World-News

http://www.gigaherz.ch/1025

Krankenkasse Helsana an Ursachen der Kostenexplosion nicht interessiert
http://www.gigaherz.ch/1023

Elena lived in Gomel, near Chernobyl, when the world's worst nuclear accident struck, 20 years ago. Don't let history repeat itself. Call on the UN to stop promoting nuclear power.

On April 26, 1986 I was five years old. I don't remember the day very well. But I remember what my mum said about it. It was a really warm, sunny day. I was outside with my elder brother and my little 13-day-old sister, who was sleeping in a pram. Suddenly dark clouds appeared in the sky and a strong wind started to blow. Our mum told us to come into the house. While we were gathering our toys, she was trying to take the pram inside. The first drops of rain fell on my little sister. It may have been those few drops that changed our lives.

Read further and take action under:
http://activism.greenpeace.org/int_ezines/chernobyl/html/int_ezine_chernobyl_en_gpi.html


http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Chernobyl

Mobile phone masts are accountable for adverse health effects on residents nationwide, it was claimed today.

Members of IERVN (Irish Electromagnetic Radiation Victims Network) recounted their daily sufferings to the Joint Committee on Health and Children in Leinster House.

Group spokesman Con Colbert said electrosensitivity was not just an Irish phenomenon but a global one, with people suffering from physical pain and discomfort all over the world.

Many members, some suicidal, have been forced from their homes due to radiation levels from nearby phone masts. Their quality of life – domestic, social and economic – has deteriorated with families being disrupted and sufferers unable to shop or work in areas with a high energy capacity.

Mr Colbert himself sleeps in a chalet at the end of the garden of his Raheny home to try and escape the burning sensation from radiation from nearby phone masts.

Fellow sufferer Helen McCorry and her two children were forced to flee a new apartment in Dublin’s inner city due to the erection of antennae.

Once rehoused in Clontarf their health improved until antennae appeared on a building just 80 metres from their home. All three are now forced to sleep in their car at night to avoid the radiation.

Mrs McCorry, who was physically distressed during the committee hearing from the use of phones in the building, called for the homes of all sufferers to be screened from radiation waves with specialist materials.

“I have pleaded with phone companies to turn the masts down,” she said. “We are sitting in our homes dying from this. There is nothing we can do.”

Others, including farmers, reported the erection of masts near their land having a detrimental affect on their lives and that of their livestock.

John Gormley TD told the speakers they were the forgotten victims of a lucrative business.

Senator Fergal Browne contacted Beaumont Hospital to research any links between brain tumours, particularly in young people, and radiation.

He said: “A big difficulty is that we have no significant evidence proving that masts are bad for you.”

Omega this is not true. See under:
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Wissenschaft+zu+Mobilfunk/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Cancer+Cluster
http://www.buergerwelle.de/body_science.html

© Thomas Crosbie Media, 2006.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=171489518&p=y7y49xzz4


From Mast Sanity/Mast Network

http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=423

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Kevin Byrne is a man in the prime of his life who feared he had an old man's problems. Last summer, he was devastated by chronic back pain and thought his hips were about to give out.

"I'm thinking, gee, I'm 47 years old and I'm going to need hip replacements already," he said.

The hip pain was the beginning of a strange personal odyssey for Mr. Byrne, a technical writer who lives in Newcastle, a bedroom community east of Toronto. He is now convinced his ailment wasn't a sign of premature aging, but an allergy to one of modern society's ubiquitous substances: electricity.

No one knows how many people are sensitive to electricity. Scientific debate is intense over whether the condition exists or is a figment of people's imagination. Some estimates place the number afflicted at a handful out of every million. Others view it as more common but still a tad unusual, perhaps a few individuals out of every thousand.

Mr. Byrne counts himself among those unlucky few. He began researching the topic when a neighbour expressed the belief that electricity was dangerous. In an act of desperation brought on by constant pain, he did something he initially thought was off-the-wall. He spent $1,000 on filters that, much like surge protectors on a computer, clean up fluctuations and surges in the electricity flowing in the wires around his home.

"When you're in a lot of pain, you'll do just about anything. So I was sort of grasping at non-medical straws," he said. "I didn't think they would work, to tell you the truth. I thought I was probably wasting my money."

