Documents radiation accident 11 results

"This handbook provides comprehensive, multidisciplinary coverage for assessing the acceptability of risks. The book examines the practical methods for assessing risk and the theoretical considerations in some detail.The Risk Handbook unifies the pragmatic and scientific approach to risk in a way that provides a transparent and defensible approach to risk assessment and management. The appendices also include a helpful guide for managers to the mathematics involved."

"Information about the consequences of human exposure to radiation in the former Soviet Union has recently become available. These data add new insights and provide possible answers to several important questions regarding radiation and its impact on occupational and public health. The 1986 Chernobyl accident initiated a major and early increase in childhood thyroid cancer that resulted from ingestion of iodine-131 (131I) by young children living in the most heavily contaminated areas of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. No significant additional cancer or other adverse medical effects have yet been reported in the affected populations and among clean-up workers. Major psychological stress independent of radiation dose has been observed in those people thought to be exposed. During the early days of the atomic energy program in the former Soviet Union, some unfortunate events occurred. The country's first atomic test in Semipalatinsk in 1949 exposed over 25,000 people downwind from the blast to significant doses of fission products, especially 131I. During the late 1940s and the early 1950s nuclear material production facilities were developed near Chelyabinsk in the South Ural Mountains, which resulted in major releases into the environment and significant overexposures for thousands of workers and nearby populations. ..."

"Investigators estimate that the population exposure that resulted from the Chernobyl fallout is in the range of natural background radiation for most European countries. Given current radiobiologic knowledge, health effects-if any-would not be measurable with epidemiologic tools. In several independent reports, however, researchers have described isolated peaks in the prevalence of congenital malformations in the cohort conceived immediately after onset of the fallout. The consistency of the time pattern and the specific types of malformation raise concern about their significance. In this study, the author summarizes findings from Turkey, Belarus, Croatia, Finland, Germany, and other countries, and implications for radiation protection and public health issues are discussed."

"This volume, written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. Although there has been much discussion concerning the impacts of nuclear accidents, and Chernobyl in particular, never before has there been a comprehensive presentation of all the available information concerning the health and environmental effects of the low dose radioactive contaminants that were emitted from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The official discussions emanating from the IAEA and associated UN agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and as a consequence these reports have erred on the side of negative findings simply because much of what was known was not included in their assessments. This new book provides a complete and extensive summary of all known research, including that published in Russian and Ukrainian, and provides new insights to the likely long term health and environmental consequences of nuclear accidents."

"New technologies have been introduced in radiation therapy, principally aimed at improving the treatment outcome, by means of a dose distribution which more strictly conforms to the tumor (clinical target) volume. A highly conformal dose distribution allows for a dose escalation to the target volume without increase of the radiation dose to normal tissues. Conversely, a highly conformal dose distribution allows for a reduction of radiation dose to normal tissues without decreasing the dose to the target, or a combination of both. These new technologies include increased use of multileaf collimators, intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and arc therapy (IMAT), tomotherapy, image guided radiation therapy (IGRT), gated radiation therapy, radiosurgery, newer and more complex treatment planning systems, virtual simulation and "all inclusive" electronic information systems. "

"Se nos bombardea, un día sí y otro también, con declaraciones de poderosos sectores de las grandes corporaciones, y de sus representantes políticos en instituciones, gobiernos y partidos, declaraciones que defienden las bendiciones económicas e incluso ecológicas de las centrales nucleares y de la industria nuclear en su conjunto, dando por hecho que la apuesta por lo nuclear es absolutamente necesaria. El incremento futuro de lo nuclear no sólo es inevitable sino, se asegura, la apuesta más sensata, más racional, más limpia.
Pero verdaderamente, ¿son tan razonables los argumentos de los que apuestan por ellas? ¿Es tan limpia la energía nuclear como aseguran? ¿Son tan inocuos y están tan controlados los residuos nucleares como a veces se sostiene? ¿Son tan improbables como se afirma los accidentes en centrales nucleares?
Casi todo lo que usted desea saber sobre los efectos de la energía nuclear en la salud y el medio ambiente es una conversación entre Eduard Rodríguez Farré y Salvador López Arnal que pretende aproximar al lector a los temas más importantes que rodean a un asunto tan esencial como es el uso civil o militar de la energía nuclear y sus efectos en la salud de las personas. En sus páginas se habla en torno al uranio y su "enriquecimiento", sobre el funcionamiento de las centrales nucleares y sus peligros, sobre accidentes como los de Palomares, Chernóbil, o los efectos a largo plazo de las bombas de Hiroshima y Nagasaki, sobre las recientes guerras y los nuevos síndromes, el programa nuclear de Corea del Norte e Irán, haciendo evidente la necesidad de que la ciudadanía se informe con el máximo cuidado y permanezca alerta y activa. Mejor activos hoy que mañana radiactivos.
Complementando la conversación Santiago Alba Rico, Joan Pallisé, Jorge Riechmann, Joaquim Sempere y Enric Tello han aportado los textos que abren y cierran el volumen. "