. A couple of them push hormesis, that tritium is hormetic and not dangerous, that geiger counters cannot detect excess radionuclides in the envronment and air.

    See how they use cambridge analytica generated conspiracy ideations,  to distract from the massive fallout of the Santa Susana fires! It was energy beams that caused the fires and devastation at santa susana , in california and all over the us. !

    Lets forget about the massive radioactive waste problems  like Santa susana, idaho, at every reactor, at san onofre, nevada, WIPP, andrews odessa, hanford, kentucky Thes TVA, ohio, st louis etc etc etc

    The ongoing generation of millionss of tons of the shit by nuclear reactors, uranium mining, nuclear weapons creation, military and sic medical research, nuclear warships , du munitions.
    The nukepukes , the lets-compromise-because -it-does-not-matter-nihilist nuke puke types , the agenda operatives and the nested doubleagents

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There will be no, earth after a nuclear war. Every reactor on earth will explode. Every nuclear fuel pool on earth and nuke dump will catch fire! Hundreds of thousands, to millions  of tons of hi level nuclear waste, will catch fire!

      The earth's atmosphere will turn black and red. It will glow blue. Every living thing shall perish.
      Death by psychotic-nuclear-suicide. The end of a planet by weak, deranged monkeys.

      Delete
    2. Why of the dozens of childres from Fukushime with thyroid cancers and thryroid abnormalities from the radionuclides of fukushima. Some are being forced back there.
      What of the children growng up around the St Louis, raionuclide dump fire? This pediatrician says Bill Gates should help clean it up, since Bill Gates has a high stake in republic waste, the company that runs the burning-radioactive landfill.
      Bill gate probably thinks it is no big deal. He actively promotes boondogle nuclear reactors and gets subsidized by the government to research them and build them


      GUEST COLUMNISTS
      Bill Gates: Help clean up your toxic St. Louis dump
      By Dr. Stuart Slavin Apr 16, 2018
      Bill Gates
      Bill Gates, philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, participates in a session titled "Investing in Prevention and Resilient Health Systems," Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015 at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)


      Bill Gates continues his extraordinary legacy of philanthropy, recently committing $50 million to the fight against Alzheimer’s. Through his personal giving and his foundations, Gates has had a major impact on challenging global issues, but his help is needed now in the middle of the American heartland here in St. Louis.

      Gates owns a large stake in the waste management company Republic Services. In a July 2017 SEC filing, Gates was reported to own 108,502,519 shares of this company, worth some $6.9 billion, representing more than 30 percent of all Republic shares and making him the largest single shareholder in the company. He has owned much of this stock for some time, holding at least 90 million shares since 2014. Over the past three years, the stock price has approximately doubled, giving him a gain of more than $3 billion.

      Delete
    3. Here’s the problem. Republic Services owns two landfills in Bridgeton, a working-class suburb of St. Louis. It’s bad enough that a smoldering sub-surface fire burns in one — the Bridgeton landfill — regularly producing noxious odors that waft across adjacent neighborhoods.

      The bigger deal is that this landfill sits next to another, the West Lake Landfill, the subject of a recent documentary “Atomic Homefront.” This landfill holds a large amount of radioactive material dating back to the Manhattan Project. Much of the material is alleged to be low-level radioactive material, but evidence exists that a significant amount of more dangerous waste is mixed in including highly toxic radionuclides such as thorium-230, uranium-235 and lead-210.

      Radioactive material has been found nearby in people’s yards and even inside homes. Cancer clusters in the area appear to be occurring with high rates of rare cancers such as glioblastoma in children. Of grave concern is what will occur if and when the fire hits the radioactive material, a looming potential disaster that could threaten the health of people living in the St. Louis metro area, with a population of more than 2 million. This concern is significant enough to have prompted St. Louis County in 2014 to publish an emergency operations plan in the event of a “catastrophic event” at the landfill.




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    4. Grass-roots groups such as Just Moms STL and local environmental organizations have been pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to pursue the only plausible and acceptable solution, which is to remove the radioactive waste. Unfortunately, Republic Services doesn’t like this solution, as it would likely be on the hook for a significant share of the cost of remediation. Because of this, it has been stalling, putting up roadblocks to action, and waging a disinformation campaign to deceive the public using a shill organization, Coalition to Keep Us Safe, posing as a grass-roots organization, to spread false information.

      The EPA recently put forth a proposed remedy, to remove 70 percent of the waste and cap the rest. Just Moms STL and other groups believe that 30 percent of outrageously toxic material that is allowed to remain indefinitely in a major metropolitan area and which is still threatened by a nearby underground fire is unacceptable.

      The EPA has a public comment period that is open until April 23. And we need Gates’ voice to be heard. He probably has some influence with Republic Services. Wouldn’t it be amazing and extraordinary if rather than pushing for the cheapest and a truly inadequate solution, that Republic pushed for the only reasonable, appropriate and humane (and more expensive) one? It has the money. Complete removal would only cost a few hundred million more than the currently proposed cap.

