- Amazing! If "therapeutic" radiation therapy
can cause bone loss.......imagine the damage caused by 'Depleted' Uranium
weapons in current wars!!!
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- The scientific world has been shaken by a report from
Clemson University that a single therapeutic dose of radiation can cause
appreciable bone loss. Senior author Ted Bateman, PhD, a professor of bioengineering,
and his South Carolina colleagues showed that when mice were given a dose
of just two Gy (two gray, a radiation dosage formerly designated as 200
rads), between 29 and 39 percent of their interior bone mass was destroyed.
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- It did not particularly matter which kind of radiation
the mice were exposed to. Gamma rays, protons, high-speed carbon and iron
nuclei all had a similar and markedly destructive effect. Dr. Bateman and
his colleagues reached these figures by creating 3D computer scans of the
spongy interior of the bones and then calculating how much bone mass these
irradiated mice had lost compared to a control group.
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- "We were surprised at how large the difference in
bone mass was," Dr. Bateman told the weekly magazine, New Scientist
(Barry 2006).
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- Two Gy of radiation is similar to a single therapeutic
dose of radiation given to human cancer patients, while a full course of
therapeutic radiation typically delivers as much as 70 or even 80 Gy. It
had previously been known that patients receiving therapeutic radiation
suffered some bone loss and were put at a greater risk of fractures. But
until now it was unknown that just a single dose of radiation could trigger
such severe bone loss. This news is doubly disturbing since chemotherapy
(often now given with radiation as part of a one-two punch) can also independently
cause bone loss. The cumulative effects of radiation and chemotherapy delivered
to the same patient may therefore be significantly more damaging.
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- The Clemson scientists demonstrated what they called
"profound changes in trabecular architecture." (The term "trabecular"
describes the microscopic bony latticework that characterizes the interior
of skeletal bones. The trabecular pattern of bony tissue is what gives
bones their structural strength.)
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- Significant losses in bone volume were observed for the
four types of radiation that were studied: gamma (volume down 29 percent),
proton (down 35 percent), carbon (down 39 percent), and iron (down 34 percent).
Several measurements of bone health, including trabecular connectivity,
density, thickness, spacing, and number were also adversely affected.
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- "These data have clear implications for clinical
radiotherapy," the Clemson scientists said, "in that bone loss
in an animal model has been demonstrated at low doses" (ibid.)
-
- Dr. Bateman agreed, however, that making a direct extrapolation
of these findings to humans could be difficult. The bones of the mice in
the experiment were still growing, making them more susceptible to radiation
damage. (This is also the case in young human patients.) Although the Clemson
findings have caused a stir particularly in space research circles, NASA's
chief radiation health officer, Dr. Frank Cucinotta, pointed out that the
gamma ray dose in these mouse experiments was 40 times greater than space
station astronauts would experience over a period of months, and 2 to 4
times what astronauts on a Mars mission would encounter. However, astronauts
are also exposed to high-energy and iron nuclei in addition to gamma radiation.
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- Bone Death: A Long History
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- It has been known for quite some time that radiation
could cause "serious and permanent injuries" to growing bones
as well as localized but incapacitating diseases (Fajardo 2001: 365). In
fact, the real surprise in the latest study was that relatively small doses
caused such a significant amount of damage.
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- The basic concept of 'bone death' was probably known
to the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates. Necrosis of the bone (i.e.,
osteonecrosis) was fully described as early as 1794. In 1903, just a few
years after the 1895 discovery of X-rays, the German surgeon Georg Clemens
Perthes (1869-1927) exposed one wing of a day-old chicken to X-rays. Just
12 days later he noted that growth of the irradiated wing was retarded
and that the feathers were abnormally formed. In 1905, two French scientists,
Joseph Recamier and Louis Mathieu Tribondeau (1872-1918), described similar
growth retardation in kittens.
