Unfortunately, just as Chernobyl blew radiation all around the globe, similar to the ‘fallout’ from atomic bombs that continues falling in micro-minute particles even today to quietly cause lung cancer and other forms of cancer, the Fukushima disaster is even worse. Though most Americans probably think Fukushima is ‘over,’ we should be aware that this is far from true. The groundwaters and rivers are so contaminated from the accident that, as they continue to run out into the Pacific Ocean to spread the various 500 + radionuclides all around the Pacific basin, all life forms are threatened by similar mutation and cancerization, for half of our ‘world,’ the Pacific Ocean half of our planet Earth.

How could this be? our champions of denial naively ask. Radioactivity is something you cannot taste, smell or feel, but by silently emitting its neutrons and electrons repeatedly over very long periods of time, striking our and other life forms’ DNA, genetic sequences are bombarded and changed, sometimes causing harmless new sequences, sometimes being spontaneously corrected by our marvelous bodies’ immune systems, but sometimes causing long lasting mutations and cancers.

Essential to the understanding of how radiation can damage our bodies, and those of other innocent animals and plants, is that the various unstable radionuclides go on emitting their becquerels-worth of rays and beams for sometimes hundreds and thousands of years. The easiest radionuclide to measure is cesium, which makes up about 40 percent of nuclear waste from nuclear reactors. The human body takes in cesium, recognizing it like it is potassium, incorporating it into our cells, where potassium is the most plentiful electrolyte/element. Cesium has a ‘half life’ of 30 years during which half of its radioactivity dissipates, but the other half of it remains, to continue radiating the tissue surrounding it to possibly cause cancer. In actuality, science has discovered that a radioactive element like cesium – or strontium or plutonium or iodine, etc. – continues to be dangerous for 10-20 half lives, what we now call the element’s ‘hazardous life.’ In the case of cesium, that is 300-600 years.

That is why the area around Chernobyl will be unsafe to live upon or near for the next 3 to 6 centuries. Similarly, the area around Fukushima will threaten all life forms for at least the same period of time. However, with Fukushima, three reactors melted down and leaked, continuing to be a threat to do so for the next few decades, while thousands of tons of radioactive water remain in the basements of the damaged reactors. Then there are the very hot ‘fuel pools’ where the super-radioactive reactor assemblies have to sit and be covered by water that keeps them below the boiling point. For otherwise they will be exposed and emit all the possible 500 + radionuclides into the air to travel around the Earth and contaminate our lungs or other parts of our bodies and those of other life forms.

Remember, the long-lived element plutonium-239, which most Earthlings have heard about, and should fear essentially forever, has a half life of 24,000 years, and a hazardous life of 240,000 to 480,000 years. Only one microgram, or one MILLIONTH of one gram, has been found to be the lung-cancer-causing dose. There are 454 grams in one pound, to give you an idea of plutonium’s potency. Just twenty pounds of plutonium-239 could theoretically cause lung cancer in every human being on Earth. And there is then plenty of plutonium in Fukushima’s nuclear waste, Chernobyl’s nuclear waste (the devastated reactor No. 4 is now leaking through its surrounding sarcophagus), plus the rivers and groundwaters around Fukushima, and now the Pacific Ocean and all the land masses it touches, plus the fish and seaweed, etc., potentially vulnerable to its contaminating radionuclides’ effects. Every commercial nuclear reactor produces 400-1000 pounds of plutonium per year.

A few weeks ago the most radioactive fish measured so far was caught in Fukushima prefecture. It measured 18,700 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, a reading over 37 times more than the Japanese government-imposed provisional limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram. A becquerel equals one nucleus decay per second of a quantity of radioactive material – that can strike and mutate your DNA. The rivers around Fukushima are washing out readings up to 20 BILLION becquerels per day of cesium per river, into the Pacific. And that is just cesium. And these nuclear-plant-produced radionuclides have been found in whales and other animals higher up the food chain. Obviously kelp and tuna and other things we would consider eating have to be seriously weighed for consideration as we have essentially polluted half of the planet for the next millennia by our stubborn dependence on nuclear power. Award-winning investigative journalist Michael Collins reports there is a mass of radioactive Fukushima water the size of the state of California that will reach southern California during the summer of 2013.

The next Fukushima or Chernobyl could occur here in America where we have 104 nuclear reactors, as opposed to Japan which has 54 reactors (and 53 have been closed for the last few months). The much vaunted AP-1000 has been deemed the next infallible version of nuclear power plant, but it too is just as prone to having an accident as the other versions of this ultimately dangerous technology which should have been immediately shut down forever when the Fukushima disaster started on March 11, 2011, if not on April 26 1986 when Chernobyl’s plant No. 4 exploded.

….Now, let us go back in time….to the last century…only 26 years ago it was…Early in the morning. Still dark out. April 26, 1986. Over in the northern reaches of northern Ukraine. When that country was still part of the USSR.

Testing was going on at reactor number four at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station. Power output had dropped to 7%, when suddenly it surged to 100 times 100% of full power in less than one minute!!! A catastrophic steam explosion occurred that “flipped the reactor’s massive cap like a coin and left it wedged and hanging askew inside the ruined reactor. The reactor’s core caught fire, leading to the largest single non-military radiation release in history.” [*1]

Here is another description from corpwatch.org:

“The nuclear fuel elements ruptured, and the resulting explosive force of steam lifted off the cover plate of the reactor, releasing radioactivity into the atmosphere. A second explosion threw out fragments of burning fuel and graphite from the reactor core and allowed air to rush in, causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames.”

Just in case it has been drubbed into your brain, NO, Chernobyl was NOT a “meltdown” like many media babblers continue to mouth. The core did not simply, and more innocuously, just “melt” into the ground. Nope. Explosions occurred, and then the fires.

Estimates vary, but nuclear physicist Dr. Vladimir Chernousenko, who supervised the clean-up [and subsequently died from cancer] “for a 10-kilometer zone around the exploded reactor, [stated] that 80 per cent of the reactor’s radioactivity escaped – – something like 7 BILLION curies” out of a possible 9 billion curies. That is an unbelievable quantity of radiation. A food irradiation plant theoretically holds up to 10 MILLION curies of radiation.

Of course, the “Russians and the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] claimed in a 1986 report that 50 million curies of radioactive debris, plus another 50 million curies of rare and inert gases were discharged.”[*2] Baloney for the nuclear soul, that report was later “condemned as a cover-up.”[*3] Sadly, Soviet authorities cared so much for their people that they “neither officially acknowledged the explosion, nor warned their citizens until May 2, 1986.”[*4]

Meanwhile, “the fire in the reactor core burned for ten days,” continuing to release radioactivity for months afterward.[*5] Yet (from Svetlana Alexievich’s tragic collection of ‘Voices From Chernobyl’):

“They suddenly started having these segments on television, like: an old lady milks her cow, pours the milk into a can, the reporter comes over with a military dosimeter, measures it. And the commentator says, See, everything’s fine, and the reactor is just ten kilometers away. They show the Pripyat River, there are people swimming in it, tanning themselves. In the distance you see the reactor and plumes of smoke above it. The commentator says: The West is trying to spread panic, telling lies about the accident.”[*6]

Soviet authorities took advantage of their people’s ignorance concerning radioactivity. The fact that you cannot see, taste or feel radioactivity contributes to it being kind of unbelievable that it can kill you. Might I ask: Are Americans any better with their knowledge concerning radioactivity than
the 1986 Soviets?

And what about the nuclear French, with 80 percent of their electricity produced by 58 nuclear reactors?[*7] In the immediate wake of the Chernobyl explosion, “France, instead of taking precautions like other European countries, had its state television stations issue weather reports indicating that the cloud of radioactivity from Chernobyl had miraculously stopped short at the Franco-German border!”[*8] Amazing how a society or culture, distorted by nuclear power, can have its people sacrificed to the radioactive gods.

(I know a lot of you think that the French are SO HAPPY with their nuclear power. However, you should know that:

“Even the French are having second thoughts. Less than 31 percent of the French public favor nuclear energy as a response to today’s energy crisis. 54 percent are now opposed to investing 3 billion euros in the construction of a new reactor, while 84 percent favor the development of renewable energy.14 But the French are stuck and will be for some time, since they have dug a much deeper nuclear hole for themselves proportionally than the United States.” The reference noted as 14. www.actu-environnement.com/ae/news/1872.php4 is quoted from Science For Democratic Action Vol 15, No. 2, January 2008, Arjun Makhijani’s magazine).Back at the ole #4 Chernobyl reactor now, slipping into the time machine…..

According to Sergei Vasilyevich Sobolev, Deputy Head of the Executive Committee of the Shield of Chernobyl Association:

“There was a moment when there was the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn’t get into it – with the water, they would have formed a critical mass. The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe.

So here was the task: who would dive in there and open the bolt on the safety valve? They promised them a car, an apartment, a dacha, aid for their families until the end of time. They searched for volunteers. And they found them! The boys dived, many times, and they opened that bolt, and the unit was given 7,000 roubles. They forgot about the cars and apartments they promised – that’s not why they dived. These are people who came from a certain culture, the culture of the great achievement. They were a sacrifice.

And what about the soldiers who worked on the roof of the reactor? Two hundred and ten military units were thrown at the liquidation of the fallout of the catastrophe, which equals about 340,000 military personnel. The ones cleaning the roof got it the worst. They had lead vests, but the radiation was coming from below, and they weren’t protected there. They were wearing ordinary, cheap imitation-leather boots. They spent about a minute and a half, two minutes on the roof each day, and then they were discharged, given a certificate and an award – 100 roubles. And then they disappeared to the vast peripheries of our motherland. On the roof they gathered fuel and graphite from the reactor, shards of concrete and metal.

It took about 20-30 seconds to fill a wheelbarrow, and then another 30 seconds to throw the “garbage” off the roof. These special wheelbarrows weighed 40 kilos just by themselves. So you can picture it: a lead vest, masks, the wheelbarrows, and insane speed.”[*9]

Karl Grossman has documented, with his EnviroVideo interview of Dr. Chernousenko, the madness on the roof, each individual soldier’s run actually lasting up to about 4 to 5 minutes worth of very high level radioactive exposure, from getting onto the roof, loading the wheelbarrow, or just a shovel, and then running it to the edge, where it could be tipped off and dumped over the side, then rapidly as possible exiting the roof.[*10] Many of these men died, or their reproductive organs were severely compromised. Soviet wives, naturally, were averse to have sex with these men for fear that their babies would be congenitally damaged.

