On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 22:20:57 +0100 Viviane Lerner <vlerner@interpac.net> wrote:
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From: "Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., GNSH" <drrbertell@home.com>
Date sent: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 15:08:13 -0400 Send reply to:
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Dear Friends,
A corrected version of my estimate of nuclear victims since 1946 (not
including the horrendous destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) can be
found on the web: www.ambassadors.net/opinions_nuclear.htm
or enclosed as an attachment (RTF). The conservative estimate is 1.2
billion victims (cancers, genetic and teratogenic damage). I was
unable to include the Gulf War vets because they are not yet
acknowledged by UNSCEAR, so were not included in the Person Sievert
doses estimated by UNSCEAR.
Amazing to realize that this damage has occurred without there being a
nuclear war!
Rosalie Bertell
<><><><><>
Victims of the Nuclear Age
"VICTIMS OF THE NUCLEAR AGE" Up to 1,300 million people have been
killed, maimed or diseased by nuclear power since it's inception. The
industry's figures massively underestimate the real cost of nuclear
power, in an attempt to hide its victims from the world. Here, the
author calculates the real number of victims of the nuclear age. By
Dr. Rosalie Bertell
On the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, I was standing at
a public meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, listening to the story of one of
the firemen employed to clean up the site after the explosion. These
workers took huge doses of radiation during this task, and their story
is a terrifying one. About 600,000 men were conscripted as Chernobyl
'liquidators' [also called bio-robots']: farmers, factory workers,
miners, and soldiers, as well as professionals like the firemen, from
all across Russia. Some of these men lifted pieces of radioactive
metal with their bare hands. They had to fight more than 300 fires
created by the chunks of burning material spewed off by the inferno.
After the fire was put out, they buried trucks, fire engines, cars and
all sorts of personal belongings. They felled a forest and completely
buried it, removed topsoil, bulldozed houses and filled all available
clay-lined trenches with radioactive debris.
The minimum conscription time was 180 days, but many stayed for a
year. Some were threatened with severe punishment to their families if
they failed to stay and do their duty.
These 'liquidators' are now discarded and forgotten, many vainly
trying to establish that the ill health most have suffered ever since
1986 is a result of their massive exposure to radiation. At the Centre
for Radiation Research outside Kiev, there is an organization of
former liquidators. This group reports that by 1995, 13,000 of their
members had died- almost 20 percent of which deaths were suicides.
About 70,000 members were estimated to be permanently disabled. But
the members of this organization are the lucky ones. Because many
former liquidators are now scattered throughout Russia, they neither
have the benefit of the organization's special hospital, nor of
membership of a survivor organization. They are known as the 'living
dead.'
The fireman whose story I was listening to seemed to be an exception
to this grim litany of illness and death. He was telling the meeting
how pleased and excited he was that, for the first time in ten years,
his blood test findings were in the normal range. I was standing next
to a delegate from the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]- the
organisation charged with promoting the use of atomic energy. On
hearing the fireman's story, he leaned over to me and said: "You see!
We said these were only transient disorders". A rough translation of
which might read: "Chernobyl? What's the problem?"
IGNORING THE VICTIMS
The IAEA delegate's attitude was perfectly in keeping with that of his
organization which, along with the International Commission on
Radiological Protection [ICRP] exists in practice largely to play down
the effects of radiation on human health, and to shield the nuclear
industry from compensation claims from workers and the public. The
IAEA was set up in the late 1950s by he UN, to prevent the spread of
nuclear weapons and to promote the peaceful use of atomic energy-
ironically, two contradictory objectives. The ICRP which evolved from
the 1928 physician's organization, International Committee on X-Ray
and Radium Protection, was set up in the nineteen fifties to explore
the health effects of radiation and [theoretically] to protect the
public from it. In fact, both organizations have come to serve the
industry rather than the public.
The Chernobyl case is a classic example of the IAEA's inadequacy and
questionable science. Despite massive evidence to the contrary, not
least from the many thousands of victims themselves, the IAEA insists
that only 32 people have so far died as a result of Chernobyl- those
who died in the radiation ward of Hospital six in Moscow. All other
deaths related to the disaster and its aftermath [and there have been
many more than 10,000 in Ukraine alone according to the Minister of
Health there] are ignored. Belarus had the highest fallout, and yet
there is an international blackout among the IAEA and the rest of the
"radiation protection community" on the suffering of its people.
The essential problem is that both the IAEA and the ICRP are dealing
not with science but with politics and administration; not with
public health but with maintaining an increasingly dubious industry.
It is their interests, and those of the nuclear industry, to play down
the health effects of radiation.