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- In the intervening decades, various tumors, especially
sarcomas, were found with increased frequency in patients who had undergone
irradiation. James Ewing, MD (1866-1943), the celebrated American pathologist
(after whom the bone tumor called 'Ewing's sarcoma' is named), was extremely
interested in the reactions of bones to radiation. He was impressed by
the ability of radiation to shrink the size of bone tumors and, along with
surgery and Coley's toxins (a fever-causing, mixed bacterial vaccine),
to effect prolonged remissions in some cases (Ewing 1940:370). He described
three patients who had been irradiated for bone cancers and whose irradiated
bones then became brittle and easily fractured. Ewing also observed thickening
in the outer layer (known as the cortical plate) of bone at the expense
of the marrow cavity and noted the increased susceptibility of irradiated
bones to infection (Fajardo 2001).
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- The most famous instance of radiation damaging bones,
however, occurred in the first decades of the 20th century. Industrial
engineers learned that by adding a small amount of radium to a zinc sulfide
solution (at a ratio of 1:30,000) they could create a luminescent paint
that glowed in the dark. This seemed to be a harmless product. Around the
time of World War I, approximately 2,000 young women in New Jersey were
employed painting the dials of clocks and watches with luminous paint.
In order to create fine brush tips for this detailed work they would frequently
lick the tip of the brushes. Over the years, these women either ingested
radium itself or breathed in radon gas in sufficient quantities to cause
serious medical problems for many of them. A New York dentist, Theodore
Blum, DDS, was the first to observe an unusual number of jaw-bone injuries
in these unfortunate dial painters, a condition he called 'radium jaw.'
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- The medical examiner of Essex County, NJ, at the time,
Harrison Marland, MD, then became alarmed and launched a thorough investigation.
He found severe anemia in most of these women. At autopsy, many of these
women had necrosis of the bones, especially the mandible (lower jaw). Marland
also recounted how the damaged bone marrow, excised osteosarcomas (cancers)
of their bones, or even organs removed at autopsy literally glowed in the
dark (Fajardo 2001: 366). These women were so radioactive that, even after
death, their bodily organs would fog photographic film!
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- The most incredible part of this saga is that despite
the fact that the danger of luminous paint was well established in the
1920s, it was not until nearly 20 years later - in the run-up to World
War II - that action was finally taken to bar the use of radium in watch
dial paint (Caufield 1989). It was a most shameful episode in public health,
but it did make the general public aware that radiation could seriously
damage bones and organs.
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- What is the Tolerance Dose?
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- Medical dictionaries define a 'tolerance dose' as the
largest quantity of a substance or treatment that an organism can endure
without exhibiting unfavorable or injurious effects. The tolerance dose
of radiation to the bones has traditionally been set quite a bit higher
than is implied by the recent Clemson article. There are many variables,
but generally speaking when the dose is from 70 to 80 Gy the incidence
of osteoradionecrosis (bone death caused by radiation) is in the range
of 14-22 percent. It is 4 percent when the dose is under 70 Gy. The tolerance
dose for the adult human femur (thigh bone) is said to be 38 to 43 Gy.
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- In the 1950s, Michael Bonfiglio, MD, of the University
of Iowa, found a 1.2 to 1.9 percent increase in the incidence of fractures
of the femur after pelvic irradiation for cancer (Fajardo 2001:373). Among
patients who still have their teeth, the bone necrosis rate caused by radiation
is 24 percent. Among those lacking teeth the rate is less - 14 percent.
In studies involving patients who still had teeth, this bony necrosis developed
on average 10 months after completion of radiation therapy. In those without
teeth, it occurred on average 22 months later.
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- As noted above, if the bone is growing (as in the Clemson
experiment) the tissues are ultra-sensitive to radiation. Clinical observations
suggest a tolerance range of 15-30 Gy for growing bones.
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- In conclusion, exposing bone to radiation can result
in four major types of complications: necrosis (a type of cell death),
fractures, severe alterations in bone growth, and radiation-induced cancers.
The topic of radiation-induced cancers in particular has not received the
attention it deserves. Radiation itself is called a "complete carcinogen,"
in that it can cause the four phases of cancer's formation: (a) initiation,
(b) promotion, (c) progression and (d) metastatic activity of transformed
cells. While radiation-induced tumors of bone are not common, they do occur,
as the case of the radium-dial painters dramatically showed.
