rense.com

Cancer 'Therapy' Radiation
Causes Serious Bone Loss
From Alan Cantwell, MD
10-30-6

Amazing! If "therapeutic" radiation therapy can cause bone loss.......imagine the damage caused by 'Depleted' Uranium weapons in current wars!!!
 
The scientific world has been shaken by a report from Clemson University that a single therapeutic dose of radiation can cause appreciable bone loss. Senior author Ted Bateman, PhD, a professor of bioengineering, and his South Carolina colleagues showed that when mice were given a dose of just two Gy (two gray, a radiation dosage formerly designated as 200 rads), between 29 and 39 percent of their interior bone mass was destroyed.
 
It did not particularly matter which kind of radiation the mice were exposed to. Gamma rays, protons, high-speed carbon and iron nuclei all had a similar and markedly destructive effect. Dr. Bateman and his colleagues reached these figures by creating 3D computer scans of the spongy interior of the bones and then calculating how much bone mass these irradiated mice had lost compared to a control group.
 
"We were surprised at how large the difference in bone mass was," Dr. Bateman told the weekly magazine, New Scientist (Barry 2006).
 
Two Gy of radiation is similar to a single therapeutic dose of radiation given to human cancer patients, while a full course of therapeutic radiation typically delivers as much as 70 or even 80 Gy. It had previously been known that patients receiving therapeutic radiation suffered some bone loss and were put at a greater risk of fractures. But until now it was unknown that just a single dose of radiation could trigger such severe bone loss. This news is doubly disturbing since chemotherapy (often now given with radiation as part of a one-two punch) can also independently cause bone loss. The cumulative effects of radiation and chemotherapy delivered to the same patient may therefore be significantly more damaging.
 
The Clemson scientists demonstrated what they called "profound changes in trabecular architecture." (The term "trabecular" describes the microscopic bony latticework that characterizes the interior of skeletal bones. The trabecular pattern of bony tissue is what gives bones their structural strength.)
 
Significant losses in bone volume were observed for the four types of radiation that were studied: gamma (volume down 29 percent), proton (down 35 percent), carbon (down 39 percent), and iron (down 34 percent). Several measurements of bone health, including trabecular connectivity, density, thickness, spacing, and number were also adversely affected.
 
"These data have clear implications for clinical radiotherapy," the Clemson scientists said, "in that bone loss in an animal model has been demonstrated at low doses" (ibid.)
 
Dr. Bateman agreed, however, that making a direct extrapolation of these findings to humans could be difficult. The bones of the mice in the experiment were still growing, making them more susceptible to radiation damage. (This is also the case in young human patients.) Although the Clemson findings have caused a stir particularly in space research circles, NASA's chief radiation health officer, Dr. Frank Cucinotta, pointed out that the gamma ray dose in these mouse experiments was 40 times greater than space station astronauts would experience over a period of months, and 2 to 4 times what astronauts on a Mars mission would encounter. However, astronauts are also exposed to high-energy and iron nuclei in addition to gamma radiation.
 
Bone Death: A Long History
 
It has been known for quite some time that radiation could cause "serious and permanent injuries" to growing bones as well as localized but incapacitating diseases (Fajardo 2001: 365). In fact, the real surprise in the latest study was that relatively small doses caused such a significant amount of damage.
 
The basic concept of 'bone death' was probably known to the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates. Necrosis of the bone (i.e., osteonecrosis) was fully described as early as 1794. In 1903, just a few years after the 1895 discovery of X-rays, the German surgeon Georg Clemens Perthes (1869-1927) exposed one wing of a day-old chicken to X-rays. Just 12 days later he noted that growth of the irradiated wing was retarded and that the feathers were abnormally formed. In 1905, two French scientists, Joseph Recamier and Louis Mathieu Tribondeau (1872-1918), described similar growth retardation in kittens.
 
In the intervening decades, various tumors, especially sarcomas, were found with increased frequency in patients who had undergone irradiation. James Ewing, MD (1866-1943), the celebrated American pathologist (after whom the bone tumor called 'Ewing's sarcoma' is named), was extremely interested in the reactions of bones to radiation. He was impressed by the ability of radiation to shrink the size of bone tumors and, along with surgery and Coley's toxins (a fever-causing, mixed bacterial vaccine), to effect prolonged remissions in some cases (Ewing 1940:370). He described three patients who had been irradiated for bone cancers and whose irradiated bones then became brittle and easily fractured. Ewing also observed thickening in the outer layer (known as the cortical plate) of bone at the expense of the marrow cavity and noted the increased susceptibility of irradiated bones to infection (Fajardo 2001).
 
