Kanazawa hospital overexposed 12 patients to radiation

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Index:



Kanazawa hospital overexposed 12 patients to radiation

Radioactive water leaks at Shizuoka nuke reactor again

S.C. Appeals Plutonium Shipments

Casino Execs React to Nuclear Dump

India says develops nuclear shelters for troops

==================================



Kanazawa hospital overexposed 12 patients to radiation



KANAZAWA, Japan, July 11 (Kyodo) - Kanazawa University Hospital has 

overexposed 12 patients to radiation in treating cancer and other 

disorders, and one became seriously ill, the education ministry and 

the Ishikawa prefectural government said Thursday.



Four patients may suffer health problems due to the malpractice, 

which occurred between June 2000 and earlier this month when 

erroneous data was entered into a high-power X-ray machine, the 

prefectural government said.



Four others are not expected to suffer ill effects. The remaining 

three have since died of cancer.



The 12 were exposed to radiation levels 1.2-1.4 times the correct 

dosage on 20 to 30 occasions. The hospital noticed the data input 

mistakes while it was upgrading its computers, according to hospital 

officials.



In a news conference Thursday, Kenichi Kobayashi, the director of the 

hospital, and other hospital officials apologized for causing a major 

medical mistake.



About the patient who fell seriously ill, the hospital officials 

dismissed the possibility that the situation is life-threatening but 

said the patient's daily routine will be affected.



The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry 

described the incident as a ''serious accident'' and will ask 

national university hospitals nationwide to conduct inspections to 

guard against such errors.



Later Thursday, the local government plans to inspect the hospital in 

Kanazawa because the facility is also suspected of leaving gauze in a 

patient's body during surgery.

----------------



Radioactive water leaks at Shizuoka nuke reactor again



SHIZUOKA, Japan, July 11 (Kyodo) - A small amount of radioactive 

water has leaked from a nuclear plant in the town of Hamaoka in 

Shizuoka Prefecture, but no radiation has so far reached the outside 

environment, the prefectural government announced Thursday.



The leakage was discovered in the morning in a water feed pump valve 

in the No. 4 reactor of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station by an 

employee of Chubu Electric Power Co., operator of the facility in 

Hamaoka, southwest of Tokyo, according to the local government.



The incident follows a similar leakage at its No. 3 reactor on 

Tuesday. Earlier this year and last year, water leaks were reported 

in the power station's No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at the same station, 

fueling widespread concern about nuclear power. The two reactors were 

subsequently shut down.



Following the incidents involving all of the reactors at the power 

station, the prefectural government gave a verbal reprimand and urged 

the electricity company to do its utmost to ensure safe operation of 

the plant, it said.



According to the local government, the leakage was found at around 

10:44 a.m. by a Chubu Electric employee who was conducting a weekly 

inspection.



About 0.3 liter of water has leaked and the water is still leaking, 

the prefectural government said, adding that the company will use a 

filler agent to repair the leakage point.



The company had found a crack in the leakage point in March and fixed 

it with filler but it apparently had not been done properly as 

Thursday's leakage occurred at the same point, the government said.



The firm immediately notified only five local towns close to the 

plant and the prefectural government in central Japan as it decided 

the incident was a ''minor glitch that does not affect the safe 

operation of the plant.''



However, it made the incident public on its Web site on Thursday 

evening after the local government urged it to do so, the Shizuoka 

government said.

-------------------



S.C. Appeals Plutonium Shipments



ABINGDON, Va. Jul 10 (AP) -- Lawyers for South Carolina Gov. Jim 

Hodges told an appeals court Wednesday that the federal government 

should have conducted more environmental studies before targeting his 

state for plutonium storage.



Hodges attorney William L. Want said the Energy Department didn't 

know enough about the Savannah River Site's long-term storage 

capacity before it decided in April to store weapons-grade plutonium 

there indefinitely.



An attorney for the government disagreed, telling the three-judge 

panel for the 4th U.S. Court of Appeals that a study conducted in 

February was sufficient.



``You don't need a new environmental assessment as long as you 

studied a range of options,'' said Jeffrey B. Clark, the deputy 

assistant U.S. attorney general.



The panel did not rule after the two-hour hearing.



The Energy Department plans to transfer six metric tons of plutonium 

from the former Rocky Flats nuclear facility near Denver to the 

Aiken, S.C., site.



Federal officials hope to convert the material into commercial 

nuclear fuel called mixed oxide, MOX.



Fearing that the storage will become permanent, Hodges has fought the 

plan since last summer, holding highway roadblock exercises and 

vowing to lie in front of trucks to keep the shipments from crossing 

the state line. He sued the federal government in May.



It was unclear whether the DOE has begun shipping plutonium into 

South Carolina. The department keeps that information classified, and 

Hodges said he doesn't know.



The Savannah site currently stores about two metric tons of 

plutonium.

--------------



Casino Execs React to Nuclear Dump



LAS VEGAS JUL 10 (AP) -- The slot machines never stopped in Las Vegas 

while the U.S. Senate was casting the crucial legislative vote 

designating a mountain ridge 90 miles away as the nation's nuclear 

waste dump.



And casino executives said Wednesday that the state's lifeblood 

industry could continue to prosper when the trucks hauling tons of 

highly radioactive waste start rolling in -- as long as there aren't 

any accidents.



