FUSE USA
Friends United for Sustainable Energy, USA
351 Dyckman Street
Peekskill, New York 10566
(914) 734-7458
PRESS CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
For Immediate Release
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sherwood Martinelli (914) 293-7458 or 734-1955
FUSE USA's efforts to shut down the aging Indian Point reactors has recently been featured in numerous news publications, including the New York Times after filing 26 Contentions in the Indian Point License Renewal Process. Today, November 9th, 2007 FUSE USA continues our work of protecting human health and the environment with the filing of 17 contentions on Indian Point reactor number 3.
With elevated cancer rates in the three state area of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, coupled with new evidence of radioactive tritium possibly leaking from the hot side of the Indian Point facility, one has to give credence to the antidotal evidence that living near an aging nuclear reactor contributes to elevated cancers.
Projects like the Tooth Fairy Project suggest there is a link between strontium 90, which has been found in water samples taken from the Indian Point facility, and childhood leukemia. Some suggest living close to a nuclear reactor increases a woman's chance of breast cancer, and of giving birth to a stillborn child.
For too long, the military/commercial nuclear industry has denied any links between themselves and cancer, have taken a prove it was us attitude, placing the burden on average citizens. FUSE USA believes that the burden needs to be reversed. Entergy needs to prove to communities located in Indian Point's 50 mile Peak Fatality Zone (PFZ) ,which encompasses parts of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York that Indian Point with its tritium, celsium 137 and strontium 90 leaks is not contributing to the elevated breast cancer, childhood leukemia, and thyroid cancers in our communities. Before the NRC considers granting Entergy a 20 year license renewal, our communities deserve health studies.
Because of that, included as a part of FUSE USA's latest filings is a contention asking that those studies be carried out as a part of the License Renewal Process. No studies, no license renewal needs to be our call to action. The Health Studies contention is included below, and the entire filing is attached as a word file.
Interested citizens are encouraged to sign onto these important contentions. Contact sherwood@fuseusa.org with your name and address to add your voice to this important Public Health contention.
FUSE USA Health Studies Contention
Contention 17-The radiological discharges, both legal and illegally, known and unknown from Indian Point 3, LLC are causing elevated cancer rates in the 50 mile EPZ which includes portions of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. Said elevated cancers are causing premature deaths, painful mastectomies in women who are getting non-hereditary breast cancers, and our children are being struck down with leukemia, as a result of Indian Point operations. The death of just one child in the name of Indian Point License Renewal is unacceptable, elevated cancer rates, especially breast cancer is and unacceptable price to ask any community to pay in the name of “National Interests” and NEI’s dearly beloved Nuclear Renaissance. 1. The NRC, NEI, DOE and Entergy all know, and tacitly admit that some deaths, some cancers will occur as a result of the operation of a nuclear power plant. The one cancer they readily concede some responsibility for is thyroid cancer, justifying the risk, and elevated number of cases of thyroid cancers with the reasoning that thyroid cancer is curable. Sure those who have gone through the process of being cured have a far different and much less cavalier opinion on the subject.2. For decades, DOE spent hundreds of millions of dollars on attorneys, rather than admit their employees working in and around nuclear facilities such as Hanford, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Paducah Kentucky and Portsmouth Ohio Gaseous Diffusion Plants cancers were being caused by their worked environment, by their association with the supposed “friendly atom”. It literally took and act of Congress to get these victims of radiological abuse the help they so desperately needed and deserved, and yet in 2007 the DOE and their carefully designed hearing boards are trying to deny most victims of NUCLEAR CANCER their rightful benefits, including in far to many cases, death benefits to surviving family members who lost loved ones in the our nation’s desire to be number one, to be the king pin Nuclear Nation.3. NRC, DOE, NEI and others who have a vested interests do anything within their power to debunk any study that attribute elevated cancer risks to ones proximity to a nuclear facility, or nuclear reactor such as Entergy’s ailing and failing Indian Point facility. One case in point, is the Tooth Fairy Project, which collects baby teeth, checking them for elevated levels of strontium 90. Strontium 90 is a known causal contributor to leukemia. Leukemia is a very radiosensitive cancer, and cases of leukemia in children around nuclear power plants are elevated. The nuclear industry, Entergy will tell us that we have their sympathy, and then blame said cancer on anything and everything else but their nuclear facility, including fallout from early nuclear weapons testing, or claim it is simply compilation of environmental contaminants. What they will not tell you, is early evidence suggests that cancer rates around closed and decommissioned nuclear facilities drops. As illustration, shared below is an excerpt from BAKER P.J. & HOEL D.G. (2007)
European Journal of Cancer Care: Meta-analysis of standardized incidence and mortality rates of childhood leukemia in proximity to nuclear facilities.
