Radiation

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited Abington Memorial Hospital for 10 "significant" violations of radiation-protection rules in its radiation- therapy and nuclear-medicine departments. According to hospital officials, all violations were corrected on Dec. 21, the day after the NRC conducted a surprise inspection. The hospital, on Old York Road in eastern Montgomery County's Abington Township, has 30 days from the NRC's March 24 ruling to pay a proposed $2,500 fine or begin a lengthy appeal process.

TOKYO - Japan's nuclear safety officials reprimanded the operator of Japan's tsunami-damaged power plant Friday and demanded an investigation of how two workers were exposed to radiation more than twice the government-set limit. The government also ordered the utility to reduce workers' risks of heat-related illnesses as concerns grow about the health risks faced by the people toiling to get the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant under control. The two men with high radiation exposure worked at a central control room for two reactors when the tsunami struck March 11 and the days that followed.

Just as America's greatest storehouse of data on the health risks of radiation is about to be opened, finally allowing scientists to determine how little radiation causes adverse health effects, nuclear regulators and the industry they oversee are about to ensure that no American will ever know precisely how much radiation he or she is exposed to. They plan to remove one-third of the volume of low-level radioactive waste generated in this country...

A four-year legal battle over the release of secret occupational health records of workers at the nation's nuclear weapons plants ended yesterday, when Philadelphia lawyers received a computer tape containing the occupational-health records of 44,000 workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington. "We've got it," said Daniel Berger, an attorney for the Three Mile Island Public Health Fund. "We received the first installment of the records we've been seeking for a long time.

While most businesses believe big is better, a new Chester County health- care provider says the best medicine may come in small packages. The Exton Cancer Center, which opened three weeks ago in a medical suite at the Oaklands Corporate Center on Route 30, hopes to provide a full range of radiation and chemotherapy for its diagnosed cancer patients more conveniently and possibly at less cost than its hospital-based counterparts, even though it...

As I write, a 2-year-old girl from Kiev is undergoing surgery at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The child was born five days after the Chernobyl accident, and it is widely believed that the tumor in her brain was caused by the release of radiation from the nuclear reactor. It has been reported that way on television, usually with the sheepish disclaimer that "physicians are not sure of the cause. " Radiation is quickly becoming the new national nightmare. In a curious way it has come to resemble the malignant spirits of the netherworld that once haunted the Middle Ages.

Charlton Heston says he is on the road to recovery after weeks of radiation to battle prostate cancer. "It's not totally gone, but it's on the path to it," the Academy Award-winning actor said Friday. Heston, 75, finished about seven weeks of radiation last month. The cancer was found during an annual checkup in June. Doctors agreed to let the actor, who is also president of the National Rifle Association, postpone radiation until after November's elections so he could campaign for Republican candidates and continue shooting the comedy Town and Country, his 75th movie.

In May of 1928, Marie Curie, the famous discoverer of radium, received a disturbing letter from an American journalist. After decades of handling radioactive materials without any protection, Madame Curie could not read the letter without assistance because she suffered from radiation-induced cataracts. The journalist's letter said that several young women in Essex, N.J., were dying from destruction of their jaw tissues after licking radium paint brushes in a factory that made luminescent watch dials.

Gloucester City residents with questions about recent state radiation surveys can meet with officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) tonight. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the Gloucester Heights Fire Hall, 230 Nicholson Rd. The testing identified gamma radiation from radioactive wastes left by the Welsbach Co. in Gloucester City and the General Gas Mantle Co. in Camden. These industries used thorium, a radioactive material, in manufacturing mantles for lamps and lanterns 50 or more years ago. Testing of three sites in the city began in January.

Camden and Gloucester City residents who have questions about testing for possible radiation contamination in their neighborhoods can talk with state officials during a series of meetings beginning Monday. The state Department of Environmental Protection announced last week that several neighborhoods in the two cities may have been exposed to gamma radiation, which can cause cancer, from the residue of old factories in the area. Testing of the areas will begin in two weeks, the department said.