From historian Aleksandr Revalskiy: “A while ago in the papers it said that in Byelorus alone, in 1993 there were 200,000 abortions. Because of Chernobyl. We all live with that fear now.”[*11] Of malformed babies, or stillbirths, or children that will tragically develop cancer. Like the boy that was born with “a mouth that stretches to his ears and no eyes.”[*12] Or the girl born, that “wasn’t a baby, she was a little sack…not a single opening, just the eyes….more simply: no pee-pee, no butt, one kidney.”[*13] …..

For more on this, and also the reference to the Yablokov et. al., book reviewing ~5000 articles, concluding that ~ one million premature deaths have occurred thus far from Chernobyl: two posts here on this website you may please link to…

http://www.crestofthewave.com/blog/uncategorized/chernobyl-disaster-25th-anniversary-in-fukushimas-radioactive-shadow/

http://www.crestofthewave.com/blog/conrads-corner/chernobyl-studies-book-available-for-10-now/

(C) April 26 2012 Conrad Miller M.D.

1) Is My Orange Juice ‘Fresh’ and Untainted?

Let’s start with good old OJ or orange juice.
What would you buy: ‘fresh,’ or OJ from concentrate? I
know the obvious answer, which we’ve probably made over
and over again. But get this about what is supposed to be
‘fresh’ when it comes to OJ lately:

The oranges are peeled and the juice squeezed and then
stored ‘aseptically’ in tanks that hold up to a million gallons,
and the juice is ‘deaerated’ – that is, the oxygen is removed so
the juice ‘doesn’t oxidize in the million gallon tanks in which
it can be kept for upwards of a year.

When the juice is stripped of oxygen it is also stripped of
flavor-providing chemicals. Juice companies therefore hire flavor
and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for
Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the
juice to make it taste fresh.”*

Isn’t that wonderful? My wife was wondering why she couldn’t drink
orange juice anymore, as she would get a rash and hives and itch
after she did so, but only in the recent past.

Remember that the perfume companies have to worry that their new
compounds will not kill or adversely affect their users. But, why
aren’t these ‘flavor packs’ part of the ingredients on the label
of your OJ?

‘The reason you don’t see any mention on the label about added flavors is because these flavors are derived from orange essences and oils. However, the appearance of being natural doesn’t necessarily mean it is. As Alissa Hamilton states:
“[T]hose in the industry will tell you that the flavor packs, whether
made for reconstituted or pasteurized orange juice, resemble nothing
found in nature.”

The juice is also typically designed to appeal to the taste preferences
of the market, and will therefore contain different flavor packs or
chemicals depending on where it will eventually end up. According to
Hamilton, the juice created for the North American market tends to contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, which is one of the most commonly used chemicals in both flavors and fragrances. Aside from being versatile in creating a number of different flavors, including orange, cherry, pineapple, mango, guava, and bubblegum, just to name a few, it’s also one of the least expensive.

Other markets, such as the Mexican and Brazilian, tend to contain different chemicals, such as various decanals or terpene compounds.’

Overall, some experts recommend not drinking orange juice, or juices at all – the whole fruit being much better for you because it has fiber
and anti-oxidants in it that are not there once the juice is processed
and pasteurized. Of course, if you need your OJ every day, be wise and get it the organic way. Buy the organic oranges and squeeze the juice yourself! See the reference for this story with more details at:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/16/dirty-little-secret-orange-juice-is-artificially-flavored-to-taste-like-oranges.aspx

P.S. There also is an OJ problem with contamination with Carbendazim, a USA-illegal fungicide declined to be allowed into the USA by our Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

‘Carbendazim is illegal on all citrus in the United States, but commonly used in Brazil, the world’s top orange juice exporter, to combat mold on orange trees. It is permitted in juice imports to the European Union, Brazil’s biggest buyer.’

For you who invest in futures, hark: ‘Orange juice futures have been on a rollercoaster ride since the FDA began testing orange juice imports after Coca-Cola alerted the agency to the presence of carbendazim, which was banned in the United States in 2009.’ **

The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) lists carbendazim as a possible
carcinogen [could cause cancer] and a suspected endocrine disruptor [endocrine refers to your hormones and the glands that produce them, like your ovaries, thyroid, adrenals].
See more at http://pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC32862#Toxicity

One last thing on labeling and ingredients: so the flavor additives made with the orange skin, plus whatever other secret chemicals that compose the flavor – - which can cause allergic symptoms, as with my wife, and, I’m sure, in many thousands or millions(?) of you – - do NOT have to be labeled on our mass produced orange juice. Then, there are other secret flavor (and color?) additives produced, for example, by a former Swiss perfume company, now called Givaudan, that are in so many of our processed foods from pretzels to chips to gravy packs to packaged meat products, that for some reason also do not have to be labeled. There was a very uncritical segment on this Givaudin story
on the TV show 60 Minutes in late 2011. How many of us are adversely affected by whatever these secret chemical additives are? Why is the world not ensuring that these additives are labeled? What is happening to our food supply, as it moves further and further from the raw and natural, to the synthetic and impractical? When will
President Obama fulfill his campaign promise to label GMO’s [Genetically Modified Organisms - - like 90% of all USA-grown soy] in our food, as they are labeled in 50 countries already, including all of the European Union, Russia, New Zealand, and China, as examples? GMO Labeling initiatives are getting onto the ballots in 17 states as we still live and breathe today. See the webpage ‘State Legislation To Label GMO’s’ to get the particulars and do your part in the battle at

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob315.htm

Remember that you are not alone in wanting GMO’s labeled. 93% of Americans polled want them labeled. It’s about time! (Yes, of course, there could be GMO corn, canola, soy or cottonseed included in those secret flavor concoctions that so many of us are allergic to.)

2. Fukushima Nuclear Plant Catastrophe Is Fixed and Over (Allow The Tokyo Electrical Power Company (TEPCO) Mislead You…), Reactors (Remaining) Are In ‘Cold Shutdown’ Now

Sounds great, doesn’t it!? But ‘cold shutdown’ is a term that means that the water in the reactor cores is only below 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius. Not really ‘cold.’ No. Plus these temperatures can (and probably do, and will in the future) bounce back up over boiling temperature, to possibly cause more production of radioactive radionuclides and havoc over the next 30 years as TEPCO tries to bring the melted down Fukushima reactor cores and cooling ponds under control, then eventually decommissioned, taken apart,
isolated somewhere forever at a place to be named later…

We now know that the groundwaters and rivers around Fukushima are massively contaminated, due to the devastating accident at the plant almost one year ago (March 11, 2011). This contamination is SEVERE: the rivers are spilling 20 BILLION Becquerels* per hour each day of just cesium (one of more than 500+ radionuclides produced by fissioning uranium in a nuclear power plant to boil water to produce steam to turn a turbine to produce electricity) into surrounding waters and ocean. Amidst the sadly vulnerable Pacific Ocean, cesium and
other radionuclides from plutonium to strontium to iodine, etc., are now concentrating amidst, and contaminating, fish, plants, life in general, out to the far reaches of our largest ocean, for centuries to come. And yes, there are still thousands of tons of radioactive water in the basements of the reactors. Deadly exposures at ‘hot spots’ where any of the radioactive radionuclides produced by nuclear fission are intensely concentrated – but not smellable, tasteable, or feelable – are all too possible. Both about the plants and in the area surrounding the plants to perhaps 50 miles from the plant – that radius of danger is
just a guess, but the USA did warn American citizens in Japan that they should stay away from Fukushima to that distance after the March 11 accident occurred.

For an idea of the seriousness of the hot spot danger, the NY Times reported on August 1, 2011 that workers found an area near Reactors No. 1 and 2, where radiation levels exceeded their measuring device’s maximum reading of 10 sieverts per hour — a fatal dose for humans.
Remember that 10 SIEVERTS = 10,000 millisieverts = 1000 Rems per hour in this case >> when 500 rems or rads is considered to be the fatal dose that causes radiation sickness and death within 2 weeks!

We do NOT know if that hot spot is ‘cleaned up’ yet or will persist for millennia. Because we humans are not geiger counters and cannot detect radiation with our five senses, we could dangerously expose ourselves for a few fatal minutes to just the edge of this hot spot without being aware of what we have just done, to soon die an agonizing death where we bleed from all our orifices as our immune system implodes, our hair falls out, lesions break out all over our
skin and within our vital organs…TEPCO estimated, according to the August 1 article, that this hot spot probably has existed since the early days of the March 11 tsunami/earthquake and nuclear accident that includes meltdowns at reactors 1-3, destruction of reactor 4, leaving reactor 4’s fuel pool exposed to the elements, repeatedly releasing radiation to the environment, both air and water that yes, does circulate around our little globe that we call Earth.

And people like 23 year old fisherman Abe Hiroto, staying in the evacuation zone, eating the local fish to show how safe they are and how safe it is to be there, maybe because he thought radiation is some phony thing that can do nothing to you….died from acute lymphocytic leukemia in latter 2011. He is featured reportedly in the January 2012 edition of Rod and Reel magazine if you want to get yourself a unique view of the scene around Fukushima Prefect, and the
rationalization humans use for their ignorance about things they wish to deny. Like the dangers of radiation, and nuclear power.

Is there an absolute link between the rather rare acute lymphocytic leukemia and radiation, one wonders? No, there is no proof the radiation produced Mr. Hiroto’s fatal cancer (at such a young age). But then, if he wasn’t very ill too from the same disease, receiving chemotherapy, you could ask 63 year old TV newscaster Norikazu Otsuka how he possibly came down with the very same cancer,
perhaps related to his promoting Fukushima produce, eating such for all his viewers to see, during his morning TV show? Yes, he had been in Fukushima on March 15, 2011, four days after the nuclear catastrophe began. There are about 1.5 cases of this cancer per 100,000 people and about 11% of cases are in people over 55.

Actually, the danger of further complications and contamination from Fukushima is not really over. Fairewinds.org reports that the piping to cool the reactors is “jury-rigged” and not “seismically qualified” to withstand a next earthquake. The plant could be back to disaster status within 40 hours, should another powerful enough earthquake occur.

Fairewinds also reports that solid nuclear waste from Fukushima prefecture would fill up 33 stadiums the size of the New Orleans Superdome. An example of this waste is a tarp found at a school near
Tokyo that had been open in March/April before being rolled up. Its radioactive disintegration count/exposure was measured at 90,000 disintegrations/second/kilogram of weight of the human body
(for example). Each disintegration can hit your DNA and cause a mutation and possibly the start of a cancer.

Frighteningly, it looks like the current initial Japanese solution to the radioactive waste contamination problem is to dilute the solid waste – like the tarp – at a 1000-1 dilution/concentration with other waste material, per kilogram, and then INCINERATE IT!!!! – In the USA such waste is required to be buried deep and ‘safely(?)’ isolated essentially forever in a nuclear waste facility.

