NH #547: Nuclear Reactor Radiation, Kids and Cancer: Joseph Mangano

Libbe HaLevy

00:00:01

Nuclear talking points. If you follow nuclear issues at all, you have undoubtedly heard your concerns about radiation coming from nuclear reactors in the possible dangers dismissed with the line. Nobody

Announcer

00:00:15

Died

Libbe HaLevy

00:00:15

At three mile island. In other words, sit down, shut up. You are just being a nervous Nellon you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s a phrase used to dismiss any concerns based on the perceived lack of impact because of that nuclear meltdown, just outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979 or anything that might be happening in your own backyard from your own local nuclear reactor. But then you hear an experienced researcher in nuclear health consequences. Explain to you

Joseph Mangano

00:00:48

The nuclear industry grabbed that, that slogan. Nobody died at three mile island almost immediately. After the meltdown occurred, before there had been any chance to measure how much radiation was released, how much actually got into the water and the food and people’s bodies. It was a immediate attempt to stifle any type of research.

Libbe HaLevy

00:01:13

When you hear epidemiologists and radiation, health researcher, Joseph Mangano, a genuine expert, say something like that. You start to see how we’ve all been gamed away from pushing for nuclear accountability, especially when it comes to understanding radiation dangers. And you begin to realize that it’s all part of us being intentionally stuck in that awful seat that we all share.

Announcer

00:01:40

Nuclear hot seat. What are those people thinking? New Claire hot. What have those boys been breaking new Claire? Hotsy the is sinking. Our time to act is shrinking, but the activists are linking new Claire hot it’s Deba.

Libbe HaLevy

00:02:12

Welcome to nuclear hot seat. The weekly international news magazine, keeping you up to date on all things nuclear from a different perspective. My name is libi Hal levy. I am the producer and host as well as a survivor of the nuclear accident at three mile island from just one mile away. So I know what can happen when those nuclear so-called experts get it wrong. This week, we revisit an interview on the impact of radiation from so-called safe nuclear actors with Joseph Mangano. He is executive director of radiation and public health project, an expert researcher on radiation issues and an epidemiologist whose examination of medical statistics in the areas around nuclear reactors reveal a much different picture of their health impact than the nuclear industry wants you to know. We will also have nuclear news from around the world, numb nuts of the week for outstanding nuclear bone headedness, and more honest information than Santa is putting under my manure.

Libbe HaLevy

00:03:19

Truly all of it coming up in just a few moments today is Tuesday, December 14th, 2021. And here is this week’s nuclear news from a different perspective. There is a ton of nuclear news this week and we will get to as much of it as we can in a piece at news, the New York city council has adopted a powerful package of legislation, which calls for the us to join the United nation’s treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons and includes legal obligations for the city. In terms of dives, education and policy on nuclear weapons. The adoption of this legislation is a major milestone achieve due to the advocacy of the New York campaign to abolish nuclear weapons, NY C a N, and its allies. The passage of resolution 9 76 calls upon the New York city controller to instruct the $266 billion pension funds a of the public employees of New York to divest from companies involved in the production and maintenance of nuclear weapons sounds a lot like don’t bank on the bomb.

Libbe HaLevy

00:04:30

To me, this stands to impact approximately 475 million of us funds in public investments. The resolution also reaffirms York city as a nuclear weapons free zone prohibiting the production, transport storage placement, and deployment of nuclear weapons in New York city, a healthy round of applause for all involved in making this come about so much for the good news. The environmental working group has updated its database for the first time since 2019 and shows that radioactive material and pesticides are among new contaminants found in us tap water. There are newly identified P a S, which is a toxic class of forever chemicals. In addition to the whole lot, even more for or ever chemicals from radioactive materials, earth working groups, database allows users to search for contaminants and water systems by zip code and provides a guide on which chemical water filters can remove what you can find [email protected].

Libbe HaLevy

00:05:39

Meanwhile, here in Los Angeles, uranium is found at seven times the earth working group health guidelines, which means that we all need something better than Abria in Virginia. The former senior resident inspector of the north Anna nuclear power station pleaded guilty to making false statements on inspection reports. 60 year old Gregory CRO of Tennessee worked for the us nuclear regulatory commission and was working at the north Ana plant between 2016 and 2018 NRC inspector general. Robert Freal said the accuracy of NRC inspection reports is critical to the NRCS oversight of the licensee’s safe operation of nuclear power plants around the nation. CROs false statements could have jeopardized the safety oversight function in Georgia. Word that the VO nuclear units, number three and four may not be complete until 2014. At least that’s what’s being said. Now wait until we get closer to 2014 for the later extensions on this.

