The possibility that low doses of radiation may prevent or delay the progression of cancer is being explored by a Flinders University research team led by Professor Pam Sykes (pictured) in a move that runs counter to the widely held perception that exposure to any radiation is harmful.
Professor Sykes, recently appointed to the University’s Strategic Professorship in Preventive Cancer Biology in the Flinders Centre for Cancer Prevention and Control says the public panic in response to nuclear accidents such as that at Fukushima in Japan is the result of a general ignorance about radiation.
“We have to ensure that radiation is respected and we have to understand what damage radiation can cause – but radiation is not the poison, the dose is,” Professor Sykes said.
“We need radiation in our environment, just as we need vitamins and minerals. Too much is a problem, too little is a problem,” she said.
“Chernobyl was obviously a disaster but there was no increase in leukaemia, solid tumours or birth defects among the 335,000 people who were evacuated and who received less than 100 milliSieverts of radiation – that’s five times the dose I’m allowed as a radiation worker.
“There was an increase in thyroid tumours but we’re not sure how much that related to the fact that everyone was screened for thyroid tumours, which wouldn’t normally happen.
“It’s now been accepted that they should not have evacuated so many people because the biggest detriment from Chernobyl was that they were dramatically disadvantaged, both economically and socially. Many suffered depression thinking they were going to die of cancer.
“And the frightening thing is that it’s been estimated that throughout Europe there were over 100,000 wanted pregnancies aborted, and these were people who didn’t live anywhere near Chernobyl.”
Professor Sykes’ research, which involves doses of radiation that are up to three orders of magnitude lower than those used by other investigators, has been funded by the US Department of Energy Low Dose Radiation Research Program for almost 10 years.
“Using a transgenic mouse that is very sensitive to stressors, we have identified regions in the dose range that cause different biological effects,” she said.
“Some of our colleagues in Germany and Oxford have shown that low doses of radiation to cells in culture trigger a mechanism which removes pre-tumour cells. We’re now working to see if we can identify this response in a mouse.
“If we can understand these mechanisms, we can manipulate them to prevent cancer,” adding it might be “several years” before the potential to humans could be confirmed.
Studies in Canada and Japan have also shown that low doses of radiation given to mice delay the onset of cancer, and reduce the symptoms of diabetes and atherosclerosis, improving the span and quality of life of the affected animals.
Professor Sykes and her team are currently examining low dose radiation therapy in reducing or preventing prostate cancer, with a grant from the Prostate Council Foundation of Australia.
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3 former TEPCO executives face criminal trial over Fukushima crisis
July 31, 2015
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. will stand trial over the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster after an independent judicial panel of citizens on July 31 again decided that mandatory indictments are warranted.
It will be the first time for TEPCO or government officials to stand formally accused of professional negligence resulting in death and injury in the nuclear crisis that was triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution for the second time rejected prosecutors’ decision not to indict the three–former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and two former vice presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro.
Based on the committee’s decision, three court-appointed lawyers will indict the three and serve as prosecutors in the trial.
After the crisis unfolded at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, residents and citizens groups filed criminal complaints with prosecutors against senior TEPCO and government officials.
They argued that the three TEPCO executives failed to fulfill their responsibility to implement necessary safety measures at the plant before the disaster, leading to the deaths of hospital patients during the evacuation and other tragedies.
In September 2013, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office decided not to indict the three former TEPCO executives.
The inquest committee handed down its first decision in July 2014, calling for indictments, but the prosecutors office again said there was not enough evidence to charge the three.
That led to the committee’s second examination of the case.
A decision for mandatory indictment requires approval from at least eight members of the 11-member committee.
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201507310053
ha ha ha ha ha radiophobic Japanese courts. not.
Even though I am not a member of the Nuclear Meritocracy, here’s what I think of the Sykes premise that people who can vote and are anti nuclear are ignorant radiophobes who kill babies at the drop of a hat or explosion of a reactor:
https://www.academia.edu/14613296/Submission_to_the_South_Australian_Nuclear_Fuel_Cycle_Royal_Commission
How many American tax dollars were spent by the US Department of Energy in its attempt to smother public nuclear debate in South Australia from the period 1999 to 2015? How did Flinders University spend those US dollars?
By stereotyping South Australians as per the FU Sykes paper reproduced above. I was not a coward as a military radiological safety NCO and I am certainly not a radiophobe now. Hey FU FU.
Should Toro Energy get a Pharmacy License in order for it to spread Vitamin R around via its random pollution?
NO. Uranium oxide is not a vitamin, its a toxic and radiological heavy metal.
Can you switch an X ray machine off ? Can anyone switch uranium oxide off ? NO.
IS MINING MEDICINE? NO. What makes medicine? An identified medical need for diagnosis or treatment, a qualified MEDICAL practitioner (not a genetic expert nor a geologists) and (tra da) PATIENT CONSENT.
You aint my doctor Prof Sykes. You dont have my consent to conduct anything on me, whether it be propaganda or pro nuke experimentation.
