Fukushima vs. Chernobyl: How Have Animals Fared?

For a little bird, bee or butterfly trying to make it in the world, which is the worse place to land: Fukushima or Chernobyl? On the one hand, there’s the risk from the release of radioactive materials that occurred in Japan just over a year ago. On the other, there’s the threat of mutations from accumulated environmental contamination over the past quarter-century from the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine. New York Times

Dr. Judith H. Johnsrud receives national Sierra Club Award

This quilt Judy is admiring was created by textile artist Margaret Gregg of Virginia, and was given to her on May 4th by the Sierra Club "No Nukes Activist Team" in honor of her 50 years of anti-nuclear leadership. It reads "JUDITH: PROTECTING LIFE FOREVER."Leon Glicenstein, a life-long friend and supporter of Dr. Judith H. Johnsrud, has written an article for the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter's Summer 2012 newsletter The Sylvanian about the national Sierra Club and the Sierra Club "No Nukes Activist Team" recognition ceremony, held May 4th in Takoma Park, Maryland, honoring Judy's half-century of anti-nuclear leadership not only locally, regionally, and nationally, but even globally. Judy is a founding board member of Beyond Nuclear. Included in Leon's article is a partial list of anti-nuclear victories Judy helped win in her home state of Pennsylvania alone.

Beyond Nuclear posted a tribute to Judy shortly after the ceremony, which includes more photos of the presentation of her quilt (see photo, left), as well as links to writings by Judy, such as her brief history of the Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, which she founded and led for many decades.

Among her many other areas of expertise, Judy is an expert in the field of radiation and health.

A Radioactive Conflict of Interest

Having the Energy Department control radiation health research makes as much sense as giving tobacco companies the authority to see if smoking is bad for you.

...It's quite a leap to claim that evacuation zones around nuclear power plants might not be needed based on the chromosomes of 112 irradiated mice. In a devastating critique, blogger, Ian Goddard points out that the MIT study excluded extensive evidence of genetic damage to humans living in a radiation-contaminated environment. Although doses in a peer-reviewed study of 19 groups of children living near Chernobyl were consistently lower than the MIT mouse study, most showed lasting genetic damage from radiation. "MIT's presentation of its study as the first scientific ever examination of the genetic risks of living in a nuclear disaster zone is pure science fiction, not fact," Goddard concludes. Robert Alvarez in Huffington Post

NRC to decide if recommended health assessment on cancer risk is continued

In late 2010, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Nuclear Radiation and Studies Board (NRSB) investigate the cancer risks around NRC-licensed facilities. In April of 2012, the NAS NRSB released Analysis of Cancer Risks in Populations near Nuclear Facilities: Phase I. The public was asked to comment by May 31. Many individuals and concerned citizens' groups submitted comments. Beyond Nuclear submitted comments along with Dr. Sam Miller who also submitted his original research in support of his comments made jointly with Beyond Nuclear. Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must decide if they will support Phase II of the study which recommends examining 6 pilot sites in Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey, Michigan, California and Tennessee. Some issues raised in these two sets of comments include: 

The Phase I report recognizes many of the shortcomings of prior health studies including the imperfection of relying on data from the atomic bomb exposures in Japan, and investigation of cancer deaths only rather than examining incidence.

We support a case-control study as outlined by the NAS phase one report but NOT the ecologic study the NAS seems to be proposing if it contains dose estimates which rely on industry data or if it includes adults. In general, a case-control study of childhood cancer will be the most scientifically defensible and probably the least expensive.

Beyond Nuclear contends that an upper dose limit should NOT be established based on measurements of environmental contamination because these data don't give a complete picture of TOTAL environmental contamination over the operational life of a nuclear facility. As a general principal, we would point out that industry effluent, contamination, and weather pattern data is so unreliable, no health study should hinge on it. For weather pattern data, Dr. Miller's research and comments address how detailed weather examinations must be in order to reflect reality. Weather data from industry is not detailed enough. Dose estimates are not necessary to perform a health assessment, and if based on bad data, may actually act to obscure the truth. If a dose assessment is to be performed it should be de-coupled from an epidemiological assessment and done as a separate investigation. This holds true for environmental contamination assessments as well.

Viable, scientifically independent and defensible studies can be conducted based on many of the principles and methods detailed in the NAS Phase I report. But clearly, some of these Phase I report assumptions must be abandoned in order to obtain a scientifically supportable and publicly acceptable picture of cancer risks around nuclear facilities.

Recent research points to cross-generational damage from exposures

The first is a new study shows that children who were born within 10 years of both parents surviving the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima have a higher rate of developing leukemia than children who only had one parent who was a survivor within 10 years of the blast.

The finding was unveiled in Nagasaki on June 3 at a conference on post-atomic bombing disorders. The Asahi Shimbun

Cross-generational damage can come from DNA damage OR, according to another theory, from material which is not a direct part of the DNA, but can still influence it. See this from the Spokesman-Review: Women with ovarian disease may have inherited it from great grandmothers who were exposed to toxic chemicals decades ago, according to a study by Washington State University researchers. (This may be the case for radiation exposure as well)

Japanese researchers are using the work to look into whether the descendents of atomic bomb survivors may be more susceptible to cancer and other diseases because of epigenetic changes inherited from their ancestors.