Remember that with incineration: some of the radioactive waste goes up the stack, and gets out into the environment – not all of it is successfully filtered; while some remains in the waste ash [radioactive] that then must be disposed of.

So, what do the Japanese then intend to do with their incinerated radioactive ash, you might wonder??? Why, they are going to SPREAD IT IN TOKYO BAY!!!!!! It’s being dumped into landfills about Tokyo Bay! To then run out into the Pacific Ocean, wherever that may lead the radionuclides that could concentrate in fish and shellfish, especially. Especially fish higher up the food chain, like seals and whales and tuna, etc. And what about the kelp and coral calcium many of us treasure? We should beware of what we eat henceforth that comes out of the Pacific Ocean! You may want to deny the danger, but isn’t that human nature? The magnitude of the Fukushima accident is humongous, perhaps poisoning half of our planet
irrevocably for centuries, including our genetic code including plants and animals. Not to mention the air we must breathe that could have radionuclides like plutonium floating around in it that originated at
Fukushima. Plutonium-239, with its 24,000 year half life and 240,000 to 480,000 year ‘hazardous life’ during which we have to worry about it causing lung cancer with just a microgram being the cancer-causing
dose (one MILLION micrograms in one gram; 454 grams in one pound; meaning: one pound of plutonium, if dispersed in small enough particles, could cause 454 MILLION lung cancers if inhaled into our lungs). And plutonium is just one of over 500 + radionuclides produced by fissioning uranium in nuclear plants – or by a nuclear disaster like the one at Fukushima – that can cause mutations and cancers of various sorts.

Here’s 4 facts on the nuclear/Fukushima front to leave you with, before we go on to the possible approval of ‘Agent Orange Corn:’ Our media keeps calling the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ‘a
watchdog agency of the United Nations.’ However, as quoted on the fairewinds.org site: ‘Article 2 of the IAEA charter states that: ‘The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic
energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world.’ meaning the IAEA’s primary focus is to promote nuclear energy, not regulate it.

Perhaps that jives with both TEPCO and the IAEA determining what is an acceptable level of risk to citizens in Japan who might wish to move back into their homes around Fukushima. They are in agreement
that an annual exposure of 2000 millirems is OK. Be aware that the common ‘background radiation’ exposure we get in most of America is 200 millirems per year (not including radon exposure). So, the extra 1800 millirems could be OK? And how closely will that be measured anyway, what with all the groundwater contamination, and the hot spots that could exist anywhere there?

Plus the IAEA is also condoning the dumping-in-Tokyo-Bay practice!

Plus the current head, or Director General, of the IAEA, is a Japanese former nuclear regulator for the Japanese government – Yukiya Amano. ***

3) Agent Orange Corn?!?

Agent Orange Corn!!? Yeah, this is from the newest Horror Movie…Well, no, it isn’t, unfortunately. This genetically altered mutant life-form could be in our fields any day now, along with untold tons
of toxic herbicide from the Agent Orange concoction – UNLESS YOU fight it, and you can, very easily, by signing onto a letter to stop this sick sick next step in brazen biotech craziness.

Go to this link and you can sign on and do your deed:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gelink.cfm

Here’s more of the hideous story:

Many of you out there served in Vietnam and know the dangers of Agent Orange first-hand to your body and soul. Cancers, infertility, mutational damage, rashes, hormonal imbalances are just some of the
side effects our soldiers and the unfortunate Vietnamese had to experience as a result of inhumane Agent Orange use during the war waged in Indochina – - as it used to be called. Now, Dow Chemical
wants to make money by introducing their genetically altered corn product that is engineered to be resistant to their chemical/herbicide 2-4-D, a major component of Agent Orange.

The way the GMO, or genetically modified organism world usually works is, they gene gun in genetic sequences that disrupt and change the DNA make-up of a plant that they can then patent, while purposely ensuring that the design includes resistance to an herbicide they also happen to manufacture, that they can spray and spray on the GMO plant, that will survive the spraying, while weeds are killed around it, and when they sell lots and lots of the toxic herbicide, they can
maximize profits of both plant and herbicide.

(Dow Corporation hasn’t the patent rights to use gene gunning, so they use a technique that causes tumor growth on plant leaves that can lead to the production of a unique transgenic product/plant.
Please see the one paragraph addendum at bottom of this newsletter.)

After all we hear and know about Agent Orange, who would believe even Dow or Monsanto, or any of our wonderful ‘Gene Giants’ corporations, would possibly even consider the use of 2-4-D for widespread usage to despicably contaminate our fields, water and bodies?? This stuff will be used everywhere the Agent Orange Corn is grown, and be in the corn itself that you might eat, as would any pesticide. And, at this stage, it probably won’t be labelled, so you won’t know what kind of corn it is, nor that it’s been sprayed with 2-4-D. As the 2-4-D is sprayed in the fields where the corn is grown, it will get into the groundwater that runs into the creeks and rivers, get into the soil and air. This could be THE worst biotech nightmare of corporate greed (up to now, anyway).

Scientists researching the toxicity of pesticides and herbicides have found that ‘exposure to 2-4-D itself and to myriad “inert” ingredients contained in 2-4-D products have been linked to many health harms. The common weedkiller is listed in California as a reproductive and developmental toxicant, defined as a chemical that interferes with fetal or child development or reduces fertility. Researchers have also found a link between 2-4-D exposure and birth defects of the heart and circulatory/respiratory systems. The association is especially strong among infants conceived between April and June — the time
of greatest herbicide application in many parts of the country.

Many studies also link 2-4-D with developmental neurotoxicity, findings that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has repeatedly failed to adequately consider in its regulation of the herbicide.

2-4-D has been linked to cancer for years For more than two decades chlorophenoxy herbicides (including 2-4-D) have been classified as possible human carcinogens.

In recent years, more data have emerged linking 2-4-D with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and other cancers. A 2000 study in the Midwest wheat growing region, where 2-4-D use is high, showed increased mortality for cancer of the brain and leukemia in both boys and girls, as well as increased rates of many different cancers linked with increasing wheat acreage. A more recent study of California farmworkers showed an increase in gastric cancer associated with use of 2-4-D.’ ****

Organic Consumers.org additionally points out that ‘in mammals, 2-4-D disrupts energy production, depleting the body of its primary energy molecule, ATP.

2-4-D contains dioxins, environmental pollutants belonging to the “dirty dozen,” a group of extremely toxic chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants.

2-4-D was banned in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Quebec and scores of Canadian municipalities after numerous epidemiological studies linked 2-4-D to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among farmers and members of the general public.

2-4-D causes significant suppression of thyroid hormone levels. Thyroid hormone is known to play a critical role in the development of the brain. Slight thyroid suppression has been shown to adversely
affect neurological development in the fetus, resulting in lasting effects on the child’s learning and behavior.

Male farm sprayers exposed to 2-4-D had lower sperm counts and more spermatic abnormalities compared to men who were not exposed to this chemical. In Minnesota, higher rates of birth defects have been observed in areas of the state with the highest use of 2-4-D and other herbicides of the same class. This increase in birth defects was most pronounced among infants who were conceived in the spring, the time of greatest herbicide use.

2-4-D also interferes with the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. In young organisms, exposure to 2-4-D results in delays in brain development and abnormal behavior patterns, including apathy,
decreased social interactions, repetitive movements, tremor, and immobility.

This herbicide impairs normal deposition of myelin [coats our nerves] in the developing brain. The neurotoxic and anti thyroid effects of 2-4-D mean that fetuses, infants, and children are more susceptible to longterm adverse health effects from exposure to this chemical although they may appear normal at birth.

2-4-D is excreted in breast milk, thereby resulting in potentially significant exposures to the nursling. 2-4-D residues have been detected in stomach contents, blood, brains and kidneys of 4-day-old neonates fed by 2-4-D exposed mothers. When maternal exposures stopped, the chemical continued to be excreted in maternal milk for a week. Postnatal exposures to this chemical during the critical period for development of the infant brain are of serious scientific concern.

Deregulation of 2-4-D tolerant crops would only increase our exposure to this dangerous pesticide.’ *****

Enough information? Enraged? Disgusted? Time to Sack our Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, former ‘biotech governor of the year,’ for promoting everything and anything biotech?? Yes, you can do something about this latest corporate/chemical/GMO/government approved and facilitated assault on our dignity and health! But you have to do your part before or on February 27th!! Just sign your name and address to the following letter. It’s easy. And send the link to your friends too, who wouldn’t want 2-4-D slathered
all over our country and biosphere, would you?

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gelink.cfm

Three last paragraphs from Organic Consumers.org – a terrific organization, I might add, that gets things done with its approximately one MILLION subscribers who are active and activist on issues like this assault on our food and crops!

‘”Although dioxins are environmental contaminants, most dioxin exposure occurs through the diet, with over 95% coming through dietary intake of animal fats.”

The food industry doesn’t want you to know that you can easily exceed the daily dioxin limit proposed by the EPA by consuming a single large meal of non-organic animal products. Most of all, the food industry doesn’t want to have to take responsibility for the dioxin contamination. If they did, they would have to submit to common-sense food safety measures, like those embraced by the organic industry, that ban toxic pesticides and slaughterhouse waste from animal feed.

Tell the EPA to release its report on schedule and to not bow down to food industry lobbyists who don’t want us to know what we’re eating. Then watch this NutritionFacts.org video to learn which foods are
most likely to contain dioxin.

And, if you haven’t already, please take action on our “Stop Agent Orange Frankencorn” campaign to stop the new generation of genetically engineered crops designed to withstand being drenched with 2-4-D, the 7th-largest source of dioxin pollution in the US.’****** PLEASE DO THIS BEFORE or ON FEB. 27TH 2012!!

Again, go to http://www.organicconsumers.org/gelink.cfm to do this.

*****************************************************

4) BPA in Your Plastic Bottles, But Surprisingly High Concentrations From Your CANS & Canned Food!

Who woulda thought? Most of us who are conscious about what we put into our and our children’s bodies are concerned about BPA causing cancer, obesity, infertility and behavioral problems. We know it’s in plastic bottles, especially baby bottles. What with the information of what havoc it could wreak on our babies’ health, it has been banned from baby bottles in many areas.

‘Nalgene, which makes popular water bottles, quit using BPA when customers began complaining about it. Sunoco, one of the companies that makes BPA, said it would sell the chemical only to buyers who
guaranteed that they would not use it in food or drink containers meant for children.

