LINKS 2
Aspermy, Sperm Quality and Radiation in
Chernobyl Birds
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Anders Pape Møller mail,
* E-mail: anders.moller@u-psud.fr
Affiliation: Laboratoire d’Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution, CNRS Unité Mixte de Recherche 8079,
Université Paris-Sud, Bâtiment 362, Orsay Cedex, France
X

Andrea Bonisoli-Alquati,
Affiliation: University of South Carolina, Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia, South Carolina, United
States of America
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Timothy A. Mousseau,
Affiliation: University of South Carolina, Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia, South Carolina, United
States of America
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
Geir Rudolfsen
Affiliation: Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway
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Published: June 25, 2014
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100296
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0100296
Bequerels on the Brain - Page 4
The ‘free radical’ legacy of radioactive metal contamination – DNA damage and
deformed proteins.
During my last evening on Guam, I attended the sad and moving funeral ceremony of a
young leukaemia sufferer – one of many such cases amongst the Chamorro population in
Umatac, I was told.
Whilst It is widely recognised that the toxic mechanism of radioactive contamination is
based upon the radio-nuclide’s ability to initiate free radical chain reactions that damage
DNA - causing a bizarre array of cancers - , It is not so widely recognised that these free
radicals can also deform the molecular shape of proteins (20)(11). Once a protein gets
malformed, it can no longer perform its proper function in the body metabolism. Nor can it
be degraded by enzymes at the end of its working life. The resulting ‘rogue’ proteins
accumulate and clump together to form abnormal tombstone features that choke up the
neuronal networks, thereby initiating the progressive, self perpetuating sequence of neurodegeneration that is common to all of these diseases (21). Each condition is hallmarked by
its own distinctive ‘tombstone’ feature (22); so much so that neuro-pathologists actually
seek out the type of tombstone – eg; neuro-fibrillary tangle, lewy body, bunina body, prion
fibril – in order to diagnose the specific type of neuro-degeneration ( eg; Alzheimer,
Parkinson, Motor Neurone disease, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE))
responsible for the death.
I have written previously (See 'Articles') about the involvement of rogue metals binding to
the prion protein (23)(24) in place of its normal copper co partners (43), and how this
aberrant substitution of metals induces the malformation of the prion protein (23)(24),
which, in turn, causes the infamous TSE group of ‘rapid attack’ neuro-degenerative
disorders – scrapie, CJD, BSE, CWD, etc. But my most recent observations in the TSE
cluster ecosystems indicate that these rogue replacement metals could also carry a
radioactive facet to their atomic armoury; thereby offering a plausible explanation for the
virulent, resistant properties of the deformed prion protein and the causal enigma of BSE.
In this respect, the malformed prion protein becomes much like a Trojan horse that trucks
around the circadian mediated circuits of the brain carrying its lethal radioactive cargo of
metallic missiles on board – a fire power capacity that is potentially capable of detonating a
chain reaction of free radical mediated neuro-degeneration.
"The Atomic Fawns"
Whilst browsing through the vaults of PHD theses stored in the basement of the Colorado
State University in Fort Collins, I stumbled upon a raft of chilling studies that provided the
initial clue (25-34). A series of carefully designed experiments had been carried out back in
the 1960s/ 1970s, where the US atomic energy agency and US government had funded the
Colorado department of wildlife and Colorado State Uni’s (CSU) Department of radiology
and radiation biology at Fort Collins to monitor the exposure of deer to plutonium, strontium
90 and caesium 134 at every level (25-34).
One of the trials involved transporting deer fawns back and forth between the deer pens at
the Department’s Foothills wildlife facility at Fort Collins and the plutonium contaminated
pastures of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Factory at Boulder 60 kilometres away (30).
The objective was to monitor the health effects and eco-dynamics of leaked plutonium (and
its daughter radio-nuclides) through the bio-system of the deer and within the general
ecosystem.
A series of radioactive leaks from rusting barrels
that stored plutonium contaminated oil at the
Rocky Flats Plant ( combined with a fire ) had
enabled plutonium and its daughter radio-nuclides
to become airborne, contaminating a wide area of
the Colorado section of the Front Range
(30)(31)(33) – a copper deficient area (35) that
has become the CWD endemic area today (36).
The peak of contamination was during the 19671969 seasons when the air sampler detected Plu as
high as .35 pCi /M3 (31).