RESTRICTIVE DEFINITIONS
The main way in which the radiation protection industry has
succeeded in hugely underrating the ill-health caused by nuclear power
is by insisting on a group of extremely restrictive definitions as to
what qualifies as a radiation-caused illness. For example, under
IAEA's criteria:
C If a radiation-caused cancer is not fatal, it is not counted in the
IAEA's figures
C If a cancer is initiated by another carcenogen, but accelerated or
promoted by exposure to radiation, it is not counted.
C If an auto-immune disease or any non-cancer is caused by radiation,
it is not counted.
C Radiation-damaged embryos or foetuses which result in miscarriage or
stillbirth do not count
C A congenitally blind, deaf or malformed child whose illnesses are
radiation-related are not included in the figures because this is not
genetic damage, but rather is teratogenic, and will not be passed on
later to the child's offspring.
C Causing the genetic predisposition to breast cancer or heart disease
does not count since it is not a "serious genetic disease" in the
Mendelian sense.
C Even if radiation causes a fatal cancer in any one or serious
genetic disease in a live born infant, it is discounted if the
estimated radiation dose is below 100 mSv [mSv means millisievert,a
measurement of radiation exposure. A nuclear worker is permitted
between 20 and 50 mSv per year.]
C Even if radiation causes a lung cancer, it does not count if the
person smokes- in fact whenever there is a possibility of another
cause, radiation cannot be blamed.
If all else fails, it is possible to average over the whole body the
radiation dose which has actually been received by only one part of
the body or even one organ, as for instance when radio-iodine
concentrates in the thyroid. This arbitrary dilution of the dose will
ensure that the 100 mSv cut-off point is not reached.
This is the technique used to dismiss the sickness of Gulf War
veterans who inhaled small particles of ceramic uranium which stayed
in their lungs for more than two years, and in their bodies for more
than eight years, irradiating and damaging cells in a particular part
of the body.
THE REAL VICTIMS
Despite the authorities' attempt at concealment, we can still begin to
enumerate the real victims of the nuclear age. Although the
calculations and statistics which I have brought to bear below do not
include all of the human suffering that has been caused by the nuclear
age, a closer look will show that the methodology is adequate for a
first estimate of major damage. The magnitude of the harm already
caused is startling, and even more so when we realise many types of
damage have been omitted from this first estimate.
My estimate of radiation damage, induced cancer, whether fatal or
non-fatal [excluding non-fatal skin cancer], genetic damage and
serious congenital malformations and diseases will be included in the
figures. Other lesser human damage is acknowledged but not estimated.
The nuclear industry uses the word "detriment" for the radiation
damage which it considers to be important. I have broadened that
list. Ultimately, whether or not one cares about the damage caused by
radiation exposure, i.e. refers to it as "detriment", is a human,
not a scientific question. Damage is damage, and causing an unwanted
attack on someone's person or reproductive capacity is a violation of
human rights. Such damage can be rated for importance, but it should
not be arbitrarily ignored.
"Statistics are the people with the tears wiped away" stated one of
the Rongelap people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, who
'hosted' the United States Bikini nuclear testing in the 1950s. This
is the story of many tears, and of a hard hearted mindset that laid
down the degree of suffering and ill-health that would be the
'acceptable' price to pay for the world 'benefitting' from nuclear
technology.
RISK ESTIMATES USED IN THIS ANALYSIS
In order to estimate the real victims of the nuclear industry [as
oppossed to those figures enumerated by the ICRP, IAEA and other
nuclear apologists] I will take the customary risk estimates, indicate
their probable range of error, and then extend the definition to cover
related events not recognized as 'detriments' by the regulators. For
example, while the nuclear regulators only take fatal cancers into
consideration as 'detriments', others, especially those who endure a
non-fatal cancer, may find their suffering equally worthy of
consideration. And limiting genetic effects to live born offspring
does not wipe away the tears of a family that has endured a
spontaneous miscarriage or stillbirth.
ESTIMATING THE FATAL AND NON-FATAL CANCER RISKS
In 1991, the ICRP concluded that the projected lifetime risk of fatal
cancer for members of the population exposed to one Sievert whole-body
radiation at a low dose rate, was between seven and 11 excess fatal
cancers, and seven to eight excess fatalities for workers in the
nuclear industry aged 25 to 64 years. We extend these estimates to
non-fatal cancers by estimating the total number of cancers which were
used by the ICRP in order to obtain their number of fatalities. We
therefore estimate 16 fatal and non-fatal cancers if we exclude
non-fatal skin cancers, or 26 if we count them. If the estimate of
fatal cancers was too low by a factor of two then we can double these
numbers.
The conservative estimate I will use for radiation induced cancer in
this analysis is 16 per 100 Person Sieverts exposure, but the reader
can adjust this estimate to suit other inclusions, exclusions or
uncertainties.