Libbe HaLevy

00:06:48

Even if they fulfill on that 2024 date, this is nearly seven years beyond the project initial schedule, according to two separate construction, ma monitors, the construction team’s use of unachievable schedules, a critical path that changes from day to day end widespread equipment performance issues during operational testing, as well as the use of unauthorized testing methods that damaged built systems are all contributing to this delay until recently Georgia power had updated its estimated completion dates for VO unit three to third quarter of 2022 and unit four to the second quarter of 2023. But considering the nuclear industry standard operating procedure of always coming in beyond the completion date and over budget, there’s no telling when this boondoggle is going to be completed, let alone, if it will ever be operational the battle to extend the operating life of California’s Diablo canyon, nuclear reactor, which is cited a top several earthquake faults is now being pushed by a former us energy secretary, Stephen chew and Ernest monies, no surprise there.

Libbe HaLevy

00:08:05

And several fashion plate TikTok influencers, who we will get to in a moment, but the times points out that this push is misguided and largely divorced from reality, their words, not mine. They went on say the plant’s closure should serve as an impetus for California to do more, to accelerate the shift, to renewable energy and set a realistic course to meet the state’s target of getting 100% of its electricity from carbon free sources by 2045. The idea of keeping Diablo canyon open seems to ignore many practical considerate, including how to address seismic risks, the ecological harm of using seawater for cooling and what to do with spent nuclear fuel, the cooling system and earthquake safety upgrades that would be required for the facility to keep operating. After 2025 are so extensive that they would likely exceed 1 billion. The plant operator Pacific gas and electric company agreed in 2016, not to pursue license renewal and the utility has shown no interest in reconsidering. That decision nor has the public with utilities commission received any proposals to revisit its 2018 decision to allow the plant to shut down. But that hasn’t stopped some Airheads with money from pushing forward with what they think is a good idea. And so here we go.

Announcer

00:09:31

New clear hot seat, new Claire, hot, hot seed, none sound awake,

Libbe HaLevy

00:09:40

Heaven protect us from online social media. Pronuclear influencers. Yeah, that’s a thing. And now Grimes, it should be grimy. The single named single wannabe and most notably Elon Musks recently discarded sperm receptacle and baby mother has decided to become a social media influencer in favor of keeping the Diablo canyon nuclear reactor in California up and operating. I guess even rodeo drive gets boring when you have more money than God and already own a full supply of face back AKA makeup, but why pro nuclear dude, and why lift your leg to pee all over San Louis bipo mothers for peace who have been fighting against Diablo canyon for decades and know every reason why that nuclear reactor, which by the way, is sighted. The top multiple earthquake faults needs to be shut down. Now, why don’t you talk with them for your information, but no, she gets her new news from another social influencer, another glamorous actor spokes model.

Libbe HaLevy

01:10:52

Good at keeping attention for all of 60 seconds on TikTok. So the kids keep watching, but that’s what we are up against. No nothings jumping into the glamorous high profile world of pro nuclear propagandizing based on fo Fox talking points and weird makeup, which is what the kids tune into, not us. And they don’t know that they’re going to get their brain work by pro nuclear nonsense while they’re looking at makeup tips. So here’s hoping that this Grimmy Grimes has a short attention span after all. She was only with Musk for two and a half years and just stayed one year after the birth of their son. So maybe she’ll find another tangent to go off on soon. Hopefully one that will not harm people or the environment. And that is why Grimmy Grimes. You are this week’s

Announcer

01:11:47

Nuclear hot seed. None that sound awake.

Libbe HaLevy

01:11:51

Meanwhile, does anyone understand what TikTok is and how it operates? We’ve got to start getting our message out in front of the kids moving right along in Wyoming, billionaires, Warren buffet and bill gates have chosen a remote town in that state to build a new, small mud nuclear reactor and unproven design pending federal and local approval. The company Terra power will build before billion dollar nuclear reactor in Keer Wyoming, about 130 miles Northeast of salt lake city with a population of only about 3000 residents, meaning that there isn’t likely to be much pushback. I find it interesting that this information comes from a site called climate crux because this claim that it’s green energy and it’s going to somehow save the world is just that. And an older article in people magazine, that’s just come to my attention. Asks, did late actor, Michael Landon of little house on the Prairie and Bonanza get cancer from filming close to a contaminated nuclear site.

Libbe HaLevy

01:13:02

That site being the Santa Susanna field lab in Simi valley for nine years, little house on the Prairie was filmed just 15 miles away from that site. Landon was diagnosed with pancrea at cancer in late 1991 and died in 1992 at age 54, over to Japan where the temperature of the groundwater at the remains of the Fukushima nuclear reactor site is observed to be rising despite continuous efforts to freeze the ground into what is being called improperly and impervious wall. It’s not impervious and is referred to on nuclear hot seat. As the slushy on October 28th, 2021, Tokyo electric power company, TECO announced a part of their supposedly impervious wall of frozen soil is pervious and possibly breached due to the rising temperature of the groundwater from August to September this year, the temperature rose from minus 15 degrees Celsius to 10 degrees, positive Celsius, 25 Celsius degrees, which equals 77 degrees Fahrenheit.