But within a couple of days, after months of pain for which his doctor could find no cause, he started feeling fine again. "I said to my wife, 'This has got to be the placebo effect,' " he said, referring to the well-known medical phenomenon of patients reporting that they are cured of illnesses after being given a sugar pill doctors suggest will help them.

Mr. Byrne also noticed another odd health effect after he cleaned up his power, convincing him that electricity was at the root of his problems. Both he and his wife suddenly began to sleep more soundly and his dreams became "incredibly real and very vivid."

Stories such as Mr. Byrne's are not isolated tales. In fact, they're becoming increasingly common, rising in lockstep with homes filled to the brim with electronic gadgets and the proliferation of wireless technologies.

Symptoms of electrical sensitivity include the joint pain Mr. Byrne experienced, but also a bewildering array of other common problems most everyone feels at one time or another, such as fatigue, headaches, poor sleep quality with frequent wakefulness, ringing in the ears, depression, difficulty remembering things, and skin rashes. The list of symptoms has created speculation that some cases of sick building syndrome, where people working in buildings complain of nausea and headaches, might be due to electrical sensitivities.

Madga Havas, an associate professor at the Environmental Studies Department of Trent University who is an expert on the health claims about electricity, says she receives "almost a call a day" from people who say electricity is making them ill and they can't find help in the medical system. "It's not just from Canada. It's usually from the States as well," she says.

She thinks the condition is more widespread than commonly thought, and speculates that for some people, exposure to electricity causes physiological stress, producing symptoms of tiredness, difficulty concentrating and poor sleep.

The possibility of such a widespread health impact from electricity is greeted with skepticism in the electricity industry, where such an effect would have wide-ranging consequences.

"We don't have support to suggest that there is electrosensitivity in members of the population," says Jack Sahl, a manager of safety and environmental issues at Southern California Edison, a large U.S. electricity provider.

The industry position has been bolstered by studies showing that most of those who say they have allergies to electricity are unable consistently to detect the presence of electric currents in laboratory experiments.

Medical authorities and scientific researchers have consequently been baffled over these wide-ranging claims of ill health, not only in Canada and the United States but in Britain and other European countries. In Sweden, the electrically sensitive are so numerous they have established their own self-help and lobby group.

Those with the condition bristle at suggestions their symptoms are imaginary. "This is not psychosomatic at all. . . . We're not delusional," says Susan Stankavich, who lives near Albany, N.Y., and says her problems developed after a large cellphone tower was erected near her home. She's had debilitating headaches, among other symptoms, and can barely tolerate being under fluorescent lights.

Reacting to this rising tide of claims of a new illness, the World Health Organization issued a fact sheet in December on the allergies, which it dubbed "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" and likened it to multiple chemical sensitivities.

The WHO says the "symptoms are certainly real" and "can be a disabling problem for the affected individual."

Reports about sensitivity to electricity began with the introduction of computers, predating the recent spread of Wi-Fi and cellphone towers, which release a related but more powerful type of electromagnetic energy than that produced around electric wires.

There have been long-running concerns about the possible health effects of electricity because it is a source of both electric and magnetic fields, invisible lines of force that surround all power lines and any power-consuming device, from the lowly kitchen toaster to a computer. Electric fields are always present near power wires and appliances, even when devices are turned off, but magnetic fields are generated only when devices are on.

The nerves in living things work on electrical impulses. So do other biological processes, such as the voltages in hearts detected using electrocardiographs. This has given rise to worries that man-made electricity fields, to which humans were never exposed before the modern era, might be biologically active, just like chemical pollutants.

The WHO has been looking at electrical sensitivity as one aspect of a larger investigation into the health effects of the cocktail of electromagnetic fields enveloping people in modern societies via everything from power lines to cellphones. It says that exposure to electromagnetic fields represents "one of the most common and fastest growing environmental influences, about which there is anxiety and speculation spreading."

Until now, most of the medical researchers looking at electricity and health have searched for links to cancer, rather than the fatigue-related symptoms the electrically sensitive claim.

