Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Why I'm NOT Buying the Argument that Discovery of Strontium in Milk in Hawaii is Safe

Jeff McMahon of Forbes has a very interesting post titled: "Radioactive Strontium Found in Hilo, Hawaii Milk"
http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffmcmahon/2011/04/27/radioactive-strontium-found-in-hilo-hawaii-milk/

I like Jeff's analysis and am grateful for his reporting.

However, I’m not buying the “Its safe because of trace levels.”

The US Government has a long and documented history of lying about the effects of radioactive contamination. Read Miller’s Under the Cloud or Fradkin’s Fallout.

Miler's Under the Cloud describes how radioactive fallout was re-defined as “sunshine units” to alleviate public concern about testing in the 1940s and magazines such as US News and World Report were given “inside stories” that depicted fallout as a mild nuisance.

An article published in 1956 in US News and World Report titled, “The Facts About A-Bomb ‘Fall-Out’: Not a Word of Truth in Scare Stories Over Tests” claimed:

“Particles of strontium-90 in the air form the greatest long-range danger to humans from the A-bomb tests. Yet, after all of these tests to date, the mount of this substance in the air in the U.S. is only one one-millionth of the level that would produce harmful effects in people” (cited in Miller, page 200).

Miller writes that nuclear physicists and weapons assured public authorities and the public that no risks were posed from fallout, denying even evidence of livestock deaths. Tests checking for radioactive contamination in milk were not pursued for fear of alarming the public (page 203).

The reality, was and is, that Strontium-90 is a killer.
http://www.radiation.org/projects/tooth_fairy.html

"Studies of baby teeth have documented the impact of low-level exposure to strontium 90. Why study baby teeth?"

"Since their inception, nuclear power plants and bomb facilities have been emitting fission products through accidental releases and through regular allowable emissions that the government classifies as below regulatory concern.

"Radioactive Strontium-90 (Sr-90) is one of these elements, and one of the deadliest. The chemical structure of Sr-90 is so similar to that of calcium that the body gets fooled and deposits Sr-90 in the bones and teeth where it remains, continually emitting cancer-causing radiation.

"Most of the strontium in the baby teeth is transferred to the fetus by the mother during pregnancy. Because we know when and where the baby was born, and where the mother lived while carrying, we can accurately determine when and where radioactivity was absorbed from the environment...."

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