Libbe HaLevy

01:14:16

TECO did not publicly report about it and the cause has not been identified. But the effectiveness of this particular piece of technology has been questioned from the beginning. TECO has also admitted that it sprayed rainwater that had accumulated in tanks at the plant before confirming the safety of the water in their wards. They have not yet analyzed it for radioactive materials, a move that the all Japan Federation of fisherman’s cooperative associations has protested calling it extremely regrettable. Their linguistic restraint is hereby noted. TECO has been urged to conduct a thorough investigation of the cause of the accident and to take drastic measures to prevent its recurrence. Now about Tecos planned release of the 1,280,000 metric tons, not gallons as I mistake. And Lee said last week, metric tons of radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific ocean. There was an excellent article on Japan’s upcoming nuclear waste dump published on power technology.com and picked up byard.wordpress.com.

Libbe HaLevy

01:15:28

One of my major sources it’s written by I Robert Hunziker and very succinctly goes into all of the talking points we need to know about this, not proposed, but planned release of radioactive water into the Pacific ocean. We’ll have a link to it up on our website, nuclear hotseat.com under this episode, number 5 47. And for more international news, we have this out of the UK research finds significant concentrations of radio activity in samples taken from across the summer set and south Wales coast. This is a confirmation of the work of Marine biologist, Tim dear Jones, who spoke about this for nuclear hot seat, number five, four from September 14th, 2021. The survey was undertaken over the summer by groups from both sides of the Bristol channel. After EDF energy refused to carry out pre dumping surveys on the Cardiff grounds and port his head C dump sites where they have disposed of waste from the construction of Hinley point C nuclear power plant.

Libbe HaLevy

01:16:33

In the past, the study found significant concentrations of Hinley derived radio activity and samples from all 11 sites. Meanwhile, EDF is trying to deny the difficulty here by saying that the sediment is not radioactive under law, but what about under science? We’ll have an update on this by the dear Tim dear Jones, early in 2022 on nuclear hot seat, it looks like inside information from China could sync the French nuclear flagship EPR. Two French EPR design reactors were built in Tashan China as the only two out of 200 announced that ever went online. However, now one of the two is offline again after just two and a half years of operation, and it’s not known whether it will ever be able to come online. Again, evidence is growing that a design flaw affecting the entire EPR series has led to Taschen being switch off. This information came from a French nuclear engineer and whistleblower who gave the radiation research Institute, CRE rod important detailed technical information from Tahan in June of 2021, a CNN report from Tahan caused stir because there was talk of an imminent radiological threat.

Libbe HaLevy

01:17:55

And the Chinese security authorities were accused of having raised the radiation limit values for the outside area around the nuclear power plant. In order to circumvent the shutdown of the defective reactor block, there has also been damage found to the cladding tubes, which led to the escape of radioactive gases in the reactor pressure vessel. This may be akin to the damage in the cladding of the fuel rods at the Sanofy nuclear facility, which was ultimately the reason why that nuclear react is shut down forever. In the EU. Germany has told France nuclear is not green and said that it will oppose French efforts to label nuclear electricity as green. It all boils down to money. The debate is about so-called taxonomy, which is the green labeling system for investors France aims to include nuclear and gas as green investments while Germany opposes atomic energy. Unfortunately, there are now 12 countries that have joined forces to pressure the European commission to grant nuclear energy, that green status, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Che France, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Libbe HaLevy

01:19:20

The European commission is likely to unveil investment rules for nuclear and gas on December 22nd, just in time to be buried and ignored in the Christmas holiday in a has been revealed in a new report that 27 London financial companies are funding the new nuclear arms race. In other words, don’t bank on the bomb strikes again, the financial firms in London have been accused of using investment funds with links to the UK government. A campaign group report perilous profiteering has named hundreds of companies involved in the nuclear weapons sector and their financial backers. An analysis by the ferret. A publication found that 26 were based in London and six have links to the conservative party, which plans to increase Britain’s nuclear weapons. Arsenal is that the equivalent of insider trading, the Netherland space peace group PACS produced this study with the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.

Libbe HaLevy

02:20:20

There report warns that financial institutions continuing to invest in companies involved with the nuclear weapons industry could face regulatory risks because of the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which came into force in January of 2021, the treaty, which the UK has not yet ratified bans nuclear weapons and has been signed by 86 countries. So far the UK government, which claims it is committed to the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons said in March, it would lift the cap on its nuclear arsenal by 40% raising the number of weapons from 180 to 260 warheads. Then in November, the government claimed it had played a leading role by pioneering work in your disarm. No, we’ll have this week’s featured interview in just a moment. But first, last week I shared that I was recently asked why nuclear hot seat does not do the usual hammering away at our distribution list for donations on giving Tuesday cyber Monday.

