Hospitals releasing radioactive waste News.com.au By Claire Weaver May 11, 2008 - "FOUR major public hospitals are being ordered to stop leaking radioactive waste into the sewerage system.
The waste is mainly from the radioactive iodine used to treat thyroid cancer patients.

Sydney Water has demanded that the hospitals -- Royal North Shore, Liverpool, Nepean and Concord -- install decay tanks to protect workers from exposure......................................".

Study links occupational exposures with risk of miscarriage AVMA News KATIE BURNS May 15, 2008 - "A new study out of Australia suggests that pregnant veterinarians who have occupational exposures to anesthetic gases, radiation, or pesticides may have twice the risk of miscarriage. ………………'The Australian Veterinary Association is concerned about the results of this study,' said Marcia Balzer, AVA national communications manager. .................

The study, 'Maternal occupational exposures and risk of spontaneous abortion in veterinary practice' appeared online ahead of print in the British Medical Journal: Occupational and Environmental Medicine.......................

The authors reported finding significant associations between risk of miscarriage and having occupational exposure to unscavenged anesthetic gases for one or more hours per week, performing more than five radiographic examinations per week, or using pesticides at work. …………

………………..Several studies of U.S. veterinary personnel have linked radiation exposure with risk of miscarriage........".

Sydneysiders consider class action over radiation poisoning NewsMedical.net 14-Apr-2008 - "A class action against the New South Wales (NSW) government over alleged radiation poisoning is being considered by the relatives of a number of Sydney residents who died of cancer in the 1970s.

The families of some of the cancer victims, with the support of NSW liberal MP Michael Richardson, are demanding the government reveal the extent of contamination at Nelson Parade, Hunters Hill, where five residents died of radiation-related cancers…………

……..one family in particular have linked the death of their parents in 1975 and 1976 to an unmarked radioactive waste dump next to their Nelson Parade family home……..They say the deaths of their parents brought to six the number of people known to have died after living in a small group of homes along the southern waterfront side of Nelson Parade, the site of a former Uranium smelter…………………….. . ."

Cancer victims families may sue NSW govt The Age April 12, 2008 - "The relatives of several Sydney residents who died of cancer are considering a class action against the NSW government over alleged radiation poising.

NSW opposition MP Michael Richardson and the families of some of the cancer victims has called on the government to reveal the extent of contamination at Nelson Parade, Hunters Hill, saying five residents died of radiation-related cancers in the 1970s.

.......Katie and Greg McGrath linked the death of their parents, Iris and Fabian, in 1975 and 1976 to an unmarked radioactive waste dump next to their Nelson Parade family home.

The couple died of stomach cancer and leukaemia, respectively, less than nine months apart. Both were in their late thirties.

Katie McGrath said her parents' deaths brought to six the number of people known to have died after living in a small group of homes along the southern waterfront side of Nelson Pde, the site of a former Uranium smelter. She said there was no previous family history of cancer.Castle Hill

MP Michael Richardson said three other deaths were detailed in documents held at the National Library in Canberra which were collected in the 1970s by former federal Labor MP Tom Uren.
A major cause of the deaths appeared to have been the consumption of vegetables grown at numbers 7 and 9 Nelson Pde, he said.
Tests taken on the housing blocks by the Radiation Branch of the Health Department in the mid-1960s were 'woefully inadequate,' he said.............".

"The proposal to build a new nuclear reactor in the Sydney suburb of Lucas Heights was justified with exaggerated claims about 'saving lives' with medical isotopes by ANSTO and the federal government. The evidence for such claims has been lacking in several important areas. Conversely, there is evidence - both direct and indirect - that nuclear medicine would be affected only marginally in the absence of an Australian reactor

* the direct evidence includes the three-month maintenance shutdown of the HIFAR reactor from February-May 2000, during which there was very little, if any, disruption to nuclear medicine.

* indirect supporting evidence includes the widespread global trade in medical radioisotopes: over three-quarters of all nuclear medicine procedures around the world use imported isotopes, and many countries also operate cyclotrons. It is difficult to see why a greater reliance on imported reactor-produced radioisotopes, combined with domestic cyclotrons, could not produce a satisfactory outcome in Australia as it does in so many other countries.

