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NUCLEAR POWER AND ITS POTENTIAL
IMPACT ON HEALTH IN Rough Draft I have a growing concern about politically manipulated science that has made it possible for the nuclear industry to deceive and mislead some people into believing that nuclear energy is clean and safe. This study is motivated by finding out, in March 2007, that the the Department of Energy and Defense Department are studying a location near my home to determine whether or not they will begin operations of a nuclear waste reprocessing plant. During the past few weeks, I have heard a few different estimations as to how many nuclear power plants are operating in the United States. All of these estimations have been just a bit more than 100 nuclear power plants. ATLANTA
2005/03/10 -A new report on global cancer trends finds men and women
in North America have the highest cancer incidence worldwide, and that lung
cancer is the main cancer in the world today. The study comes from researchers
at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, and
appears in the March/April issue of CA:
A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. France has 59 nuclear reactors operated by Electricite de France (EdF) with total capacity of over 63 GWe, supplying over 426 billion kWh per year of electricity, 78% of the total generated there. In 2005 French electricity generation was 549 billion kWh net and consumption 482 billion kWh - 7700 kWh per person. Over the last decade France has exported 60-70 billion kWh net each year. See also EdF web site. Source: http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm Effluent Concentrations :
Cancer affects half of all men and a
third of all women during their life span. According to the Cancer
Steering Committee’s report (January 2003), France has the highest
rate of premature cancer-related mortality in Europe, i.e. before the
age of 65 and 20% higher than the rest of Europe.
Cancer kills 150,000 people each year in France, i.e. 400 deaths per day, the equivalent of a “September 11” every week. It is responsible for a third of deaths in men and a quarter in women. It is the second main cause of death in France, behind cardiovascular diseases, i.e. approximately 28% of deaths. However, it is already the leading cause of death in men, all ages combined. It represents 37% of premature deaths in the young and active, way ahead of accidents and suicides. Four in 10 cancers appear before the age of 65, and three will lead to death before that age. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of new cancers increased from 160,000 to 278,000 per year, representing a 63% increase in twenty years, affecting men (66% increase from 97,000 to 161,000) slightly more than women (60% from 73,000 to 117,000). 41,000 deaths per year can be attributed to smoking-related cancers (lung, upper aerodigestive tracts, bladder, etc.) and 16,000 to alcohol. Almost 60% of new cancer cases in men concern four sites: the prostate (40,000), lungs (23,000), colon-rectum (19,000) and the upper aerodigestive tracts (21,000). Two sites predominate in women: the breast (42,000) and the colon-rectum (19,000). Lung cancer moved from sixth place in 1995 to fourth place in 2000, with 4,500 new cases and an equivalent number of deaths. 800,000 French people currently live with cancer and 2 million have suffered from it at some stage. Some regional mortality rates vary
considerably with respect to the national average, ranging from -18.9%
in the Midi-Pyrénées and Corsica to +13.1% in Brittany and
Champagne-Ardenne. The cost of cancer to the health system was estimated at €15 billion in 2002. Source: http://www.e-cancer.fr/Cancer-Information/The-figures-speak-for-themselves-France...
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To be continued....