Libbe HaLevy

02:21:26

And the like the reason I don’t like getting hit over the head with repeated email requests, even by groups I esteem and regularly consult with for content, I give what I can when I can. And I trust those of you who have come to value. The information of nuclear hot seat will donate if when and as much as you can, but now in the, of the website, which is due to come online in early 20, 22, it’s been suggestion that I create a betray on page where I offer premiums for people who sign up to donate on an ongoing basis. Of course, anything I would come up with will immediately be made available to the loyal supporters who are already with me. But the question this raises is would this kind of a bonus induce you to donate? What kind of special information or report would you want and on what topics, if you haven’t been a sustaining supporter, what might entice you to join my loyal crew?

Libbe HaLevy

02:22:23

The great folks who are truly responsible for my ability to keep nuclear hot seat going a, let me know by sending an email to info nuclear hotseat.com. And while you’re at it, whether you become a sustainer or not consider celebrating this season with a donation to help keep us going, just go to nuclear hotseat.com and click on the big red donate button. That’s where you can send us a donation of any song eyes, and know that that’s where you can become a sustaining supporter of nuclear hot seat without waiting for Patreon. All it takes is a donation of as little as $5 a month, the same as a cup of coffee and a nice tip here in the us. So buy nuclear hot seat, a metaphoric cup of coffee to support us and know that however much you can help. I’m deeply grateful that you’re listening and that you care.

Libbe HaLevy

02:23:13

Now, here is this week’s featured interview, the ongoing spew of radio activity into our environment. And its dangers are the subject of this week’s interview. Tokyo electric power company in Japan is planning or threatening to release radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific. And in Massachusetts whole tech, the decommissioning company is not asking but telling the nuclear regulatory commission that they will release radioactive spent fuel pool water from the defunct Pilgrim nuclear reactor into Cape Cod bay, meaning the Atlantic. So we thought this would be a good time to look back at a still timely interview on the impact of nuclear reactor, radiation on those living near them, and specifically the impact upon children. So this week we revisited interview with Joseph Mangano. He is a health researcher and epidemiologist who has served as a director of radiation and public health project since 1989. Manana is author or co-author of 33 medical journal articles on radiation health, and is the author of the books, low level radio, radiation and immune system damage and atomic Aero legacy and radioactive baby teeth.

Libbe HaLevy

02:24:32

The cancer link, Joe managed the study of strum 90 and baby teeth, and is continuing with that project. He has also managed the citizen based radiation monitoring programs near the Indian point, New York and oyster Creek, New Jersey nuclear plants. We originally spoke with Joseph Mangano for nuclear hot seat, number four 18 on June 25th, 2019. Here’s this week’s featured interview. Joseph Mangano is a health researcher, an epidemiologist who is served as a director of radiation and public health since 1989. Manana is author or co-author of 33 medical journal articles on radiation health and is the author of the books’ low level radiation and immune system damage and atomic I legacy. That’s a 1998 book and radioactive baby teeth. The cancer link from 2008. He managed the study of strum 90 in baby teeth, and now manages the citizen based radiation monitoring programs near the Indian point, New York and oyster Creek, New Jersey nuclear plants. This interview was originally heard on nuclear hot seat, number 3 54 from April

Libbe HaLevy

02:25:50

Joe. Mangan always great to have you with us on nuclear hot seat.

Joseph Mangano

02:25:55

Likewise, glad to be here.

Libbe HaLevy

02:25:57

First of all, let’s give people an idea of your group. What is radiation and public health project, and how did it come to be?

Joseph Mangano

02:26:07

We are a, a non for profit research and educational group. The truth is that we shouldn’t even have existed in the first place, had the nuclear industry and government been honest when nuclear reactors were first built in the 1950s, there were several questions concerning the health of local residents. Number one, can we guarantee that there isn’t going to be a major meltdown. Number two, how much radiation is gonna be routinely released to the air? And number three, what are we going to do with the waste? The waste products produced to making electricity, but it has to be kept safe for hundreds and thousands of years. What happened was the industry and government kind of colluded, and just said, we’re gonna set some limits of safe limits, permissible limits. They called them. You know, if you release below a certain amount of radiation or if the air and the water and the soil has below a certain amount, you’re allowed to keep your license, you can keep running the reactor and we call it safe.

Joseph Mangano

02:27:17

Now we are a public health group. This is in very good public health, right? A matter of fact, the radiation at at low levels may be safe, but you gotta do the studies. You’ve gotta prove it. You can’t just assume it. These are very dangerous chemicals. We’re talking about the same that are created and released when a atomic bombs explode. So it’s just about 30 years ago to retire. Gentlemen won a physicist and the other statistician put together this group. And we have been at it ever since 37 journal articles, eight books, 57 or so, op-eds lots of media attention. And, and so on. That’s a bit of background of what we do.

