Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation: References & Notes

References for Chernobyl April 26, 2021:

Cancer risk from low-dose ionizing radiation after Acute Myocardial Infarction: Mark J. Eisenberg, Jonathan Afilalo, Patrick R. Lawler, Michal Abrahamowicz, Hugues Richard, and Louise Pilote, “Cancer Risk Related to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation from Cardiac Imaging in Patients after Acute Myocardial Infarction,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 183 (March 8, 2011): 430–436.

Exposure through radiation for Cancer therapy:  “Benefits of Radiotherapy Outweigh Small Increased Risk of Second Cancer,” Ecancernews, 2011, ecancermedicalscience.com/news-insider-news.asp?itemid=1660.

Books:

*Adam Higgenbotham, Midnight in Chernobyl, The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster. Thorndike Press, 2020

Kate Brown, Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future W.W.Norton & Company, 2019

*Eileen Welsome, The Plutonium Files: American's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War. The Dial Press, Random House, Inc.c New York, 1999.

Fred C. Shapiro, Radwaste, Random House of Canada, Toronto, 1981.

Gayle Green, The Woman Who Knew Too Much University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1999.

*Leslie J Freeman, Nuclear Witnesses: Insiders Speak Out, Macleod Ltd, Toronto, 1981.

Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger? Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth, Women's Educational Press, Toronto, Canada, 1985.

Chernobyl: Environmental health and Human Rights Implications, Vienna, Austria 12 - 15, April 1996, Permanent People's Tribunal, International medical Commission on Chernobyl (IMCC), Published by the International Peace Bureau, Date?

*Joseph Mangano, Mad Science: The Nuclear Power Experiment, OR Books, New York and London, 2012

Dale Dewar & Florian Oelck, From Hiroshima to Fukushima to You: A primer on Radiation and Health, Between the Lines , Toronto, 2014 

*Svetlana Alexievich, Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future, First published in 1997 in Russian, Translated by Anna Gunn and Arch Tait, Penguin Books, 2016.  Winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Jay M. Gould, Benjamin A. Goldman, Deadly Deceit: Low-Level Radiation High-Level Cover-Up, Four Walls Eight Windows , New York, 1991.

Robert Gale and Eric Laax. Radiation: What It Is, What You Need to Know, Alfred A. Knopf, 2013

Websites:

http://nuclearhotseat.com/2021/04/20/chernobyl-anniversary-35-kate-brown-timothy-mousseau-ian-zabarte-on-usas-mighty-oak-nuke-accident-nh-513/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHkzypaJd6A

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Notes:

Matter is made of atoms and molecules. Molecules are groups of atoms held together by their electrical attractions. Some atoms can exist by themselves in nature - gold, copper, carbon but some atoms are sufficiently charged that they exist only in the form of a molecule with some other types of atoms or groups of atoms. These atoms readily become ions when they are not in molecules. 

Our bodies make clever use of these charges. The movement of highly charged ions such as potassium, sodium, calcium and chloride is used for muscle contraction, construction projects like bones, tendons and cell walls, and cellular waste removal. 

All of the actions and reactions are deceptively simple. The heme portion of the hemoglobin molecule is made up largely of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen in a chain wrapped up in a knot with a small charged "seat" suitable only for an iron ion with the ability to attract oxygen in high oxygen situations like the lungs. When the molecule of heme reaches a place with low oxygen, the heme responds by physically changing shape and clasping the iron so tightly that it releases the oxygen to nourish the cell.

Atoms are the smallest part of a particular pure element. Molecules are groups of atoms that are stuck together because of their electrical attraction to one another. Elemental hydrogen is attracted to elemental oxygen in such a way that together they form water.

"Ionizing" radiation is distinct from non-ionizing radiation because it turns molecules into ions. A molecule of salt is a balanced pair of electrically charged ions, a sodium ion and a chloride ion. If they are separated, each of them will seek another ion, an oppositely charged ion to become neutral.