The meta-analysis combined and statistically analyzed studies of childhood leukemia and nuclear facilities. Focus was on studies that calculated standardized rates for individual facilities. Due to variability between study designs, eight separate analyses were performed stratified by age and zone. One hundred and thirty-six sites were used in at least one analysis. Unadjusted, fixed effects and random effects models were used. Meta rates greater than one were found in all models at all stratification levels often achieving statistical significance. Caution must be used when interpreting these results. The meta-analysis was able to show an increase in childhood leukemia near nuclear facilities, but does not support a hypothesis to explain the excess. Each type of model utilized has limitations. Fixed effects models give greater weight to larger studies; however, population density may be a risk factor. Random effects models give greater weight to smaller studies that may be more likely to be affected by publication bias. A limitation of the overall study design is that standardized rates must be available for individual sites which led to exclusion of studies that only calculated rates for multiple sites and those that presented other statistical methods. Further, dose-response studies do not support excess rates found near nuclear facilities. However, it cannot be ignored that the majority of studies have found elevated rates, although not usually statistically significant.
Keywords:
childhood leukemia, nuclear, radiation, meta-analysis. 4. In a study conducted by Dr Louise Parker of the Royal Victoria Infirmary it was suggested that workers at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria had higher than average chances of fathering a stillborn child, or one born with defects. Unfortunately, the United States government and the Nuclear Industry have been loath to fund studies that could effectively measure the cancer and health risks of both nuclear workers, and those living near nuclear reactors here in America. However, Dr Louise Parkers study suggests that Entergy could defacto be considered a Nuclear Abortion Machine. Without adequate funding, without a full range of health studies, citizens in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York who live within the Peak Fatality Zone (PFZ) of Indian Point do not know with certainty what caused their family member’s breast cancer, do not know what caused their child’s leukemia, or their father’s thyroid cancer. Young women, dealing with the tragedy of their stillborn child can only grieve and wonder what went wrong, and they deserve to know the truth, should be told if their close proximity to Indian Point contributed to, or elevated their risk of giving birth to a stillborn child. Anecdotal evidence suggests strongly, that in far too many cases, the causal agent for breast cancers, cases of leukemia, stillborn children, assorted birth defects, other cancers including thyroid cancer are to some extent was, is and will continue to be their close location to a nuclear reactor, or nuclear processing plant. The antidotal evidence strongly suggests that you close the nuclear reactor, and instances of these horrid health issues go down. Let us not kid ourselves, the commercial nuclear industry is incestuously tied to the military nuclear industry, and the crimes of one, are the crimes of the other. “After 15 years of investigating, I have concluded that the United States government’s atomic weapons industry knowingly and recklessly exposed millions of people to dangerous levels of radiation. “Nothing in our past compared to the official deceit and lying that took place in order to protect the nuclear industry. In the name of national security, politicians and bureaucrats ran roughshod over democracy and morality. Ultimately, the Cold Warriors were willing to sacrifice their own people in their zeal to beat the Russians.” —Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall 5. The government for supposed National Security interests does not want citizens knowing the full ugly truth of civilian and military nuclear effects on the health and safety of America’s citizens. They have for decades known there were horrid health issues associated with the use and deployment of nuclear, either as weapons, or a producer of energy. They though decided to hide these truths, and justify their decision by claiming it is all in the nations best interests, all in the best interest of National Security. Problem is, over the decades, some truths, some hints of the dangerous health effects have slipped out: Nuclear MurderAmerica’s Atomic War Against Its Citizens and Why It’s Not Over Yet by David ProctorSince 1945, high officials of the United States government have maimed and killed hundreds of thousands of their own people, first while they spent $5.5 trillion to test and maintain nuclear weapons, then as they spent billions to support and under-regulate nuclear power plants. To cover their actions, the officials—and those who succeeded them—have for decades lied to the public and perjured