ESTIMATING DAMAGE TO AN EMBRYO OR FOETUS
According to the BEIR Committee [Bilogical Effects of Ionizing
Radiation] 1990 report, a dose of 150 mSv to human male testes will
cause temporary sterility, and a single dose of 3.5 Sv will cause
permanent sterility. According to the ICRP in 1991, just 5 mSv to the
testes could cause damage to offspring - yet this dose was permitted
yearly to members of the public, and ten times more was permitted to
nuclear workers, in all countries prior to 1990. It continues today to
be permitted yearly for nuclear workers in most countries.
Women carry with them all of the ova from birth which they will ever
have. The threshold for permanent female sterilisation decreases with
age, but in general about 650 mSv is considered to be the threshold
for temporary sterility in women. However, after the Bravo event- the
detonation of a hydrogen bomb at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in
March 1954- the women of Rongelap Atoll experienced about five years
of sterility. As they regained their fertility, they experienced
faulty pregnancies, miscarrigies, stillbirths and damage to their
offspring. Since some radionucleides can be retained in bone or fatty
tissues, they are able to cross the placenta barrier and disrupt the
developing embryo or foetus. Radionuclides in the mother's body can
also be transferred to offspring in her breast milk.
The official nuclear industry definition of 'detriment' to offspring
includes only serious genetic disease. It eliminates damage not
judged to be serious, and all teratogenic diseases [those which are
not passed on to offspring]. For example, radiation exposure in utero
could cause a child to be blind or deaf, but that blindness or
deafness would not be passed on to the child's offspring. This would
be called teratogenic damage and not counted. Recently the 1990 BEIR
committee made one small concession in recognizing mental retardation
in children exposed to radiation during the fifth to 15th weeks of
their mother's pregnancy. Radiation kills brain cells, causing both an
underdeveloped brain [microcephaly] and mental retardation. For the
individual child, BEIR estimates that a dose in utero of 100 to 500
mSv can cause a range of problems from poor school performance to
severe mental retardation. This analysis considers both genetic and
teratogenic damage to be "detrimental".
GENETIC DAMAGE
The U.N. Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation
[UNSCEAR] and BEIR both agree that a population of one million live
births, with 100 Person Sieverts exposure to parents, will result in
one to three genetic damage effects to offspring.
One can also use a second methodology to calculate genetic damage.
The doubling dose for genetic effects [the dose that will cause twice
as many genetic effects] is more contentious, with some geneticists
claiming that it is 2.5 Sv, and others claiming much greater
sensitivity with a 0.12 Sv doubling dose. If the total average dose
to parents is 100 Person Sieverts, there will be 4 genetic effects per
million live births if the doubling dose is 2.5 Sv, but there will be
83 such effects if the doubling dose is 0.12 Sv.
On the conservative side, we have taken 10 genetic effects to be the
number of genetic effects for offspring of parents exposed to 100
Person Sieverts. ESTIMATE OF TERATOGENIC EFFECTS'
The damage to an embryo from ionizing radiation when in the womb is
not ordinarily considered to be genetic (the exception would when the
radiation damages the gentic material of the fetus). Such irradiation
can lead to some 30 different congenital anomolies including permanent
damage to the brain, mental deficiency, skull deformities, cleft
palate, spina bifida, club-feet, genital deformities, growth
retardation and childhood cancer. A total of all those effects,
including those resulting in early embryonic or fetal mortality,
amount to 46, of which 25 are in live born. I will use the
conservative estimate 25 for congenital damage in this analysis.
When we summarise those risk estimates to be used in this analysis, we
get 16 cancers, 10 genetic effects and 25 congenital effects in life
born offspring for a mixed (age and sex) population of one million
exposed to 100 Person Sieverts of ionizing radiation. This is a total
of 51 "victims" for each 100 Person Sieverts exposure, of which 31.4%
are assumed to be cancers, 19.6% are genetically damaged and 49% were
congenitally damaged but both categories were live born.
The task now is to apply those numbers to the UNSCEAR estimate of
nuclear radiation exposure to the global population, including
atmospheric nuclear weapons testing and electricity production from
nuclear power over the past half century.
The nuclear atmospheric weapon testing caused 1,138 million victims,
with an additional 3.2 million due to nuclear weapon production.
Nuclear power has caused about 21 million victims and medical uses of
radiation have produced another 4 million victims. There have been
both military and civilian nuclear accidents producing 16 million and
15 million more victims respectively.
This gives a grand total of 1,200 million victims of the nuclear age.
About 1,156 are military related, 36 million are related to nuclear
reactors, and 4 million are related to medical use.
This Opinion Piece was prepared by Dr. Rosalie Bertell, President of
the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Toronto,
Canada.
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