Plutonium from Sellafield nuclear power plant in all children's teeth

[Ichingcarpenter]

Radioactive pollution from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria has led to children's teeth across Britain being contaminated with plutonium.
The Government has admitted for the first time that Sellafield 'is a source of plutonium contamination' across the country. Public Health Minister Melanie Johnson has revealed that a study funded by the Department of Health discovered that the closer a child lived to Sellafield, the higher the levels of plutonium found in their teeth.

Johnson said: 'Analysis indicated that concentrations of plutonium... decreased with increasing distance from the west Cumbrian coast and its Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant - suggesting this plant is a source of plutonium contamination in the wider population.'

Johnson claimed the levels of plutonium are so minute that there is no health risk to the public. But this is disputed by scientists, MPs and environmental campaigners who have called for an immediate inquiry into how one of the world's most dangerous materials has been allowed to continue to contaminate children's teeth. There have long been claims of clusters of childhood leukaemia around Sellafield.

In the late 1990s researchers collected more than 3,000 molars extracted from young teenagers across the country during dental treatment and analysed them. To their surprise they found traces of plutonium in all the teeth including those from children in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Alarmingly, they discovered that those living closer to Sellafield had more than twice the amount of those living 140 miles away.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/nov/30/greenpolitics.health

[Angry Dragon]

1. and the government never tells the people

assholes

edit: I see it is from 2003

[LiberalAndProud]

2. It's harmless unless you have bad genes.

Don't worry, it's just a little tiny bit. Yesterday it was no bit at all.

"It shows the wanton disregard the nuclear industry has for public health and there needs to be an independent inquiry."


One would think so.

[madokie]

3. The nuclear genie should never have been allowed out of the bottle

We didn't need the atomic bomb to win the war in August of '45 and we don't need to be splitting atoms to make steam to make our electricity with today. No one anywhere should be allowed to use it other than for medical reasons and that should be regulated heavily.

[Javaman]

4. I just finished a great book regarding the "invasion of Japan"...

Operation Downfall.

what people don't know is: when the original invasion of the mainland of Japan was designed, it had in mind additional use of atomic weapons.

there would have been a 3 prong invasion on the southern beaches, but first "softened" up by an atomic bomb at each beach head.

All this was predicated on the assumption that Japan wouldn't surrender after the first two were dropped.

FYI: the additional bombs wouldn't have been ready until Oct 45 at the earliest. The invasion would have started in Nov. Military planners expected the invasion and final defeat of Japan to resolve itself sometime in late 46 or early 47.

Pretty freaky stuff.

[kristopher]

5. What was the title of the book?

[Javaman]

6. Here you go...

Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 by D.M. Giangreco

Honestly, it would have been hellish. Not so much from an invasion stand point per say, but the fact that the US and it's allies considered dropping as many as 9 additional atomic bombs.

Also (on edit) here's a clip from Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Nuclear_weapons

Nuclear weapons

On Marshall's orders, Major General John E. Hull looked into the tactical use of nuclear weapons for the invasion of the Japanese home islands (even after the dropping of two strategic atomic bombs on Japan, Marshall did not think that the Japanese would capitulate immediately). Colonel Lyle E. Seeman reported that at least seven bombs would be available by X-Day, which could be dropped on defending forces. Seeman advised that American troops not enter an area hit by a bomb for "at least 48 hours"; the risk of fallout was not well understood, and such a short amount of time after detonation would have resulted in substantial radiation exposure for the American troops.<34>

Ken Nichols, the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, wrote that at the beginning of August 1945, "

lanning for the invasion of the main Japanese home islands had reached its final stages, and if the landings actually took place, we might supply about fifteen atomic bombs to support the troops." <35> An air burst 1,800–2,000 ft (550–610 m) above the ground had been chosen for the (Hiroshima) bomb to achieve maximum blast effects, and to minimize residual radiation on the ground as it was hoped that American troops would soon occupy the city.<36>

[madokie]

7. Even at this later date

It still scares the pants off me.
I've read that the Japanese were ready to surrender before we dropped the bombs on them. Don't know how true that is though.
I'd like to read that book too. Thanks for the link in response to Kristopher inquiry and your reply to him.

[Barrett808]

8. Yes, Japan was ready to surrender and was in negotiations:

President Truman was ambivalent about the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet, according to this unsettling study, Truman, influenced by army general Leslie Groves and Secretary of War Henry Stimson, went into denial and developed a sense of omnipotence that allowed him to deploy weapons that killed vast numbers of civilians. Eminent psychologist Lifton (whose National Book Award-winning Death in Life dealt with Hiroshima survivors) and former Nuclear Times editor Mitchell (The Campaign of the Century) draw on primary sources, including the diaries of Truman and other decision-makers, in an attempt to refute the widely held belief that the atomic bombings hastened WWII's end, thereby preventing an invasion of Japan and saving countless American lives. The authors demonstrate that the U.S. military and media for decades systematically suppressed on-site photographs, as well as American and Japanese documentary films, that showed the devastation produced by the bombs. They argue that the lasting, harmful impact of Hiroshima on American society includes a defense policy in thrall to nuclear weaponry, self-propelling arms buildups, patterns of psychic numbing and secrecy and denial of the health effects of radiation from bombs and from U.S. nuclear waste dumps.

Hiroshima in America

[Javaman]

9. Sure there were negotiations going on...

there were negotiations going on after we took Okinawa.

However, the military arm of Japan were still foaming at the mouth.

There are a few books out there that talk about all the crazy crap that was going down in the Japanese leadership in last days before the official surrender.

what had always been at issue were two things: allowing the Japanese to save face and preventing the emperor from admitting he wasn't a god. These two things were massive sticking points prior to the bombs being dropped.

It wasn't until the emperor finally said, "enough" that Japan surrendered.

I read a book years ago, I think it was called "last days of the sun" or something like that talking about what was going on then.

[SpoonFed]

10. Smacks of speculative nonsense...

Sure, IF they had the fissile material then they would possible use them...

I've read the Los Alamos Primer years ago and one thing that struck me then and still rings true, and has affected my take on dropping the bombs, were that they ("USG") wanted to test the two weapon designs and the two weapon fuels. There wasn't anything left after the two weapons got dropped and wouldn't be for quite a while. It was a strategic play towards the already foreseeable cold war.

It also seems that plain old firebombing massacres, besieging of the home islands and the domination of the seas would have meant a fairly speedy end to any further Japanese aggression, whether or not the Emperor had to remain and/or save face.

And when you look at actual Nazi-Russian losses on the eastern front (10s if not 100s of thousands in various battles) versus "projected" American casualties in the Pacific, they kinda pale in comparison...

Was it worth it? Dunno. It's a pretty infamous reputation to be the only country to ever actually used the things on other human beings.

[Javaman]

11. this book took directly from the planning sessions from the dept of war at the time.

the same plan which is also of record in the archives of the Dept of Defense.

this was a combination of Marshall's, MacArthur and several other generals plans.

by August the plan was already in the late stages and materials were already being moved to the Asian theater.

Very far from "speculative nonsense" but why read a heavily researched book? when instead you can spout off with hyperbole, right?