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Re: BEIR VII meeting "news" article
While the "anti-s" would be expected to want their advocates on the panel,
"the real problem" is of our own making. When it was expedient, the health
physics profession pushed for LNT. It was the safe, conservative thing to
do; and, coincidently, was perceived as providing job security and more
money for research. It worked. Even accepting the most conservative
version of radiation risk, the $/(avoided health effect) spent on radiation
protection is much greater than for virtually any other hazard.
Unfortunately, having been so successful at convincing the public of LNT,
it's not easy to convince them otherwise, now that circumstances have
changed.
The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.
Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com
ERIC GOLDIN wrote:
> 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."
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
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