Radiation

Ever since the March 28, 1979, accident at Three Mile Island, Pa., people who lived near the nuclear power plant have been left wondering whether enough radiation was spewed into the air to trigger any cases of cancer -- cancers that might not appear until years later.Twenty years ought to be enough time to know. But linking cancer to any subtle environmental effect is no easy business, so scientists are still wrangling over what they've observed.Most who have studied the accident have concluded that even those living closest to the plant couldn't have been harmed by the tiny amounts of radiation released during those fearful few days.

A researcher who runs one of the nation's most closely watched cancer labs said yesterday that two new drugs that shrink tumors by starving them of their blood supply will likely be used to augment older therapies before they will be used alone.Dr. Judah Folkman, whose experiments touched off a media frenzy and a surge of interest on Wall Street earlier this year, said he was encouraged by studies at the University of Chicago that showed one of the drugs dramatically improved the effectiveness of radiation on cancerous mice.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has notified the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore of four apparent violations its inspectors discovered, including inadequate security for radioactive materials in the nuclear medicine department.The NRC is scheduled to meet with hospital officials April 30 at the federal regulatory agency's regional offices near Philadelphia to discuss the apparent violations, which were cited in inspections Feb. 26 and 27 and March 13, NRC officials said yesterday.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. yesterday was fined $176,000 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for safety violations at its Calvert Cliffs Nuclear power plant earlier this year during a repair project.The NRC said yesterday that it imposed the fine for three violations stemming from "inadequate control" of a diver working in a large pool of water where spent radioactive fuel is stored. The incident occurred April 3.In addition, the NRC cited, but did not fine, BGE for 10 other safety violations, all of them related to inadequate radiological controls and inadequate control of refueling activities.

The world's fastest printer was the Radiation Inc. electro-sensitive system at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Livermore, Calif. It printed up to 36,000 lines per minute, each line containing 120 alphanumeric characters, by controlling electronic pulses through chemically impregnated recording paper that moved rapidly under closely spaced fixed styli. The system could print the entire wordage of the Bible (773,692 words) in 65 seconds.

The first generation to survive childhood cancers in large numbers is discovering that some of the same treatments that destroy tumors with toxic force can cause serious side effects to surface years later.As more children outlive their cancers, doctors are drawing links between curative therapies and delayed problems such as early puberty, sterility, stunted growth, learning disabilities and weakened hearts.At the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, physicians are taking a second look at cured patients to see if they are suffering long-term effects of treatment.

Radiation is a doubled-edged sword: It can be our deadly enemy, as when it leaks out of a nuclear reactor and harms innocent people; yet it can also be our friend, as when it leaks out of a nuclear reactor and harms Donald Trump.Another example: Dentists use radiation, in the form of X-rays, to determine which of our teeth are still real, so they can grind them into stumps and cover them with improved space-age materials costing thousands of dollars per ounce. Yet those very same X-rays, if we are overexposed to them, can cause us to look like Willie Nelson.

At the turn of the century, physics confronted a dilemma that struck at the heart of its claim to understand natural phenomena. A Scotsman, James Clerk Maxwell, discovered that visible light was a form of electromagnetic radiation traveling at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Maxwell described the radiation as a wave, but he had no idea how it was propagated. To explain the phenomenon, theorizers posited the existence of a cosmic "ether," which filled all space and served as the medium on which the radiation acted.

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of military personnel, including perhaps 5,000 submariners, received radium treatments for middle ear problems in the 1940s and beyond, and should be studied for possible long-term effects of the radiation, say researchers.The radium treatments involve the largest group of veterans exposed to radiation other than those who served near atomic bomb tests, Dr. Alan Ducatman, an environmental health specialist at the West Virginia University Medical School, said yesterday.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department disclosed yesterday that over a 45-year period the United States conducted 204 previously unreported underground nuclear tests and deliberately exposed at least 18 Americans to dangerous levels of nuclear material.Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary said she planned to release more information in June about experiments conducted on 18 people in the 1940s to assess effects of plutonium radiation.Those tests were among an estimated 800 radiation experiments conducted on more than 600 individuals over the years.

