Articles + Publications.

2024--ContamiNATION — a report by Dave Lochbaum. Here is what Dave says about the report:

After I retired from UCS in 2018, I was pleased and honored to join the Board of Directors for the Gender + Radiation Impact Project (GRIP). I'd known Mary Olson, GRIP's Director, for many years. I'd heard Mary speak at a conference in 2015 about the disparate consequences to males and females from the same amount of radiation exposure. Her talk, and the science behind it, opened my eyes. GRIP seeks to understand how and when radiation exposure harms humans and then ensure proper precautions against undue harm are in place.

To better understand what evidence prompted reforms, I researched the laws enacted to compensate downwinders and nuclear weapons facility workers for injuries and deaths from harm caused by radiation exposure. My report based on that research is attached.

Billions of dollars have been paid to downwinders and nuclear weapons facility workers (or their survivors). Studies have shown that 98 percent of these poor victims received radiation exposures BELOW federal limits.

I posted commentary on GRIP's website about the analogous plight facing the public downwind or downstream of America's many nuclear power plants (see Blog page)

My report quotes Winston Churchill, some English dude, as saying that Americans can be counted on to do the right thing, after they've exhausted all alternatives.

Hopefully, we're getting closer to doing the right thing,

2023 — GET-A-GRIP Newsletter Vol 5, No 1—3 available for review. This occasional email Newsletter is available via free subscription—see the CONTACT page of this website.

Presentation to the Vienna Conference 2022 on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons, June 20 by Mary Olson. These are the powerpoint “notes pages” with citations. The Conference was a review of the evidence-base for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) the day before the first meeting of the States that are Parties to the new treaty that is a path to complete nuclear disarmament.

Journal of the History of Biology, March, 2021. Cynthia Folkers, Disproportionate Impacts of Radiation Exposure on Women, Children, and Pregnancy: Taking Back our Narrative.

Interdisciplinary Science Review, special issue on Gender (June 2, 2019) includes “Disproportionate impact of ionizing radiation and radiation regulation ,” by Mary Olson, Director Gender and Radiation Impact Project

Findings from the International Nuclear Workers Study (INWORKS): Ionizing Radiation and Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Multiple Myeloma (2015) - Centers for Disease Control

Risk of Cancer from Occupational Exposure to ionizing radiation: a retrospective cohort study of workers in France, the United Kingdom and the United States (INWORKS), Richardson, et al, BMJ 2015

Findings from the International Nuclear Workers Study (INWORKS): Ionizing Radiation and Solid Cancer (2015), Center for Disease Control

Invisible Victims by Heidi Hutner in MS Magazine

Science for the Vulnerable Setting Radiation and Multiple Exposure Environmental Health Standards to Protect Those Most at Risk by Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., Brice Smith, Ph.D. and Michael C. Thorne, Ph.D. 

The Use of Reference Man in Radiation Protection Standards and Guidance with Recommendations for Change  by Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.

Heidi Hutner Blogpost: Atomic Radiation is More Harmful to Women March, 2012 by Mali Lightfoot, Helen Caldicott Foundation

Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster by David Lochbaum, Edwin Lyman, Susan Q. Stranahan, and the Union of Concerned Scientists

Chernobyl Hits Birds Hard, Science Magazine, 2007 report on case-controlled studies by Tim Mousseau Ph.D. and Robert Moeller Ph.D of plants and animals in zones contaminated by Chernobyl fallout.

Guest columnist: Radiation Exposure - Prevention is the Cure by Mary Olson

Atomic Radiation is More Harmful to Women by Mary Olson

Human Consequences of Radiation: A Gender Factor in Atomic Harm by Mary Olson

Gender and Nuclear Weapons remarks at the UN by Swedish Ambassador Henrik Salander