themselves in court about the amount of radiation released and its effect on the millions of people exposed to it. Now, that same government wants to transport hundreds of tons of nuclear waste through 43 states, including Idaho, on inadequate rail lines and highways past 138 million people to be stored in containers of unknown longevity for hundreds of thousands of years in geologically unstable formations in New Mexico and Nevada. And once again, officials insist it will all be perfectly safe. The government has known for at least 70 years that nuclear energy—regardless of its form—is deadly to the human body. The first publicized case of radiation injuries in America was the radium-dial painters in the 1920s. These women used radium paint to put the luminous numbers on watch dials. Many wet their brushes with their mouths to make the tiny points needed for such fine work. When they began to die of cancer their successful lawsuit against the watch company in 1928 made the dangers of radiation very public. The government also sponsored radiation experiments on animals in the 1940s, as well as follow-up studies of the Trinity test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all in 1945. Despite this knowledge, and America’s acceptance of the Nuremberg human rights protocols, the Atomic Energy Commission, a group appointed by the president and obligated by law to protect the public, detonated more than 300 aboveground nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site and in the Pacific Ocean. The blasts totaled 138,600 kilotons of explosive power, which Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov estimated would kill as many as 2.5 million people and American Nobel laureate Linus Pauling calculated would cause 1 million seriously defective children, another 1 million embryonic and neonatal deaths, and create millions of hereditary defects. In 1969, Dr. Ernest Sternglass traced the dramatic increases in infant deaths and childhood leukemia in upstate New York to airborne radiation from the nuclear tests. He estimated 375,000 American babies had been killed by fallout radiation between 1951 and 1966. And that didn’t count the deaths caused by the Soviet Union’s 715 tests. Dr. John Gofman found that even low doses of radiation could cause cancer. In the early 1970s, when Gofman and Dr. Art Tamplin refused to keep their findings secret, they lost their research grants at DOE’s Livermore National Laboratory. 6. For to many decades now, the Federal Government, the Pentagon, DOE, NRC, NEI and the entire military/commercial nuclear industry have been allowed to have the cart in front of the horse, have been allowed to deny that negative health issues are a result of one’s close proximity to a nuclear installation or commercial nuclear project, then they collectively, with evil intent, cruelly look down their noses at us, and say PROVE US WRONG. The NRC and the US EPA are sworn to protect human health and the environment, and it is time that they hold the nuclear industry accountable, time they put the horse in front of the cart by making the entire military/commercial nuclear industry prove to the people that their industry is safe, their industry does not cause cancers, birth defects, grotesque birth defects and deformities. Entergy’s Indian Point has been allowed for far to long to deny they have blood on their hands, that their facility is bringing death into our communities. 7. Before the NRC considers granting Entergy a new superceding license for IP2 and IP3, our communities in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York that are located in Indian Points Peak Fatality Zone deserve answers, and those answers can only be ascertained with in depth health studies funded by the NRC, Entergy, NEI and all other licensed nuclear facilities here in America. A basic cornerstone of American Democracy, a basic cornerstone of the NRC rules and regulations, is that communities are entitled to know the true risks associated with projects such as Indian Point. Those risks when it comes to issues of health and well being, those risks as related to nuclear energy’s contributions to elevated cancer, birth defects, and stillborn numbers for those communities located in the Peak Fatality Zones can only be known if company’s like Entergy are, as they should be, forced to prove their claim that Nuclear is vital, safe, and secure, and that burden of proof rightfully belongs in their lap, they cannot be, and should not be relicensed until a full array of health studies, including but not limited to Meta-analysis of standardized incidence and mortality rates, site specific, regional and national statistical analysis, ingestion pathway studies and analysis including plotting and sampling, dermatological and entomological studies. Further, Entergy, NRC and the entire nuclear industry must be ordered to establish a National Registry that tracks all cancers, birth defects, stillborn births, deaths and other health issues related, directly or indirectly, to the nuclear industry can be properly tracked and mapped on a Nationwide basis.
