The Intel Hub By Alex Thomas March 30th, 2011 Today the Environmental Protection Agency reported that radiation has been found in milk from Spokane, Washington. The EPA released data taken on March 25th that indicates low levels of radiation have been detected. Not only is this startling, it also shows that it either takes the EPA five days to test milk or there is a five day waiting period before information is released to the public. The EPA’s Radnet system conducts radiological monitoring of milk and then hands jurisdiction over safety, labeling, and identify of milk and milk products to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Results from a screening sample taken March 25 from Spokane, Wash. detected 0.8 pCi/L of iodine-131, which is more than 5,000 times lower than the Derived Intervention Level set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” “These types of findings are to be expected in the coming days and are far below levels of public health concern, including for infants and children. Iodine-131 has a very short half-life of approximately eight days, and the level detected in milk and milk products is therefore expected to drop relatively quickly,” according to an EPA statement released today. The statement then went on to say that we are exposed to radiation everyday and that these levels are too low to cause any health effects. “Iodine-131 has a half-life of eight days, and the level found in milk and dairy products is expected to drop relatively quickly,” the agencies said. The fact that multiple experts, including Dr. Chris Busby have debunked the myth that low levels of radiation are harmless seems to remain unimportant to the same agency who told us the air was safe to breath after 9/11. At the same time that radiation is being detected in the United States, certain officials within the EPA are actively campaigning to make significant changes to the Protective Active Guidelines or PAGs. PAGs are used by the EPA to enforce the law following any incident involving the release of radioactive material. Michael Kane, reporting for Collapse.net wrote about the huge increase that the EPA is attempting to make to these guidelines: “In 1992, the EPA produced a PAGs manual that answers many of these questions. But now an update to the 1992 manual is being planned, and if the “Dr. Strangelove” wing of the EPA has its way, here is what it means (brace yourself for these ludicrous increases): * A nearly 1000-fold increase for exposure to strontium-90; * A 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for exposure to iodine-131; and * An almost 25,000 rise for exposure to radioactive nickel-63.i This increase is absolutely ridiculous considering many people believe the levels that are considered acceptable now are actually harmful over a long period of time. Whether or not radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant will cause harm in the United States over a long period of time is unknown due to the fact that most experts are pushing the official line and data is being kept secret. With that being said, it is highly unlikely that milk tainted with Iodine-131 will cause radiation sickness,(the shelf life is very short) the real worry is whether or not other radioactive particles with longer shelf lives will end up in the food and water supply.

Let Them Drink Milk – December 1997 By: Pat Ortmeyer and Arjun Makhijani

Article published as “Worse Than We Knew,” for November/December 1997 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists On August 1, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) revealed that as a result of U.S. nuclear tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), American children were actually exposed to 15 to 70 times as much radiation as had been previously reported to Congress. As a result, many thousands of today’s adults are at risk of developing thyroid cancer. The information comes from fragments of a congressionally mandated study, 14 years in the making. The NCI report details estimated radiation doses to the thyroid gland due to releases of radioactive iodine 131. Most of the releases occurred from 1951 to 1958.