...............Only a small minority of nuclear medicine procedures are for therapeutic purposes; the vast majority are diagnostic procedures which, while important, rarely make the difference between life and death. When asked on ABC JJJ radio in December 1998 if it would be a life threatening situation if Australia did not produce medical isotopes locally, Dr. Geoff Bower, then President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Physicians in Nuclear Medicine (ANZAPNM), said, 'Probably not life threatening. I think that's over-dramatising it and that's what people have done to win an argument. I resist that'."

The former head of a nuclear medicine department in a capital city wrote in early 2001: 'I do not know exactly why the strategic thinkers within ANSTO pushed the radiopharmaceutical line [to justify a new reactor]. They would have been aware that the case was not entirely solid'......................................................." Jim Green,from MEDICAL RADIOISOTOPE SUPPLY OPTIONS FOR AUSTRALIA.

Dust storms in the outback can carry invisible radioisotopes from uranium mining in South Australia and the Northern Territory

Radioactive dust Coober Pedy Regional Times, Christina Macpherson 15 Dec 07 - During the recent election many people were worried about the possibility of nuclear power plants in Australia. But the emphasis should be on the entire nuclear fuel cycle, and especially on the health hazards of ionising radiation.In Australia, we have seen, over the past 20 years, the tragedy of cancer affecting asbestos miners, and their families.

This scandalous story continues, as those who lived and worked at Wittenoom develop fatal mesothelioma. It's scandalous, because the asbestos mining companies KNEW - 60 years ago, that asbestos dust and tailings caused this cancer. In Baryulgil, less well known, the aboriginal workforce was affected

Is history now repeating itself, with uranium mining? People seem to forget the health hazards of uranium mining and milling. Uranium miners are exposed to constant whole-body radiation. Mill tailings, left over when ore is refined and processed, are the largest by volume of any form of radioactive waste. Although their radiation is generally less concentrated than other types of waste, some of the isotopes in these tailings are long-lived and can be hazardous for many thousands of years.

The problem with these minute radioisotopes is that you can't see, feel, smell or taste them. The source can be directly from mining, or indirectly. Radionuclides in water are absorbed by surrounding vegetation and ingested by local marine and animal life. Radiation can also be in the air and can get deposited on people, plants, animals, and soil. People can inhale or ingest radionuclides in air, drinking water, or food.

I am reminded of King Midas - everything he touched turned to gold - but in the end, he touched his own child.

Muckaty Station

Dr Caldicott, who is in Tennant Creek to speak at a public meeting about the proposed dump on Thursday, said exposure to nuclear waste could have long term health impacts.

'Storing radioactive waste at Muckaty would expose inhabitants and surrounding people to radioactive material in water and food' she said in a statement released by the Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC).

note - Do we really need a nuclear reactor for nuclear medicine? - Christina Macpherson 17 July 07 (below : one type of cyclotron)

I am the first to admit that I don't know much about this. But what I do know is that a cyclotron can produce many of the materials used in nuclear medicine.

A cyclotron is machine to accelerate charged particles to high energies; those particles can be used to produce radioisotopes. ANSTO (The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) is buying 2 of them

Two Diggers 'contaminated' by uranium - Sydney Morning Herald March 27, 2007 "Two Australian soldiers who served in the first Iraq war have tested positive to depleted uranium (DU) contamination despite assurances from the federal government they had not been exposed, an anti-nuclear group said.

Any such admission from the government would leave it open to millions of dollars in compensation, said Pauline Rigby, project coordinator for the group

Depleted Uranium Silent Killer (DUSK).Urine samples from each of the men, who served in different areas of Iraq, were sent last year for uranium isotope analysis at the JW Goethe University in Germany at a cost of $1,200 each under the auspices of DUSK and the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) in Canada, Ms Rigby said. The results, now being evaluated for publication next month in two scientific journals, showed both men had tested positive to depleted uranium contamination more than 15 years after their return from the first Gulf War.Ms Rigby said depleted uranium was the toxic and radioactive waste from the nuclear enrichment process......................".