Consumer fears have made the words “BPA-free” a marketing tool. Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Sears, CVS and other retailers have said they will stop selling baby bottles made with BPA, and major formula
and baby-bottle manufacturers have also scrapped it.’ *******

Bisphenol A or BPA can be an endocrine disruptor, like dioxin and 2-4-D, and PCB’s. It attaches to estrogen receptors in the body. Linda S. Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences (part of the National Institutes of Health), stated in a September 6, 2010 New York Times article: “What’s estrogen associated with?…Breast cancer, uterine cancer, obesity, behavior, the immune system. If BPA can have some estrogenic-like properties, it is scientifically plausible that it might have a wide spectrum of effects. We need to move beyond the idea that an environmental chemical or a drug is only going to do one thing, and need to understand that what happens to an infant may be different
from what happens to an adult.”

The results from a new round of studies [on BPA] are not expected for at least two years [article written 9/6/2010]. “We are in some ways using BPA as a model for an endocrine-disrupting compound,” she said.
“What can happen when you perturb fundamental homeostatic processes in the body?”

Impersonating Hormones?

The idea that drugs or chemicals could act like hormones has been around for decades, but advocacy campaigns in the 1990s drew public attention to the issue. Such effects can be subtle and delayed.
Hormones act on receptors in cells, structures to which they attach — the standard comparison is lock and key — and orchestrate growth, differentiation and all sorts of biochemical activities. Many cells
have receptors for estrogen, and BPA can bind to those receptors, though far less strongly than the body’s own estrogen can.

R. Thomas Zoeller, a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said BPA could also bind to receptors for male hormone and thyroid hormone. “I don’t know of a single other molecule that does this,” Dr. Zoeller said.’*******

That’s pretty scary, isn’t it? ‘The Endocrine Society issued a 34-page report expressing serious concerns about endocrine-disrupting compounds, including BPA, dioxins, PCBs, DDT, the plasticizers known
as phthalates and DES.

The society has about 14,000 members from more than 100 countries, who work in medicine, biology, genetics, immunology, industry and other areas.

The report said there was strong evidence that endocrine disruptors could harm the reproductive system, causing malformations, infertility and cancer. It noted that the chemicals could affect all endocrine
systems, and said there was mounting evidence for effects on the thyroid gland, brain, obesity and metabolism, and the body’s ability to regulate insulin and glucose levels. It also said that fetuses exposed to chemicals in the womb could experience effects later in life, and pass those abnormalities to future generations.

Scientists call such effects “the fetal basis of adult disease,” and say they probably result from epigenetic changes — meaning that the chemicals alter the functioning of genes, turning them on or off,
but do not cause mutations, which are changes in the actual structure of the genes. Some scientists said that they had doubted that low doses could cause harm, but changed their minds after seeing the data.’ *******

Be aware that ‘BPA is found in polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. Polycarbonate plastics are often used in containers that store food and beverages, such as water bottles, and baby bottles and cups. They may also be used in toys and other consumer goods. Epoxy resins can be used to coat the inside of metal products, such as food cans, baby formula cans, bottle tops and water supply lines. Some dental sealants and composites also may contain BPA. And certain thermal paper products, such as cash register receipts, may contain BPA – this is really scary, just to show how ubiquitously this terrible chemical is spread about amidst our society.

Some research has shown that BPA can seep into food or beverages from containers that are made with BPA or into your body when you handle products made with BPA. BPA remains controversial, and research studies are continuing. The American Chemistry Council, an association that represents plastics manufacturers, contends
that BPA poses no risk to human health.’ *********

Then there was published in mid November 2011 ‘in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the first [study] to measure the amounts [of BPA] that are ingested when people eat food that comes directly out of a can, in this case soup. The spike in BPA levels that the researchers recorded is one of the highest seen in any study.

“We cannot say from our research what the consequences are,” said Karin Michels, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and an author of the study. “But the very high levels that we found are very surprising. We would have never expected a thousand-percent increase in their levels of BPA.”

As part of the study, Dr. Michels and her colleagues recruited a group of 75 staff members and students at the Harvard School of Public Health, split them into two groups, and then followed them for two weeks. During the first week, one group ate a 12-ounce serving of vegetarian soup from a common brand of canned soup
every day for five days; the other group, meanwhile, ate 12 ounces of vegetarian soup made from fresh ingredients each day. Then, after a two-day soup-free “wash out” period, the groups switched roles and were followed for five more days. At the end of each five-day period, the subjects provided urine samples.

Dr. Michels noted that all the participants were fed amounts of soup that were smaller than what people probably would consume on their own. “One serving of soup is a not a lot,” she said. “They were actually telling us that that wasn’t even enough for their lunch.”

In general, most studies have found that urinary BPA levels in typical adults average somewhere around 2 micrograms per liter. That was roughly the levels the Harvard researchers found in the subjects after a week of eating the soup made from fresh ingredients. After eating the canned soup, though, their levels rose above 20 micrograms per liter, a 1,221 percent increase.

Dr. Michels pointed out that the findings were probably applicable to other canned goods, including soda and juices. “The sodas are concerning, because some people have a habit of consuming a lot of them throughout the day,” she said. “My guess is that with other canned foods, you would see similar increases in bisphenol-A. But we only tested soups, so we wouldn’t be able to predict the absolute size of the increase.”

Many companies began phasing out BPA in baby bottles and other plastic food containers in recent years to ease public anxieties, but it is still widely used in the linings of metal cans because it helps prevent corrosion and is resistant to high heat during the sterilization process.’ ********

‘Animal studies during the past decade or so began raising concerns about BPA, which is used to harden polycarbonate, a clear plastic that makes nice-looking food containers, bottles and sippy cups. It has
been widely used since the 1960s and is also in some medical devices, dental sealants, thermal paper for cash register receipts and the epoxy resin that lines most food and drink cans. The United States produces about a million tons of it a year.’ *******

So, Very ubiquitous then. Plus being almost everywhere, especially in your supermarket, your lotto print-outs, credit card receipts, etc.

Gail S. Prins, a professor of physiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an author of the Endocrine Society’s report mentioned above, said ‘“I could see there was some consistent data…I started
thinking, ‘Hmm, maybe there could be something there.’ It was still curious to me. This is not a regular toxicant. It’s acting like a hormone, and hormones can act at extremely low doses. If you think the dose
makes the poison, it doesn’t make sense. But if you think about it as a hormone — and I’m an endocrinologist — it does make sense.” ‘ *******

So, if you are concerned about BPA, besides drinking henceforth from bottles and steel and/or porcelain containers, and avoiding plastic bottles or cans that are not certainly BPA-free, take these five tips from Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D.

• ‘Seeking out BPA-free products. This may not always be easy to do, of course. Some manufacturers label their products as BPA-free. If a product isn’t labeled, keep in mind that most aluminum cans or bottles have linings that contain BPA, while steel bottles or cans don’t. Polycarbonate plastic is generally hard, clear, lightweight plastic. It often has the No. 7 recycling symbol on the bottom.

• Microwave cautiously. The National Toxicology Program advises against microwaving polycarbonate plastics, although the American Chemistry Council says this is safe. The plastics can break down over time, possibly causing BPA to leach into food.

• Wash safely. The National Toxicology Program advises against washing polycarbonate plastics in the dishwasher using harsh detergents, although the American Chemistry Council says this is safe.

• Use alternatives. Use glass, porcelain or stainless steel containers for hot foods and liquids instead of plastic containers.

• Cut back on cans. Reduce your use of canned foods since many cans are lined with BPA-containing resin.’

These tips come from this link that you can check:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bpa/AN01955

I hope this information helps you watch your orange juice and cans and plastic bottles and gets you out there to help stop 2-4-D ‘Agent Orange Corn’ from being feisted upon us by the corporate powers that be. Remember, hit that link at the end of section 3 of this newsletter and do your part to protect yourselves from the GMO/chemical industries’ assaults on our health. Plus spread the word about what’s really going on at Fukushima. Note that cesium (plus strontium) by volume makes up most of nuclear power plants’ radioactive waste. Cesium is recognized as if it is potassium by the body, potassium is the most plentiful electrolyte in our cells, so that’s where the radioactive cesium goes to beep and mutate and cancerize possibly just about any part of our body as it leaks out of the groundwaters and rivers around the Fukushima TEPCO complex into the Pacific Ocean and into our
vulnerable Earthly biosphere to potentially affect us all, but children moreso than old geriatric adults.

All the Best,

You have the knowledge now; You are the witness to what is going on; isn’t it your duty to not ignore your responsibility to help your fellow human being or dog or kelp lying on the side of the road? Call up that ambulance or supermarket or Congressperson and tell her/him to get it right and help us all do the right thing, not the corporate thing that is ruining our civilization in the name of money and exasperating bonuses and radioactive particles produced in fleeting electricity that is gone in a moment while the cancer causing
waste mounts and continues killing and mutating our DNA until we all are gone from memory or existence….

Keep up the Love

That’s one thing we all have and can share and multiply very easily for everyone’s benefit,

Conrad Miller M.D. © 2012

P.S. If you wish to receive the newsletter check on the home page to sign up. Also, if you have been receiving the newsletter in the past but for some reason are not getting it now, and have signed up in the past, please put Conrad Miller M.D. in your contacts in your email address/place and my email address of darnoc@crestofthewave.com

See You Next Time ……………………..

* A becquerel (symbol Bq) is a unit of radioactivity, defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. It is therefore equivalent to s-1. The older unit of
radioactivity was the curie (Ci). 1 Bq = 2.7×10-11 Ci, i.e. 27 picocuries. These disintegrations produce energy in the form of alpha, beta or gamma rays that can hit DNA and change its make-up, sometimes causing what are called ‘mutations’ that can lead or produce cancers.

It was named after Henri Becquerel, who shared a Nobel Prize with Marie Curie for their work in discovering radioactivity.