LOS ANGELES - Astronauts traveling to and from Mars would be bombarded with as much radiation as they would get from a full-body CT scan about once a week for a year, researchers reported Thursday. That dose would, in some cases, exceed NASA's standards and is enough to raise an astronaut's cancer risk by 3 percent. As plans for deep space exploration ramp up, radiation is a big concern - from high-energy galactic cosmic rays spewed by distant supernova explosions to sporadic bursts of charged particles hurled by the sun. Earth's magnetic field helps to deflect much of that harmful radiation.

There's no chance anyone in Tyler Coleman's family will forget his first collegiate baseball game. Coleman only had one at-bat for West Chester last season and struck out. The TV movie version probably would have him hitting a double or triple or something. This was real life. His mother, Diana, remembers going to the bathroom just before the game so she wouldn't miss any of it. Her cellphone rang while she was in the ladies' room. The tests done to figure out why there was swelling in her son's neck had come back with a definitive answer.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection on Wednesday released detailed plans for its comprehensive radiation study of oil and gas development and said it intends to begin sampling this month. The agency plans to analyze radioactivity levels of flowback waters, treatment solids, drill cuttings, and drilling equipment, along with the transportation, storage and disposal of drilling wastes. DEP says current data do not indicate any health risks, but activists have raised concerns about naturally occuring radioactivity in materials extracted from the mile-deep wells.

YOKOHAMA, Japan - Toshiba Corp. has developed a robot it says can withstand high radiation to work in nuclear disasters, but it's not clear what the robot would be able to do if and when it got the go-ahead to enter Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The four-legged robot can climb over debris and venture into radiated areas off-limits to humans. One significant innovation, Toshiba said, is that its wireless network can be controlled in high radiation, automatically seeking better transmission when reception becomes weak.

Tomatoes on windowsills and radiator covers dominate this week's discussion. A reader put tomatoes on the marble windowsill in her kitchen, and went away for a few days. When she returned, the tomatoes were overripe and mushy, and the acid from them etched marks in the marble. She requested a reasonably priced fix. Before I offer solutions from other readers, I should mention, as Deborah Kates, the vice president of the Coatesville Area Art Alliance, reminded me, that a "sunny sill is the worst place to let tomatoes ripen.

Question: I want to cover my hot-water radiators so they will look more decorative, but I've received three different contractor opinions on how to proceed. The first said a cover reduces the heat output by 30 percent and recommended painting instead of covering. The second recommended the usual metal enclosure and not a wooden one because the wood expands and over time will crack. The last contractor suggested wooden covers and said the wood will not crack. I want to make the correct choice, but need the pros and cons for each selection.

TOKYO - Radiation that leaked from the Fukushima nuclear plant following last year's tsunami caused mutations in some butterflies - including dented eyes and stunted wings - though humans seem relatively unaffected, researchers say. The mutations are the first evidence that the radiation has caused genetic changes in living organisms. They are likely to add to concerns about potential health risks among humans though there is no evidence of it yet. Scientists say more study is needed to link human health with the Fukushima disaster.

Japanese researchers have found very low amounts of radioactivity in the bodies of about 10,000 people who lived near the Fukushima Daiichi power plant when it melted down. The first published study that measured the radiation within a large number of residents reassured health experts because the numbers reported imply only negligible health risks. "Exposure levels were much lower than those reported in studies even several years after the Chernobyl incident," said Masaharu Tsubokura of the University of Toyko, lead author of a short paper published in the Thursday issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

WASHINGTON - Isabel Doran is only 4 years old, but she's already had about 15 CT scans - and every one comes with a dose of radiation. "I think there's always that part of you that thinks it's too much," said her mother, Veronica Doran of Burke, Va. Doran is glad the scans have allowed doctors at Children's National Medical Center to monitor Isabel's progress while they treat her kidney cancer. But she's worried about the long-term effects of the scans, which could put Isabel at risk for another cancer later.

LOS ANGELES - Back when single-celled organisms ruled Earth, a gigantic black hole lurking quietly at the center of a distant galaxy dismantled and devoured a star. This month, astronomers reported that they watched the whole thing unfold over a period of 15 months starting in 2010, the first time such an event had been witnessed in great detail from start to finish. "The star got so close that it was ripped apart by the gravitational force of the black hole," said Johns Hopkins astronomer Suvi Gezari, lead author of a paper about the observations that was published online by the journal Nature.