The cancer research has linked childhood leukemia to power-line magnetic fields. About 5 per cent of the U.S. population is regularly exposed to fields of the strength associated with leukemia in children, a percentage that is probably similar in Canada. For adult leukemia and brain tumours, some studies have found links to electricity, as they have with Lou Gehrig's disease, but the research is less conclusive than that for childhood leukemia.

Richard Stevens, an epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut Health Center, has been studying electricity for nearly two decades, and first advanced the hypothesis that the use of electricity is a factor behind the rise in some cancer rates in developed countries. He says there is strong evidence linking the use of night lighting to cancer because exposure to light at night disrupts people's production of the hormone melatonin.

But he's unsure what impact the fields around electric wiring and devices might be having. Some studies have found that magnetic fields suppress melatonin in animals, something that might explain the allergy-like symptoms, but this effect hasn't been observed in humans. "Whether or not magnetic fields have any effect at all, I do not know," Dr. Stevens says.

The allergy-like symptoms are a far different medical condition than the cancers Dr. Stevens studies, and some researchers are speculating that a possible culprit is the recent deterioration in the quality of electricity flowing in power wires.

Power quality is a well-known problem in the utility business, caused by the proliferation of computers, lighting dimmer switches, energy efficient bulbs, and other modern electronic gadgets. These new devices cause a more complicated use pattern for electricity than old-fashioned items such as incandescent bulbs, producing negative feedback involving high-frequency peaks, harmonics and other noise on electric wiring.

The way to picture the quality effect is to imagine that electricity is like water flowing in a pipe. An incandescent bulb uses electricity steadily, just like an open tap allows a constant flow into the sink. Computers and other modern devices use power in variable amounts, similar to turning the tap on and off, or any setting in between, causing water pipes to clang.

This deterioration in power quality has been going on for years and would have likely escaped public notice, except that when home computers became popular in the 1990s they would frequently crash or malfunction because of it.

The change in power quality means more variable electromagnetic fields, and possibly more biologically active ones, are associated with electricity than there used to be. This is a possible explanation for the rise in electrosensitivity complaints in the view of Denis Henshaw, a professor at the University of Bristol in Britain, who is an international authority on the health effects of power transmission lines.

He says that if electricity were flowing in a constant way, most people's bodies would likely adapt, but with all the interference from modern devices, the resulting fields are too variable for people to get used to. "We just don't get to adapt to these because they don't have any special pattern to them," he said. "There is no proof of this, it's just an opinion."

In Canada, Dr. Havas has been investigating whether the deterioration in power quality has led to sensitivity. To this end, she's been installing filters that clean up the interference on electrical wires to see if people notice.

In 2003, she installed filters in a Toronto private school where a student was electrically sensitive for a six-week test, three weeks with the devices and three weeks without them. Half of the teachers who responded to her questionnaire said they felt health improvements, such as being able to concentrate better and feeling less tired, when the filters were in place. Even more unusual, the teachers, who were not told what the research was about, reported that 60 per cent of their classes showed improvements in student behaviour when the filters were installed.

Based on this finding, Dr. Havas estimates that perhaps half of the population may have some sensitivity to electricity.

In another test, she installed filters in the homes of people with multiple sclerosis, a disease that might be reactive to electricity because it is associated with poor sheathing on nerves. Brad Blumbergs, 29, says his MS improved so much last year that he could walk without shaking and could even run again. "It allows me to retire my cane," he said. "It hasn't cured me, but my symptoms are a percentage of what they used to be," Mr. Blumbergs said.

Dr. Havas has presented some of these findings at scientific conferences on electrosensitivity, but the work hasn't appeared in the gold standard of research, the peer-reviewed scientific journals that would confer more legitimacy on the results.

The utility industry's Mr. Sahl is skeptical about efforts to improve power quality, which generally cost about $1,000 to handle one home, and calls them a "waste of money."

He agrees that the action may make some people feel better, but only because they're affected by the power of suggestion and not by the power of electricity. "I hate to be blunt about it, but there is this well-established effect in science and we've studied it over and over and it's called the placebo effect."

That doesn't ring true to Mr. Byrne. He says his sensitivity might have been prompted by his decision last year to conserve energy by replacing much of his home's simple incandescent lighting with high-efficiency compact fluorescent bulbs, some brands of which cause the power-quality problem.