** http://news.yahoo.com/u-wont-allow-more-fungicide-orange-juice-fda-220834002.html?ugc_c=zt8goU_12QBi5rzfvbZ_Zm0u3WceJvOlTCxsWFURTNxvdINnSISv2xP8HvM5Vu48S789hnsHhm86ja1S3DPErZCZptoJnN8Yn5Akq4whHefG_znkrRUTP2OdQz2ifSDi1OFA_EsFy4lgIc1RRmIa6KWKfQO4yjKwShxn04T2VfOUPH1KY4fW_ZVBO5EynT2UTaGa16CdtPb6tV4zQsurc66fSOst242BP9WkXR_fGi8LIFPLh7RW9VSa9CFgQGy2z69cAttrpVyNbQ8oouP2Pli7CuaYYo6D&bcnv_s=e&uh_id=e2495b462p5uj5dpvji953pq4bbuh&ugc_scnv=1&ll=2

*** See fairewinds.org for the video on this subject, including the transcript of the verbiage.

http://fairewinds.com/content/tepco-believes-mission-accomplished-regulators-allow-radioactive-dumping-tokyo-bay

**** http://www.panna.org/blog/24-d-corn-bad-idea-and-heres-why

***** http://www.organicconsumers.org/gelink.cfm

****** http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob313.htm

******* http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/science/07bpa.html?pagewanted=print

******** http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/bpa-lurks-in-canned-soups-and-drinks/

********* http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bpa/AN01955

Addendum for Section 3) Agent Orange Corn from Jenessa Stemke:

There are two main ways to perform genetic engineering. One way is the gene shotgun method, a process monopolized and patented by DuPont. A gene shotgun shoots microscopic gold pellets coated with DNA sequences containing the gene of interest into plant cells. The other method that the rest of the genetic engineering world uses is called Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. In this process, a
naturally occurring bacteria that causes tumors in plants called Agrobacterium tumefaciens is exposed to the gene of interest (e.g. a gene from arctic fish to allow frost tolerance in corn). Not all
bacteria cells assimilate the DNA, so scientists have included a gene encoding for antibiotic resistance along with the fish gene. The bacteria are then exposed to the antibiotic. Those that survive contain the fish gene, as well as the antibiotic resistance gene. The corn plants are exposed to the surviving transgenic bacteria, and the bacteria infect the plant and cause tumors on the leaves. In this process, some DNA migrates from the bacteria to the plant cells. This process is also highly inefficient, so scientists have also included herbicide resistance genes (along with the fish gene and antibiotic
resistance gene). Plants are then propagated from the tumor and then exposed to the herbicide. Those that survive are transgenic. 2-4-D transgenic corn doesn’t even have a fish gene, since the entire
objective is 2-4-D-resistant corn, but it will have the antibiotic resistance gene, because Dow does not have patent rights to the gene gun method, which bypasses a step in the transformation process. The result? A plant that Dow can then can then patent, while purposely ensuring that the design includes resistance to an herbicide they also happen to manufacture, to maximize profits.

The title connects to the jazz song ‘Passione’ played by James Senese’s band, Mr. Senese on saxophone. He speaks about being black in Italy, and the prejudice he had to go through, as there weren’t too many black folks in Italy until after the USA invaded the land of Mussolini and overthrew the Fascists at the end of World war 2. You can see how happy a lot of Italians were to see the Americans rid them of Mussolini. Remember, they hung the mug-chinned dictator by a lightpost in the streets when the people had the opportunity to do so.

Mr. Senese explains that his father was a black soldier from North Carolina, and his mother was a Neopolitan (which means she came from Napoli or Naples).

Five men from the band Avion Travel perform in a building-framed square, then are asked who the best singer was from Napoli. Three of the five say Sergio Bruni. Then the middle person of the five sings one of his most famous songs, to the joy of the others. Then Turtuffo provides us with some footage of
the man himself on black and white film, dressed in suit and tie, with a lovely voice and a big Italian schnozzola, with a unique flute soloist interacting with Mr. Bruni on the tune provided.

Riaz, of mixed descent, does a great reggae tune, very MTV, shot in the poor streets of Napoli, with beautiful women walking
throughout the filming, including going thru this one tiny door cut out of a temporary steel wall in a building that is being renovated – which is so typical for Italy and most of Europe.

If you love music and Italy, go see this one. It’s playing one more night in Westhampton at the Performing Arts Theatre, Thursday August 11, 2011, where Wynonna Judd arrives and plays on August 13. The fantastic ‘Incendies’ will be in the Theater midweek, next week. French, terrific plot/story, but yes
quite heavy. I highly recommend that one too.

Chernobyl Legacy: ~985,000 Prematurely Dead From April 26, 1986 Nuclear Accident (death count will continue to rise over next 20 years at least, with new lung cancers and other cancers still developing, radiation contamination-induced cancers to continue to evolve…)

Tomorrow, April 26, 2011 will mark the 25th Anniversary of what has
been mankind’s worst industrial accident ever, until the ongoing
Fukushima disaster, the Chernobyl nuclear accident commencing with
a steam explosion on April 26, 1986, followed by a ten day graphite
fire. According to Dr. Alexey Yablokov, president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy and former environmental advisor to the late President Boris Yeltsin:

‘The life expectancy in Russia, which had been the same as that of the United States, is now 59 for men and 64 for women, a fact that Dr. Yablokov attributes principally to Chernobyl: “You see longevity dropping precipitously right after 1986 and the accident.”’[*A1]

Dr. Yablokov headed a review of ~5000 studies in non-English
languages including Byelorus, Ukranian, Russian, which is now
available in English in book form – which now you can purchase for
but $10 when the original cost was $150 per copy (see end of
this article/newsletter for how you can get yourself a copy).
From reviewing these studies, Dr. Yablokov et al have evaluated
that, so far, approximately 985,000 people have died prematurely
from the effects of Chernobyl’s radioactive contamination, which
has spread worldwide, as has Fukushima’s.

Does this jive with nuclear power being “safe and clean?”
Or even ‘green’ ???? Fukushima has propelled new perceptions
of nuclear power’s dangers upon the world, besides just the worrying
about our still unfathomed problem of nuclear waste, which has
to be perfectly contained for tens and hundreds of thousands of
years – remember, the thousands of pounds of plutonium that are
produced every year in nuclear plants have a hazardous life of
240,000 – 480,000 years! Just one microgram is the lung-cancer
causing dose. Twenty pounds of the stuff could theoretically
kill every human being on Earth, with the lung cancers typically
taking 20-30 years to develop from inhaling a tiny particle
of plutonium.

Yes, Fukushima has also released plutonium into the atmosphere
from its fuel pool fire(s) and criticality, besides the explosions in reactors 1-3. Then there is all the red hot radioactive water with all the 500-plus radionuclides present that a nuclear reactor fissioning uranium can produce. This radioactive water has been leaking into the Pacific Ocean, spreading its contamination all about the waters of the Earth, and the lands that receive these waters, incorporating them
into the environment, food, plants, animals, and yes, human
bodies and genes. Mutations will result, forever changing our
gene pool, many of these causing birth defects, and non-viable
fetuses that will be released by our women’s wombs as stillbirths
and miscarriages.

But the unfortunate anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster
is now upon us, so let us go back in time. . . to the last century
…25 years ago it was…Early in the morning. Still dark out. April 26, 1986. Over in the northern Ukraine. When that country was still part of the USSR.

Testing was going on at reactor number four at the Chernobyl Atomic
Energy Station. Power output had dropped to 7%, when suddenly it
surged to 100 times 100% of full power in less than one minute!!!
A catastrophic steam explosion occurred that “flipped the reactor’s
massive cap like a coin and left it wedged and hanging askew inside
the ruined reactor. The reactor’s core caught fire, leading to the
largest single non-military radiation release in history.” [*1]

Here is another description from corpwatch.org:

“The nuclear fuel elements ruptured, and the resulting explosive
force of steam lifted off the cover plate of the reactor, releasing
radioactivity into the atmosphere. A second explosion threw out
fragments of burning fuel and graphite from the reactor core and
allowed air to rush in, causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames.”

Just in case it has been drubbed into your brain, NO, Chernobyl was NOT a “meltdown” like many media mouths continue to state. The core did not simply, and more innocuously, just “melt” into the ground. No, explosions occurred, and then the fires.

Estimates vary, but nuclear physicist Dr. Vladimir Chernousenko, who
supervised the clean-up [and subsequently died from cancer] stated “for a 10-kilometer zone around the exploded reactor, 80 per
cent of the reactor’s radioactivity escaped – – something like 7 BILLION curies” out of a possible 9 billion curies. That is an unbelievable quantity of radiation. A food irradiation plant theoretically holds up to 10 MILLION curies of radiation.

Of course, the “Russians and the International Atomic Energy
Agency [IAEA] claimed in a 1986 report that 50 million curies of
radioactive debris, plus another 50 million curies of rare and inert
gases were discharged.”[*2] However, that report was later “condemned as a cover-up.”[*3] Sadly, Soviet authorities cared so much for their people that they “neither officially acknowledged the explosion, nor warned their citizens until May 2, 1986.”[*4]

Meanwhile, “the fire in the reactor core burned for ten days,” continuing to release radioactivity for months afterward.[*5] Yet (from Svetlana Alexievich’s tragic collection of ‘Voices From Chernobyl’):

“They suddenly started having these segments on television, like: an old lady milks her cow, pours the milk into a can, the reporter comes over with a military dosimeter, measures it. And the commentator says, See, everything’s fine, and the reactor is just ten kilometers away. They show the Pripyat River, there are people swimming in it, tanning themselves. In the distance you see the reactor and plumes of smoke above it. The commentator says: The West is trying to spread panic, telling lies about the accident.”[*6]

Soviet authorities took advantage of their people’s ignorance concerning radioactivity. The fact that you cannot see, taste or feel radioactivity contributes to it being kind of unbelievable that it can kill you. Might I ask: Are Americans any better with their knowledge concerning radioactivity than the 1986 Soviets?

And what about the nuclear French, with 78 percent of their electricity produced by 58 nuclear reactors?[*7] In the immediate wake of the Chernobyl explosion, “France, instead of taking precautions like other European countries, had its state television stations issue weather reports indicating that the cloud of radioactivity from Chernobyl had miraculously stopped short at the Franco-German border!”[*8] Amazing how a society or culture, distorted by nuclear power, can have its people sacrificed to
the radioactive gods.

(I know a lot of you think that the French are SO HAPPY with their nuclear power. However, you should know that:

“Even the French are having second thoughts. Less than 31 percent of the French public favor nuclear energy as a response to today’s energy crisis. 54 percent are now opposed to investing 3 billion euros in the construction of a new reactor, while 84 percent favor the development of renewable energy.[*14] But the French are stuck and will be for some time, since they have dug a much deeper nuclear
hole for themselves proportionally than the United States.” The reference noted as *14. www.actu-environnement.com/ae/news/1872.php4 is quoted from Science For Democratic Action Vol 15, No. 2, January 2008, Arjun Makhijani’s magazine).Back at the ole #4 Chernobyl reactor now, slipping into the time machine…

According to Sergei Vasilyevich Sobolev, Deputy Head of the Executive Committee of the Shield of Chernobyl Association:

“There was a moment when there was the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn’t get into it – with the water, they would have formed a critical mass. The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe.

So here was the task: who would dive in there and open the bolt on the safety valve? They promised them a car, an apartment, a dacha, aid for their families until the end of time. They searched for volunteers. And they found them! The boys dived, many times, and they opened that bolt, and the unit was given 7,000 roubles. They forgot about the cars and apartments they promised – that’s not why they dived. These are people who came from a certain culture, the culture of the great achievement. They were a sacrifice.