``It's important to remember that a massive amount of nuclear waste 

exists in states where there is significant tourism, like Washington, 

Wisconsin and Illinois, to name a few,'' said Alan Feldman, an 

executive at MGM Mirage Inc., the largest operator of Las Vegas Strip 

hotels.



``The larger issue is, what if there is a problem?'' Feldman said. 

``There is no marketing campaign that's going to resurrect the 

tourism industry in Chernobyl.''



The Senate voted Tuesday to allow 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to be 

moved to an underground storage facility under construction at Yucca 

Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas.



If the project passes legal and regulatory hurdles, tunnels below the 

ancient volcanic ridge would begin accepting radioactive material 

from sites in 39 states in 2010.



Gambling companies helped finance the 20-year campaign against the 

federal government's plan.



Of Nevada's $3.8 billion general fund budget, 79 percent comes from 

gambling and sales taxes, said Frank Streshley, of the state Gaming 

Control Board in Carson City. Tourists pay one of every four sales 

tax dollars.



Some 35 million people visited Las Vegas in 2001, according to the 

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority; the economic impact of 

tourism and gambling in southern Nevada was $31.6 billion. About four 

of every 10 jobs in Las Vegas is tied to the industry.



Bill Bible, president of the Las Vegas-based Nevada Resort 

Association, said it's too early to say whether opening the dump 

would cut into the southern Nevada tourism economy because the 

gambling industry isn't giving up the fight.



``We're going to withhold any judgment on that,'' he said. ``We're 

hopeful that the litigation will be successful and the state will 

prevail in the judicial process.''



The Energy Department expects to obtain a license for the Yucca 

Mountain site from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and begin final 

construction of the repository in 2007. However, some supporters say 

that process could take longer and plans to open the site by 2010 

might be optimistic.



Nevada has five lawsuits pending against elements of the federal 

government's plan to ship radioactive waste from 103 nuclear reactors 

and more than 30 other commercial, industrial and military sites 

across the nation.



The state also has cases pending in Washington challenging the 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing guidelines for the 

Yucca site and the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation 

standards.



Opinions were mixed on the Las Vegas Strip about whether the nuclear 

waste dump would scare tourists away.



``I'm not sure about immediately,'' said Isaias Martinez, 26, of 

Plainview, Texas, a guest at the Stardust hotel-casino. ``But if they 

have a leak or an accident, I'd think twice. I wouldn't bring my 

family here.''



Brian Guy, 35, a construction worker from Monroe, Mich., said the 

site would have very little effect on his decision to visit Las Vegas 

because of its distance from the city.

--------------



India says develops nuclear shelters for troops



NEW DELHI, July 11 (Reuters) -  India, locked in a military faceoff 

with Pakistan, has developed nuclear shelters and a mobile 

decontamination system to protect troops from a nuclear, biological 

or chemical attack, scientists said on Thursday.



Defence scientists said they were not aware of any plans to build 

similar nuclear shelters for the country's billion-plus population, 

despite fears a conflict between India and Pakistan could lead to a 

nuclear catastrophe.



Fears of a fourth conflict between India and Pakistan, who carried 

out nuclear explosions in 1998, grew recently after a bloody attack 

on an Indian army camp in May in the disputed region of Kashmir.



The United States and other Western nations urged tens of thousands 

of their citizens to leave India and Pakistan in what also 

appeared to be a concerted effort to impress upon the two nations the 

perils of war that could lead to a nuclear conflict.



The integrated field shelters, built a metre below the ground, can 

hold 30 people for up to three days after a nuclear strike, R.V. 

Swamy, chief controller of the state-run Defence Research and 

Development Organisation, said.



"It is a collective protection system, any ingress of nuclear, 

biological or chemical agents can be completely stopped," he said.



"Of course on ground zero nothing will survive, these shelters will 

have to be at the periphery," he said. He refused to say whether 

the army had put them in place along the border with Pakistan.



NEIGHBOURING NATIONS SHOW INTEREST



Close to a million troops are dug in on both sides of the border in a 

crisis which eased only after Pakistan promised to stop Islamic 

militants from crossing into Indian Kashmir, which lies at the heart 

of more than a half a century of troubled ties.



Swamy said the military had asked for some 26 items to be developed 

to cope with a nuclear, biological or chemical strike in 1993. 

These included sensors to detect radiation and a vehicle to 

decontaminate an area struck by chemical weapons.



"These have been developed from the military point of view, they 

asked for it," he said. "Ours is a vast country, if the home ministry 

ministry or civil defence wants it (shelters), it can be considered."



Swamy said some neighbouring nations had shown interest in acquiring 

the nuclear shelters, but he did not identify them or give any 

details.



He said the DRDO had also developed protective body suits and 

overboots for soldiers to operate in the event of a chemical or 

biological attack. "These are mainly for a chemical environment, 

there is no protection possible for nuclear gamma radiation," he 

said.



The composition, size and chain of command of Indian and Pakistani 

nuclear weaponry is unclear, deepening concerns of a miscalculation 

or an accident that could escalate into the world's first nuclear 

exchange.

-------------------------------------------------

Sandy Perle

Director, Technical

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100  Extension 2306

Fax:(714) 668-3149



E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net

E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com



Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com



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