Thousands of anti-radiation pills have been handed out to schools in Portsmouth and Gosport for the visit of a French nuclear sub.
Potassium iodate tablets are being held at schools within a 2km area of Portsmouth Naval Base in the event of a nuclear reactor meltdown.
The 113,000 pills – given out every time a nuclear sub visits the city –are designed to stop radiation from being absorbed by the thyroid gland. (more…)
The Belarusian government’s plans to build a nuclear power plant are fraught with “multiple troubles and ordeals for the people,” Belarusian expert Heorhiy Lepin said at an international conference in Vilnius on October 9.
He described nuclear energy programs as “the most costly and the most hazardous of all power generation technologies.” “This danger is connected not only with the possibility of accidents: a nuclear reactor pollutes the environment during its routine operation,” Dr. Lepin said. (more…)
This study of bone density compares BMD development in 2854 women affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident with two non-contaminated control groups using the DXL Calscan portable bone densitometer device. By Prof. S.S. Rodionova, CITO (Moscow). (more…)
ALMATY, Kazakstan, September 18, 2008 (ENS) - Kazakstan’s nuclear test zone has lain deserted for the last 20 years largely forgotten by the outside world, but experts say radiation will continue to be a health risk until the huge site is cleaned up thoroughly.
The testing ground was closed for use in 1991. This month, the international Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization is running a series of trials at the Semipalatinsk site to test equipment that can identify and give the location of nuclear explosions. (more…)
The Sellafield body parts inquiry has hit a major legal hitch after a doctor suggested his patients’ medical records should remain confidential – even though they are dead.
Michael Redfern QC is leading an inquiry into claims organs and tissue were secretly removed from workers at Sellafield and other nuclear plants without the knowledge of bereaved loved ones. (more…)
AN INVESTIGATION into radioactive contamination at Manchester University must be carried out with urgency and has to come up with answers, a top lawyer said today.
Liz Graham, who represents the widow of Dr Hugh Wagner, one of two lecturers whose deaths is now being linked to groundbreaking nuclear physics experiments there a century ago, says the emphasis has to be on a comprehensive fact-finding inquiry. (more…)
A study has been launched in Switzerland to investigate whether children living near nuclear reactors have a higher risk of cancer.
The study - Childhood Cancer and Nuclear Power Plants in Switzerland - follows an analysis by German scientists last year that found a possible link between higher rates of leukaemia in children who live near nuclear power plants. (more…)
BRUSSELS (AFP) — Fresh tests carried out near a Belgian medical laboratory showed that a leak of radioactive iodine last weekend was worse than had initially been thought, authorities said late Thursday.
Samples of grass taken next to the National Institute for Radioactive Elements near the southern city of Charleroi had shown higher levels of radioactive iodine than the first tests, an interior ministry crisis group said here. (more…)
The wild mushrooms tested in various parts of Finland still exhibit elevated levels of the radioactive caesium-137 that originates from the Chernobyl accident in 1986, while the caesium content of berries and animals has already become almost zero.
In addition to mushrooms, some hares and the predatory fish in small lakes still contain radioactive caesium. (more…)
VIENNA, Aug 4 (Reuters) - A small amount of plutonium leaked in an ageing International Atomic Energy Agency laboratory outside Vienna but radioactive contamination was contained to a storage area and no one was injured, the U.N. watchdog said. Last year the IAEA director warned that its main analytical lab built in 1970 was outmoded and no longer met U.N. safety standards, and he called for 27.2 million euros ($42.4 milion) in extra funding from member states to modernise it. (more…)
