Cancer wasting

Arsenic none 0.05 Skin damage circulatory system problems increased risk of cancer ceramics electronics solder Erosion of natural deposits runoff from glass electronics production wastes... 

Dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) zero 0.00000003 Reproductive difficulties increased risk of cancer Emissions from waste incineration and other combustion discharge from chemical factories... 

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) zero 0.0005 Skin changes thymus gland problems immune deficiencies reproductive or nervous system difficulties increased risk of cancer Runoff from landfils discharge of waste chemicals... 

Cachexia refers to a physical wasting due to loss of muscle and fat. Cachexia is often found in end-stage cancer patients but is also caused by autoimmune disorders or by infectious diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis. 

Half-lives span a very wide range (Table 17.5). Consider strontium-90, for which the half-life is 28 a. This nuclide is present in nuclear fallout, the fine dust that settles from clouds of airborne particles after the explosion of a nuclear bomb, and may also be present in the accidental release of radioactive materials into the air. Because it is chemically very similar to calcium, strontium may accompany that element through the environment and become incorporated into bones once there, it continues to emit radiation for many years. About 10 half-lives (for strontium-90, 280 a) must pass before the activity of a sample has fallen to 1/1000 of its initial value. Iodine-131, which was released in the accidental fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, has a half-life of only 8.05 d, but it accumulates in the thyroid gland. Several cases of thyroid cancer have been linked to iodine-131 exposure from the accident. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24 ka (24000 years). Consequently, very long term storage facilities are required for plutonium waste, and land contaminated with plutonium cannot be inhabited again for thousands of years without expensive remediation efforts. 

Cachexia is a severe wasting syndrome that is seen in many cancer patients. Although it is more common in advanced disease, it... 

The risk assessment has also concluded that a level of 200 mg/kg for lead in the soil will be a protective level for expected site exposures along with an excess cancer risk level for TCE-contaminated soil (56 pg/L). Based on investigations of activities at the site, the TCE-contaminated soil has not been determined to be a listed RCRA hazardous waste, as the cleaning solution records indicate the solution contained less than 10% TCE. However, the lead-contaminated soil is an RCRA hazardous waste by characteristic in this instance due to extraction procedure (EP) toxicity. None of the waste is believed to have been disposed at the site after November 19, 1980 (the effective date for most of the RCRA treatment, storage, and disposal requirements). 

Alternatives 4 and 5 use treatment or fixation technologies to reduce the inherent hazards posed by all known waste at the site, posing more than a lx 10-6 excess cancer risk level by ingestion. However, neither alternative completely treats all of the soil at the site. Both alternatives produce 22,937 m3 (30,000 yd3) of fixed soil, and 13,762 to 15,291 m3 (18,000 to 20,000 yd3) of treated soil. Under Alternative 5, there would remain 13,762 m3 (18,000 yd3) of soil (with 99.8% TCE removal). Under Alternative 4, there would remain 15,291 m3 (20,000 yd3) of soil (with 99.9% TCE removal). These two alternatives would satisfy the statutory preference for treatment as a principal element. 

Hazardous waste combustors (HWCs) also are regulated under the Clean Air Act (CAA).6 The CAA protects human health and the environment from the harmful effects of air pollution by requiring significant reductions in the emissions of the most dangerous air pollutants. These pollutants are known or suspected to cause serious health problems such as cancer or birth defects, and are referred to as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). 

It should be noted that there is intense controversy as to the health effects of radiation doses below about 100 mSv per year. This estimate of 15,000 annual cancer deaths from indoor radon, as well as estimates of tens of thousands of eventual cancer deaths from Chernobyl exposures, is obtained by applying the linearity hypothesis. This hypothesis has been adopted by most regulatory agencies but is strongly contested by some scientists who believe it overestimates the effects of radiation at low dose levels. Of course, if calculations based on this hypothesis overestimate the deaths from indoor radon, they also overestimate the effects of potential radiation from a waste repository. 

For nuclear waste disposal, in a site such as Yucca Mountain, if the maximally exposed individual receives the proposed annual limit of 0.15 mSv, present estimates (based on the linearity hypothesis) suggest a 0.00 1 % risk of an eventual fatal cancer. The maximum dose is reached only if the wastes are dissolved in a small volume of water, and therefore only a limited number of people would receive this dose. If this number were as high as 1000, the implied toll for Yucca Mountain neighbors would be one cancer fatality per century per repository site.19 This toll would not start for many centuries, when the waste canisters begin to fail, and it not unreasonable to expect that cancer prevention and treatment will be much improved by then. Ignoring this prospect, and assuming many repositories and some doses above the prescribed limit, it still appears that the expected toll would be well under a thousand deaths per century. 

Zhao GF, Wang ZJ, Zhou HD, Zhao Q (2009) Burdens of PBBs, PBDEs, and PCBs in tissues of the cancer patients in the e-waste disassembly sites in Zhejiang, China. Sci Total Environ 407(17) 4831—4837. doi 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.05.031... 

Steinhausler,F., and Pohl,E., Lung Cancer as a Result of Energy Conservation and Waste Recycling, Proc. XI. Regional Congress of IRPA, Vol.I pp 258-262, Vienna, Austria (1983). 

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