Burden of Proof: Women’s Bodies More Sensitive to Radiation

November 15, 2011

A transformation devoutly to be wished. . . Reactor in Soweto turned into art!

“We are not all exposed to a single agent, a single radiation or a single type of radiation, and we’re not exposed at a single point in time. It’s a cumulative effect…” William Suk

If you have been wondering why women are so susceptible to cancers of delicate reproductive organs like breast, ovary, and uterus, you will find a prescient clue in a new report by Mary Olson, Staff Biologist at the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS).

After carefully examining the statistics in a report on cancers produced by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Olson saw that women are more susceptible to cancer than men — by 50 percent! The reason, suggests Olson, is that reproductive tissue is more vulnerable to the effects of ionizing radiation — and women have more reproductive tissue.

How unsurprising, that radiation, the deadly invisible spook, should target the very organs that produce life!

The NAS report, entitled “Health Risks from Exposure to Low-Levels of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII)”, shows the figures, but makes no mention in the text of this stunning fact.  Olson’s careful mathematical analysis shows that the information, like so much that is related to radioactivity, was ignored. Nor has Olson’s paper received the media attention it deserves.

Such is the way of all things when it comes to the effect of radiation on health. The facts, if stated, are understated, or stated in such a way that they become, like the substance itself, invisible. Our fathers in Washington don’t want to upset us with, you know, the truth. And it has been this way since the beginning of the Atomic Age. Like dogs covering up their shit, the military, with its legions of scientists and industrial magnates profiting from the production of sleek instruments of mass destruction, has discovered many new and clever ways to disguise the impact of their activities, with the help of regulatory agencies which are but revolving doors for well-paid lobbyists and executives whose positions are stepping-stones to fatter salaries.

Official statements on background radiation, for example, intended to establish a baseline for  radiation to which we are all naturally exposed from the sun and other sources, has become a sort of sliding scale which makes accurate comparison impossible, for this so-called baseline has already been upgraded twice, from 100 rem to 320 rem in the late 90s, and then again to 620 rems in the beginning of this century. Plus, according to epidemiologist Rosalie Bertell (No Immediate Danger, page 17) “natural background radiation” refers only to sources which are original while “background radiation” may include “those which result from the nuclear fission process,” i.e. are mamade, and “radioactive chemicals released from a nuclear power plant are called ‘background after one year.” Say what? So these levels keep rising as nuclear power plants keep running and nuclear wastes continue to accumulate, while cancer rates rise, and that makes it possible for Los Alamos Lab to say that discharges from their incinerators are “no higher than background” because nobody knows what background actually is. How handy is that?

But the truth will out, despite these sophisticated manipulations designed to provide the public with a false sense of security in the very midst of this widespread attack on our bodies — especially the immune system, our body’s native ability to defend itself from such attacks! Thanks to people like Mary Olson and her predecessors Rosalie Bertell, Janette Sherman, John Gofman, Chris Busby and more, the real link between radiation and disease continues to rear its ugly head.

The Breast Cancer Fund, for example, bravely came forward in its State of the Evidence report of 2005 to boldly state the obvious, that “ionizing radiation is the primary cause of cancer” and such radiation is synergistic with other carcinogenic substances. More recently, in its 2010 report, the authors track the rise in breast cancer incidence since 1930. According to BCF’s Press Release, “In 1973 and 1998 alone, breast cancer incidence rates increased by more than 40 percent . . . paralleling the proliferation of synthetic chemicals.” Yes, indeed. “Today, approximately 85,000 chemicals are registered for use in the United States, more than 90 percent of which have never been tested for their effects on human health.”

Even the Report of the President’s Panel on Cancer agrees that the environmental causes of cancer are significant, noting that “exposure to ionizing radiation related to nuclear weapons testing is an underappreciated issue worldwide,” quietly challenging bland denials by various reports made by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The President’s Report also highlights the greater burden on women, referring to studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which said that, “while all Americans carry many foreign chemicals in their bodies, women have higher levels of many of these chemicals than do men. Some are found in maternal blood, placental tissue, and breast milk samples from pregnant women and mothers who recently gave birth.” And who suffers the consequences of this contamination of women’s bodies?  “The next generation, both prenatally and during breastfeeding.”   And that means, those children, who will grow up imbibing more chemicals, will inevitably pass on higher levels of contamination to THEIR children. We are talking about the slow degradation of the human genome here! Someone had better funnel more money over to Special Education programs, because the number of children disabled by birth defects is rising.

The combined effect of those very small amounts of the 85,000 untested chemicals plus radiation leaking out of power plants and distributed by weapons facilities old and new and scattered all over the country, is not good. Even the President’s report notes ominously, “Some chemicals indirectly increase cancer risk by contributing to immune and endocrine dysfunction that can influence the effect of carcinogens.”

The reality is that this stuff is everywhere — from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to bomb tests on the Marshall Islands, to pollution of rivers like the mighty Columbia and residues from overground and underground bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site and elsewhere, from depleted uranium used all over the Middle East to accidents known and unknown but including, certainly, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now, the excruciating Fukushima, the levels of natural and acceptable radiation exposure have been exceeded many times over, with no end in sight. We don’t need yet another study to recognize that it is so. It’s time to call an end to all this reckless polluting.

Here is the conclusion of the President’s Report:

A precautionary, prevention-oriented approach should replace current reactionary approaches to environmental contaminants in which human harm must be proven before action is taken to reduce or eliminate exposure. Though not applicable in every instance, this approach should be the cornerstone of a new national cancer prevention strategy that emphasizes primary prevention, redirects accordingly both research and policy agendas, and sets tangible goals for reducing or eliminating toxic exposures implicated in cancer causation.

YES!! Because the best way to lower the costs of our bloated health care system would be to eliminate those diseases that contribute so much to its cost.

Let’s make cancer “so yesterday.”