http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ar_050306170001

Nuclear waste dumped on Britain's beaches

Sun Mar 6,12:00 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Highly radioactive waste has been dumped in Britain's seas and washed ashore, and nuclear research station workers covered up the pollution, The Sunday Times quoting a former safety officer as saying.

The newspaper said the owner of the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness, in Scotland, faced a criminal prosecution over a series of leaks, which have sent more than 50 radioactive particles onto a nearby public beach.

Herbie Lyalls, a health physics surveyor at the plant from 1960 to 1989, gave the paper a dossier that describes high-level radioactive waste washed down drains intended for low-level waste, and later flushed out into the sea.

It also claimed that radioactive materials were handled inappropriately, and may have led to at least two deaths from cancer.

The Sunday Times said Lyalls had spoken out about the pollution despite facing prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

"There have been so many lies told to con the public about Dounreay that I feel I must put the record straight," Lyall said.

He said he was part of a survey team in 1984 that covered up health risks on a local beach where a highly radioactive particle was found. Tourists continued to visit the beach for 13 years after that, until new concerns were raised, the paper said.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority, which owns the plant, said safety standards were not as stringent previously as they are now.

Sandy McWhirter, a project manager at Dounreay, said he could not confirm Lyall's claims but added that the former surveyor "may not have been in a position to fully understand" proceedings there.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority has admitted that "at least several hundreds of thousands" of particles of plutonium and uranium, about the size of a grain of sand, had been released from Dounreay, the paper said.

...must be this bloody "Frogs" again!!!!

Chernobyl Fallout Caused Transgenerational Disease

European Radiation Research 2004, August 25-28,
Budapest, Hungary

http://www.osski.hu/err2004

MUTATION PROCESS IN CHRONICALLY IRRADIATED BANK
VOLE POPULATIONS INDICATES
THE TRANSGENERATIONAL GENOMIC INSTABILITY INDUCED
BY CHERNOBYL FALLOUT

R. I. Goncharova, N. I. Ryabokon

Institute of Genetics and Cytology, National
Academy of Sciences of Belarus
Akademichnaya st, 27. Minsk 220072, Republic of
Belarus;
e-mail: R.Goncharova@igc.bas-net.by

The objective of this investigation is analysis of mutagenesis dynamics in
bank vole populations chronically exposed to low doses of ionizing
radiation in connection with the absorbed dose dynamics and the number of
affected generations over 1986п1996.

Frequencies of different end-points (chromosome aberrations in bone marrow
cells and embryonic mortality) as well as the doserate and absorbed doses
of external and internal irradiation from caesium isotopes were determined
for four populations inhabiting the sites with different ground deposition
of 137Cs (8п═1526 kBq/m2).

It has been first revealed that the main feature of mutagenesis dynamics in
populations of mammals chronically exposed to very low doses of ionizing
radiation is a gradual increase in the rate of somatic mutagenesis and
embryonic lethality over 1п22 generations. At the same time, the dose rate
and whole body absorbed dose decreased in every consecutive generation after
the primary radiation insult in 1986.

The data on chromosome aberrations and embryonic lethality were fitted by
the exponential and linear functions respectively. It means that genomes
of animals from distant generations are more sensitive to the impact of
very low radiation doses in comparison with those of
animals of prior generations.

The fact that dynamics of somatic mutagenesis (by the chromosome
aberration frequency in bone marrow) and embryonic lethality during the
period of the study closely resemble each other is an additional proof for
the persistence of the delayed response.

Thus, enhanced response of distant generations of mammals to low doses of
ionizing radiation is likely to be due to transgenerational genomic
instability.

Abstract 66

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don't eat the fish from there!

RADIATION BIOLOGICAL EFFECT--DR. BERTELL

http://www.ratical.com/radiation/NRBE/NRadBioEffects.html

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