He's become so convinced that electricity can make people sick that he's set up a website, offering tips to fellow sufferers on how to alleviate their symptoms, such as urging them to throw out their dimmer switches and limiting exposures to electronic gadgets. When it comes to electricity, Mr. Byrne says, "I think people should automatically begin changing their lifestyles."

© Copyright 2006 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060328.wxelectricity28/BNStory/Science/home?pageRequested=all&print=true

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Electricity disorder a real health problem
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1775805/

In our local paper this week and just the tip of the iceberg unfortunately. A few links to other articles of interest below it.

Sandi


Letters to the Editor

West Sussex Gazette 22.03.06

Verify our TETRA health problems

I was most interested in your excellent editorial (WSG March 9) concerning masts, particularly as our bungalow is a mere 50 yards from one situated on the edge of the Bognor Regis Golf Club land which was converted from mobile to TETRA in June 2004.

This was a fateful day because ever since we have been beset by problems. So I feel we have considerable experience on how TETRA emissions can affect quality of life. To put it bluntly it makes us feel decidedly off colour with headaches, disturbed sleep patterns and a general feeling of lassitude.

When we go away we are perfectly alright and completely restored to normal, only to feel the adverse affects immediately on return.

My wife and I wonder exactly what ‘independently verified evidence’ is required before anyone in authority will accept the fact that the possibility exists of any health problems. We have suffered them for almost two years and we are certainly not alone.

Is anyone in authority making any attempt to have the experiences of people like us ‘verified’? Or do they think we are all nutters?

Geoff and Mary Harris
Felpham, West Sussex


Success for phone mast campaigners
http://www.farnham-herald-today.co.uk/today/options/news/newsdetail.cfm?id=24172

Protest brings down mast plan
http://www.midsussextoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=516&ArticleID=1400008

Anxiety and fear, or mast emissions, causing restless nights?
http://www.midsussextoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=516&ArticleID=1400016

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Dear all

I am Jayne Packard, the mother of Nicola from Milford Haven. Basically big business always wins, we can keep trying to convince people about health effects - heck my daughter's seizures increased so much when a mast was placed near her school that for the past year she has been receiving education at home.

Fortunately we have got the mast moved to where it was originally intended to be at Uzmaston but still there are residents living near the intended site for it that will be affected.

It's all wrong.

Jayne


Omega see "Epilepsy girl will learn at home after radio mast victory" under: http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1009126/

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Letters to the Editor, West Sussex Gazette 29th March 2006

In response to Geoff and Mary Harris’ letter ‘Verify our TETRA health problems’ in the March 22 2006 edition, I can confirm that no one in authority will “verify” ill health around TETRA or phone masts at this time.

I have worked voluntarily for http://www.mastsanity.org since 2004, answering the advice line, helping with mast problems, and trying to raise awareness of the far too many people I know of who are unwell around mast sites. Some of these people live locally but many are from all areas of the UK.

I have noted many attempts by various groups and individuals to raise awareness of this growing problem of ill health which is totally ignored by officialdom or dismissed as “anecdotal evidence.”

Mr and Mrs Harris have proved their own claim that their ill health is cause by the TETRA mast because they gone away and recovered their well -being, then come home and become unwell again. So have hundreds of other people across the UK, yet still no research is carried out and there is no recognition that TETRA and phone masts might cause harm to human and animal life.

The only respite thousands of people have is to go away/move away from masts if they can, or pay out money for some sort of protection.

This in itself is a disgusting state of affairs in a modern, affluent, and supposedly democratic society.

I am currently trying to raise awareness with GPs of the fact that some of the illness in our society could indeed be caused by microwave radiation from these masts/DECT phones etc. I do point out that TETRA is the worst of all and that it can cause instant symptoms and even severe damage in some people. This is a very difficult thing to prove without medical evidence and good research, and neither is forthcoming.

I am also helping local people to persuade Arun District Council to amend its masts policy to something closer to the precautionary approach recommended by Sir William Stewart, the Government’s own advisor, in his two reports of 2000 and 2004.

In over five years NOTHING has been done.

