U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners

"...the United States has begun marching millions of airline passengers through the X-ray body scanners, parting ways with countries in Europe and elsewhere that have concluded that such widespread use of even low-level radiation poses an unacceptable health risk. The government is rolling out the X-ray scanners despite having a safer alternative that the Transportation Security Administration says is also highly effective.

A ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation of how this decision was made shows that in post-9/11 America, security issues can trump even long-established medical conventions. The final call to deploy the X-ray machines was made not by the FDA, which regulates drugs and medical devices, but by the TSA, an agency whose primary mission is to prevent terrorist attacks.

Research suggests that anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the machines. Still, the TSA has repeatedly defined the scanners as “safe,” glossing over the accepted scientific view that even low doses of ionizing radiation — the kind beamed directly at the body by the X-ray scanners — increase the risk of cancer..." Propublica/PBS NewsHour

Help us protect children from radiation exposure!

Give comments on nuclear power and cancer at a committee meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, Thursday, October 20, 2011 at the Keck Center of The National Academies 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC. You should register for this meeting. The NAS has been asked by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to assess the cancer risks around NRC-licensed facilities. The NRC has made several presentations downplaying the potential health effects of radiation, even to children, who are more vulnerable. The NRC could use the committee's conclusions to continue to risk our health and safety if we don't speak up. The NAS Nuclear Radiation and Studies Board (NRSB) is having its final meeting before its phase one report on the proper ways to assess radiation risk is released in December, 2011.  Phase two should begin following this report. For more background information on the charge of this committee see here. If you cannot make give verbal comments, please send written comments to crs@nas.edu.

Beyond Nuclear has attended and given comments at some of the meetings held in the Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, DC and Los Angeles areas where the NRC has attempted to minimize exposure risk in its comments, despite science that demonstrates otherwise. The NAS has failed to have a meeting in the Northeast/New England, in effect closing off oral public comment to an area of the United States that has a large number of poorly operating and leaky reactors such as Vermont Yankee and Oyster Creek. Where the committee has hosted meetings, many local concerned citizens have come to speak to the committee, to share the personal and community health experiences of living near nuclear facilities. Beyond Nuclear will attend the fifth and final meeting to give final comments. Come participate with us and let the committee know the impact radiation has had on your community.

Beyond Nuclear book talk on radiation and children

Cindy Folkers, Radiation and Health Specialist for Beyond Nuclear, will discuss her essay "Radiation and Children: The Ignored Victims" that appeared in the book Transforming Terror: Remembering the Soul of the World, on Monday, October 10, 2011, 6:30 pm at Busboys and Poets, 1025 5th Street, NW Washington DC.

Cindy will be part of an author panel and will talk about the particular risk radiation exposure poses to children - especially relevant in light of the similar dangers currently being faced by children in Fukushima, Japan.  Transforming Terror: Remembering the Soul of the World, is a collection of essays that focuses on the experience of victims, and creative ways to address increasing assaults including wars, terrorist acts and environmental pollution.

“ A book and an unexploded bomb may lay equally motionless, but their kinetic potential is vastly different. A bomb may kill hundreds of people, but a book can change millions—think of Common Sense, Das Kapital, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or The Gulag Archipelago. To that energizing company, add Transforming Terror. This practical, inspiring book cuts through moral relativism by defining terror according to how it affects its victims. It is a luminous collection of wisdom. You’ll want many of these essays in your library forever. I needed to read it and you do, too. ”-Peter Coyote, actor and author of Sleeping Where I Fall

More.

"Radio-phobia" rears its ugly head once again, this time at Fukushima

An especially cynical manifestation of "Nukespeak" is the use of "radiophobia" to explain away actual radiological injuries.Nuclear power boosters have long tried to convince victims of radioactive catastrophes that "it's all in your head." Both at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the nuclear power industry -- and its friends in government regulatory agencies, the PR industry, and even academia -- tried to convince the public that any ill effects were not due to physical impacts of radioactive fallout, but rather to stress and worry caused by "anti-nuclear fear mongering." A short piece in NewScientist gives this Orwellian "psy-ops" ploy "airtime" yet again, this time in the context of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.

Fukushima parents and NGOs appeal to UN to save children from perils of radioactive fallout

Fukushima children were ordered back to school last April despite severe radioactive contamination of their schoolyards by Fukushima Daiichi fallout.On August 17th, in a statement entitled "Violation of the Human Rights of the Children of Fukushima," a coalition of Japanese Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), including Fukushima Prefecture parents, appealed to the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to save the children of Fukushima from the perils of radioactive contamination resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe that began on March 11th. The appeal is necessary because of the inaction, and worse, of the Japanese federal government and Fukushima prefectural government. The appeal to the UN was signed by the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation; Citizens Against Fukushima Aging Nuclear Power Plants (Fukuro-no-Kai); FoE Japan (International Environmental NGO); Green Action; Osaka Citizens Against the Mihama, Oi and Takahama Nuclear Power Plants (Mihama-no-Kai); and Greenpeace Japan.

This appeal to the UN comes on the heels of two petitions, submitted to the Japanese government on May 2nd and June 16th, which accumulated over 80,000 signatures, including 1,383 organizational signatories, from across Japan and 61 other countries worldwide. The petitions urged a speedy expanded evacuation and minimization of children's radioactive exposures by withdrawing the Japanese government's "provisional" 20 millisievert (2 Rem) per year radiation exposure limit for Fukushima children, and restoring the 1 millisievert (100 millirem) per year limit. However, the petitions have fallen on deaf ears at the Japanese federal and Fukushima prefectural governments. A third, related petition was launched on June 30th, and is still open to international signers.

The appeal to the UN concludes: "The children of Fukushima have the same right as all other children in Japan to live a life free from unnecessary, preventable radiation exposure. We urgently request that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights/OHCHR come to Japan to investigate this matter."