Nuclear Weapons: The Final Pandemic Preventing Proliferation and Achieving Abolition

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Nuclear Weapons The Final PandemicPreventing
Proliferation and Achieving Abolition

• Health Status of Indigenous People
• Around Jadugoda Uranium Mines

Shakeel Ur Rahman National Secretary Indian
Doctors for Peace and Development
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Study on health status of indigenous people
living around Jadugoda Uranium mines

• Dr. Shakeel ur Rahman
• Dr. Satayajit Kumar Singh
• INDIAN DOCTORS FOR PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT
• Supported by
• Ploughshare Fund

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Jadugoda Uranium Mine-fact file

• Mining operation going for last 40 years in
  Jadugoda, Bhatin Narwapahar mines
• UCIL-100 Govt. undertaking
• Around 4000 workers and 1000 contractual
  labourers engaged with mining activities
• More uranium mines found in Jharkhand, Andhra
  Pradesh Meghalaya.
• Peoples protest on

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Universe of the study

• Villages around
• 3 mines
• 3 tailing ponds
• 1 ore processing plant

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Sample Size

• 2118 households a population of 9116 in study
  village
• 1956 households a population of 8567 in control
  villages

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Methodology

• Structured questionnaire
• Focused Group Discussion
• Data Analysis on Microsoft excel
• P-value and odds ratio calculated to measure
  statistical significance

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Key Findings-Congenital Deformities
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Key Findings-Primary Sterility
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Key Findings-Cancer Deaths
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Key Findings-Life Expectancy
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Inadequate Safety Measures

• 24th Dec 06-a pipe bursts
• Radioactive waste spilled in a creek
• No alarm mechanism -Villagers informed
  authorities
• Reaction time-9 hr
• Killing riparian life
• Waste leaked into Subernekha river
• 1986-tailing dam burst water flowed to villages

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Inadequate Safety Measures

• Open dumping of mine tailings
• Carriage of uranium ore in uncovered dumpers
• Till 90s tailing ponds used as childrens
  playground, open grazing area
• Authorities supplied mine tailings for
  construction material to villagers
• Gross violation of ALARA

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Conclusion

• In uranium mining operation area
• Primary sterility is more common
• More children with congenital deformities are
  being born and congenital defect as a cause of
  death of a child is also high
• Cancer as a cause of death is more common
• The life expectancy of people is less and more
  people are dying in their early ages

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Estimating the risk

• Recommended dose limits for radiation exposure
  set by the International Commission on
  Radiological Protection (ICRP) are 20 milli
  Sievert/year for workers in the nuclear industry
  1 mSv/year for the general public.
• These recommendations set in 1991, and are
  significantly lower than levels previously
  thought safe.
• Study around Jadugoda uranium mine by Hiroaki
  KOIDE of Kyoto University, Japan in 2004,
  confirms that the amount of air-gamma dose
  exceeds 1 (1mSv) per year in the villages and
  reaches 10 mSv/y around tailing ponds. The
  strength of pollution in the tailing ponds is 10
  to 100 times higher than the place without
  contamination.

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Recommendations

• To have risk assessment data
• Biomarker studies e.g. chromosomal aberrations
• Study on non-radiological toxicities e.g.
  chemical toxicity on kidney, bone

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Indias Navajo Nation

• The media in India and USA is going gung-ho on
  Indo-US nuclear deal. This exhilaration cannot
  cloak the miseries of thousands of credulous
  indigenous people suffering the effects of
  uranium mining in India due to poor technical
  and management practices in existing mines.

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Join hands to shield them from uranium radiation
hazards