European Journal of Cancer Care: Meta-analysis of standardized incidence and mortality rates of childhood leukemia in proximity to nuclear facilities.
The meta-analysis combined and statistically analyzed studies of childhood leukemia and nuclear facilities. Focus was on studies that calculated standardized rates for individual facilities. Due to variability between study designs, eight separate analyses were performed stratified by age and zone. One hundred and thirty-six sites were used in at least one analysis. Unadjusted, fixed effects and random effects models were used. Meta rates greater than one were found in all models at all stratification levels often achieving statistical significance. Caution must be used when interpreting these results. The meta-analysis was able to show an increase in childhood leukemia near nuclear facilities, but does not support a hypothesis to explain the excess. Each type of model utilized has limitations. Fixed effects models give greater weight to larger studies; however, population density may be a risk factor. Random effects models give greater weight to smaller studies that may be more likely to be affected by publication bias. A limitation of the overall study design is that standardized rates must be available for individual sites which led to exclusion of studies that only calculated rates for multiple sites and those that presented other statistical methods. Further, dose-response studies do not support excess rates found near nuclear facilities. However, it cannot be ignored that the majority of studies have found elevated rates, although not usually statistically significant.
Keywords:
childhood leukemia, nuclear, radiation, meta-analysis. 4. In a study conducted by Dr Louise Parker of the Royal Victoria Infirmary it was suggested that workers at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria had higher than average chances of fathering a stillborn child, or one born with defects. Unfortunately, the United States government and the Nuclear Industry have been loath to fund studies that could effectively measure the cancer and health risks of both nuclear workers, and those living near nuclear reactors here in America. However, Dr Louise Parkers study suggests that Entergy could defacto be considered a Nuclear Abortion Machine. Without adequate funding, without a full range of health studies, citizens in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York who live within the Peak Fatality Zone (PFZ) of Indian Point do not know with certainty what caused their family member’s breast cancer, do not know what caused their child’s leukemia, or their father’s thyroid cancer. Young women, dealing with the tragedy of their stillborn child can only grieve and wonder what went wrong, and they deserve to know the truth, should be told if their close proximity to Indian Point contributed to, or elevated their risk of giving birth to a stillborn child. Anecdotal evidence suggests strongly, that in far too many cases, the causal agent for breast cancers, cases of leukemia, stillborn children, assorted birth defects, other cancers including thyroid cancer are to some extent was, is and will continue to be their close location to a nuclear reactor, or nuclear processing plant. The antidotal evidence strongly suggests that you close the nuclear reactor, and instances of these horrid health issues go down. Let us not kid ourselves, the commercial nuclear industry is incestuously tied to the military nuclear industry, and the crimes of one, are the crimes of the other. “After 15 years of investigating, I have concluded that the United States government’s atomic weapons industry knowingly and recklessly exposed millions of people to dangerous levels of radiation. “Nothing in our past compared to the official deceit and lying that took place in order to protect the nuclear industry. In the name of national security, politicians and bureaucrats ran roughshod over democracy and morality. Ultimately, the Cold Warriors were willing to sacrifice their own people in their zeal to beat the Russians.” —Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall 5. The government for supposed National Security interests does not want citizens knowing the full ugly truth of civilian and military nuclear effects on the health and safety of America’s citizens. They have for decades known there were horrid health issues associated with the use and deployment of nuclear, either as weapons, or a producer of energy. They though decided to hide these truths, and justify their decision by claiming it is all in the nations best interests, all in the best interest of National Security. Problem is, over the decades, some truths, some hints of the dangerous health effects have slipped out: Nuclear MurderAmerica’s Atomic War Against Its Citizens and Why It’s Not Over Yet by David ProctorSince 1945, high officials of the United States government have maimed and killed hundreds of thousands of their own people, first while they spent $5.5 trillion to test and maintain nuclear weapons, then as they spent billions to support and under-regulate nuclear power plants. To cover their actions, the officials—and