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LOS ANGELES (AP) - Hospital officials say a computer-resetting error caused radiation overdoses for 206 patients who underwent CT scans at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. In a written statement Monday, hospital officials said "a misunderstanding about an embedded default setting applied by the machine" resulted in a higher than expected amount of radiation. Officials say the 206 patients received eight times the normal dose of radiation - an error that went undetected for 18 months. A hospital spokesman says about 40 percent of the patients lost patches of hair as a result. The scanners' manufacturer, General Electric, says the machine was not defective. As a result of the discovery, the FDA issued an alert Thursday urging hospitals nationwide to review their safety protocols for CT scans.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Hospital officials say a computer-resetting error caused radiation overdoses for 206 patients who underwent CT scans at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. In a written statement Monday, hospital officials said "a misunderstanding about an embedded default setting applied by the machine" resulted in a higher than expected amount of radiation. Officials say the 206 patients received eight times the normal dose of radiation - an error that went undetected for 18 months. A hospital spokesman says about 40 percent of the patients lost patches of hair as a result. The scanners' manufacturer, General Electric, says the machine was not defective. As a result of the discovery, the FDA issued an alert Thursday urging hospitals nationwide to review their safety protocols for CT scans.

Nobody has to convince Edna Brackey how important the mobile Early Cancer Detection Program discontinued at the end of 2006 really was. "I really owe eight years of a very enjoyable life to this program," said Brackey, who will turn 90 next summer, during a ceremony Thursday announcing the resumption of the testing program for current and former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers Brackey, like many who develop lung cancer, had no visible early symptoms of the disease, although she did have a prior problem with a cancer in her mouth. Due to the testing program that was in place in Piketon in 2001, however, a very small cancerous mass in her lung was detected with the free CT scan.

Nobody has to convince Edna Brackey how important the mobile Early Cancer Detection Program discontinued at the end of 2006 really was. "I really owe eight years of a very enjoyable life to this program," said Brackey, who will turn 90 next summer, during a ceremony Thursday announcing the resumption of the testing program for current and former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers Brackey, like many who develop lung cancer, had no visible early symptoms of the disease, although she did have a prior problem with a cancer in her mouth. Due to the testing program that was in place in Piketon in 2001, however, a very small cancerous mass in her lung was detected with the free CT scan.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gives notice of a decision to designate a class of employees at the Connecticut Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory in Middletown, Connecticut, as an addition to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. On October 24, 2008, the Secretary of HHS designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC: All employees of the Department of Energy (DOE), its predecessor agencies, and DOE contractors or subcontractors who worked at the Connecticut Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory in Middletown, CT, from January 1, 1958 through December 31, 1965 for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work days occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with work days within the parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the Special Exposure Cohort.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; Decision To Evaluate a Petition To Designate a Class of Employees for the Connecticut Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory, Middletown, CT, To Be Included in the Special Exposure Cohort

" ... we know that doing 62 million scans every year for a population of 300 million is not just unnecessary and wasteful, but it's dangerous. It's producing tens of thousands of cancers."-- Dr. Atul Gawande, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, on NPR's Morning Edition, Sept. 3, 2009 Medical CT and PET scanners expose at least four million North Americans to high doses of radiation each year, a new study shows. Around 400,000 of them get very high doses, higher than the maximum annual doses allowed for nuclear reactor or nuclear weapon site workers, or anyone working with radioactive materials, according to an article in The New England Journal of Medicine (August 27, 2009), "Exposure to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation from Medical Imaging Procedures."

" ... we know that doing 62 million scans every year for a population of 300 million is not just unnecessary and wasteful, but it's dangerous. It's producing tens of thousands of cancers."-- Dr. Atul Gawande, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, on NPR's Morning Edition, Sept. 3, 2009 Medical CT and PET scanners expose at least four million North Americans to high doses of radiation each year, a new study shows. Around 400,000 of them get very high doses, higher than the maximum annual doses allowed for nuclear reactor or nuclear weapon site workers, or anyone working with radioactive materials, according to an article in The New England Journal of Medicine (August 27, 2009), "Exposure to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation from Medical Imaging Procedures."