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- Luis Fajardo, MD, who recently retired as a professor
of pathology at Stanford University, California, has documented many such
cases. "Irradiation from both external and internal sources is associated
with an increased risk of osteosarcoma," or bone cancer, he wrote
in his classic textbook, Radiation Pathology (Fajardo 2001:128). The minimum
latency period for radium-caused tumors is 3.5 years with a peak time of
about 8 years, although cases were documented as long as 25 years after
initial exposure. Children who receive radiation for cancers (other than
those of bony origin) are at particular risk if their growing bones receive
large doses of radiation.
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- Although the danger of therapeutic radiation always seems
to come as a surprise to the general public, most of the risks of radiation
to the bone were recognized soon after Roentgen discovered X-rays. Yet,
astonishingly, in the 21st century some patients receiving radiation are
still not told about the full extent or true likelihood of the harmful
side effects of radiation therapy.
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- The Queen's Death Star
- Depleted Uranium Measured in British Atmosphere
- from Battlefields in the Middle East
-
- By Leuren Moret
- 2-26-6
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- The Sunday Times Online, February 19, 2006, reported
on a shocking scientific study authored by British scientists Dr. Chris
Busby and Saoirse Morgan: "Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf
War 2 result in contamination of Europe? Evidence from the measurements
of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK".
The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere
in Britain, were transported on air currents from the Middle East and
Central Asia; of special significance were those from the Tora Bora bombing
in Afghanistan in 2001, and the "Shock & Awe" bombing during
Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003. Out of concern for the public, the official
British government air monitoring facility, known as the Atomic Weapons
Establishment (AWE), at Aldermaston was established years ago, to measure
radioactive emissions from British nuclear power plants and atomic weapons
facilities.
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- The British government facility (AWE) was taken over
3 years ago by Halliburton, which refused at first to release air monitoring
data, as required by law, to Dr. Busby. An international expert on low
level radiation, Busby serves as an official advisor on several British
government committees, and co-authored an independent report on low level
radiation with 45 scientists, the European Committee on Radiation Risk
(ECRR), for the European Parliament. He was able to get Aldermaston air
monitoring data from Halliburton /AWE by filing a Freedom of Information
request using a new British law which became effective January 1, 2005;
but the data for 2003 was missing. He obtained the 2003 data from the
Defence Procurement Agency.
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- The fact that the air monitoring data was circulated
by Halliburton/AWE to the Defence Procurement Agency, implies that it
was considered to be relevant, and that Dr. Busby was stonewalled because
Halliburton/AWE clearly recognized that it was a serious enough matter
to justify a government interpretation of the results, and official decisions
had to be made about what the data would show and its political implications
for the military. In a similar circumstance, in 1992, Major Doug Rokke,
the Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Cleanup Project after Gulf
War I, was ordered by a U.S. Army General officer to write a no-bid contract
"Depleted Uranium, Contaminated Equipment, and Facilities Recovery
Plan Outline" for the procedures for cleaning up Kuwait, including
depleted uranium, for Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton.
The contract/proposal was passed through Madeleine Albright, the Secretary
of State, to the Emirate of Kuwait, who considered the terms and then
hired KBR for the cleanup.
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- Aldermaston is one of many nuclear facilities throughout
Europe that regularly monitor atmospheric radiation levels, transported
by atmospheric sand and dust storms, or air currents, from radiation sources
in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. After the "Shock
and Awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003, very fine particles of depleted
uranium were captured with larger sand and dust particles in filters in
Britain. These particles traveled in 7-9 days from Iraqi battlefields
as far as 2400 miles away. The radiation measured in the atmosphere quadrupled
within a few weeks after the beginning of the 2003 campaign, and at one
of the 5 monitoring locations, the levels twice required an official alert
to the British Environment Agency.