Libbe HaLevy

02:28:03

What kind of information do you examine when you are coming up with your reports on what’s going on around a nuclear reactor,

Joseph Mangano

02:28:14

Two things dose and response are the formal names for them. By dose, we look at how much radiation is released from a reactor, how much exist in the local environment, the air and the water and food and the body. We did a study measuring how much radiation were in the baby teeth of 5,000 children. Most of them living near nuclear reactors to date. This is the only study ever done looking at how much radiation is in the body of Americans living near reactors. And that’s the dose side. The response side very simply is disease rates and death rates near nuclear plants, which our public health departments actually do a very fine job of collecting data and making them available on the web, both the state health departments and, and the centers for disease control. That’s what our work really has entailed. We haven’t gotten to all reactors, but we’ve done studies near a number of them. And we find consistently that red flags are raised about unusually high levels of cancer and for mortality and other other disorders, especially after a nuclear plan opens,

Libbe HaLevy

02:29:32

Where do you find the numbers that you base your findings on?

Joseph Mangano

02:29:36

The big one is the us centers for disease control. They haven’t gone out and, and done studies near near reactors, but they’ve done a fine job in collecting data. In fact, there are 50 years worth of statistics on mortality, on deaths in the United States, beginning in 1968, right online. It has it by states, by county cause of death by age, by gender, by race. It makes it rather easy for us to do a lot of analysis down to the county level. That’s the major source that, that we use. And for the other side, the radiation side, how much is released and how much is in the environment. Those come from the environmental protection agency companies that run nuclear reactors are required to make these measurements every year and to report them.

Libbe HaLevy

03:30:33

What you’ve been working on is called epidemiology. And you’re actually the reason that I have any familiarity at all with the term it’s the study and analysis of the distribution and determinants of health and disease conditions in defined population. In other words, trying to work out why certain people in certain locations are getting ill. So let’s take a look at some of the reactors that you have been studying. Let’s start with OCE Creek in New Jersey, which is scheduled to be closing in October of this year 2018. How did that formerly low cancer county rise to become a high cancer county after the reactor started up?

Joseph Mangano

03:31:18

Yeah. Libby, I hope we haven’t scared anyone with a big word, like epidemiology let’s make it simple. These are basic questions. Like what are cancer rates like near nuclear reactors? Like, like oyster Creek, very simple again, if it weren’t for us and our group and our work, the answer would be, geez, we really don’t know. Nobody does studies on this oyster Creek is a, a case in point. It is a reactor that is in central New Jersey. It’s about 60 miles from New York city. And it’s about 50 miles from Philadelphia, obviously lots and lots of people nearby strike two on oyster Creek. It is the longest running nuclear reactor in the United States. And I believe the world the day it first started operating and generating radiation and emitting radiation was May 3rd, 1969. So we’re coming in on 49 years here. Yes. Even though reactors are, we’re supposed to go to 40 years at maximum 0.3 with all Easter Creek, is that even though the statistics on what was admitted from reactors are a little thin.

Joseph Mangano

03:32:33

Unfortunately, the requirements are, are not very stiff because there are over a hundred separate radioactive chemicals produced by reactors and, and emitted into the environment. A good system would be to make counts of each of them. There’s only several that are counted, but one of them iodine, 1 31, we’ll talk about it later. It’s a chemical that affects the thyroid gland. It goes right. You know, when it’s drank in the water and eating the food or breathed in these little metal particles go right for the thyroid gland, where it attacks and kills cells and leads to diseases like cancer. We found the seventies and the eighties and the 1990s oyster Creek had the highest level of emissions than any us reactor. Matter of fact, it had five times the amount that was officially released from the three mile island partial meltdown, 1979.

Libbe HaLevy

03:33:34

And this was just part of its normal operating. It wasn’t like they had an accent that happened there that created some radiation leak.

Joseph Mangano

03:33:43

There was no meltdown. There was no shutdown by the government to saying that you’re, you’re releasing too much. None of that. These were all part of normal operations.

Libbe HaLevy

03:33:53

How did that impact the cancer rates in the area?

Joseph Mangano

03:33:57

Well, we took a look we’ve actually been working on in oyster Creek for a, for quite a while because our, our group is based in New York. And this is, is very close to New York city. We did a whole educational campaign, you know, in conjunction with, with local citizen groups. We even had a couple of celebrity supporters, Alec Baldwin, and, and Christie brink. And we went to that area of central New Jersey and gave a, a number of public talks. We collected 600 baby teeth from the area and found a high and rising amount of another chemical STR 90, which goes into teeth into bone. As far as the cancer goes there, there’s been suspicions for a long time near oyster Creek. Back in the 1990s, the health department, the state health department found a childhood cancer cluster and a very long story short after about 10 years of, of meetings and discussion, no official cause of cancer was, was ever admitted to by the health department.