A program of environmental monitoring had picked
up significant levels of plutonium as far a field as
the Pawnee Butt plains NE of Fort Collins and Roxy
Ann mountain (31).
A wild deer with CWD at Poudre Canyon
Disturbingly, the levels of plutonium were higher in the livers of the wild deer that roamed
the Cache le Poudre canyon at .042 dpm/gm than in the deer that roamed near to Rocky
Flats itself (.033 dpm/gm ) (33).
Environmental contamination due to The Rocky Flats radioactive leak was probably
exacerbated by the emissions from the kiln chimneys of the local cement factory at nearby
Lyons; where, according to a 16/12/92 report in the South West Sage by John Dougherty,
the EPA’s Division of solid waste made an emergency response on cement kiln dust, stating
that they had found radioactive plutonium and caesium in the kiln dust at Lyons, and at two
other plants near to weapon’s factories in the USA. The Lyon’s contamination was presumed
to be the result of utilising low level nuclear waste material from the nearby Rocky Flats
Weapons plant as fuel for the cement kiln (37).
During the 60s/ 70s, it seems that the entire operation of the Fort Collins wildlife facility was
geared towards a raft of radiation experiments - including the direct injection of strontium
90 and caesium 134 into the deer - in order to monitor the biological effects of these
potentially lethal ‘cold war’ compounds (25)(26).
But it seems that one of the major biological repercussions of these unique experiments was
not reported until 13 years later, when a 1980 paper by Williams and Young (38) reported
on the first ever recorded case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in a deer in 1967- the BSE
equivalent in deer. The delay before publication is mysterious, since most scientists would
normally be tripping over themselves to achieve the ‘prestige’ of getting important novel
discoveries into the academic press. Whilst the authors made no mention of possible causal
factors, they merely stated that the TSE affected deer were resident at the Fort Collins
facility – eg; in the very same deer pens that had been involved in these radioactive
experiments at that time. Putting two and two together, it is unlikely that the space/time
correlation between these novel radioactive experiments and the emergence of a novel
neuro-degenerative disease is a mere coincidence.
And later I stumbled upon a study by Dr Randolph Crom on a small cluster of CJD amongst
the workforce engaged in the assembly of missiles at the former Hughes Missile Plant at
Tucson in Arizona (39). The workers had no doubt been working with these same
radioactive metals. In this respect, It is also relevant that CWD has erupted in deer grazing
across the copper deficient White Sands missile range in the New Mexico desert, the tundra
terrain of NATO’s Cold Lake air weapons range and the tank shelling range at Camp
Wainwright in the Sandhills on the Alberta/Saskatchewan borders – environments that are
chronically bombarded by the test firing of similar types of missile and munitions, as well as
playing host to the fast expanding oil and gas drilling industry – another major source of
natural radioactive metal contamination (40).
In fact, exposure to high intensities of both naturally occurring and man made radioactive
metals seems to explain the emergence of every cluster of TSE that has reared its ugly head
around the world – like the tiny Aspromonte mountain village in Calabria that was abruptly
evacuated for no ‘apparent’ reason during the 1980s. Since 1995, twenty five cases of CJD
have subsequently erupted amongst the former inhabitants of this village (41). When I
trekked up that rocky road to their former village, I got to hear of an illegal dumping of
radioactive waste on the mountainous slopes immediately above the old houses – an area
that represented the main catchments area for the spring waters that supplied the village.
Mortality from diseases other than cancer
following low doses of ionizing radiation:
results from the 15-Country Study of
nuclear industry workers
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M Vrijheid1,*,
E Cardis1,
P Ashmore2,
A Auvinen3,
J-M Bae4,
H Engels5,
E Gilbert6,
G Gulis7,
RR Habib8,
G Howe9,†,
J Kurtinaitis10,
H Malker11,
CR Muirhead12,
DB Richardson13,
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21.
F Rodriguez-Artalejo14,
A Rogel15,
M Schubauer-Berigan16,
H Tardy1,
M Telle-Lamberton15,
M Usel17 and
K Veress18
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/5/1126.full
Graph of dangerous radionuclides and how long they will be dangerous
http://www.ccnr.org/usgs.html
This is a link to a site that could prove to be very helpful in this pages cause. Concerned about the
environment? So are the people that put the site together and they want to help.
http://publiclab.org/