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- In addition to depleted uranium data gathered in previous
studies on Kosovo and Bosnia by Dr. Busby, the Aldermaston air monitoring
data provided a continuous record of depleted uranium levels in Britain
from the other recent wars. Extensive video news footage of the 2003 Iraq
war, including Fallujah in 2004, provided irrefutable documented evidence
that the US has unethically and illegally used depleted uranium munitions
on cities and other civilian populations. These military actions are in
direct violation of not only the international conventions, but also violate
US military law because the US is a signatory to The Hague and Geneva
Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol. Depleted uranium weaponry
meets the definition of a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) in two out
of three categories under US Code TITLE 50, CHAPTER 40 Sec. 2302. After
action mandates have also been violated such as US Army Regulation AR
700-48 and TB 9-1300-278 which requires treatment of radiation poisoning
for all casualties, including enemy soldiers and civilians, and remediation.
Dr. Busby's request for this data through Halliburton from AWE, and subsequently
provided by the Defence Procurement Agency, was necessary to establish
verification of Iraq's 2003 depleted uranium levels in the atmosphere.
These facts demonstrate why Halliburton (AWE) refused to release the 2003
data to him, and it obviously establishes that weaponized depleted uranium
is an indiscriminate weapon being distributed all over the world in a
very short period of time, immediately after its use.
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- The recent documentary film BEYOND TREASON details the
horrific effects of depleted uranium exposure on American troops and Iraqi
civilians in the Gulf region in 1991; not to speak of those civilians
continuing to live in permanently contaminated and thus uninhabitable
regions. Global increases since 1991 of melanoma, infant mortality, and
frog die-offs can only be explained by an environmental contaminant. Alarming
global increases in diabetes, with high correlation to depleted uranium
wars in Iraq, Bosnia/Kosovo, and Afghanistan, demonstrate that diabetes
is a sensitive indicator and a rapid response to internal depleted uranium
exposure. Americans in 2003 reported visiting Iraqi relatives in Baghdad
who were suffering from an epidemic of diabetes. After returning to the
US following 2-3 weeks in Iraq, they discovered within a few months that
they too had diabetes. Japanese human shields and journalists who worked
in Iraq during the 2003 war are sick and now have symptoms typical of
depleted uranium exposure.
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- Likewise, after the US Navy, several years ago, moved
depleted uranium bombing and gunnery ranges from Vieques Island in Puerto
Rico to Australia, health effects there are already being reported. The
documentary film BLOWIN' IN THE WIND, has an interview with a family with
two normal teenage daughters, living near the bombing range where depleted
uranium weaponry is now being used. The parents showed photos of their
baby born recently with severe birth defects. The baby looked like Iraqi
deformed babies, and like many of the Iraqi babies, died 5 days after
birth.
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- Other than anonymous British government officials denying
that Iraq was the source of the depleted uranium measured at Aldermaston
by AWE, and some unnamed 'establishment scientists' blaming it on local
sources or natural uranium in the Iraq environment, there is no one, as
of this writing, willing to lend their name or office to refuting this
damning evidence reported by Dr. Busby. All of the anonymous statements
used by the media thus far are contradicted by the factual evidence found
in the filters, which was all transported from the same region. The natural
abundance of uranium in the crust of the earth is 2.4 parts per million,
which would not become concentrated to the high levels measured in Britain
during a long journey from the Middle East. These particles traveling
over thousands of miles would dilute the concentration rather than increase
it. There are no known natural uranium deposits in Iraq which make it
impossible for these anonymous claims to have scientific credibility.
Unnamed government sources blamed local sources in Britain such as nuclear
power plants; however that would also leave evidence of fission products
in the filters which were not in evidence. The lowest levels measured
at monitoring stations around Aldermaston were at the facility, which
means it could not be a possible source. Atomic weapons facilities would
be more likely to produce plutonium contamination, also not reported as
a co-contaminant at Aldermaston. In other words, all factual evidence
considered, the question must be asked, what were the Medias anonymous
experts and government officials basing their claims on?