Joseph Mangano

03:35:06

In fact, they gave oyster Creek, the nuclear component, very little tension at all years ago when oyster Creek first began operating the cancer death rate in the county where it’s located, ocean county was just below the New Jersey, eight 1% below as the 1980s and nineties went along. It grew a couple of percent above the stay rate. And in the two thousands, it was 8% higher. Now going from 1% below to 8% above may not sound like very much, but let’s turn it into real numbers and real people. If that original rate of 1% below the state had state, you know, all, all these past 49 years there, would’ve been over 2,500 fewer to deaths in this one county.

Libbe HaLevy

03:35:59

Okay. That’s jaw dropping

Joseph Mangano

03:36:01

That 2,500 is a lot of people. It’s, it’s a very populated county. It’s about 600,000 in the county. We also found too that the largest increases occurred in the youngest residents in the area. We, we know, you know, science disagree that while every human who’s exposed to radiation is affected, the greatest harm is caused to the very youngest. That is the fetus, the infant and the child. And we found that the childhood cancer rate years ago was 23% below Jersey. And now it’s risen to 15% above. Again, we’re convert, we’re converting a low cancer county into a high cancer county. Are there other possible reasons? Sure. There might be, but we don’t know of any that that would cause make this before and after which like this. And we feel that this should have, and more studies done the health departments and the industry that ran the, the plant basically either ignored us or called our work. You know, they’ll use terms like junk science. Do they have any proof that always decree is safe? Nope. Not one

Libbe HaLevy

03:37:16

Given that the situation was found around oyster Creek, are there other reactors where similar patterns have been found and where populations are suffering from similar consequences?

Joseph Mangano

03:37:29

Oh, sure. I could give you several, but the one I’ll focus on is the other nuclear plant in New Jersey. And that’s called Salem hope Creek Creek. It’s a little different than oyster Creek. Oyster Creek has one reactor. Salem hope Creek has three oyster Creek is relatively small. Salem, not only has three reactors, but each is about double the capacity of oyster Creek. This is a big place. The reactors came online later than oyster Creek from the mid seventies to the mid eighties. Okay. So we did a similar study of Salem county where this reactor is located a little bit different. Oyster Creek is 600,000 people. Salem only has about 65,000 people. It’s largely rural farming is, is the primary industry. If you will, which should mean that there’s no real worry about industrial pollution in the area. So let’s go back. As the reactors were opening in the mid 1980s, the Salem county cancer death rate, just like oyster Creek was 5% below the rest of New Jersey. Now in this decade, that 5% below the state has turned into 20% above the state.

Libbe HaLevy

03:38:46

That’s a 25% change,

Joseph Mangano

03:38:48

25% flip. And at once a, again, it is highest in children, in young adults and in middle aged adults. Like we would’ve expected if nuclear emissions were a factor, we even found that there was a jump in death rates for causes other than cancer, right? From 2% higher to 23% higher. And once again, we’ll go to the, what we call the excess cancer cases. Since, since the mid eighties, we estimate that over a thousand people died because these, these rates went up all right. If they had stayed where they were back in the mid eighties and continued for the last 30 years, over a thousand, fewer people would’ve died in this one small county.

Libbe HaLevy

03:39:38

So we’re getting a pretty clear picture that nuclear reactors under normal operating conditions create problems and have emissions. And according to the epidemiology impact cancer rates and leads to an increase in them. But let’s look now at what happens when there has been what the nuclear industry, once upon a time assure us would never happen, which is an accident, meaning three mile island and the nuclear industry is fond of saying nobody died at three mile island. Now there is a Facebook, they three mile island survivors that has over 4,000 members who identify with that label. And these individuals claim a wide range of health impact from that nuclear partial meltdown in 1979. And there are reports of a large number of deaths and illnesses within their own families. And what does the epidemiology tell us about what really happened as a result of the accident at three mile island?

Joseph Mangano

04:40:46

I’ll start my answer by repeating what I said a few minutes ago. And that is the nuclear industry grabbed that, that slogan, nobody died at three mile island almost immediately after of the meltdown occurred before there had been any chance to measure how much radiation was released, how much actually got into the water and the food and people’s bodies and so on. It was a, an immediate attempt to stifle any type of research. Even though I consider myself a, a health researcher and a non-political one, we all understand that this is a very, very highly politicized area. And the example I’ll give before we get into our results involves two groups. The first group was some researchers from Columbia university in New York. They got some funding from a group that was commissioned by a judge after the three mile accident, their mission was to go and, and do some research on whether or not there was a connection between the radiation released from three mile and cancer in the local area.

Joseph Mangano

04:41:55

Very simply their answer was no, there was no association. And they published an article in the American journal of public health. I mean, these are, these are again, Columbia is a, is a highly reputed university, and these are all, you know, PhDs and, and, and, and physicians and so on. And they gave in the articles, they gave the data that they, they used well along comes a group from the university of North Carolina school of public health, which I happen to be a graduate of headed by a gentleman, Dr. Steven wing with a, again, working with a group of his colleagues wing and, and the UNC people took the same that the Columbia people used and came to a different conclusion. They only looked at lung cancer and leukemia within the 10 mile radius around three mile island. And they found a, a high increase. As a matter of fact, it’s amazing to me that Columbia came conclusion of no link, because if you look at the number of cancers of people living within 10 miles of three, my island, and you compared five years before and after the meltdown, the number of cancers went up 60% from 1700 something to 2,800 something.