Review of accelerated depreciation, investment tax credit, and production tax credit provisions of Senator Kerry's and Senator Lieberman's American Power Act In May 2010, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) released a discussion version of The American Power Act (henceforth referred to as the "K-L Bill" or the "APA"). The K-L Bill as proposed is a wide-ranging piece of energy legislation that includes a number of new subsidies to nuclear power. This memo evaluates three of those nuclear provisions, describing how they work and estimating their subsidy value to recipients in the nuclear power sector: * 5-year accelerated depreciation period for new nuclear power plants (section 1121). * Investment tax credit (ITC) for nuclear power facilities (section 1122) and the related grants for qualified nuclear power facility expenditures in lieu of tax credits (section 1126). * Modification of credit for production from advanced nuclear power facilities (section 1124). The K-L Bill includes a number of subsidies to nuclear power that were not evaluated in this memo, and as a result this memo should be viewed as one part of a larger picture of how federal subsidies distort US energy markets and fuel choice.1 The values presented

Tests on 16 well systems in Connecticut in the past year have shown uranium contamination in the water, according to state Department of Public Health records. All residential public water systems serving 25 or more people must test quarterly for uranium. At the end of the third quarter in September, nine systems in four towns were out of compliance, according to the records, which were reviewed by The Hartford Courant. Seven other systems that had violated the uranium standard earlier in the year were in compliance after the latest round of tests, the newspaper reported Sunday.

State officials and environmental groups have reached an agreement with the Millstone nuclear power complex to expedite plans aimed at reducing the facility's effect on Long Island Sound. Virginia-based Dominion, Millstone's owner, agreed Monday to immediately begin studying technologies and measures that would better protect fish and other sea creatures from Millstone's water-based system for cooling its reactors.

The Millstone nuclear power complex in Waterford has won federal approval to increase the generating capacity at one of its reactors by 7 percent. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the plan Tuesday. Millstone's owner, Virginia-based Dominion, plans to increase the Unit 3 reactor's capacity from 1,150 megawatts to 1,230 megawatts in the fall.

Radiation from x-rays and CT scans can accumulate to substantial doses, according to a study that estimates as many as 4 milion adults have high exposure ATLANTA - Many types of medical imaging procedures, such as x-rays, computed tomography scans, and nuclear medicine scans, expose patients to ionizing radiation, which over time can accumulate to substantial doses, according to a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. "We know that radiation is not benign and some people are getting high exposures," says Reza Fazel, M.D., the lead author of the study and a cardiologist at Emory University.

Americans may be receiving too much radiation from medical tests whose value has not been proven, researchers reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine. More than two-thirds of Americans underwent at least one such imaging procedure in the three years covered by the study, reported Dr. Reza Fazel of the Emory University School of Medicine and colleagues. The two biggest contributors to the radiation exposure are CT scans, which use a series of X-rays to produce a three-dimensional image of the body, and heart perfusion scanning to measure blood flow through the arteries leading to the heart. In that test, radioactive technetium-99m is injected into blood vessels and its progress through the heart monitored with external radiation detectors.

As many as two-thirds of adults underwent a medical test in the last few years that exposed them to radiation and in some cases, a potentially higher risk of cancer, a study in five areas of the U.S. suggests. It is the latest big attempt to measure how much radiation Americans are getting from sometimes unnecessary medical imaging. Though the annual average radiation exposure from X-rays, CT scans and other tests was low, researchers found about 20 percent were exposed to moderate radiation doses and 2 percent were exposed to high levels. "Super X-rays" to check for heart problems accounted for nearly a quarter of the radiation people received. "Given the growing use of medical imaging procedures, our findings have important implications for the health of the general population," the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to proceed with an agreement that will allow the Connecticut Water Co. to install a purification system to remove uranium from the water at two schools. A bill was recently passed by the General Assembly that would allow the company to lease land owned by the Legend Hill condominium complex in order to install the system. The town will not have to pay the installation costs. The school district has been providing bottled water for students at Kathleen H. Ryerson Elementary and Dr. Robert H. Brown Middle schools since uranium was detected in the water Nov. 13.