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- Dr. Keith Baverstock exposed a World Health Organization
(WHO) cover-up on depleted uranium in an Aljazeera article, "Washington's
Secret Nuclear War" posted on September 14, 2004. It was the most
popular article ever posted on the Aljazeera English language website
. Baverstock leaked an official WHO report that he wrote, to the media
several years ago after the WHO refused to publish it. He warned in the
report about the mobility of, and environmental contamination from, tiny
depleted uranium particles formed from US munitions. Busby's ECRR report
challenged the International Committee on Radiation Protection (ICRP)
standards for radiation risk, and reported that the mutagenic effects
of radiation determined by Chernobyl studies are actually 1000 times higher
than the ICRP risk model predicts. The ECRR report also establishes that
the ICRP risk model, based on external exposure of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
victims, and the ECRR risk model, based on internal exposure, are mutually
exclusive models. In other words, the ICRP risk model based on external
exposure cannot be used to estimate internal exposure risk. The report
also states that a separate study is needed for depleted uranium exposure
risks, because it may be far more toxic than nuclear weapons or nuclear
power plant exposures. In July of 2005, the National Academy of Sciences
reported in their new BEIR VII report on low level radiation, that there
is "no safe level of exposure". The report also finally admitted
that very low levels are more harmful per unit of radiation than higher
levels of exposure, also known as the "supralinear" effect.
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- This is extremely alarming information on low level
radiation risk, since the AWE data from Aldermaston confirms that rapid
global transport of depleted uranium dust is occurring. Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki,
a Japanese physicist at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, has
estimated that the atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs
has been released into the global atmosphere since 1991, from the use
of depleted uranium munitions. It is completely mixed in the atmosphere
in one year. The "smog of war" from Gulf War I was found in
glaciers and ice sheets globally a year later. Even more alarming is the
non-specific catalytic or enzyme effect from internal exposures to nanoparticles
of depleted uranium. Soldiers on depleted uranium battlefields have reported
that, after noticing a metallic taste in their mouths, within 24-48 hours
of exposure they became sick with Gulf War syndrome symptoms.
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- Who is profiting from this global uranium nightmare?
Dr. Jay Gould revealed in his book THE ENEMY WITHIN, that the British
Royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over
$6 billion through Rio Tinto Mines. The mining company was formed for
the British Royal family in the late 1950's by Roland Walter "Tiny"
Rowland, the Queen's buccaneer. Born in 1917 through illegitimate German
parentage, and before changing his name, Roland Walter Fuhrhop was a passionate
member of the Nazi youth movement by 1933, and a classmate described him
as "...an ardent supporter of Hitler and an arrogant, nasty piece
of work to boot." His meteoric rise and protection by intel agencies
and the British Crown are an indication of what an asset he has been for
decades to the Queen, as Africa's most powerful Western businessman. Africa
and Australia are two of the main sources of uranium in the world. The
Rothschilds control uranium supplies and prices globally, and one serves
as the Queen's business manager. Filmmaker David Bradbury made BLOWIN'
IN THE WIND to expose depleted uranium bombing and gunnery range activities
contaminating pristine areas of eastern Australia, and to expose plans
to extract over $36 billion in uranium from mines in the interior over
the next 6 years. Halliburton has finished construction of a 1000 mile
railway from the mining area to a port on the north coast of Australia
to transport the ore. The Queen's favorite American buccaneers, Cheney,
Halliburton, and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining
and the shared use of illegal depleted uranium munitions in the Middle
East, Central Asia and Kosovo/Bosnia. The major roles that such diverse
individuals and groups as the Carlyle Group, George Herbert Walker Bush,
former Carlyle CEO Frank Calucci, the University of California managed
nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos and Livermore, and US and international
pension fund investments have played in proliferating depleted uranium
weapons is not well known or in most instances even recognized, inside
or outside the country.
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- God Save The Queen from the guilt of her complicity
in turning Planet Earth into a 'Death Star'.
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-
-
- Alan Cantwell M.D.
- alancantwell@sbcglobal.net
- http://www.ariesrisingpress.com
-
- FOUR WOMEN AGAINST CANCER:
- Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life
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