Both the great Truths and the great Falsehoods of the twentieth century lie hidden in the arcane, widely inaccessible, and seemingly mundane domain of the radiation sciences

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Trial of the Cult of Nuclearists: SCAM NUMBER TWELVE

What follows is the continuation, in serial form, of a central chapter from my book A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science.



SCAM NUMBER TWELVE: Mislead the public into believing that science has definitively established that low doses of radiation present no risk to health.


In the article “Radiation Protection — Science in Crisis: Flaws in NRPB Modeling” on the website of the Low Level Radiation Campaign, the following quotation from UNSCEAR 2000 is reproduced:


“Risk estimates for the induction of human disease are obtained primarily from epidemiological studies. These studies can clearly distinguish radiation effects only at relatively high doses and dose rates. To gain information at low doses and dose rates, which are more relevant to typical human radiation exposures, it is necessary to extrapolate the results of these studies. To be valid, this extrapolation requires a detailed understanding of the mechanisms by which radiation induces cancer and genetic disorders” [emphasis added].


The punch line of the article is sobering: “Nobody knows the mechanisms by which radiation induces cancer and genetic disorders. What more do we need to say?”


Their point, although simply stated, carries profound implications. As long as science remains ignorant of the mechanisms by which radiation induces carcinogenesis, the conclusion that low doses of radiation pose no hazard to health is crackbrained and indefensible. In vitro studies clearly demonstrate that the lowest conceivable dose of radiation, a single particle track through a cell, can produce irreparable genetic damage. Until the intermediary steps between this event and the onset of cancer are fully understood, it is reckless to discount the carcinogenic potential of low doses of radiation. Consequently, the assertion that uranium weapons pose no radiological hazard to health is groundless and without merit.


The dumping of DU on the homeland of our enemies is just part of a much larger campaign to economically dispose of radioactive waste by dispersing it haphazardly over the surface of the Earth. Rationalizing their deeds by their flawed theory of radiation effects, representatives of the US government are currently crafting policies of reckless lunacy. If these regulators and lawmakers have their way, disposal of significant portions of the low-level radioactive waste stream will be deregulated, allowing this material to be legally dumped into unlicensed sites such as local municipal garbage dumps, landfills and hazardous waste sites. Such disposal will create long-lived contamination of soils and groundwater, creating yet another channel for the internal contamination of unwitting citizens. To vastly compound the threat, provisions are being enacted to allow recyclers to acquire castoff radioactive material and convert it into construction materials and consumer goods. Deregulation will pave the way for 1,250,000,000 pounds of depleted uranium to be dumped into the marketplace. To compound the nightmare, radioactive scrap metal salvaged from nuclear weapons fuel-chain facilities and decommissioned power plants will be freely available for mixing and smelting with regular scrap metal and then distributed to industry. This practice is already permitted in Europe. Consumers will be oblivious to the fact that the ornaments of daily life will be the repository of radioactive waste. Cars, pots and pans, buckles, wristbands, jewelry, bicycles, playground equipment, and potentially everything else made from recycled metal, will ferry radiation into human proximity.


In addition to metals, other materials that have acquired radioactivity are planned for release into the general environment. These include concrete, plastics, asphalt and soils. Once incorporated into the general recycling stream, this material will become invisible and ubiquitous. Consumers will be clueless as to which items they purchase contain radionuclides. Will this create a hazardous situation? The experts will spout the tired lies that the increased dose to the population will be minuscule, yet again trying to befuddle everyone into thinking that external radiation is the only avenue of harm. But bring to mind the workers and the do-it-yourselfers who will be unaware that some of the materials they use are contaminated. All operations which include milling, cutting, sanding, sawing, and burning will release radioactive particles into the air, making them available for internal contamination via ingestion and inhalation. Consider the following scenarios: a road worker sawing into concrete contaminated with radionuclides, a construction worker breathing in the dust of a demolished building built with contaminated materials, a fireman breathing in the smoke of a burning vehicle made from recycled scrap metal. Internal contamination by a wide variety of radioisotopes is being readied for large sections of unsuspecting humanity. The inevitable radiation-induced illnesses will again cause an invisible plague of untraceable origins.


The initiative to contaminate the Earth with increased levels of background radiation is broad-based and international. In the United States, its is supported by the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and the California Department of Health Services. Internationally, it is supported by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the European Commission, Euratom (the European atomic energy agency), and the governments of nations that possess nuclear weapons and reactors. The same people responsible for initiating the globalization of trade, finance and government have included the universal contamination of the biosphere in their agenda. The IAEA, through its affiliation with the United Nations and its transport organizations, the International Maritime Organization and the International Civil Aeronautics Organization, is actively advocating to get all member countries of the UN to adopt the transport recommendations it developed with both industry and Euratom. Adoption of these measures will permit free, unregulated international commerce in contaminated materials and consumer goods.


A relatively recent event testifies to the type of mayhem these policies will lead to and the negative health consequences that will assuredly follow. In late May 1998, a steel mill in Spain unknowingly vented a plume of cesium-137 into the atmosphere. The windblown contamination set off alarms in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Greece. The radioactivity was released during the smelting of scrapped metal equipment. According to Spain’s Nuclear Security Council, the metal had been screened for radioactivity, but the specialized equipment had been lined with an absorbent material that prevented detection.


Depleted uranium munitions are a harbinger of a new world order, one characterized by ongoing radioactive contamination of the Earth. They are a forerunner, and they forewarn, of future devil-may-care practices of dispersing radioactive waste amidst populations and detonating nuclear/radiological weapons. The clarion call has sounded, and we have been warned.