those who succeeded them—have for decades lied to the public and perjured themselves in court about the amount of radiation released and its effect on the millions of people exposed to it. Now, that same government wants to transport hundreds of tons of nuclear waste through 43 states, including Idaho, on inadequate rail lines and highways past 138 million people to be stored in containers of unknown longevity for hundreds of thousands of years in geologically unstable formations in New Mexico and Nevada. And once again, officials insist it will all be perfectly safe. The government has known for at least 70 years that nuclear energy—regardless of its form—is deadly to the human body. The first publicized case of radiation injuries in America was the radium-dial painters in the 1920s. These women used radium paint to put the luminous numbers on watch dials. Many wet their brushes with their mouths to make the tiny points needed for such fine work. When they began to die of cancer their successful lawsuit against the watch company in 1928 made the dangers of radiation very public. The government also sponsored radiation experiments on animals in the 1940s, as well as follow-up studies of the Trinity test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all in 1945. Despite this knowledge, and America’s acceptance of the Nuremberg human rights protocols, the Atomic Energy Commission, a group appointed by the president and obligated by law to protect the public, detonated more than 300 aboveground nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site and in the Pacific Ocean. The blasts totaled 138,600 kilotons of explosive power, which Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov estimated would kill as many as 2.5 million people and American Nobel laureate Linus Pauling calculated would cause 1 million seriously defective children, another 1 million embryonic and neonatal deaths, and create millions of hereditary defects. In 1969, Dr. Ernest Sternglass traced the dramatic increases in infant deaths and childhood leukemia in upstate New York to airborne radiation from the nuclear tests. He estimated 375,000 American babies had been killed by fallout radiation between 1951 and 1966. And that didn’t count the deaths caused by the Soviet Union’s 715 tests. Dr. John Gofman found that even low doses of radiation could cause cancer. In the early 1970s, when Gofman and Dr. Art Tamplin refused to keep their findings secret, they lost their research grants at DOE’s Livermore National Laboratory. 6. For to many decades now, the Federal Government, the Pentagon, DOE, NRC, NEI and the entire military/commercial nuclear industry have been allowed to have the cart in front of the horse, have been allowed to deny that negative health issues are a result of one’s close proximity to a nuclear installation or commercial nuclear project, then they collectively, with evil intent, cruelly look down their noses at us, and say PROVE US WRONG. The NRC and the US EPA are sworn to protect human health and the environment, and it is time that they hold the nuclear industry accountable, time they put the horse in front of the cart by making the entire military/commercial nuclear industry prove to the people that their industry is safe, their industry does not cause cancers, birth defects, grotesque birth defects and deformities. Entergy’s Indian Point has been allowed for far to long to deny they have blood on their hands, that their facility is bringing death into our communities. 7. Before the NRC considers granting Entergy a new superceding license for IP2 and IP3, our communities in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York that are located in Indian Points Peak Fatality Zone deserve answers, and those answers can only be ascertained with in depth health studies funded by the NRC, Entergy, NEI and all other licensed nuclear facilities here in America. A basic cornerstone of American Democracy, a basic cornerstone of the NRC rules and regulations, is that communities are entitled to know the true risks associated with projects such as Indian Point. Those risks when it comes to issues of health and well being, those risks as related to nuclear energy’s contributions to elevated cancer, birth defects, and stillborn numbers for those communities located in the Peak Fatality Zones can only be known if company’s like Entergy are, as they should be, forced to prove their claim that Nuclear is vital, safe, and secure, and that burden of proof rightfully belongs in their lap, they cannot be, and should not be relicensed until a full array of health studies, including but not limited to Meta-analysis of standardized incidence and mortality rates, site specific, regional and national statistical analysis, ingestion pathway studies and analysis including plotting and sampling, dermatological and entomological studies. Further, Entergy, NRC and the entire nuclear industry must be ordered to establish a National Registry that tracks all cancers, birth defects, stillborn births, deaths and other health issues related, directly or indirectly, to the nuclear industry can be properly tracked and mapped on a Nationwide basis.