What I do is very little in the order of things, but I just wanted to reassure those who are suffering around masts that they are not forgotten and that many of us continue to try to bring this issue into the open any way we can.

If anyone wants to research this subject try

http://www.mastsanity.org
http://www.tetrawatch.net
http://www.electrosensitivity.org.uk
http://www.powerwatch.org.uk


Mrs Sandi Lawrence


From Mast Sanity/Mast Network

Annya is a 15 year-old cancer victim. It was 20 years ago this month that a nuclear reactor in the Ukraine melted down spewing deadly radiation over her hometown. A cancerous brain tumour at the age of four marked the end of Annya's childhood and the beginning of a life of pain and illness. Annya, is now bed-ridden, and has spent her life in and out of hospital, between tumours and life support. Over 7000 people have joined our anniversary call for an end to nuclear power. Please add your voice: no more Chernobyls: http://prefs.greenpeace.org/mail-links/clicks/19048.2436867.5409

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Chernobyl may have killed 1000 British babies according to British expert

"There have been 4000 cases of thyroid cancer, mainly in children, but that except for nine deaths, all of them have recovered. "Otherwise, the team of international experts found no evidence for any increases in the incidence of leukemia and cancer among affected residents."

As about quarter of people die from spontaneous cancer not caused by Chernobyl radiation, the radiation-induced increase of only about 3% will be difficult to observe.

Repacholi concludes that “the health effects of the accident were potentially horrific, but when you add them up using validated conclusions from good science, the public health effects were not nearly as substantial as had at first been feared.”

Iris Atzmon


----- Original Message -----
From: Mona Nilsson
To: Iris Atzmon
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 12:41 PM
Subject: Chernobyl may have killed 1000 British babies according to British expert

Thursday, 23rd March 2006, 08:59
Category: Healthy Living LIFE STYLE EXTRA

(UK) - More than 1,000 British babies may have died as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 20 years ago, an expert claims today (thur).

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, health records show infant deaths increased in the years after the Ukrainian reactor explosion in April 1986.

And the biggest rise in deaths - babies under one year old - was in areas where radioactive rain had fallen, he said.

In contaminated areas, including Bradford and Leicester, infant deaths increased by 11 per cent during the years 1986 to 1989, and in other areas rose by 4 per cent.

This was at a time when infant mortality had been falling by an average four per cent a year.

In the days that followed the nuclear disaster, in which an explosion tore the roof off one of the four reactors at the Soviet power station, large clouds of radiation swept westwards across northern Europe, including Scandinavia, France and the UK.

Epidemiologist and statistician John Urquhart, who carried out the research, said the Met Office tracked several plumes of the radiation moving across Britain, and radioactive particles fell as 'black rain' when the plumes met the patchy rain clouds overhead that day.

This meant showery parts of the country were contaminated much more than dry areas. In most places the contamination hung around for only a few weeks, but the highlands of Wales and Cumbria had very heavy rainfall that day and sheep farmers there are still living with the radioactive dust in the soil.

Mr Urquhart, a former advisor at a Cambridge University research unit, examined more than 50,000 infant deaths from all causes in the UK between 1983 and 1992 and compared mortality rates in different districts.

He found that a map showing highest mortality almost exactly matched a Met Office map of contaminated areas.

In the most radioactive areas, which also included Merseyside, Bristol, Northern Ireland and parts of Essex, infant mortality was more than 11 per cent higher in the years 1986 to 1989 than in the preceding years.

Mr Urquhart said the result was "highly significant" and the chance that the increases were due to random fluctuations was about 1 in 4,000.

He said: "The long term trend of infant mortality was declining at about 4 per cent per annum, but that was interrupted by Chernobyl."

As well as the national variations, there were very noticeable regional differences, he said.

For instance, Yorkshire received hardly any radioactive fallout, apart from in the very far west. And infant deaths in Bradford were higher than in the rest of the county.

He also found significant increases in 'neo-natal deaths' - babies up to 28 days old - which account for roughly half of all infant deaths. Neo-natal deaths rose by 4 per cent in contaminated areas but fell by 5 per cent in unaffected areas.