The most famous instance of radiation damaging bones, however, occurred in the first decades of the 20th century. Industrial engineers learned that by adding a small amount of radium to a zinc sulfide solution (at a ratio of 1:30,000) they could create a luminescent paint that glowed in the dark. This seemed to be a harmless product. Around the time of World War I, approximately 2,000 young women in New Jersey were employed painting the dials of clocks and watches with luminous paint. In order to create fine brush tips for this detailed work they would frequently lick the tip of the brushes. Over the years, these women either ingested radium itself or breathed in radon gas in sufficient quantities to cause serious medical problems for many of them. A New York dentist, Theodore Blum, DDS, was the first to observe an unusual number of jaw-bone injuries in these unfortunate dial painters, a condition he called 'radium jaw.'
 
The medical examiner of Essex County, NJ, at the time, Harrison Marland, MD, then became alarmed and launched a thorough investigation. He found severe anemia in most of these women. At autopsy, many of these women had necrosis of the bones, especially the mandible (lower jaw). Marland also recounted how the damaged bone marrow, excised osteosarcomas (cancers) of their bones, or even organs removed at autopsy literally glowed in the dark (Fajardo 2001: 366). These women were so radioactive that, even after death, their bodily organs would fog photographic film!
 
The most incredible part of this saga is that despite the fact that the danger of luminous paint was well established in the 1920s, it was not until nearly 20 years later - in the run-up to World War II - that action was finally taken to bar the use of radium in watch dial paint (Caufield 1989). It was a most shameful episode in public health, but it did make the general public aware that radiation could seriously damage bones and organs.
 
What is the Tolerance Dose?
 
Medical dictionaries define a 'tolerance dose' as the largest quantity of a substance or treatment that an organism can endure without exhibiting unfavorable or injurious effects. The tolerance dose of radiation to the bones has traditionally been set quite a bit higher than is implied by the recent Clemson article. There are many variables, but generally speaking when the dose is from 70 to 80 Gy the incidence of osteoradionecrosis (bone death caused by radiation) is in the range of 14-22 percent. It is 4 percent when the dose is under 70 Gy. The tolerance dose for the adult human femur (thigh bone) is said to be 38 to 43 Gy.
 
In the 1950s, Michael Bonfiglio, MD, of the University of Iowa, found a 1.2 to 1.9 percent increase in the incidence of fractures of the femur after pelvic irradiation for cancer (Fajardo 2001:373). Among patients who still have their teeth, the bone necrosis rate caused by radiation is 24 percent. Among those lacking teeth the rate is less - 14 percent. In studies involving patients who still had teeth, this bony necrosis developed on average 10 months after completion of radiation therapy. In those without teeth, it occurred on average 22 months later.
 
As noted above, if the bone is growing (as in the Clemson experiment) the tissues are ultra-sensitive to radiation. Clinical observations suggest a tolerance range of 15-30 Gy for growing bones.
 
In conclusion, exposing bone to radiation can result in four major types of complications: necrosis (a type of cell death), fractures, severe alterations in bone growth, and radiation-induced cancers. The topic of radiation-induced cancers in particular has not received the attention it deserves. Radiation itself is called a "complete carcinogen," in that it can cause the four phases of cancer's formation: (a) initiation, (b) promotion, (c) progression and (d) metastatic activity of transformed cells. While radiation-induced tumors of bone are not common, they do occur, as the case of the radium-dial painters dramatically showed.
 
Luis Fajardo, MD, who recently retired as a professor of pathology at Stanford University, California, has documented many such cases. "Irradiation from both external and internal sources is associated with an increased risk of osteosarcoma," or bone cancer, he wrote in his classic textbook, Radiation Pathology (Fajardo 2001:128). The minimum latency period for radium-caused tumors is 3.5 years with a peak time of about 8 years, although cases were documented as long as 25 years after initial exposure. Children who receive radiation for cancers (other than those of bony origin) are at particular risk if their growing bones receive large doses of radiation.
 
Although the danger of therapeutic radiation always seems to come as a surprise to the general public, most of the risks of radiation to the bone were recognized soon after Roentgen discovered X-rays. Yet, astonishingly, in the 21st century some patients receiving radiation are still not told about the full extent or true likelihood of the harmful side effects of radiation therapy.
 
 
The Queen's Death Star
Depleted Uranium Measured in British Atmosphere
from Battlefields in the Middle East
 
By Leuren Moret
2-26-6 
 
The Sunday Times Online, February 19, 2006, reported on a shocking scientific study authored by British scientists Dr. Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan: "Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2 result in contamination of Europe? Evidence from the measurements of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK". The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere in Britain, were transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia; of special significance were those from the Tora Bora bombing in Afghanistan in 2001, and the "Shock & Awe" bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003. Out of concern for the public, the official British government air monitoring facility, known as the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), at Aldermaston was established years ago, to measure radioactive emissions from British nuclear power plants and atomic weapons facilities.
 
