The Nuclear Power Industry Is Killing Us

I realize the title of this article is controversial and pulls no punches. I make no apologies for that because it’s true.

I’m not just talking about the current terrible disaster in Japan, where nuclear plants are still not under control more than a week after the deadly earthquake and tsunami that greatly damaged them, nor the tragedies that happened at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. No, I am talking about the entire nuclear power industry.

Bluntly put:

The continued pronouncements of public safety issued by our government and officials within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and its sister organizations abroad with regard to nuclear power are lies.

And the proof of those lies can be found in baby teeth.

Let me explain.

Our story, as it were, begins in the 1940s, when the US government first began testing nuclear weapons. As a result of these tests, within a few years large quantities of strontium-90 could be found over much of our planet. Strontium-90 is a radioactive element produced by both nuclear fission (the process of energy production employed by nuclear power plants) and the detonation of nuclear bombs. Prior to the Manhattan Project, which birthed the “Nuclear Age” in the mid-1940s, strontium-90 did not exist. It is a manmade substance that poses very dangerous health risks.

All radioactive substances compete with certain minerals in the body in what are known as mineral receptor sites. In the case of strontium-90, it is calcium which is competed against because of the way strontium-90 mimics calcium. And it’s not only humans that are affected by this process. Plants are as well.

In fact, plants cannot tell the difference between calcium and strontium-90. This means that plants found in areas in which strontium-90 has accumulated in the environment (soil, water and air), absorb it as if it were calcium. When we eat those plants, the strontium-90 in turn, is taken into our bodies as well.

This shocking fact was not known until 1958, and came about as a result of a breakthrough study conducted by Barry Commoner and other researchers. Commoner found that some level of strontium-90 could be found in the teeth of every single baby in the United States!

The uproar caused by the release of these findings played an important role in the above ground nuclear test ban treaty that was signed by the United States and other nuclear powers. (Up until that time, nuclear bombs were tested above ground.)

But by then the damage was already done, and since Commoners’ findings the situation has only gotten worse.

First of all, strontium-90 has a half-life of 28 years, meaning that it stays in the environment for nearly 600 years before it completely decomposes. And that’s not all. Plutonium-239, an even more dangerous radioactive substance emitted by nuclear weapons, has a half-life of 24,110 years, and it too has been found in baby teeth around the US and other nations.

Secondly, nuclear bomb testing underground still results in the release of these unhealthy substances into the environment, including into underground water tables.

Third, and most importantly, it’s not only nuclear bombing testing that emits these terrible substances. Nuclear power plants do so, as well!

This fact was proven by radiation researcher Jay M. Gould, PhD. After analyzing 50 years-worth of data compiled by the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and state health departments throughout, Dr. Gould conclusively proved that both men and women who live within 100 miles of a nuclear power plant have a significantly higher risk of developing breast or prostate cancer. In fact, the risk of developing prostate cancer among the men was even higher than the breast cancer risk for women.

Dr. Gould, who passed away in 2005 at the age of 90, also found that in the time that it took overall breast cancer rates to double in the US, in the 14 US counties in which nuclear power plants had been in operation the longest, the breast cancer rate quintupled (a 500% increase, compared to the national average of a 100% increase)!

His findings also revealed that all people who live within 100 miles of nuclear power plants have a greater-than-normal risk of suffering from immune deficiencies and AIDS, and that babies born within those areas were far more likely to be born premature or underweight!

Dr. Gould published his findings in 1996 in his book The Enemy Within: The High Cost of Living Near Nuclear Reactors, which is essential reading for anyone wanting to know more about the life-threatening health risks posed by the nuclear power industry.

Since the publication of his findings, Dr. Gould’s work has resulted in the creation of what is known as “The Tooth Fairy Project,” which is part of the work being conducted by the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a nonprofit educational and scientific organization founded by Dr. Gould and Ernest Sternglass, another leading researcher dedicated to studying the link between low-level nuclear radiation and public health.