Sodium is positively charged so it will seek a negatively charged partner; the chloride is negative so it will seek another positively ion or, in this case, another chloride ion to form chlorine.

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To be clear here, we are talking about a particular type of radiation, ionizing radiation, radiation that breaks molecules into ions. When addressing nuclear power, four different kinds of ionizing radiation are produced - alpha and beta particles, neutrons and gamma rays. X-rays have the same basic properties as gamma rays but usually slightly less energy.  

Why would the creation of ions be bad for biological health? Our bodies produce ions all the time and indeed we do. In fact, our bodies make clever use of ions, shifting them around to contract muscles, absorb food from the gut, produce hormones and generally keep going. Unintended ions cause cell walls to fall apart, enzymes to malfunction, and genetic material to fail.

When a gamma ray passes through a body, it leaves a trail of ions. Usually our bodies repair the damage or send in demolition crews of white blood cells to remove the cell. Sometimes the damage cannot be repaired but the cell lives on in a state of disrepair. Some of these damaged cells can eventually reproduce and we become ill or develop a cancer - or worse, have genetically destroyed offspring.

Alpha particles cannot penetrate skin but when absorbed from food, air or water, are extremely damaging inside the body. Beta particles can affect the skin to a couple of centimetres but their damage is also greater ingested. Gamma rays go right through us.

What do we know about the damage and when did we know it?

I have been criticized by members of the nuclear industry for using x-ray damage in speaking about radiation but they are extremely similar, accurate doses are known and if there is any criticism, it would be because the effects of gamma would be greater than those of x-rays. I am add that the nuclear industry has never been completely honest about amount of ionizing radiation released in a nuclear accident or even under normal operation of a nuclear power plant.

X-rays were discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Roentgen working with cathode ray tubes. His wife's hand was the first x-ray. The imaging was revolutionary for the medical profession - no precautions were used by either the doctors radiographers or the patients because no one knew of the danger. On the other hand, within a year, experimenters were reporting hair loss, burns and worse - radiographers were using their hands to focus x-rays. The first reported death was Thomas Edison's assistant in 1903, whose badly deformed hands developed cancer and were amputated in a futile attempt to save his life. On August 3, 1905 in San Francisco, California, Elizabeth Fleischman, American X-ray pioneer, died from complications as a result of her work with X-rays.

Even then there were doctors who denied any adverse effects existed from x-rays.

At the time, it was thought that no damage was inflicted if the skin did not turn red. Over the course of a couple of decades more concerns about longer term effects surfaced until a first meetings of radiologists occurred in 1925 and in 1928.

It was thought that if the "dose" was kept below that which caused the skin to redden = no damage done. Similarities between x-rays and the rays emitted by radium were similar.

The case of the radium girls, the watch face painters who routinely sharpened their brushes by putting them between their lips, plus that of a famous golf pro and wealthy industrialist, established the link between radium and bone cancer. 

In 1927, Hermann Muller

Speculation on cancer of the pancreas

  

Frustration - I've been involved in learning about the nuclear industry, reading and studying about the science and the effect upon human health.

 

In 1997, I had three patients with pancreatic cancer, the next year I had three – two of the first group had died, two more were diagnosed. The oncologist said that I had just run into a “cluster”. Over the following years I always had one victim whereas in the 1980’s, it was more likely 1 in 2 years. So I started to look into stuff like agricultural products and water quality. 

 

I stumbled across research done on radioactive fallout in the 1960’s. They looked at the numbers of children surviving their first year of life and noticed that the numbers kept getting better (immunizations, antibiotics, health of mothers). Then the curve levels off. The point at which it flattens coincides with the first atmospheric tests and fallout. The difference was 400,000 dead babies. 

 

Why did we not know this? The few scientists who were in the position to know this were threatened, muzzled, belittled, insulted, and trivialized – all the worst treatment that is aimed at whistleblowers by the more powerful.

 

We do know that radiation causes cancer – when we use it as a treatment, we are accepting a 8 – 16% increased risk of further cancers. Used in cardiac imaging, the risk of cancer as a result of such scans is 13%. 