When he looked at just cot deaths, he found huge rises in some affected areas - 50 per cent in Bristol, 60 per cent in Liverpool and 90 per cent in Cumbria - although this is based on a relatively small number of deaths.

Mr Urquhart, presenting his findings at the Nuclear Free Local Authorities conference at City Hall in London, said there was clearly some "malign influence" causing these "excess" deaths but apart from the radiation there was no factor that applied only to the contaminated areas.

He said: "The question is, is that malign influence due to some disease affecting the population or is it due to Chernobyl?

"But the malign influence was three times stronger in the radioactive areas."

Earlier research has shown that an increase in northern England of thyroid cancer, associated with radioactive iodine, was probably due to Chernobyl fallout.

But Mr Urquhart said no scientist has looked for a link to infant deaths before because their 'models' predicted no effect from the level of radiation found in Britain after Chernobyl.

He said these models were based on a study of the aftermath of Hiroshima, with a much smaller population, and the effect is only noticeable when looking at many thousands of infant deaths.

He said: "There's going to be a big controversy about this paper because people have been trundling along for the last 50 years saying radiation isn't dangerous.

"These observations have got to pose a challenge to the scientific establishment."

He called for more studies in other European countries and changes to the way governments plan for nuclear emergencies.

Copyright © 2006 National News +44(0)207 684 3000

http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=YW2323740Q&news_headline=chernobyl_killed_1000_british_babies

Here is the WHO/Repacholi view: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index.html

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UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths

Atomic agency says toll will not exceed 4,000
Doctors 'overwhelmed' by cancers and mutations

John Vidal, environment editor Saturday March 25, 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1739394,00.html

United Nations nuclear and health watchdogs have ignored evidence of deaths, cancers, mutations and other conditions after the Chernobyl accident, leading scientists and doctors have claimed in the run-up to the nuclear disaster's 20th anniversary next month.

In a series of reports about to be published, they will suggest that at least 30,000 people are expected to die of cancers linked directly to severe radiation exposure in 1986 and up to 500,000 people may have already died as a result of the world's worst environmental catastrophe.

But the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organisation say that only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster, and that, at most, 4,000 people may eventually die from the accident on April 26 1986.

They say only nine children have died of thyroid cancers in 20 years and that the majority of illnesses among the estimated 5 million people contaminated in the former Soviet Union are attributable to growing poverty and unhealthy lifestyles.

An IAEA spokesman said he was confident the UN figures were correct. "We have a wide scientific consensus of 100 leading scientists. When we see or hear of very high mortalities we can only lean back and question the legitimacy of the figures. Do they have qualified people? Are they responsible? If they have data that they think are excluded then they should send it."

The new estimates have been collated by researchers commissioned by European parliamentary groups, Greenpeace International and medical foundations in Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Scandinavia and elsewhere. They take into account more than 50 published scientific studies.

"At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine," said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine. "[Studies show] that 34,499 people who took part in the clean-up of Chernobyl have died in the years since the catastrophe. The deaths of these people from cancers was nearly three times as high as in the rest of the population.

"We have found that infant mortality increased 20% to 30% because of chronic exposure to radiation after the accident. All this information has been ignored by the IAEA and WHO. We sent it to them in March last year and again in June. They've not said why they haven't accepted it."

Evgenia Stepanova, of the Ukrainian government's Scientific Centre for Radiation Medicine, said: "We're overwhelmed by thyroid cancers, leukaemias and genetic mutations that are not recorded in the WHO data and which were practically unknown 20 years ago."

The IAEA and WHO, however, say that apart from an increase in thyroid cancer in children there is no evidence of a large-scale impact on public health. "No increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality that could be associated with radiation exposure have been observed," said the agencies' report in September.

In the Rivne region of Ukraine, 310 miles west of Chernobyl, doctors say they are coming across an unusual rate of cancers and mutations. "In the
30 hospitals of our region we find that up to 30% of people who were in highly radiated areas have physical disorders, including heart and blood diseases, cancers and respiratory diseases. Nearly one in three of all the newborn babies have deformities, mostly internal," said Alexander Vewremchuk, of the Special Hospital for the Radiological Protection of the Population in Vilne.