The British government facility (AWE) was taken over 3 years ago by Halliburton, which refused at first to release air monitoring data, as required by law, to Dr. Busby. An international expert on low level radiation, Busby serves as an official advisor on several British government committees, and co-authored an independent report on low level radiation with 45 scientists, the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), for the European Parliament. He was able to get Aldermaston air monitoring data from Halliburton /AWE by filing a Freedom of Information request using a new British law which became effective January 1, 2005; but the data for 2003 was missing. He obtained the 2003 data from the Defence Procurement Agency.
 
The fact that the air monitoring data was circulated by Halliburton/AWE to the Defence Procurement Agency, implies that it was considered to be relevant, and that Dr. Busby was stonewalled because Halliburton/AWE clearly recognized that it was a serious enough matter to justify a government interpretation of the results, and official decisions had to be made about what the data would show and its political implications for the military. In a similar circumstance, in 1992, Major Doug Rokke, the Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Cleanup Project after Gulf War I, was ordered by a U.S. Army General officer to write a no-bid contract "Depleted Uranium, Contaminated Equipment, and Facilities Recovery Plan Outline" for the procedures for cleaning up Kuwait, including depleted uranium, for Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton. The contract/proposal was passed through Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State, to the Emirate of Kuwait, who considered the terms and then hired KBR for the cleanup.
 
Aldermaston is one of many nuclear facilities throughout Europe that regularly monitor atmospheric radiation levels, transported by atmospheric sand and dust storms, or air currents, from radiation sources in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. After the "Shock and Awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003, very fine particles of depleted uranium were captured with larger sand and dust particles in filters in Britain. These particles traveled in 7-9 days from Iraqi battlefields as far as 2400 miles away. The radiation measured in the atmosphere quadrupled within a few weeks after the beginning of the 2003 campaign, and at one of the 5 monitoring locations, the levels twice required an official alert to the British Environment Agency.
 
In addition to depleted uranium data gathered in previous studies on Kosovo and Bosnia by Dr. Busby, the Aldermaston air monitoring data provided a continuous record of depleted uranium levels in Britain from the other recent wars. Extensive video news footage of the 2003 Iraq war, including Fallujah in 2004, provided irrefutable documented evidence that the US has unethically and illegally used depleted uranium munitions on cities and other civilian populations. These military actions are in direct violation of not only the international conventions, but also violate US military law because the US is a signatory to The Hague and Geneva Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol. Depleted uranium weaponry meets the definition of a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) in two out of three categories under US Code TITLE 50, CHAPTER 40 Sec. 2302. After action mandates have also been violated such as US Army Regulation AR 700-48 and TB 9-1300-278 which requires treatment of radiation poisoning for all casualties, including enemy soldiers and civilians, and remediation. Dr. Busby's request for this data through Halliburton from AWE, and subsequently provided by the Defence Procurement Agency, was necessary to establish verification of Iraq's 2003 depleted uranium levels in the atmosphere. These facts demonstrate why Halliburton (AWE) refused to release the 2003 data to him, and it obviously establishes that weaponized depleted uranium is an indiscriminate weapon being distributed all over the world in a very short period of time, immediately after its use.
 
The recent documentary film BEYOND TREASON details the horrific effects of depleted uranium exposure on American troops and Iraqi civilians in the Gulf region in 1991; not to speak of those civilians continuing to live in permanently contaminated and thus uninhabitable regions. Global increases since 1991 of melanoma, infant mortality, and frog die-offs can only be explained by an environmental contaminant. Alarming global increases in diabetes, with high correlation to depleted uranium wars in Iraq, Bosnia/Kosovo, and Afghanistan, demonstrate that diabetes is a sensitive indicator and a rapid response to internal depleted uranium exposure. Americans in 2003 reported visiting Iraqi relatives in Baghdad who were suffering from an epidemic of diabetes. After returning to the US following 2-3 weeks in Iraq, they discovered within a few months that they too had diabetes. Japanese human shields and journalists who worked in Iraq during the 2003 war are sick and now have symptoms typical of depleted uranium exposure.
 
Likewise, after the US Navy, several years ago, moved depleted uranium bombing and gunnery ranges from Vieques Island in Puerto Rico to Australia, health effects there are already being reported. The documentary film BLOWIN' IN THE WIND, has an interview with a family with two normal teenage daughters, living near the bombing range where depleted uranium weaponry is now being used. The parents showed photos of their baby born recently with severe birth defects. The baby looked like Iraqi deformed babies, and like many of the Iraqi babies, died 5 days after birth.
 
