BEIR VII meeting "news" article

["ERIC GOLDIN"<goldinem@songs.sce.com>]

     This is a fairly lengthy article but worth a look 
     at the new approach to activism: criticize the 
     expert panel makeup (complain about bias) and build 
     a foundation to reject the expert panel findings.  
     
     Article about BEIR VII on the web. The URL is: 
     <http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/00/16/news-schou.shtml>
     
     The article appears below.  I'm sure some of the panelists would 
     be surprised at the slant taken by this reporter, but we've seen 
     his "work" before (as well as that of some of the critics).
     
     My opinions only (above, certainly not below):
     Eric Goldin, CHP
     goldinem@songs.sce.com
     
     
     Cancer Politics 
     Radiation is good for you_just ask a scientist! 
     
     by Nick Schou 
     
     With dozens of aging nuclear reactors around the country 
     scheduled for dismantling in the next several years, cleaning up 
     the mess of the half-century-long horror show known as the 
     "Atomic Age" promises to be a controversial, time-consuming and 
     expensive process. The U.S. nuclear industry hopes to convince 
     the public that, among other things, radioactively contaminated 
     materials can be safely recycled into useful products_even 
     household goods_instead of being boxed up and buried somewhere in 
     Nevada for the next 10,000 years.
     
     In the National Academy of Science's (NAS) Biological 
     Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) committee, the nuclear 
     industry may have a powerful ally. BEIR, a paragon of 
     scientific credibility, is now in a position to recommend 
     that the U.S. government lower federal radiation health-risk 
     standards on nuclear radiation _thus vastly reducing the 
     costs of the upcoming cleanup effort.
     
     On Dec. 16 and 17, the BEIR committee held a series of 
     meetings at UC Irvine's Beckman Center to discuss the health 
     effects of radiation. Almost all of those meetings occurred 
     behind closed doors, and few members of the public_including 
     Orange County neighbors of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating 
     Station (SONGS)_were even aware they took place. 
     
     The BEIR committee reports directly to the federal Nuclear 
     Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the 
     U.S. Department of Defense, all of which fund its research. All 
     three agencies operate nuclear facilities in the U.S.; their 
     close-working counterparts in the private sector, such as Edison 
     International, which operates SONGS, are powerful multinational 
     corporations that fund the majority of radiation research by 
     scientists around the world_including some of those on the 
     BEIR panel.
     
     On Aug. 30, a group of eight scientists led by Dr. Steve 
     Wing, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at 
     Chapel Hill's School of Public Health, sent a letter to the
     NAS complaining about the lack of balance on the BEIR panel. "The 
     current BEIR VII panel is dominated by individuals . . . with 
     interests in the nuclear industry and does not include a 
     significant number of persons who have demonstrated independence 
     from this institution setting in their peer-reviewed 
     publications," the group wrote.
     
     Allegations of conflict of interest and scientific bias 
     have already forced the NAS to drop from the committee two 
     scientists whose ties to the nuclear industry were deemed 
     too close. Nonetheless, the latest panel_BEIR VII_is still 
     made up almost entirely of scientists who happen to believe that 
     the dangers of nuclear radiation have been vastly overstated. 
     
     One such panelist is Dr. Albrecht Kellerer, director of the 
     Radiobiology Institute at the University of Munich. Kellerer 
     proposes that the United States' and other countries' 
     radiation-risk estimates should be dramatically reduced, asserting 
     that the risk to the general public posed by nuclear technology is 
     "minute."  Another advocate of lowering radiation-risk estimates 
     is Dr. K. Sankaranarayanan, a professor emeritus at the Leiden 
     University Medical Centre in the Netherlands.  Sankaranarayanan 
     argues that the human
     body has an "adaptive response" to radiation exposure, a 
     controversial thesis that purports that people who are 
     continuously exposed to low levels of radiation become less 
     susceptible to radiation-related health problems over time 
     instead of more susceptible.
     