Oh my dear Prof Sykes, I am so sorry to the pit of my being for so totally misunderstanding your deep and sincere attempts to enlighten the minds of the people of South Australia! In my state of “Melted down reasoning”, as listed on page 3 of DSM12 (not yet issued), I was completely deluded into thinking that you were wrong in your assertions about the effects of low dose radiation and how it affects the mind. I see the light. I have problems though. Areas of Japan remain exclusion zones, so the Japanese government has not listened to you. Have you actually made representations to the Japanese Prime Minister telling him how stupid it is to forbid the return of people to areas conventional science (I agree that conventional science is not your thing) considers patently unwise? I note your claims about the epidemic of wilful and groundless abortions in Europe in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. I wonder, seeing as I have no luck, if you could write to the academic journals which published the copious numbers of papers describing studies which claim the exact opposite to what you claim. I think it is most unfair on you and your brilliance for these papers to stand unchallenged. You are the world’s leader in your opinions and as a paid academic I think they should listen to you. And of course, given that you are right in your contentions these journals and papers must be and no doubt will be recalled and burned. The people of South Australia must surely commend you for your efforts in this matter particular, for goodness only knows, the next time there is another nuclear disaster, surely mothers of new born, too late to abort their child, must surely be tempted to open the knife drawer in the kitchen to do the fear driven thing to that babe. Though I can’t find any evidence of that having happened in the wake of Chernobyl or Fukushima, 3 Mile Island or event, for that matter Operation Buffalo at Maralinga. One would think if one, as you imply, were so panicked as to murder one’s fetus, one would also put out of imagined misery one’s first born as well. But as I say, this must be complicated because there is no evidence of this. Though there has been much suffering of children in the oncology wards of Ukraine and Belarus – though, following you, given that you and the rest of your industry the complete removal of a child’s thyroid glance is a trifling thing which rates with less medical import than the pricking of a blister, I wonder why the people of the affected (or in your terms, the non affected and radio-vitamin fertilised areas of Ukraine and Beloruss and other areas) complain and when they suffer, according to you, totally non existent flash backs of their , according to you, non trauma. The world is indeed a strange place and there are some very strange people in it. How lucky for you you have a support group in Los Alamos National Laboratories. It must be hard for you when Bobby Scott is busy elsewhere in the world, busily contesting the contents of new established cancer registries particularly in areas of the world which were, only a few years ago, “Third World” areas with no cancer records at all. How wonderful then that at that time your industry, probably including that great medical research company, Toro Energy the uranium miner, stepped into the breach to provide those struggling nations – India, Iran, Brazil etc, with cancer statistics created for them especially from the offices of UK Nuclear Fuels Ltd, Sandia Labs and Los Alamos, Lovelace REspiratory research Institute and the Kremlin. People must have glowing cheeks and long lives in North Korea i am reminded. So well done you on your excellent, miraculous as it is. Especially seeing, as I did from the one letter of reply you sent me long ago, that you claim that you have little to no experience in the field of low level radiation exposure!! You are truly amazing and talented. No doubt Bobby Scott instructed you precisely on what you needed to know. And knowing him, not wasting time teaching you that which he didnt want you to know. Anyway, lest you worry that I am some unusual sycophant, and surely you must hordes of them scattered throughout the nuclear industry of this world, I will get to the point. Here is a paper you need to read: “KERALA’S PUBLIC POLICY CRISIS IN FIGHTING CANCER Centre for Public Policy Research, Abin Thomas PhD Scholar Student, King’s India Institute, London. The crux of the matter is defined by this one small quote: “OommenChandy, the Chief Minister of Kerala, informed the public that the state of Kerala has thehighest number of cancer patients all over India.” of course, I am sure you and Bobby Scott will find an answer to the dilemma which this quote produces, for your claim, and the claim made by the rest of your US Dept of Energy funded team, is that the cancer incidence is the lowest in all of India and one of the lowest in the world. I’ll leave the problem with you for knowing your insight and knowledge in this area is breathtaking, I am sure that Bobby Scott and the folks at Los Alamos will be happy to tell you what to say in response. It’s time I wrapped out, with one final point. I note your attitude regarding the level of alleged panic in the general South Australian population and what you think of us. And I note your position at Flinders University of which the Tertiary hospital Flinders Medical Centre, over which you have academic responsibility in terms of staff education. What has the performance of your duties to do with the desire of non medical industry to expand in this state ? And please explain why you accepted payment from US taxpayers to overtly advocate your position, as a genetics professor, regarding matters as diverse as government edicts issued by government as diverse as Ukraine, the EU and Japan? One would think that you have a vested interest in the energy policy considerations that Australians consider every day. I note that your vaunted and long promised cure for cancer, touted at the time the US Dept of Energy commenced, effectively, paying a portion of your research salary, at the turn of the century has yet to come to pass. And I note that your vaunted preventative treatment for prostate cancer – the irradiation of the healthy prostates of males of all ages – has not yet come to pass. I leave you today with this though: Charles Pecher arrived in the USA in 1939. By 1941 he has successfully trialled the third substance of importance to nuclear medicine. Sr89 in its injectable form. He took a mere couple of years to achieve success. What is your excuse? You slack and idle idiot.