Joseph Mangano

04:43:16

Now you don’t need a PhD in epidemiology. You don’t need a, a, an MD from Columbia or UNC to say, whoa, wait a minute. Is this normally what happens in an area where are cancers going up? 60%? The answer of course is no. And what happened at, after that was essentially a fight that broke out in the medical journals. The Columbia people were agitated and called the UNC group, you know, politically motivated and, and all this stuff. And UNC just responded with explaining how, how they came up with this. Once again, I’m trying not to be political, but you, this is a, this is a, maybe the, one of the better examples of how highly politicized this is. The establishment does not want to admit to one dead, no one died at three mile island, because that means there’s a lot of other people that may suffering and dying as well.

Libbe HaLevy

04:44:16

Yeah. That’s why this Facebook group got started. I believe it’s following in the steps of north St. Louis and the just moms there with what they’ve been able to create by growing the awareness. Let’s move this ahead. You told me that you’re looking into an analysis of cancer death in Burke county, Georgia, which is a site of the Bogal plant, where they’re trying to build two new reactors and coming into all kinds of problems. But do they have nuclear fuel on site yet? Are there radioactive fuel rods there, or is there some other cause for the difficulty that people are facing,

Joseph Mangano

04:44:55

This is Burke county, Georgia. Now it is a county that sits on the border with South Carolina. And the border actually is the Savannah river. We need to give a little history here, right across the river from Burke county, Georgia lies the Savannah river plant. The Savannah river plant was built way, way back in 1949. It formally was a mostly farming rural area. This was not a nuclear power reactor, but it was a series of reactors that helped make nuclear weapons. At that time, of course it was the cold war and the us and the Soviet union were engaged in a, a frantic race to build as many nuclear weapons as possible. And Savannah river played a major, major role in making these bomb. Of course, now it is no longer making weapons. We’ve stopped that when the cold war ended in the early nineties, the it’s a large area and it is highly contaminated.

Joseph Mangano

04:46:04

One of the most contaminated areas in the United States. And it’s been cleaned up now for 20 years and they’re gonna be ated for a very long time. So let’s start there right across the river is Burke county Georgia. A nuclear reactor has to be on a body of water because essentially the way a nuclear reactor makes electricity is to heat, water up. Somebody called it a very dangerous and expensive way to boil water. The so van river is a large wide river at that. At that point, it flows into the Atlantic ocean in the late 1980s, two nuclear power plants, power reactors were built in Burke county and they were called Vogel one and Vogel two, they wanted a VO three and four, but like many proposed reactors, they were canceled essentially because they were expensive. But of course, I always say that why react is expensive.

Joseph Mangano

04:47:01

It takes a lot of money to build such dangerous machines. Burke county again is like across in South Carolina. It’s a rural county. It’s got about 23,000 people. Slightly over half are African American. The poverty rate is very high in Burke county always has been okay. The unemployment rate is high. The proportion of inadequate housing is high. All, all the standard measures of poverty occur in Burke county. It’s a poor county. All right. The idea of, of building these reactors in a formerly pristine area, of course raises the question. Did it do anything to the health of local residents? Well, once again, you go back to the CDC website and look at what happened in the 1970s before the reactors opened, the black cancer mortality rate was 29% below the rest of Georgia. And that makes sense because we don’t expect a lot of cancer in rural areas. We expect cancer, you know, in areas where they’re coal mines or in big cities with a lot of industrial emissions. And so on that number of 29% below now in the last decade is 15% above. And these are for blacks. Whites had, it had an increased too in Burke county years ago, they were 1% below and now 12% above again, the poverty rates are considerably higher for blacks in Burke county than they are for whites.

Libbe HaLevy

04:48:39

So what you’re saying is that the radiation that is impacting the health of the people in Burke county actually comes from the other side of the river and this previous facility,

Joseph Mangano

04:48:53

Well previously, some of it did more of it in the Savannah river plant in South Carolina. More of it stayed in South Carolina, although some got to Georgia still the cancer rate was below average. All right. It wasn’t until they built those two nuclear reactors in Burke county, in Georgia, right there when the cancer rates began to change from below average to well above average.

Libbe HaLevy

04:49:20

And for the sake of clarity, we know that there are two new reactors that are under construction, but are there other reactors that are on the site of vog that are iner and have been

Joseph Mangano

04:49:33

The answer to both your questions are yes. And yes, the ones that began operating in the late eighties continue to operate, even though they’re getting older and corroding and, and leaking and, and so on, but in the, Ooh, I guess about 10, 15 years ago, it was an effort who build new reactors building had stopped. Essentially the, the last approvals for re reactors were in the late seventies because the people had financed it. You know, the wall street people understood it to be very expensive and very dangerous. So this nuclear Renaissance, as they called it began, there was a lot of discussion in Washington. And they, all they did after years and years was I think the number was 15 billion not to help build reactors, but in case a new reactor was built and they had to stop that the builders would get their money back.