     Dr. Scott Davis, a scientist with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer 
     Research Center in Seattle, is yet another BEIR panelist who 
     believes that radiation has been getting a bad rap. Davis 
     authored a highly controversial study of thyroid cancers downwind 
     of the DOE's Hanford nuclear facility in Washington state. 
     Despite numerous studies demonstrating that radioactive iodine 
     causes thyroid cancer, and despite the limitations of his 
     nine-year study (thyroid cancer can take years or decades to 
     appear in radiation victims), Davis has claimed that his research 
     proves the massive release of the chemical from the Hanford plant 
     had clearly caused no harm to the public.
     
     More disturbing is the background of panelist Dr. Daniel 
     Krewski, a University of Ottawa professor. Krewski also serves on 
     the board of BELLE, a Canadian-based scientific organization that 
     promotes "hormesis," the theory that small doses of nuclear 
     radiation are actually healthy for the human body.
     
     Panelist Dr. Elisabeth Cardis of the Lyon-based International 
     Agency for Research on Cancer has authored a radiation-cancer 
     study that just happens to be the one most frequently cited by 
     the nuclear industry as support for its claim that the health 
     risk posed by low-dose radiation is overstated. While one of 
     Cardis' co-authors on that study, Dr. Ethel S. Gilbert, a special 
     expert with the National Cancer Institute, also serves on the 
     BEIR panel, none of the several scientists who have criticized 
     Cardis and Gilbert's research was invited to join the committee.
     
     "No one was invited to participate from the anti-radiation side 
     of the debate," asserted Daniel Hirsch, executive director of the 
     California-based environmental group Committee to Bridge the Gap. 
     His organization is one of more than 70 environmental groups 
     nationwide that continue to protest the makeup of the BEIR 
     committee. "This committeeis a completely stacked deck. If the 
     imbalance is not dramatically rectified, it will lead to 
     significant increases in the amount of radiation that polluting 
     nuclear industries and agencies can release and significant 
     increases in cancer to workers and the public."
     
     At the public-comment section of the UCI meeting, Jonathan 
     Parfrey, executive director of the Nobel Prize-winning Physicians 
     for Social Responsibility (PSR), warned the BEIR panel that its 
     failure to include scientists who believe U.S. radiation 
     health-risk standards are already too low could constitute a 
     violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires 
     balance of membership, openness to the public and avoidance of 
     conflicts of interest. Parfrey told the BEIR committee that PSR 
     would prefer to "appeal to the better angels of your nature so 
     that you pursue a course that protects public health."
     
     Parfrey's statements didn't go over well among some committee 
     members, a few of whom gasped and groaned in reaction to his 
     allegation that the panel was biased. Particularly upset was 
     Cardis, who asserted that she was "very puzzled and very shocked" 
     by PSR's allegations, claiming that she is a former member of PSR. 
     "I don't know where your information is coming from," she 
     exclaimed. "We are just as concerned as you are about the harmful 
     effects of radiation, and I think we're being unjustly accused."
     
     Several other activists also showed up at UCI to register their 
     protests. Marion Pack of the Orange County Alliance for Survival 
     and Alan White, an executive council member of the OC Green 
     Party, read statements and submitted letters blasting the NAS for 
     inviting only scientists from one side of a very important 
     debate. 
     
     But some of the most compelling testimony came from Rob Campbell, 
     a veteran of the U.S. military's 1950s-era radiation tests in 
     southern Nevada. Campbell addressed the BEIR committee on behalf 
     of the Atomic Veterans Radiation Research Institute via 
     videotaped comments. 
     
     "We do not approve of this or any other scientific proceeding in 
     which knowledgeable people are excluded," Campbell told committee 
     members. "I am at a loss as to why you do not have the courage to 
     say that you will not serve on this panel unless these other 
     scientists are included. This is your debt to science and to your 
     conscience."
     
     _________________________________________________________________

************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html