I see that my earlier comments on this piece have been censored.
I again denounce the betrayal of humanity and the betrayal of science.
I again seek details of the donations made by US nuclear industry to fund this horrific propaganda program.
You are a complete moron Sykes: “Radiation doses among residents living 37 km northwest of the FukushimaDai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant
Nanao Kamada
a
, Osamu Saito
b
, Satoru Endo
c
, Akirou Kimura
d
, Kiyoshi Shizuma
c
,
*
a
Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Foundation, 3-50-1 Kurakake, Asa-kitaku, Hiroshima 739-1743, Japan
b
Watari Hospital, 34 Watari-nakae-cho, Fukushima 960-8141, Japan
c
Graduate school of Engineering, Hiroshima University 1-4-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8527, Japan
d
Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine, Hiroshima University, 1-2-3 Kasumi, Minamiku, Hiroshima 734-8553, Japan “External and internal radiation doses were estimated for 15 residents who lived approximately 37 kmnorthwest of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, which released radioactive plumes on March11, 2011 as the result of the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami damage. Residents wereinterviewed on where they stayed and what they ate after the incident. To estimate external dose, the airdose rate around each person
’
s home was measured, and cumulative effective doses up to 54 d after thedeposition were calculated. To estimate committed effective dose, urinary bioassays were performedusing a low-background Ge spectrometer on 54 d and 78
e
85 d after the deposition. The averagecumulative effective dose was 8.4 mSv for adults and 5.1 mSv for children. The average committedeffective dose from
134
Cs and
137
Cs was 0.055 mSv for adults and 0.029 mSv for children. Iodine-131 wasobserved from urinary samples of
ve residents, the equivalent doses for thyroid gland were 27
e
66 mSvat maximum. We discuss the necessity of reducing the risk of further exposure” Stop Press: FU maintains 2011 call to abandon contamination exclusion zones in Japan, saying on the basis of hormesis voodoo that people should eat the shit up to allow the uranium stock price to remain high. Where’s your cancer cure promised in 1999 Sykes, you total bullshit artist? Up your arse with your frontal lobes?
I wonder how Pam’s promised radical cancer treatment , promised in 1999 -2000 is coming along. Did she ever call for volunteers for her scheme to irradiate the prostate glands of healthy males of all ages, in order to see if such an exposure lowered or increased the incidence of prostate cancer? Probably would get passed the Ethics committee, but she knew that before she went on channel 7 to blab about it. Last I heard she was promoting Feverfew as a cancer cure without warning readers of the dangers of that substance.
Hi again all you reality phobes at FU. Hey Pam, can you rub Dr. Baht’s face (and maybe your own) in this publication Please: https://www.academia.edu/7405070/KERALAS_PUBLIC_POLICY_CRISIS_IN_FIGHTING_CANCER “…..The Indian state of Kerala’s proneness to Cancer has been a concern for public health sector.A renewed anxiety on the matter has been on the rise since 2014 January 27. Shri. Oommen Chandy, the Chief Minister of Kerala, informed the public that the state of Kerala has the highest number of cancer patients all over India.
In Kerala, out of every one lakh males, 133persons suffer from the disease while in the case of females, it is 123 for every one lakhfemales. At national level, according to the former Union Minister for Health and FamilyWelfare Ghulam Nabi Azad there were 2,934,314 cases in 2013 based on the study of theIndian Council of Medical Research, ICMR…..” end quote. Source: KERALA’S PUBLIC POLICY CRISIS INFIGHTING CANCER
Abin Thomas PhD Scholar Student, King’s India Institute, London Which is precisely the opposite of what Sykes and Baht told the SA Royal Commission. I hope the pay from Bobby Scott and US DOE was worth your lies Pam.
Oh Dear Pamela, Look at this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10671373/Chernobyl-disaster-fears-Norway-tells-citizens-dust-Cold-War-bunkers.html Russian soldiers at Chernobyl ‘are being treated for radiation poisoning in Belarus’ after power plant workers said the troops’ lack of anti-radiation gear was ‘suicidal’ Russian troops who were stationed at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that ‘another batch of Russians’ had been taken to the ‘Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel’ for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant’s workers said Russian soldiers’ lack of anti-radiation gear when they seized the Chernobyl site last month was ‘suicidal’. At least seven busloads of Russian soldiers had arrived at the Republican Scientific and Practical Centre for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology in Gomel this week, according to a Belarusian news Telegram channel.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin’s men had fallen ill because they failed to follow ‘rules for dealing’ with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
‘With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,’ he said, adding that radiation protection is ‘mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.’
Workers at the site this week said Russian soldiers last month drove without protective equipment through the Red Forest, kicking up clouds of radioactive dust which was likely to cause internal radiation in their bodies. The UK Daily Mail, April 2 2022