And what about the soldiers who worked on the roof of the reactor? Two hundred and ten military units were thrown at the liquidation of the fallout of the catastrophe, which equals about 340,000 military personnel. The ones cleaning the roof got it the worst. They had lead vests, but the radiation was coming from below, and they weren’t protected there. They were wearing ordinary, cheap imitation-leather boots. They spent about a minute and a half, two minutes on the roof each day, and then they were discharged, given a certificate and an award – 100 roubles. And then they disappeared to the vast peripheries of our motherland. On the roof they gathered fuel and graphite from the reactor, shards of concrete and metal.

It took about 20-30 seconds to fill a wheelbarrow, and then another 30 seconds to throw the “garbage” off the roof. These special wheelbarrows weighed 40 kilos just by themselves. So you can picture it: a lead vest, masks, the wheelbarrows, and insane speed.”[*9]

Karl Grossman has documented, with his EnviroVideo interview of Dr. Chernousenko, the madness on the roof, each individual soldier’s run actually lasting up to about 4 to 5 minutes worth of very high level radioactive exposure, from getting onto the roof, loading the wheelbarrow, or just a shovel, and then running it to the edge, where it could be tipped off and dumped over the side, then rapidly as possible exiting the roof.[*10] Many of these men died, or their reproductive organs were severely compromised. Soviet wives, naturally, were averse to have sex with these men for fear that their babies would be congenitally damaged.

From historian Aleksandr Revalskiy: “A while ago in the papers it said that in Byelorus alone, in 1993 there were 200,000 abortions. Because of Chernobyl. We all live with that fear now.”[*11] Of malformed babies, or stillbirths, or children that will tragically develop cancer. Like the boy that was born with “a mouth that stretches to his ears and no eyes.”[*12] Or the girl born, that “wasn’t a baby, she was a little sack…not a single opening, just the eyes…more simply: no pee-pee, no butt, one kidney.”[*13]

What about this, from a “liquidator” who volunteered to help with the clean-up? After doing his deed for the day: “We came home. I took off all the clothes that I’d worn there and threw them down the trash chute. I gave my cap to my little son. He really wanted it. And he wore it all the time. Two years later they gave him a diagnosis: a tumor in his brain….You can write the rest yourself. I don’t want to talk anymore.”[*14] Hmmm, just throwing your radioactive clothes “down the trash chute?” Nice sanitation/radiation practice. And, overall, a terrible anecdote to ponder. Which callous apologists for canceration and nuclear power may scoffingly poo-poo. But whatever you may think, radiation let loose can do such a terrible thing to your child.

And the thyroid gland in your child’s neck is especially susceptible. There are at least 4000 cases of thyroid cancer caused by the Chernobyl accident, that have been verified by “a limited United Nations study.”[*15] The radionuclides of iodine, including iodine-129 with its mind-blowing “half-life” of 1.57 MILLION YEARS, are basically responsible for these thyroid cancers. [”Half-life” refers to how long it takes HALF of a radionuclide’s radioactivity to disappear. Ten to twenty “half lives” need to pass by for a radionuclides’s “hazardous life” to be over.]

Here is a little very personal description from Natalla Yarmolenka of what happened immediately after the Chernobyl explosion, as published in Index on Censorship, Volume One for the year 1996:

“In the first days after the accident, we were light-hearted and trusting, we inhabitants of the contaminated zone. We lived the same lives as before; children played out in the radioactive rain, we ate pies off open stalls, went to the woods, the grown-ups worked in the fields.

I remember that my parents did not take me and my brother to the May Day parade. They felt a parental concern. But no-one warned us about the radioactive rain.

It was on the Sunday. I wanted to plant flowers round our house. And then it started to rain, and that pleased me, because flowers grow better if you plant them and transplant them when it’s raining. My brother ran out to me. We got soaked to the skin, but nevertheless, we got the flowers planted. When we went indoors, our clothes and
shoes were covered with a greenish deposit. My brother explained that the wind and the rain had brought pollen from plants, but we know now that this was not pollen, but the
terrible dust and ash of Chernobyl…

Now I am 17, and for seven years I have been living with thyroid disease….”

Natalla Yarmolenka, eleventh class, Brahin middle school

(If you want to see fantastic photos, and text, re Chernobyl, try
http://www.elenafilatova.com Ms. Filatova is a motorcyclist and photographer who has made many trips into the contaminated zones around Chernobyl, and shares her visions and information with all of us via the internet.)

What about the medical profession, you might ask? What were they doing when all this was going on, and thereafter? Well, unfortunately, it was the repressive Soviet Union, and then it was the nutsy, corrupt Russia and Ukraine and Byelorus, still being so whacko to this very day. Some doctors were thrown in jail, or into psychiatric institutions
in those places, for doing their duty, trying to report radiation-related illnesses and deaths.

New cases of thyroid cancer continue to turn up as the next generations of exposed children, and fetuses, living on contaminated land, ingesting contaminated nourishment, drinking contaminated water, become sick.

Dr. Vladimir Chernousenko, who was also the former head of the Ukrainian Academy of Science, stated that although a 30 kilometer radius [about 18.5 miles] surrounding the Chernobyl plant was eventually evacuated because of contamination, it should have been a 600 kilometer (375 mile) radius. But that would have then included the major cities of Minsk and Kiev, which probably would have made it difficult to accomplish, for political reasons.[*16]

Remember that Byelorus, which is the “country” now, north of Ukraine, [it was also one of the Soviet “republics” in the USSR before the USSR broke up] received the most radioactive fallout from Chernobyl, due to the winds blowing to the north and northwest at the time of the steam explosion. One quarter of all the land there is contaminated
as a result of the disaster for at least 300-600 years.[*17] Mostly with cesium, which has a half life of 30 years. Though Dr. Chernousenko reckoned the contamination actually will last 100,000 years[*18] [don’t forget about the half-lives of plutonium-239 and
iodine-129 being 24,000 years and 15.7 million years respectively, and these having to be multiplied by 10-20 times to get their 'hazardous lives.’]

As far as how many deaths occurred secondary to the Chernobyl accident, it will surely exceed one millon people. Unfortunately, as you may see from the quote above about the “liquidators,” no scientific tracking was arranged to follow their states of health. Estimates of their numbers alone commonly range around 700,000 individuals up to 830,000. Then there are all the other humans [and animals and plants] affected in contaminated areas, and beyond, who may have unknowingly inhaled some plutonium fallout, for example, in Wales, or even in the USA. Even in Germany, you can see videos of the boars there still being too radioactive to eat at the rate of 20-80%, depending on the season – - and especially the mushroom growth and ingestion, as mushrooms hold radioactivity at very high levels.

Also, be aware that the number of cancers in such accidents of radioactive exposure usually is DOUBLE the number of deaths that occur.

When Dr. Chernousenko was speaking in Austin, Texas back in 1994,
amongst other things he revealed were the following. He was asked
about the Chernobyl reactor’s containment structure. Many nuclear power cheerleaders will repeat the mantra that Chernobyl was an inferiorly designed type of nuclear reactor, and had no containment.

The Soviet reactors at Chernobyl did not have an inferior design,
and they did have a containment structure, Dr. Chernousenko stated.
However, “the force of the explosion at Chernobyl exceeded the
protective capabilities of this containment by at least ten-fold.”[*20]

Also, he told his audience that “Dr. Rosalie Bertell, who participated
in the investigation of the [1979] accident at Three Mile Island, [in Pennsylvania,] can tell you, if a miracle hadn’t occurred, and the hydrogen bubble within that containment hadn’t dissipated, the accident within the United States would be comparable to the accident at Chernobyl. And the containment wouldn’t have been able to protect from these dangers.”[*21]

Are we Americans ready to hear that? Dr. Chernousenko warned us all that “one more nuclear accident could destroy human civilization as we know it.”[*22] Imagine if the already leaking Indian Point Nuclear Plant in Westchester County, bordering on New York City, does a Fukushima or Chernobyl. That could contaminate New York City essentially forever. Besides poisoning and ruining the lives of thirty million people, plus destroying the environment of what is arguably our most important city, our economy could be fatally impacted, taking the rest of the world along with us.

There are approximately 500 nuclear reactors in the world today[*23], and the Obama administration is moving the goalposts toward planting more of them in civilization’s backyards. Plus we are paying subsidies, or government welfare, to an otherwise unsustainable mature industry, that can then use their $20.5 billion gift from the 2005 Energy Act, for example, to dole out money for advertising, propaganda, and political contributions to our governmental representatives to promote nuclear power, and all things nuclear. Until Fukushima occurred, the media we have to watch and listen to seemed to be pushing the development of more and more nuclear plants, without adequate rebuttal. Now most of us cannot blankly accept what we smell as minimalization and baloney about Fukushima and nuclear power in general – which is not going down our gullets or into our brains so easily. Perhaps we are no longer willing to write blank checks financing the nuclear establishment’s deathwalk on the bones and souls of us and our innocent children with our own hard-earned tax money.

Oh, we hear that there could or will be a new generation of “inherently safe” nuclear reactors. And what about the mobile smaller modular nuclear units some maniacs want to sell to anyone, or float about inadequately regulated on barges?? Listen to the words of the late Dr. Chernousenko:
“To construct a safe reactor is practically impossible either here or in Russia…we simply cannot get energy from such enterprises. Because we are dealing with nuclear processes, with uncontrolled reactions, which occur within millionths of a second, and no matter what kind of protection mechanism you design, sooner or later the object must explode and they will. Why were they created at all? When they were
created, constructed, it was understood that they were extremely dangerous, but at that point the physicists were told that they must save the world from Hitler at any cost and as soon as possible. And unfortunately the physicists accomplished this, which they regret to this day.”[*24]

One last statement from Dr. Chernousenko about Ukraine nuclear plants and the data concerning disease and cancer in their surrounding environs, that you may ponder lingeringly – – for you seldom hear about U.S. studies stated so simply and clearly:

“We have conducted studies of the regions around 20 different nuclear plants in my country. In all of these territories we noticed an increase in the breast cancer rate, sometimes an increase of 15% over the normal level. We noticed a growth of anemia amongst children who lived in those areas, cardiovascular diseases, and cataracts. So from this you can conclude that even without the explosion of nuclear weapons there is quite a bit of danger to human lives.”[*25]

And just in case you think everything is under control in Moscow, twenty years after the accident, how about this report:

“Nearly 20 years after Chernobyl, large amounts of radioactive goods are still reaching markets in Moscow from the west of the country and Byelorus. In 2005, some 830 kilograms of radioactive produce were seized by officials at markets in Russia’s capital…Much of this produce consists of mushrooms and berries…all market places have a laboratory that checks goods before sale…[after] removing and treating the goods…[these] are classified as radioactive waste.”[*26]

Clap your hands if you think ALL the radioactive produce flowing into Moscow is detected as above. And what about elsewhere in Russia? And in the other states of the former Soviet Union? And what is being shipped out to the rest of the world? From a crazy country, where
its President Putin wants the G-8 countries to monopolize enriching and reprocessing uranium and nuclear waste, and sell barges that can float on any body of water in the world that have mobile nuclear power plants on them!!!!