Collectively, Americans now receive more than twice as much radiation each year as in the 1980s. That's according to a new tally by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. Of course, the operant word here is collectively. NCRP isn't saying every individual is getting twice as big an annual radiation dose, only that if you sum up doses to the entire population each year, that big figure has doubled and more over the past two decades or so. A burgeoning population accounts for 30 percent of the increase, notes Ken Kase, who chaired the NCRP panel that prepared the report. The rest of the increase stems largely from an increase in medical procedures that rely on radiation - from conventional diagnostic X-rays and CT scans to radiotherapy for cancer. Kase, a semi-retired health physicist and senior vice president of NCRP, describes his team's findings in a Q&A appearing in the May Health Physics News.

"Exposure to radiotherapy or radiation-based diagnostics like computed tomography (CT scans) in early childhood increases breast cancer risk in adulthood, a new study in the Jan 2010 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. The study involved women exposed to thymic irradiation during infancy from 1926 to 1957. Breast cancer was identified in 96 treated in an average dose of 0.71 Gy and 57 untreated women during 159,459 person-year follow-up. Adams MJ and colleagues from University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry found women who were treated by radiation were 200 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than those who did not receive radiation. Higher doses of radiation were linked to high risk of breast cancer."

"The Climate Bill is due on Earth Day. By all accounts it will be a nuclear bomb. It will be the ultimate challenge of the global grassroots green movement to transform it into something that can actually save the planet. For the atomic power industry, the bill will cap a decade-long $640-million-plus virtual cleansing of its radioactive image. It will have the Obama Administration and Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) embracing very substantial taxpayer subsidies for building new nuclear plants. Ditto new offshore drilling and "clean coal." The markers have been laid for a greenwashed business-as-usual approach toward pretending to deal with global climate change and the life-threatening pollution in which our corporate power structure is drowning us. All without actually threatening certain corporate profits. From "An Inconvenient Truth" to Obama's impending Earth Day address, the official emphasis is on each of us, as individuals. To be sure, we ALL must consume smarter, use less and recycle more. Since the first Earth Day, all these great green ideas have had an undeniable impact. "

"Connecticut has two sites for nuclear power reactors that can be used for the salvation of Connecticut's current inventory of high-wage unemployed manufacturing and construction workers, and for long-term, high-paying plant operations jobs after two 10 year periods of construction. Connecticut can have the low-cost power to bring manufacturing back to the state! Now that is job opportunity, direct and resultant. Can Dominion tell us what subsidy or guarantees it would t need to construct such plants? Will it? Can and will the appropriate White House czar certify the availability of such stimulus funds for a sure-thing job-creation initiative that fills Connecticut's future electricity demand free of carbon emissions? Will Connecticut act now? Will our state's manufacturing workers and worker unions demand it?"

"Operators starting up the Millstone Unit 1 reactor in Connecticut on September 1, 1972, had their efforts complicated by a problem with a demineralizer intended to clean up water from the main condenser before sending it to the reactor vessel to be turned into steam. Despite having been only recently placed in service, the demineralizer exhibited signs that its capacity to purify water had been nearly fully consumed. The workers took the troublesome demineralizer out of service and replaced it with another demineralizer. Half an hour later, the second demineralizer exhibited similar signs. The operators began shutting down the reactor. About an hour later, the chloride level of the reactor water increased above maximum allowable limits. The operators scrammed the reactor (i.e., shut it down rapidly). The main condenser was located directly beneath the turbine. Steam entered the main condenser after spinning the turbine blades to rotate the generator and make electricity. The steam is condensed back into water by flowing past thousands of metal tubes containing cool water - in this case, sea water from Long Island Sound."