Joseph Mangano

05:50:32

There was a number of reactors that were proposed every like 20 of them, almost everyone pulled out. They said, you know what, we can’t do this. This is gonna take years and years to, to build these things. It’s gonna take a, a heck of a lot of money. We’ve got types and safer types of, of energy, like solar and wind. Forget it. An exception was the Vogle plant where it reactors three and four were not completely built, but the building process began, I believe it was about eight years ago. And there have been all these promises of out when they’re going to be finished and how much it would cost. Well guess what, as the years go on the expected year of opening keeps getting pushed further in the future. And of course the bill gets bigger and bigger right now. The construction is only about one third done, and this is an after about, I think it’s about eight or 10 years. That’s very slow. That means it’s gonna take 20, 25 years or more to finish these things. And an ungodly amount of money. There is a very strong citizen based effort to stop the construction. And there’s a lot of people who believe that these two reactors will never or operate. And of course, part of it is the idea of environmental injustice or racial injustice. In this case that you’re picking on a very poor area with a, a large proportion of African Americans and putting these dangerous reactors, more of these dangerous reactors there

Libbe HaLevy

05:52:08

That at was health researcher, Joseph manana of radiation and public health project. You can read more about his important [email protected],

Announcer

05:52:20

Activists, activist, shout, shout, shout,

Libbe HaLevy

05:52:28

Congratulations to Carl Grossman, our Eres, who knows where all the bodies are buried and is more professionally known as a journalism professor and longtime investigative environmental reporter, he and history professor Christopher Berga have just published cold war long island in which the author explore not only the establishment of factories by firms like Grumman, Republic, aviation and Fairfield aviation to manufacture military equipment, but also the creation of military bases that housed nuclear tipped missiles. The missiles housed in facilities on long island were ironically developed with input from former German scientists under what was called operation paperclip. And Carl goes into great length to explain what paperclip was, how it brought more than 1000 Nazi scientists, including Warner VA Braun to the United States and how their work led to the development of detonating nuclear tip missiles, which carried a payload of from 10 to 30 kilotons. When the hero Shima bomb was only 13 kilotons, we’ll reach out to Carl early 20, 22 to learn more about this book and were it contains the folks working on getting Congress to extend and expand the radiation exposure, compensation act Eureka still need our help.

Libbe HaLevy

05:53:56

This is about the survivors and victims of the July, 1945, Trinity nuclear test, the first destination ever of a nuclear bomb, which took place in New Mexico. The downwind who are hit with radiation from that event have largely been invisible or forgotten. The expansion of RKA is a fight. They are leading asking Congress to include them and others in compensation for having had their health, longevity and genetic downline impacted by the unsought radiation exposure. So they are encouraging you, me and all of us to send more letters to our legislators. There are many more steps to attain victory and Trinity downwind has a site which includes form letters and other information. You can learn more by going to Trinity down windows.com or right to the woman who leads this fight. Tina Cordova at T like Tom Cordova, C O R D O V [email protected] and a correction from last week’s show.

Libbe HaLevy

05:55:03

I was speaking about the amount of water tree laced, radioactive water that Tokyo electric power company wants to release into the Pacific ocean from Fukushima. I said that it was 1 million, 280,000 gallons of Tridium laced, radioactive water, but it’s not. It’s 1 million, 280,000 metric of Tridium laced, radioactive water, many magnitudes of difference there. My apologies for the confusion. This has been nuclear hot seat for Tuesday, December 14th, 2021 material for this week’s show has been researched and compiled from nuclear news.net ard.wordpress.com on nuclear.org, nearest.org, the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons, or I can w.org Trinity downwinders.com sag Harbor express.com laughing squid.com sfgate.com LA times.com westward.com yahoo.com. people.com inside climate news.org, climate cros.com USA today.com inr.com logs and Millport news.com nation dot C Y M R u.com. The ferret dot Scott, Japan times.co.jp DT. Next dot I N Stan times.com. Good news network.com EU observer.com. active.com. reuters.com France 20 four.com Chicago tribune.com.co.uk. The bulletin.org market research, telecast.com. Interesting engineering.com fukushima-diary.com, nhk.or.jp power-technology.com and the captured and compromised by the industry. They’re supposed to be regulating nuclear regulatory commission.

Libbe HaLevy

05:57:06

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Announcer

05:58:28

Nuclear hot seat. What are those people thinking? Nuclear hot seat. What have those boys been drinking? Nuclear hot seat. The is sinking. Our time to act is shrinking, but the activists are nuclear hot seat. It’s de.