Skyrocketing numbers of expensive medical imaging procedures - from CT scans to nuclear stress tests - are not just straining the nation's health care system, but are exposing patients to significant amounts of potentially cancer-causing radiation even though little research has been done into whether those tests actually make people healthier, a new study suggests. The tests, say the study's authors, may be doing more harm than good. "One reason why these tests are being used more is they're getting better and better and they're an extremely helpful part of diagnosis and treatment," said Dr. Reza Fazel, a cardiologist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta and the lead author of a study in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

LONDON -- An Italian KGB expert who warned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko that his life might be in danger the day he was poisoned has a "significant quantity" of radioactive polonium-210 in his body, authorities said yesterday. British health officials also said they had detected a small quantity in a close relative of Litvinenko's, though neither of the new victims has shown signs of illness. The revelations came as police zeroed in on traces of radiation found on British Airways jets that flew between Moscow and London, one of which may have carried suspects transporting the radioactive poison.

CHECHERSK, Belarus -- The aims are decidedly modest: to mow overgrown grass in front of weathered, long-abandoned houses; open a bakery to provide fresh bread to children at village schools; plant small gardens to yield fruit and vegetables free of radiation. Those small steps are part of the latest chapter of the long recovery effort in this part of the former Soviet Union 20 years after an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, the deadliest accident in the history of nuclear power.

WASHINGTON -- Harsh criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war by the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, has drawn considerable attention. But his more important and chilling statement has been lost in the political fray: He has concluded that, in the event of a pandemic or nuclear attack, "the ineptitude of this government" would "take you back to the Declaration of Independence." His concerns are well justified.

VIENNA, Austria - Nearly two decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster spread radioactive fallout across much of Europe, a United Nations study has concluded that the health effects have been far less extensive than feared. The researchers confirmed 56 deaths, nine children who died of thyroid cancer and 47 emergency workers who died of acute radiation poisoning or radiation-induced cancer. They projected that 3,940 more people will die of cancer, according to the report released yesterday.

As part of its anti-terrorism effort, the federal government is considering a plan to install X-ray machines in airports - not just to screen carry-on bags, as it does already, but to scan outgoing passengers. The technology has been proven in prisons and among Customs and Border Protection agents who use it to search for drugs, illegal weapons and contraband. But the idea of using it on 700 million American air passengers a year is generating serious privacy concerns from civil libertarians - and safety questions among some scientists, who question whether the risks, however small, outweigh the potential benefit of catching people hiding plastic explosives or other dangerous devices.

Tom Reddin, 88, the innovative former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department who introduced community policing and went on to be a television newscaster, politician and head of his own private security company, died Saturday at his Los Angeles home of complications from Parkinson's disease. He rose through the police ranks under conservative Chief William H. Parker, and is widely credited with modernizing the LAPD, introducing computerized dispatch systems, upgrading communication technology and improving training and pay. His short tenure as chief -- he served slightly more than two years -- was marked by his efforts to make police and the community partners in preventing crime, establishing the concept of community policing.

After years of controversy over the best way to treat small breast tumors, researchers have found that thousands of older women can forgo radiation treatments without hurting their survival chances. Two studies published today in the New England Journal of Medicine found that radiation provides no added benefit for women over 70 who receive lumpectomies and take the cancer-fighting drug tamoxifen. "It suggests that upfront radiation is not necessary and may in fact be overtreatment for many of the older women," said Dr. Jerome Yates, vice president for research at the American Cancer Society.

Dental X-rays taken during pregnancy can significantly impair the health of the fetus even though it does not receive radiation directly, according to a study by researchers from the University of Washington. Pregnant women who were exposed to dental irradiation were nearly four times as likely to have a low birth weight baby, though their pregnancies went full term, the team reports today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Low birth weights have been widely associated with developmental and behavioral problems in infants.

Of all the brain surgeries Cindy Feld has experienced, this one was by far her favorite. In the previous three, doctors had opened her skull and bored into her brain to remove tumors, leaving her in pain and out of work for months. But this time was different - no anaesthetic, no blood and no scalpel. All Feld had to do was lie on a table while a radiation "gun" revolved around her head, peppering her tumor with invisible rays. Her biggest complaint was boredom - during one 90-minute session, she actually dozed off. "You don't feel a thing," said the 43-year-old Westminster resident.