Nuclear power for all! Merchandise it. Export it to China and any country that wants to buy up the radioactive curse on itself and its people! Aren’t we worried about terrorists and ambushes? Dirty bombs and the next quartet of airplanes flying into a nuclear plant or four, as the original plan went for September 11th, 2001?[*27]

Remember the basics to keep your mind right about nuclear power:

Each of our 104 nuclear reactors produces those 500-plus radionuclides every day in that super-toxic brew to boil water via radioactivity and fission of uranium. The steam produced turns a turbine that produces electricity. That is what happens inside those ominous plants that Barack Obama and Steven Chu, our Energy Secretary, want to erect much more of, in your neighborhood. Especially if you live in a poor neighborhood that cannot fight such siting.

Plutonium-239, with its 24,000 year half life and 240,000 to 480,000 year hazardous life, can cause lung cancer with just one microgram, one millionth of a gram inhaled into our lung. Each nuclear reactor produces between 400-1000 pounds of plutonium EACH YEAR.

10-20 pounds of plutonium is enough to produce an atomic bomb of the power of those that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan to end World War II in 1945.

While our current president and his corporate cronies push nuclear power as a “renewable” source of energy, remember that about 80% of the uranium used in USA nuclear plants is IMPORTED, just like so much of our oil is.[*28] That may be one excuse for promoting “reprocessing” of nuclear waste, to be shipped into our country, via any means possible, from other countries’ nuclear plants. Remember that “80 percent of the collective radiation dose of the entire French nuclear power industry, and 90 percent of the radioactive emissions and discharges from the British nuclear power program, come from commercial waste reprocessing.” Not to mention the radioactive contamination around the reprocessing plant, with all its additional waste streams and toxic ventings. Around the La Hague reprocessing facility in northern coastal France “consumption of local fish and shellfish, as well as mothers and children visiting the local beaches, have been associated with increased risk of contracting leukemia. A subsequent study verified an increase of leukemia among children under the age of ten within ten kilometers (6.6 miles) of the facility, especially lymphoblastic leukemia.”[*29]

Wind and solar are the real sustainable renewable sources of energy we should have started developing before Ronald Reagan took Jimmy Carter’s functioning solar panels off the White House roof and threw
our hard earned money into nuclear power back in the 1980’s. You should know that we have wind turbines today like the 2.5 megawatt-producing Clipper that can power 675 homes. As an example, if we have four people in your average home on our Hawaiian island of Kauai, just 22 of these wind turbines could produce enough electricity for Kauai’s 58,000 people. Kauai is a very windy island. And a very sunny subtropical place too. Ready to receive both of these two forms of renewable energy.At last report, the price for electricity on Kauai was 30 cents per kilowatt hour.

Check your own utility bill. You probably pay about 10 cents per kilowatt hour, even with the high price of foreign oil. Which may heat your home, but does NOT produce your electricity in most likelihood (less than two percent of USA electricity is produced from oil).

Be aware that physicist David Goodstein of Cal Tech, and author of ‘Out Of Gas,’ has told us that an area in our southwest deserts 80 miles square could produce all the electricity for USA homes. Would you wonder about New Orleans? Have any of us ever asked why we could not start up a solar power center there, with research and development funding helping that terribly wronged city to get going economically?

Germany, Austria, Belgium are phasing out nuclear power. Have you heard about that yet, on your network news? Yes, Germany has scoured the planet to lead the world in solar and wind technology.
And Denmark today generates 25% of all its electricity from wind power. But did you know that of all countries on planet Earth, our own USA now leads the world in deployment of wind power. For
the years 2009 and 2010 we erected 15,000 megawatts of wind turbines! That would equal 4-5 nuclear plants without the radiation, cancer and Fukushima/Chernobyl disaster possibilities.

For we have been called “The Persian Gulf Of Wind” with our states of North and South Dakota alone able to produce 2/3rd’s of our USA electricity needs, with Texas’ winds able to provide the other 1/3rd. Texas is now our number one windpower state. And even George Bush, our most un-environmental president ever, tried to do something right here, helping to improve the electricity grid infrastructure with federal funds and peoplepower.

So, why could our politicians and physicists continue to push nuclear power, even with Fukushima haunting their preachings? What are these people thinking? and who is paying them what?

Helen Caldicott M.D., from her article called “Nuclear Power Is the Problem, Not The Solution” informs us:

“It is said that nuclear power is emission-free. The truth is very different.

In the US, where much of the world’s uranium is enriched, including Australia’s, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas [theoretically] responsible
for 50 per cent of global warming.

Also, this enrichment facility and another at Portsmouth, Ohio, release from leaky pipes 93 per cent of the chlorofluorocarbon gas [CFC] emitted yearly in the US. The production and release of CFC gas is now banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol because it is the
main culprit responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion. But CFC is also a global warmer, 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

In fact, the nuclear fuel cycle utilizes large quantities of fossil fuel at all of its stages – the mining and milling of uranium, the construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling towers, robotic decommissioning of the intensely radioactive reactor at the end of its 20 to 40-year
operating lifetime, and transportation and long-term storage of massive quantities of radioactive waste.

Contrary to the nuclear industry’s propaganda, nuclear power is therefore not green and it is certainly not clean. Nuclear reactors consistently release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the air and water each year. These releases are unregulated because the nuclear industry considers these particular radioactive elements to be biologically inconsequential. This is not so.

These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton, xenon and argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements,
which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the eggs and sperm and cause genetic disease. [Then there are the 'daughter products' of degeneration of these 'inert' gases, including strontium and cesium. Strontium is taken in by the body, mistaken for calcium, and incorporated into bone, next to bone marrow, where it can cause bone cancer and leukemia. Cesium is absorbed and mistaken for potassium, which is the most plentiful electrolyte inside our cells. Both of these radioactive elements have a hazardous life of 300-600 years, for which we have to worry about them, and their ability to cause cancer.]

Tritium, another biologically significant gas, which is also routinely emitted from nuclear reactors is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen composed of two neutrons and one proton with an atomic weight of 3. The chemical symbol for tritium is H3. When one or both of the hydrogen atoms in water is displaced by tritium the water molecule is then called tritiated water. Tritium is a soft energy beta emitter, more mutagenic than gamma radiation, that incorporates directly into the DNA molecule of the gene.

Its half life is 12.3 years, giving it a biologically active life of 246 years. It passes readily through the skin, lungs and digestive system and is distributed throughout the body. [So watch washing dishes, and taking showers in tritiated water - - especially you unfortunate folks out in Godley, Illinois, where SIX MILLION GALLONS of it, at least, have been spilled by your Exelon nuclear plant that now has to supply you with bottled water.]

The dire subject of massive quantities of radioactive waste accruing at the 442 nuclear reactors across the world is also rarely, if ever, addressed by the nuclear industry. Each typical 1000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 33 tonnes of thermally hot, intensely
radioactive waste per year.

Already more than 80,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste sits in cooling pools next to the 104 US nuclear power plants, awaiting transportation to a storage facility yet to be found.”[*30]

Paul Gunter, of Beyond Nuclear in Washington D.C., is concerned that if we attempt to move some of the fuel assemblies, and other components of nuclear waste from our nuclear plants, they may crack and fall apart, causing an accidental release of radiation, and contamination right at the site of the reactor. Some of this waste at some reactors is actually stored not in pools at ground level, but 60-100 feet, in some cases, atop the reactor building itself.

Meanwhile, un-publicized in the media, the Bush administration has helped radioactive metals into “the marketplace.” This is an internationally “harmonized” type of maneuver quietly foisted on the American people in the style of the World Trade Organization’s other “harmonizing” actions, wherein current US laws and regulations can be sabotaged and effectively overruled in the name of “free trade” if they are challenged in WTO court, as three men (usually men, who comprise about 90% of dispute panelists) make the decisions so crucial to our democratic well-being, behind closed doors in secret.

Most of these radioactive metals will come from nuclear power plants, and nuclear weapons making. Some of you may recall that we already rejected such an attempt to de-regulate some of our nuclear waste as “Below Regulatory Concern” or “BRC” to end up in our dumps, zippers, baby strollers, utensils, building foundations, asphalt, etc., back in the early 1990’s. In fact, sixteen USA states currently have laws on the books outlawing such radioactive dumping. But the nuclear industry wants to get rid of its vast amounts of radioactive waste, and doesn’t really care that much about you or me. Not if they just want to dump it by de-regulating and de-monitoring it, and SELLING it!

Another thing you should know about nuclear power plants: In addition, about half of them are so environmentally friendly they suck in and discharge forty MILLION gallons of water PER HOUR!!! That’s why they are situated next to rivers, lakes, oceans and Long Island Sounds. But when the water is discharged back into the river, lake, ocean or sound from this “once through” kind of cooling system, it might be up to 25 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than when it came in. Not good for marine and plant life in that body of water. And just being sucked in and “impinged” by the irresistible force from the intake system reportedly kills up to 90% of the victimized marine life at California’s Diablo Canyon reactor. Black and red abalone populations that Californians love, have been reduced to “near obliteration” in the outflow zone surrounding the plant’s discharges, it has been discovered. Though such information was illegally withheld from environmental regulators.

And what about the nightmare of dry cask storage, that Ace Hoffman tells us is unfolding? That these things are not being inspected properly by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC]. That it is highly unlikely they will last the hundreds of thousands of years necessary for hot high level radioactive waste to be safely stored to protect us, and our descendants, and this Earth, with all its other life forms.

More on that later.

And then the dangers of transportation of these casks and nuclear waste, mostly from nuclear reactors. 20,000 to 70,000 shipments by rail and truck and ship through 43 states over the next thirty years to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, with its 33 earthquake faults? Or to the
Skull Valley Goshute native American tribe site, somehow owned by a consortium of six nuclear utilities called Private Fuel Storage (PFS)? Theoretically, “Up to 44,000 tons of high-level waste would be shipped to a scenic stretch of Utah desert…just 45 miles west of Salt Lake City…theoretically [to] make only a “stopover” until the Yucca Mountain high-level waste dump opens.” as reported in The Atomic Watchdog, April 2005. Except scientists have already stated that Yucca Mountain is unsafe and unsuitable to be a repository. Even with the falsification of documents that was revealed.