The RPHP’s Tooth Fairy Project is so named because it collects the baby teeth of children worldwide. Since its inception, The Tooth Fairy Project has proven that strontium-90, which is a potent carcinogen and immune-suppressor, continues to be found in the teeth of young children throughout the world, more than 50 years after Barry Commoner first warned us of this. Making matters worse, plutonium-239 residues are also being found in baby teeth today.

You might be wondering how these incredibly dangerous substances get into the bodies of these young children. In large part, they are passed on by their mothers during pregnancy, meaning that babies everywhere are already predisposed to develop cancer and other disease of immune deficiency even before they are born!

This is a travesty of the highest order!

And bear in mind, strontium-90 isn’t found only in teeth. It is also stored wherever else the human body stores calcium, especially the bones, but also in other tissues and organs throughout the body. And plutonium-239 is stored in receptor sites of the human body’s lungs, as well as bones and liver.

Let me repeat this fact: Before the dawn of the Nuclear Age, neither strontium-90 nor plutonium-239 existed anywhere on the earth. Nor did any of the other radioactive substances that are produced as by nuclear fission, all of which are equally dangerous and health-threatening.

Therefore, the evidence is clear: nuclear power is indeed killing us!

I could cite many other statistics to back up this claim, but you can find them in Dr. Gould’s book.

For now, let me share just two other findings that have been documented by the RPHP.

1)    By tracking the immune and hormonal systems of the 80 million baby boomers born between 1945 and 1965, the RPHP has shown that, as early as the 1950s, there has been an epidemic rise in childhood cancers among children age 5 to 9 all across the United States.

2)    Since 1945 the RPHP found “a cumulated excess of 1 million infant deaths over the 50 year postwar period, attributable to exposure to all post-1945 releases of chemical and radioactive pollutants.” [Emphasis added.]

Here are some other facts to consider:

• Currently in the US there are approximately 1,300 counties in the 31 states in which nuclear reactors are located, and everyone within those counties lives within 100 miles of the reactors.

• Each year, according to the public safety organization Public Citizen, nuclear reactors release 2,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste, and 12 million cubic feet of low-level nuclear waste, in addition to 54,000 metric tons of irradiated fuel.

• According to a recent report by the Associated Press, currently there are 71,862 tons of nuclear waste in the United States, none of which has been permanently stored, and even if permanent storage facilities were available, they would not be large enough to contain all of the waste.

• 75% of this highly dangerous waste is currently stored in water-filling pools similar to those at the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan, “outside of the thick concrete-and-steel barriers meant to guard against a radioactive release from a nuclear reactor.”

• The amount of nuclear waste in the US is growing at a current rate of 2,200 tons per year, and nuclear industry experts admit that some of the cooling pools have four times as much waste as they were designed to handle.

• This waste remains radioactive and dangerous for tens of thousands of years!

• Rather than curtailing the growth of the nuclear power industry, especially in light of the disaster still unfolding in Japan, the Obama administration continues to insist that nuclear power is both safe and necessary to meet our nation’s energy needs, and is planning to fund the development of new nuclear plants in addition to the 104 reactors already in operation across the US.

There is only one word to describe the continued use of nuclear power, not only in the US, but throughout the world. That word is insanity!

Fortunately, some world leaders are realizing this, especially Angela Merkel, the current Chancellor of Germany, who announced this week that Germany would accelerate its transition to renewable energy and cease using nuclear energy entirely as quickly as possible.

Our planet needs more leaders with Chancellor Merkel’s foresight and political will. But before we can expect a major shift away from nuclear energy on the part of other world leaders, we must do everything we can  to push our own leaders here in the US, both in the White House and in Congress, to lead the charge away from nuclear power.

Next time, I will show you how you can start doing so.

God bless,

Burton

PS – To see the locations of nuclear power plants in the US, visit the Radiation Network at www.radiationnetwork.com. You can also check out www.blackcatsystems.com/radMap/map.html

I also encourage you to visit the website of the Radiation and Public Health Project. It’s www.radiation.org