Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 16:38:30 -0400
From: "Bill Smirnow"
Subject: FAX PUTIN, NUCLEAR POWER LINKED TO CHILDHOOD CANCER

1. Fax Putin
2. Nuclear Power Causes Cancer
3. Oppose Re-authorization & Extension Of Price Anderson Act
4. New MA URLs

 IMPORTANT/TIME SENSITIVE:

FAX PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN:  011-7-095-206-5173

Fax your version of the following letter immediately to President Vladimir Putin, who is going to meet in Italy with President George W. Bush within the next few days:

July 14, 2001

YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS /FAX/ Email

Dear President Vladimir Putin,

The people of the United States of America and World Citizens support your position to preserve the ABM Treaty and to sign a worldwide agreement to ban all space-based weapons.  Please maintain your position in spite of Ballistic Missile Defense testing.

For the sake of future generations of our children, please do not become seduced into participation on the Ballistic Missile Defense, BMD, system even though President George Bush and his administration continue to test the BMD system.

Bush does not represent the people of our country or the world.

Please take advantage of this one time in history when it is possible to end the arms race before it escalates further into space, and to transform the war industry into a world cooperative space industry without weapons in space for the benefits to all.

Please continue your leadership role by calling upon all leaders of the world to ignore the U.S. BMD tests, threats and temptations, and to ban space-based weapons NOW in order to preserve the ABM Treaty, and then to verifiably reduce and eliminate missiles.

Please lead the world in the disclosure that is telling the truth about contact with extraterrestrial cultures, and about alternative energy sources that are available to solve such environmental crisis as global warming, the energy crisit, and pollution (see www.disclosureproject.org).

(TELL SOMETHING ABOUT YOU HERE)
I helped to start the movement to prevent the weaponization of space.   I am appalled to see President Bush and his colleagues continue to ignore the world's leaders who are ready to sign a verifiable treaty to ban space-based weapons.

We are building U.S. and world public support for your position, and will continue until we have achieved the signing of U.S. legislation and a world treaty that will ban all space-based weapons.

You will be recorded in history as the leader of the world who helped us achieve Peace on Earth through Peace in Space.

Thank you, President Putin.

Respectfully yours,

(YOUR NAME HERE)



The Miami Herald, published Monday, July 16, 2001
JERRY BROWN
Nuclear power linked to cancer

 With political pressure building to find new sources of energy, the Bush administration is seeking to resurrect America's aging nuclear-power industry. However, a growing body of scientific evidence, including data on radiation levels in baby teeth collected in the United States, suggests that a strong link exists between radioactive emissions from nuclear-power plants and increased rates of childhood cancer.

 Although its current license does not expire until 2012, Florida Power & Light already has applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the Turkey Point nuclear-plant license for 20 years, through 2032. The commission has declared that the extension poses ``virtually no threat to public health or the environment.''

 However, a March 2001 report issued by the Radiation and Public Health Project, a nonprofit research organization, found ``strong evidence that exposure to radioactivity is one cause of childhood cancer in southeastern Florida.''

 These cancer concerns focus on FPL's emission of radioactive materials into the environment, currently allowed by the federal government as a by-product of ``normal'' nuclear-power operations. The stakes are too high prematurely to embrace the second coming of nuclear power.

 Foremost among these radioactive emissions is Strontium-90, a known carcinogen, produced only by nuclear bombs or reactors. The health-project scientists have been tracking levels of Sr-90 in the baby teeth of children throughout the United States, as part of a national study called ``The Tooth Fairy Project.''

 Baby teeth in Miami-Dade County have the highest concentrations of Sr-90 found anywhere in the nation. Radiation levels measured in 1,500 teeth from U.S. babies are equal to those found in the late 1950s, during U.S. and Soviet bomb testing in the atmosphere.

 Children are extremely sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of radioactivity. From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, in children under 10, childhood cancer rates in five southeastern Florida counties (Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and St. Lucie) rose 35 percent -- compared to 11 percent nationwide.

 Do increases in Sr-90 found in baby teeth pose a serious health danger to fetuses and young children? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says No. President John F. Kennedy and the National Research Council emphatically said Yes.

 Increasing Sr-90 levels in baby teeth collected in St. Louis, which correlated with increasing cancer and leukemia rates, were significant factors in Kennedy's decision to sign the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In 1990 the council's Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation found that ``there is concern about radioactivity around nuclear facilities,'' and there is no safe level of human exposure to radiation. How should we translate these findings into sound public policy?

 Because Turkey Point has more than 10 years before its current license expires, FPL should postpone its early application for license renewal until independent studies of the health effects of radioactive emissions have been thoroughly evaluated. Local health data on the radiation-cancer link should be considered in the commission's environmental review of utility applications to extend the licenses of aging nuclear-power plants.

 The commission should explain exactly how it determines what levels of Sr-90 are ``safe'' in the bodies of our children. About two-thirds of the U.S population live within 100 miles of at least one nuclear-power plant. Cancer is a modern plague that will affect 40 percent of all Americans during their lifetimes. The stakes are too high prematurely to embrace the second coming of nuclear power. Indeed, Germany recently decided to phase out all of its commercial nuclear-power plants.

 As Kennedy said on signing the 1963 treaty: ``The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby -- who may be born long after we are gone -- should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent.'' Jerry Brown, Ph.D., teaches anthropology at Florida International University and is a research associate with the Radiation and Public Health Project (www.radiation.org ).



3. An update --the bill is Barton / Dingell -- it is now moving thru four committees...at the time it came out, the Dems had gotten Price Anderson OUT of it...saying it is too controversial...but that does not mean it will not come up, or that Dems oppose the extension of Price Anderson as a group...

SO we are calling folks to put the word out on The Hill that we do not want the reuthorization or extension of Price Anderson at all. It has come to light that the existing reactors have Price Anderson taxpayer subsidized insurance already...and allowing the Act to expire would not take this coverage away. Reauthorization is only needed for any new reactors, and the DOE contractors -- and so MOX cannot go forward without it.

Another good reason to call! [Congressional switchboard: 202-224-3121].



4- New MA URL's

Bush set to open nuclear test floodgates
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4219899,00.html

US Rebellion over Missile Shield
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,522009,00.html#top

Eugene Cronkite, Dies at 86; Found Cancer's Links to Radiation
http://www.mothersalert.org/cronkite.html

Putin opens gates for nuclear fuel imports
http://www.mothersalert.org/putin.html

A Star Wars story that won't end happily
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0107/12/features/features2.html

GREENPEACE CONDEMNS PUTIN FOR GIVING GREEN LIGHT TO NUCLEAR WASTE IMPORTS
http://www.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/nucwaste/2001jul11.html