Ambush by terrorists, anyone? Those are a lot of shipments to secure, many of them having to travel all the way across country. And exposure to this toxic waste is a frightening reality. Just imagine:

Your daughter’s out there by farmer Johnson’s wheat fields, riding her bike with her friends, when this train runs off the railroad tracks. Curious, knowing she’s not really supposed to go too close to the train tracks, the lure of the accident attracts her…With more than a wee touch of trepidation, she and her friends dare each other to see who can come nearest and…if she or any of her pals gets to within three feet of this unshielded waste if it is extruded from its transport cask, she can receive a lethal dose with but TEN SECONDS OF EXPOSURE!

She would die within two weeks, most likely from radiation sickness, with her hair falling out, her immune system crashing, eventually bleeding from every orifice, her body bloating and wasting away at the same time. A horrible death. As many experienced from the atomic bombs dropped upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, 1945.

More information is available here:

http://www.crestofthewave.com/showcase/display.php?RecordID=1144496062

Also, note here about the book ‘Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, by Alexei V. Yablokov, Vastly B. Nesterenko and Alexey V. Yesterenko.
Consulting Editor: Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger. 327 pages.

Originally published in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences at $150.00, the right to reprint has been transferred to the authors and is now available for $10.00, plus postage. This includes a separate index that was not part of the original book.

Number of Books Postage Total Cost
One @ $10.00 // $2.77 // $12.77
Five 50.00 // 4.72 // 54.72
Ten 100.00 // 7.45 // 107.45
Etc.!

Please order directly from:

GREKO PRINTING
260 W. Ann Arbor Rd.
Plymouth, MI 48170
734-453-0341 (9 to 5, Mon. to Fri., EDT)

e-mail: TONY@GREKOPRINTING.COM
Include credit card number and expiration date, number of books and address where they are to be sent.

Orders from foreign countries welcome – postage will be additional.

=================================================
As we watch events unfold at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan, radioactive nuclides are spreading around the entire northern hemisphere. Prof. Yablokov and his colleagues cite some 5000 studies of wild and domestic animals, birds, fish, plants, trees, mushrooms, bacteria, viruses, and yes- humans – that were altered, some permanently as a result of the Chernobyl radioactive releases. Animals and humans developed similar abnormalities and diseases, including birth defects and cancers. Radioactive releases from Chernobyl continue today – 25 years later. This book documents the never-ending perils from nuclear power, Fukushima the most recent.

Yes, dedicated Fukushima workers are volunteering to help get the radiating nuclear reactors and plant under control. But then some are not willing to work for even $5000 per day because of the very high likelihood of quickly contracting cancer. Radioactive water is emitting 500 rems per hour. 500 rems is a fatal dose of radiation. Video ends with dramatic reading of how workers saved Chernobyl from megaton explosion that might have contaminated Europe forever – excerpt from book 4 paragraphs ‘Voices From Chernobyl’

the link: Fukushima water 5 MILLION times legal limit radioactive contamination Story of workers saving Chernobyl > click on the following link:

there are other videos there that Dr. Miller has recorded for you since March 11,2011, day one of the Fukushima disaster, tsunami, earthquake, etc.

Dr. Miller’s youtube channel is conradmillermd

Relative to Chernobyl and the death toll:
“Radiation health experts working for the National Academy
of Sciences [state that] most cancers that result from radiation
exposure do not develop until 10-20 years after exposure. The highest
incidence of cancer is expected to occur over the next 5-10 years [from 2006], and therefore no accurate assessment of Chernobyl’s overall impact can be made until this period has expired.”[*19]

Know that incineration does NOT destroy radioactivity, or transmute radioactive elements to non-radioactive ones, or innocent ash, or some mystical untoxic vapor – However, some so-called ‘low-level’ toxic nuclear waste is being reclassified as non-radioactive so it can be dumped in your dumps with the diapers and the newspapers. Especially in five dump sites in the state of Tennessee.

See more on this story here on this website at: http://www.crestofthewave.com/blog/?p=157

Also, here are some other sites to check out concerning Chernobyl:

http://www.chernobyl.info/en

http://www.infoukes.com/history/chornobyl/marples/

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=748

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter6.html

This angelfire site has lots of photos that will really get you into
the actual scene there at Chernobyl, photos taken by the motorcyclist
woman who dared and dares to continue riding into forbidden territory
with her trusty, and maybe kinda radioactive camera [by now]. If the above link no workee try then http://www.elenafilatova.com please.

http://www.nirs.org/mononline/mononl.htm

And here is the bestest site of all for all things nuclear. Check out
their various issues of the Nuclear Monitor, which I have referred to
frequently in this crucial post for you all.

And also, honing in on the dirtiest step in the nuclear chain, reprocessing….

http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/reprocessisnotsolution.pdf

And http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/reprocessing/reprocesshome.htm
********************************
Your annotated footnotes are:

[*A1] Karl Grossman, 4 26 2007, page A13, Southampton Press Eastern Edition
[*A2] ‘Money Is The Real Green Power: The Hoax of Eco-Friendly Nuclear Energy’
by Karl Grossman, page 2, Extra! February 3, 2008.
[*A3] ‘The Other Half of the Nuclear Industry’s Power Couple: Christine Todd Whitman’
by Diane Farsetta, 08/27/2007, http://www.prwatch.org/node/6370
[*1]‘Chernobyl: Two Decades Later,’ by Cathie Sullivan, Science For Democratic Action, Volume 14, Number 1, April 2006, page 7.
[*2] ‘How Much Radiation Was Released By Chernobyl?’ Nuclear Monitor 641, January 27, 2006, page 8.
[*3] Ibid.
[*4] Ibid., page 6.
[*5] Op. Cit., ‘Chernobyl: Two Decades Later,’ page 8.
[*6] ‘Voices From Chernobyl’ by Svetlana Alexievich, page 143, published by Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010, in 2005.
[*7] ‘Low Carbon Diet For France,’ by Annie Makhijani and Arjun Makhijani, Science For Democratic Action, Volume 14, Number 2, page 1.
[*8] Op. Cit. Nuclear Monitor #642, page 15.
[*9] Op. Cit., Voices From Chernobyl, pages 131-132 .
[*10] ‘Interview With Vladimir Chernousenko,’ Karl Grossman, Enviro-Video 1994.
[*11] Op. Cit., Voices From Chernobyl, page 170.
[*12] Ibid., page 194.
[*13] Ibid., page 81.
[*14] Ibid., page 40.
[*15] ‘Chernobyl: Two Decades Later,’ by Cathie Sullivan, Science For Democratic Action, Volume 14, Number 1, page 10.
[*16] Op. Cit., Chernousenko, Enviro-Video 1994.
[*17] ‘Voices From Chernobyl’ by Svetlana Alexievich, page 2, published by Picador,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010, in 2005.
[*18] Op. Cit., Chernousenko, Enviro-Video 1994.
[*19] From the US Academy of Sciences, BEIR-5 Report, as annotated in Nuclear Monitor #641, page 7.
[*20] ‘Chernobyl: The True Story by Dr. Vladimir Chernousenko,’
Synthesis/Regeneration 10 [Spring 1996]
[*21] Ibid.
[*22] Op. Cit., Chernousenko, Enviro-Video 1994.
[*23] Actually ‘according to the IAEA PRIS database, as of January 1,
2007, 435 nuclear power reactors [are] in operation, 29 under
construction, 6 in long term shutdown.’ ‘Most of 435 reactors
are 20-30 years old, only 35 reactors went into operation in
the last 10 years, and 100 reactors are over 30 years in operation.’<*>
No nuclear reactor has ever operated for 40 years or longer,
yet the Bush administration wants to ’streamline’ reactor approval, removing public input for licensure, for 40 years of operation. And they are talking about extending that to 60 years! <*>Nuclear Monitors #651, page 5.
[*24] Op. Cit., ‘Chernobyl: The True Story.’
[*25] Ibid.
[*26] ‘Radioactive Produce still arriving at Moscow’s markets,’
Nuclear Monitor #641, January 27, 2006, page 10.
[*27] ‘U.S. Nuclear Reactors – Al Qaeda’s Original Target,’ WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, #573 — North American Edition, September 13, 2002, page one.
[*28] ‘Uranium Prices to Skyrocket,’ Nuclear Monitor #642, February 24, 2006, page 15.
[*29] ‘The Dangers of Reprocessing,’ WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor #643, page 7.
[*30] ‘Nuclear power is the problem, not a solution,’ by Dr. Helen Caldicott, http://www.ippnw.org 13 April 2005.
*****************************************************
Copyright 2011 Conrad Miller M.D.

Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,
by Alexei V. Yablokov, Vastly B. Nesterenko and Alexey V. Yesterenko.
Consulting Editor: Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger. 327 pages.

Originally published in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences at $150.00, the right to reprint has been transferred to the authors and is now available for $10.00, plus postage. This includes a separate index that was not part of the original book.

Number of Books Postage Total Cost
One @ $10.00 plus delivery $2.77 $12.77
Five 50.00 4.72 54.72
Ten 100.00 7.45 107.45
Etc.!

Please order directly from:

GREKO PRINTING
260 W. Ann Arbor Rd.
Plymouth, MI 48170
734-453-0341 (9 to 5, Mon. to Fri., EDT)

e-mail: TONY@GREKOPRINTING.COM
Include credit card number and expiration date, number of books and address where they are to be sent.

Orders from foreign countries welcome – postage will be additional.

=================================================
As we watch events unfold at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan, radioactive nuclides are spreading around the entire northern hemisphere. Prof. Yablokov and his colleagues cite some 5000 studies of wild and domestic animals, birds, fish, plants, trees, mushrooms, bacteria, viruses, and yes- humans – that were altered, some permanently as a result of the Chernobyl radioactive releases. Animals and humans developed similar abnormalities and diseases, including birth defects and cancers. Radioactive releases from Chernobyl continue today – 25 years later. This book documents the never-ending perils from nuclear power, Fukushima the most recent.

On Apr 9, 2011, at 7:03 PM, FC Farkle wrote:

Yes, dedicated Fukushima workers are volunteering to help get the radiating nuclear reactors and plant under control. But then some are not willing to work for even $5000 per day because of the very high likelihood of quickly contracting cancer. Radioactive water is emitting 500 rems per hour. 500 rems is a fatal dose of radiation. Video ends with dramatic picture of how workers saved Chernobyl from megaton explosion that might have contaminated Europe forever – excerpt from book 4 paragraphs ‘Voices From Chernobyl’

the link: Fukushima water 5 MILLION times legal limit radioactive contamination Story of workers saving Chernobyl > click on the purple letters>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIeYPrf2OBM