Other than anonymous British government officials denying that Iraq was the source of the depleted uranium measured at Aldermaston by AWE, and some unnamed 'establishment scientists' blaming it on local sources or natural uranium in the Iraq environment, there is no one, as of this writing, willing to lend their name or office to refuting this damning evidence reported by Dr. Busby. All of the anonymous statements used by the media thus far are contradicted by the factual evidence found in the filters, which was all transported from the same region. The natural abundance of uranium in the crust of the earth is 2.4 parts per million, which would not become concentrated to the high levels measured in Britain during a long journey from the Middle East. These particles traveling over thousands of miles would dilute the concentration rather than increase it. There are no known natural uranium deposits in Iraq which make it impossible for these anonymous claims to have scientific credibility. Unnamed government sources blamed local sources in Britain such as nuclear power plants; however that would also leave evidence of fission products in the filters which were not in evidence. The lowest levels measured at monitoring stations around Aldermaston were at the facility, which means it could not be a possible source. Atomic weapons facilities would be more likely to produce plutonium contamination, also not reported as a co-contaminant at Aldermaston. In other words, all factual evidence considered, the question must be asked, what were the Medias anonymous experts and government officials basing their claims on?
 
Dr. Keith Baverstock exposed a World Health Organization (WHO) cover-up on depleted uranium in an Aljazeera article, "Washington's Secret Nuclear War" posted on September 14, 2004. It was the most popular article ever posted on the Aljazeera English language website . Baverstock leaked an official WHO report that he wrote, to the media several years ago after the WHO refused to publish it. He warned in the report about the mobility of, and environmental contamination from, tiny depleted uranium particles formed from US munitions. Busby's ECRR report challenged the International Committee on Radiation Protection (ICRP) standards for radiation risk, and reported that the mutagenic effects of radiation determined by Chernobyl studies are actually 1000 times higher than the ICRP risk model predicts. The ECRR report also establishes that the ICRP risk model, based on external exposure of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, and the ECRR risk model, based on internal exposure, are mutually exclusive models. In other words, the ICRP risk model based on external exposure cannot be used to estimate internal exposure risk. The report also states that a separate study is needed for depleted uranium exposure risks, because it may be far more toxic than nuclear weapons or nuclear power plant exposures. In July of 2005, the National Academy of Sciences reported in their new BEIR VII report on low level radiation, that there is "no safe level of exposure". The report also finally admitted that very low levels are more harmful per unit of radiation than higher levels of exposure, also known as the "supralinear" effect.
 
This is extremely alarming information on low level radiation risk, since the AWE data from Aldermaston confirms that rapid global transport of depleted uranium dust is occurring. Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki, a Japanese physicist at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, has estimated that the atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs has been released into the global atmosphere since 1991, from the use of depleted uranium munitions. It is completely mixed in the atmosphere in one year. The "smog of war" from Gulf War I was found in glaciers and ice sheets globally a year later. Even more alarming is the non-specific catalytic or enzyme effect from internal exposures to nanoparticles of depleted uranium. Soldiers on depleted uranium battlefields have reported that, after noticing a metallic taste in their mouths, within 24-48 hours of exposure they became sick with Gulf War syndrome symptoms.
 
Who is profiting from this global uranium nightmare? Dr. Jay Gould revealed in his book THE ENEMY WITHIN, that the British Royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6 billion through Rio Tinto Mines. The mining company was formed for the British Royal family in the late 1950's by Roland Walter "Tiny" Rowland, the Queen's buccaneer. Born in 1917 through illegitimate German parentage, and before changing his name, Roland Walter Fuhrhop was a passionate member of the Nazi youth movement by 1933, and a classmate described him as "...an ardent supporter of Hitler and an arrogant, nasty piece of work to boot." His meteoric rise and protection by intel agencies and the British Crown are an indication of what an asset he has been for decades to the Queen, as Africa's most powerful Western businessman. Africa and Australia are two of the main sources of uranium in the world. The Rothschilds control uranium supplies and prices globally, and one serves as the Queen's business manager. Filmmaker David Bradbury made BLOWIN' IN THE WIND to expose depleted uranium bombing and gunnery range activities contaminating pristine areas of eastern Australia, and to expose plans to extract over $36 billion in uranium from mines in the interior over the next 6 years. Halliburton has finished construction of a 1000 mile railway from the mining area to a port on the north coast of Australia to transport the ore. The Queen's favorite American buccaneers, Cheney, Halliburton, and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining and the shared use of illegal depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Kosovo/Bosnia. The major roles that such diverse individuals and groups as the Carlyle Group, George Herbert Walker Bush, former Carlyle CEO Frank Calucci, the University of California managed nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos and Livermore, and US and international pension fund investments have played in proliferating depleted uranium weapons is not well known or in most instances even recognized, inside or outside the country.
 
God Save The Queen from the guilt of her complicity in turning Planet Earth into a 'Death Star'.
 
 
 
Alan Cantwell M.D.
alancantwell@sbcglobal.net
http://www.ariesrisingpress.com
 
FOUR WOMEN AGAINST CANCER:
Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life


Disclaimer






MainPage
http://www.rense.com


This Site Served by TheHostPros