500 bone marrow transplant centers in Europe asked to be on standby to treat radiation victims

[villager]

Source: BBC

European hospitals asked be on standby for Japan's ill

Five hundred bone marrow transplant centres across Europe are being asked to be on standby to treat Japanese radiation victims if the need arises.

The European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) has alerting its members, which include 3,000 medics in specialist units. It is unclear how many in Japan might need their help, but the centres have plans and protocols ready to action.

Many were drawn up after the 11 September 2001 terror attacks.

It will be up to each centre to decide whether or not to take on any patients. In the UK there are 55 centres that could potentially help. The president of the EBMT, Professor Alejandro Madrigal, said: "We are asking centres to tell us their level of response and capacity so we can measure the level of commitment at centres."

Professor Ray Powles, chair of the nuclear accident committee for EBMT, said it may be that between 20 and 30 workers at the nuclear Fukushima plant who are striving to contain the radiation will need treatment.

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Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12744926

[hlthe2b]

1. OMG.... time for one of those "miracles" no matter your beliefs...

I can only hope....

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, villager.

[Demeter]

3. That's All, She Wrote

There you have it, folks. The wages of nuclear stupidity is nuclear death.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[katty]

5. K&R

[AtheistCrusader]

6. I'm registered, ready to help.

It's a simple cheek swab, can usually be done at the local blood center.

[AllyCat]

7. Just updated my status/coordinates with Marrow Donor Center last week

Is everyone registered?

[Peace Patriot]

8. Reports are that they've evacuated all but 60 of the 800 workers at Fukushima.

Those 60 are probably volunteers. Anybody see the movie "K19" (Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson), true story of nuke meltdown aboard Russia's flagship nuke sub in the 1960s? This reminds of that movie, of the heroism of the Russian sailors who had to deal with the meltdown in a situation that could have ignited a nuke war with the U.S. Very amazing (as to human courage) but extremely sad and upsetting movie. I think we may be seeing a repeat today in Japan.

And what strikes me about this is that, with 50 years of advances in nuke safety, we are back at the beginning: facing this horribly lethal, man-made substance directly, with all of our "smart" safety features failing. Nuclear fuel cannot be controlled by us, no matter how smart we think we are. The sailors of K-19 knew very little. How are they different from the 60 workers who are remaining on the Fukushima site, for all our "advances"? A 9.0 earthquake and following tsunami wiped out our "advances." The tsunami walls were breached. The entire water pumping system and all of its backups went down. Now the last resort sea water op is failing, because the site has become too "hot" for workers to implement it. (Latest word is, they're going to try helicopter water drops.)

We are in the same spot those sailors were in, 50 years ago. Nothing has changed. Nuclear fuel is still beyond our control. It is foolish to say otherwise. NO safety system is truly safe, because the consequences of mistakes and failures are too great.

[PA Democrat]

9. I read the book K-19: the Widowmaker.

The Soviets were especially arrogant in their belief that they could control the nuclear dragon. I think even with all of the redundant safety features we are foolish to think that we can plan for every possible contingency including human error. Those workers still inside Fukushima have to be exhausted mentally and physically by this point.