Figures on the health effects of Chernobyl have always been disputed. Soviet authorities covered up many of the details at the time. The largest radiation doses were received by the 600,000 people involved in the clean-up, many drawn from army conscripts all over the Soviet Union.

Backstory

The worst nuclear accident in history took place on April 26 1986 when one of the four reactors at the Chernobyl complex 80 miles north of Kiev in Ukraine began to fail. Operators shut down the system, but a large chemical explosion followed a power surge and the 1,000-tonne cover blew off the top of the reactor. Design flaws in the cooling system were blamed for the accident, in which 31 people were killed immediately. The worst-affected area was Belarus, which took the brunt of the 4% of the 190 tonnes of uranium dioxide in the plant that escaped. Ukraine was also contaminated. Some 600,000 workers (mainly volunteers) who took part in recovery and clean-up operations were exposed to high levels of radiation; the Soviet government first suppressed news of the incident, but evacuated local people within a few days. Five million people were exposed to radiation in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, and there was a dramatic increase in thyroid cancer among children living there.

Special report The nuclear industry http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/0,,181325,00.html

Useful links

British Energy http://www.british-energy.com/
Department of Trade and Industry http://www.dti.gov.uk/
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament http://www.cnduk.org/
Greenpeace http://www.greenpeace.org/homepage/
HSE nuclear glossary http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm
Come Clean WMD awareness programme http://www.comeclean.org.uk UK atomic energy authority http://www.ukaea.org.uk/
National Radiological Protection Board http://www.nrpb.org.uk/
Friends of the Earth http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/press_for_change/dump_nuclear/index.html World Nuclear Association http://www.uilondon.org/
World Nuclear Transport Institute http://www.wnti.co.uk


Informant: Teresa Binstock

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Chernobyl: A Poisonous Legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1700817/

No more Chernobyls
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1638136/

RADIATION DAMAGE IN NORWEGIAN CHILDREN
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1439668/

LATEST ON CHERNOBYL CONTROVERSY RE. RADIATION BIOEFFECTS
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1437602/

A measured response letter to Chernobyl nuclear disaster
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1389737/

EFFECTS OF CHERNOBYL DISASTER
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1389650/

Chernobyl bio-disater is a myth says two Irish professors of applied physics and medical physics
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1388948/

Chernobyl, WHO and Utteridge's mice: Is there a connection?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1293003/

PLAYING DOWN THE EFFECTS OF CHERNOBYL
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1253880/

Exorcising the ghosts of Chernobyl
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1009542/

Radiation risks : When will they ever learn?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/423130/

Adult Cancer in Sweden
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/417007/

Radiation: Anatomy of a Cover-up
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/416462/

Chernobyl Heart
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/358598/

Government gags experts over nuclear plant risks
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/290977/

The legacy of Chernobyl
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/181567/

20 years on, Britain still feels the effects of Chernobyl
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1783521/

RADIATION, WELFARE AND CHERNOBYL
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1787573/

CHERNOBYL'S 10TH: CANCER AND NUCLEAR-AGE PEACE DON'T BE DECEIVED
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/1792319/

Dr. Rosalie Bertell replies to Repacholi's spin on Chernobyl
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=430

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren von der Bürgerwelle,

auch wir haben am eigenen Leib erfahren, was es heißt im Hauptstrahl eines Mobilfunksenders zu leben. Bitte lesen Sie unsere Geschichte im Anhang.

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/neuefa.doc
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/icking.pdf

Zwei Bilder zeigen unser Haus in Icking, aus dem wir im November aus Gesundheitsgründen ausgezogen sind, und die Aussicht vom Balkon im ersten Stock ins Isartal und auf die Sendemasten in 100 m Entfernung, die unterhalb am Hang genehmigungsfrei errichtet wurden. Unser Haus ist ein biologisch gebautes Holzhaus, welches wir abschirmen mußten, um darin einigermaßen unverstrahlt leben zu können.

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/abschi.jpg
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/aussic.jpg


Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Ingrid v.Brandt

This was in the Daily Mail yesterday, VICTORY!

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/phone_mast_victory_for_couple_both_hit_by_cancer1.tif
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/phone_mast_victory_for_couple_both_hit_by_cancer2.tif

Eileen O'Connor