      Maybe if Gates can’t convince Republic to ante up, he could take some of the money he has made from Republic stock and make up the difference. Since he owns 30 percent of Republic shares, it follows that 30 percent of the landfill is his. It only seems fair and appropriate for him to pay to remove the 30 percent of the material that the EPA has proposed leaving in place. Given the gravity of the situation and the threat posed, along with Gates’ concern for the planet and the people on it, inaction on his part seems inconceivable. The people of St. Louis are waiting and hoping.

      Dr. Stuart Slavin is a professor of pediatrics at St. Louis University School of Medicine.

      Delete
    5. From https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/columnists/bill-gates-help-clean-up-your-toxic-st-louis-dump/article_be6d9f4e-fa3f-5585-8bcb-229edc4620a0.html

      Delete
    6. I genuinely feel that shutting down all nuclear reactors, in the USA is the most important thing Americans can do at this point after Fukushima.

      No more nuclear waste generated.

      Find a ways to safely deal, with the greater majority of the nuclear waste that urgently needs better sequestering, and follow through with it. Do not allow any more nuclear waste to come into america.

      Work towards ending nuclear weapons.

      Neither of the corporate parties want to do this. Many libertarians are pronuclear. If there were a coalition of independent Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Greens who recognized the urgency of this matter, maybe something could be done.

      Delete
    7. https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1066634888772837376?p=v


      WikiLeaks
      @wikileaks
      Follow
      How is Trump's "Qanon" base handling the Assange extradition? The Qanon network was previously used to swing Trump isolationists behind the CIA's Iran regime change plan. For the last several months it has been used to spread the message that Assange wants to be extradited. twitter.com/StormIsUponUs/…

      Delete
  3. This is the price of our kind of civilization. Our science and technology entail all sorts of toxic and dangerous materials. Even something as harmless as a new carpet turns out to be bad for the cat and dogs and kids. A brand new house should not be lived in for three or more years for health reasons, and some never.

    If I say this is nature at work I would be correct provided nature shall encompass the totality of things. Nature scares us over time into inventing protections from nature of the most fantastic sorts.

    Let's say ten or twenty years from now an asteroid is on schedule to strike the earth and probably end all life. But a rocket is set to carry several nuclear bombs which will explode on one side and divert the thing a few minutes of arc away from its current path. It works and earth is saved, and nuclear bombs are celebrated.

    It is surely a roll of the dice. We have no idea what we are doing or where we are going and never will. It is too complicated, but we fool ourselves into thinking we are gradually finding out. But we are just gradually finding out that we will neve figure this perpetual cinema out.

    ReplyDelete
  4. They will either fight over whose nukes to use and wipe each other out or, the ship with the bombs will blowup before it leaves the ground. Then the asteroid will miss the earth.

    You musta sucked yur thumb till you were 8 or 9 willy.
    You started playing with gi joe soldiers and windup space toys in junior hi. You kept doing it, well into adulthood. You still do!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Of course you have missed the point. You sucked your thumb until you were 9?
      What caused you to stop or did you?

      Delete
    2. There are prosperous people on the internet and elsewhere, calling for implied and overt violence against large groups of innocent people in america these days.

      They call for violence against people because of their disablilities, lack of money , political views, religion, ethnicity, profession, sex, religion, in america, nowadays. There is a lot of it.
      Violence is very awful.

      It is sad.

      Nuclear bombs are implied violence. People die making them.

      Letting corporations get away with selling food laced with ever increasing amounts of mercury and carcinogenic pesticides, in food, to children is wrong.

      The oil companies made us all breath tetraethyl lead for years. It killed many children and damaged many others.

      Our own government detonated a thousand nuclear bombs rightin the contenental united states, on us and filled the place with fallout.

      Delete
    3. So the world is a mess and condemning those responsible righteouly on a blog will accomplish what?

      Delete
  5. Calling for violence against innocents is criminal. I guesa u condone that

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You should do something positive like becoming a drug addict or an alcoholic. Or get an education by spending some time in a county jail.

      Delete
    2. Why would u wish anyone to be an alcoholic or drug addict or go to jail?
      Stalkers, harrasers, creeps, people who threaten violence and try to instigate violence against other people should and do go to jail.

      Delete
  6. The best protection for children is for there to be a parent at home. Children are more than bodies. They need mental and emotinal guidance which they will probably get only a mediocre version of in places like day care centers and schools. Unless you have reared a child you may not grasp how complex it is. President Obama when running against Romney gave as an excuse for not having such an arrangement as the fact that their income was only a few hundred thousand dollar per year. And he might have added that he and Michelle wanted to live high on the hog. At least one of their daughters has already gotten into trouble and probably both have. I am sure the daughters realized early on that their parents had more important things to do than spend time with them. Although I did not like Romney at least he did one thing right. And maybe the most important thing. The first seven years are the foundation, and a poor foundation is a hard thing to live with.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The best protection for children is to keep them away from stalkers, assholes, haters, misogynists and bigots like willy the psyco here

      Delete

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