 

The atomic plumes from the tests of the 1960’s spread over the prairies. We know that solid cancers take between 30 and 40 years to form and that cesium-137 affects the pancreas. I’m not saying that my patients had pancreatic cancer as a result of fallout but I am asking, why could there not have been a connection?

 

This industry was born in secrecy and has continued to misrepresent itself. It lies, distorts radiation science and trivializes opposition. After fifty years of studying radiation and health and learning about the mining and all things nuclear, I’ve concluded that it may be the most fraudulent industry in human history.

Causes of Cancer: Mourning the Loss of Glyphosate

Yes, I believe that nuclear bomb testing in the 1950’s and 1960’s plays a role in the “cancer epidemic” that we are experiencing (radioactive fallout maps from testing in the US). I also believe that today’s cancers are the mere tip of an iceberg in so far as cancer is concerned, largely due to the human influence on the environment.

A few environmental toxins and cancers have a clear connection. Examples include: chimney sweepers and testicular cancer, uranium miners and lung cancer, sun worshippers and skin cancer, benzidine workers and bladder cancer, cigarette smokers and stomach cancer (as well as lung). However, not cigarette smoker or uranium miner (etc) gets lung or stomach cancer and for most cancers the connection between toxin and cancer is much less clear. Genes play a role in both protection and cause but even in this case, not everyone with a gene for prostate or breast cancer will get the disease.

With all this uncertainty about a potentially fatal disease, you would think that an intelligent human race would be cautious about new substances to which they could be exposed. However, from DDT in the 1950’s to dioxins in the 1980’s, from fire retardants to skin lotions, we constantly add chemicals to our environment. We are generally in denial – we like our chemicals and what they do for us. We apply them liberally to do what they are advertised to do (eg. keep away mosquitoes) without considering the possible consequences of our body absorbing the active ingredient. (In the case of mosquito lotion, what short circuit in our brains lets us believe that we can wear an insect poison without affecting ourselves?) Even non-chemicals can be harmful as we have seen the effect of microbeads from cosmetics entering the water system to adversely affect fish populations. 

One of the more recent additions to the growing list of carcinogenic (cancer-causing) substances is glyphosate. Countries have banned it: the Netherlands, El Salvador and France and Brazil has a ban pending. I’m dismayed to discover that it doesn’t breakdown in the environment as I was lead to believe when it first came onto the market and that once it is leached into water, it barely breaks down at all! (Fortunately, most of it binds to the soil.) How could we have thought that something that kills almost all weeds would have no effect on other biological systems?

Once a connection between a substance and the existence of an environmental and health hazard, the challenge to change is enormous. Besides industrial dependence and political denial, questions abound. How do we make lotions and scrubs without microbeads – or parabens (another addition to the list of no-no’s)? How do we shift from Round-Up® dependence into the next phase of modern farming? And, even harder, how do we prevent ourselves from investing in another dead-end technology or by being duped by the next industrial innovation?

At the market level, prevention depends upon the ability of entirely independent scientific panels to do independent studies of new chemicals before they are released to the market. I don’t believe that companies like Monsanto deliberately try to poison the public; they are focussed on making money. Their preliminary work made the chemical look very safe – and they wanted to rush it to market. Where Monsanto and other companies err both ethically and morally is when infiltration or other interference with clear and independent research occurs - as Monsanto did recently in Germany when it "bought" the German Risk Assessment Panel. While this makes it difficult to decide whom to believe, it also creates suspicion of the original research and raises the questions, "Why would Monsanto worry about independent assessment? Do they already know something they don't want us to know?"

It is up for us to apply the “Precautionary Principle” and refuse to approve the release until confirmation of safety can be assured. That should be the role of government. Consumers should be able to trust that substances released for use are safe for us and the environment whether food, water or flame retardants. 

Prevention probably also depends upon a healthy dose of scepticism. “If it seems too good to be true” – gets rid of all our weeds or kills all insect pests without side effects – “it probably IS too good to be true.”