Radiation research on humans staged in Richland

Kai-Huei Yau/Herald

Sergei Tolmachev, left, succeeded Tony James as director of the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registries, which studies donated organs and tissues from people with documented exposures to uranium and plutonium in order to study the long-term effects of exposure.

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Radiation research consolidated at Richland

Radiation research consolidated at Richland

The rows of freezers in a new metal building near the Richland airport hold tissue samples from the women who used radioactive radium in the 1920s to paint the glow-in-the dark dials of watches and clocks.
With them are organs waiting to be processed and tissue samples from their more recent counterparts - former DOE nuclear weapons workers, including those at Hanford, who were exposed to radioactivity on the job and later volunteered to donate their bodies to science when they died.
Shelves hold boxes filled with organ samples dissolved in acid and preserved for future research. Other boxes hold bones, potentially contaminated, that have been turned to ash.
Work stops at 27 Hanford buildings for beryllium check

Work stops at 27 Hanford buildings for beryllium check

Washington Closure Hanford has stopped work at 27 buildings at Hanford as it makes sure they have no beryllium contamination.
The 27 buildings are among a couple of hundred under the contractor's control and have not been sampled for beryllium, in some cases because they are new structures.
An independent inspection released by the Department of Energy Office of Health, Safety and Security on June 2 found a new sitewide program to prevent chronic beryllium disease at Hanford had shortcomings.
Report urges better beryllium protection at Hanford

Report urges better beryllium protection at Hanford

Hanford needs to do more to prevent chronic beryllium disease in its workers, moving more quickly and aggressively to implement a new protection program, according to the report on a three-month investigation released Wednesday.
An independent inspection by the Department of Energy Office of Health, Safety and Security found that the nuclear reservation's new Hanford-wide Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention Program was a step in the right direction. But there have not been clear plans for a timely implementation of the site-wide plan, the investigation concluded.
It found that many of the key shortcomings in protecting Hanford workers had been identified earlier -- including in a 2002 Hanford Joint Council report -- but issues had not been addressed.
Study calls for better beryllium protection

Study calls for better beryllium protection

Richland starting a Hanford-wide program to protect workers from beryllium disease is a step in the right direction, but improvements are needed to give the program a strong foundation, according to the Department of Energy.
DOE’s Office of Health, Safety and Security investigated the Hanford Site Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention Program (CBDPP) this spring in response to concerns of workers with the disease, the Hanford Advisory Board, Heart of America Northwest and others.
The results of the investigation were released Wednesday.
Review helps Hanford workers with vapor protection (w/document)

Review helps Hanford workers with vapor protection (w/document)

HANFORD — The program to protect Hanford tank farm workers from chemical vapors has room for improvement, according to a new review by independent experts.
The review was sponsored by the Hanford Concerns Council, an independent panel that handles worker health and safety concerns, at the request of Hanford Challenge and Washington River Protection Solutions, the contractor overseeing Hanford's tank farms.
Hanford Challenge is a nonprofit organization that advocates for worker safety.

t's the nation's collection of physical evidence amassed to provide clues to how exposure to actinides such as plutonium and uranium affect the human body -- the goal of the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registries.
The program is operated by the Washington State University College of Pharmacy and paid for with grants from the Department of Energy. Programs at different DOE sites were consolidated in Washington in 1992, but more recently all of the nation's archives of data and samples -- both recent and decades old -- have been consolidated in Richland.
It's the only program in the world that tracks large amounts of data obtained from studying material collected at autopsies with medical and exposure information to learn more about the affects of radioactivity on the human body, said Anthony James, the just-retired director of the registries.

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/10/24/1394585/us-research-on-effects-of-radiation.html#ixzz1485wf0g8

Tuesday, November 2, 2010