[ RadSafe ] Radioactive material from reactors is 2 billion times more toxic than industrial poisons

[Roger Helbig]

Is this academic really saying this kind of thing or is it just the
anti-nuclear spin - they say that ISIS has won the internet battle - I
wonder if the anti-nuclear constant bombardment of the internet has
likewise made large enough numbers of people fear and perhaps even
loath nuclear power.

Thanks.

Roger Helbig
---------- Forwarded message ----------

Radioactive material from reactors is 2 billion times more toxic than
industrial poisons

by Christina MacPherson

US Gov't: Radioactive material from reactors is 2 billion times more
toxic than industrial poisons -- Harm caused by nuclear disaster
"greater than for any work of man" other than atomic bomb -- Top
Expert: Radiation "like explosions going off in cell... blows hole in
DNA" (VIDEO)http://enenews.com/govt-document-radioactive-materials-reactors-2-billion-times-toxic-common-industrial-poison-harm-nuclear-disaster-greater-work-man-other-atomic-bomb-top-expert-radiation-like-explosions-going-ce?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29

Dr. Bill McBride, UCLA School of Medicine Vice Chair for Research in
Radiation, Principle Investigator of UCLA's Center for Medical
Countermeasures Against Radiation -- National Institutes of Health, Jan
27, 2014 (emphasis added):

19:45 - There are some unique things about ionizing radiation when it
comes to the interaction with biological systems... Energy is deposited
ubiquitously in cells and in tissues... in little packets of energy...
These [are] like many explosions going off in the cell... If you can
think of these little explosions going off all over a cell, if it
happens to take place in DNA, there's really quite a high chance this
will blow a hole in the DNA. Ionizing radiation is a very powerful
cytotoxic agent... You get these lesions which are formed within DNA
which are really quite complex lesions... We're talking
0.0000000000000001 seconds for the ionization to take place... Cell
cycle arrest, cell death by apoptosis or mitotic catastrophe... take
place very rapidly after exposure.
37:30 - What's happening following ionizing radiation? You get these
little explosions going off very rapidly... But mitochondria get hit as
well... With time, you actually get these mitochondria leaking more free
radicals than [the] ionizing radiation, by orders of magnitude... This
concept is one which is growing very strongly in radiation biology
now. The effects are not all over in 24 hours... you initiate a cascade
of biological responses which can go on for a long period of time,
even years.
46:00 - You get long-term immune dysfunction... If you inject flu virus
into mice [it] will eventually kill the [irradiated] animals... in
normal animals this isn't the case. So the immune system is
compromised for long periods of time after radiation exposure.
51:00 - The concept is that we're generating damage which is cascading
forward to mitochondria and other cellular structures, in addition to
DNA... Radiation is not just a powerful cytotoxin, it initiates
signaling cascades that are taking place against a radiation damage
background... Radiation damage is often remembered within the cells.
We've shown, at least in brain and lung and other tissues, you get
these kind of pro-inflammatory responses... This is underlying a lot of
effects in radiation exposure.
52:00 (appears to be on verge of crying) - At UCLA we have over 100
people who are in our center... They're interested in radiation now --
they never were before. I think that we're kind of moving animal
models slowly forward to things which are really kind of very precise
and very accurate and I think do reflect a lot of things that we will
see in humans... who've been exposed to radiation.

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (pdf), 1968: The total amount of debris
released during routine atomic processes and conceived as possible
from accidents is minuscule when compared with the amount of
pollutants produced throughout the world by combustion. The
extraordinarily poisonous nature of the radioactive materialsinvolved,
however, dictates that even small quantities be treated with respect.
For instance, it has been estimated that some of the radioactive
materials found in a reactor are 3 million to 2 billion times as toxic
as chlorine, the most common poison used by industry... if it were
possible for all the many controls and safety features in a large
power reactor to fail so as to produce a disastrous release of
radioactivity, this release could conceivably kill thousands...
Although, in actual practice, such an accident is made to have a
vanishingly small probability of occurring, the theoretical potential
for such an accident is probably greater than for any work of man
other than the explosion of a fission or fusion weapon.

Watch McBride's presentation here

Christina MacPherson | March 1, 2015 at 11:49 pm | Categories:
radiation | URL: http://wp.me/phgse-iZi

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