THE BOMB Thead- 55th Anniversary of Hiroshima vs. "Nagasaki up the Nose"

[RadiumProj@cs.com]

In a message dated 8/6/00 10:44:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time, ccare@minot.org 
writes:

> DEAR COLLEAGUES:
>  
>  PLEASE, REMEMBER THE VETERANS WHO WERE CRAMMED TOGETHER ON TROUP SHIPS 
AWAITING THE INVASION OF JAPAN WHEN THE WORD THAT THE JAPANESE SURRENDERED

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Dear Radsafe:

Regarding the above: I happened to hear a timely interview  on National 
Public Radio a day or so ago as we neared  the 55th anniversary of the 
dropping of an A-bomb on Hiroshima. This interview was with Paul Tibbets [sp. 
?] the captain of the Enola Gay, the bomber which dropped the bomb on 
Hiroshima. He was being interviewed by an author who has just completed a 
book about Tibbets and the dropping of the first A-bomb on a civilian target.

Tibbets was asked whether having witnessed the damage caused by the bombing 
of Hiroshima he questioned the morality of using it in that situation. In 
summary, Tibbets said something like nothing that is done in war can be 
viewed as moral and that the conventional incendiary weapon bombings of Tokyo 
alone  by thousands of heavy bombers, killing more than double the number  
killed at Hiroshima [and the fire bombings of almost every major city in 
Japan by Gen. Curtis Lemay's bomber squadrons, see The Making of The Atomic 
Bomb by Rhodes on this point], had not forced the Japanese to capitulate. The 
attitude of the time by Japan was to resist to the last person to defend the 
honor of their emperor.

It is well documented by scholars based on solid  historical evidence, that 
the bombings of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki had a shock value [discussed at 
some length by Richard Rhodes in his book noted above] which forced a rapid 
unconditional surrender by Japan and an end to W.W.II.  The bombing of 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved countless lives on both the Allied side and the 
Japanese side compared to what would have resulted from a land  invasion of 
Japan.

BASIC QUESTIONS:
Was the use of an A-bomb horrible? Yes. Was the loss of  100,000 human lives 
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,  and  additional injuries there tragic? Yes. Did 
the use of two A-bombs in Japan save more lives than were lost? Yes. Did the 
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cause a cancer epidemic among the 
survivors such that a large fraction of the survivors developed cancer? No, 
since there has been about a  5% increase in overall cancer mortality. Is the 
revisionist historical treatment of the bombings of Japan, and the attempts 
by some antinuclear activists to exploit the tragedy of  Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki in the context of today's nuclear technologies obscene? Yes.

CASE IN POINT AS TO "SITUATIONAL ETHICS" ON RADIATION RISK -NASAL RADIUM 
IRRADIATION OF 1,000,000 CHILDREN IN US:

In the context of the long term cancer risk to the survivors of Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki due to radiation exposure, I would offer the following point of 
consideration. I have been trying to promote attention to the health risks of 
Nasal Radium Irradiation [NRI], a procedure where a  thinly encapsulated 50 
mg sealed Ra-226 source was inserted bilaterally through the nostrils of 
aviators and submariners in WW.II [about 10,000 as a human radiation 
experiment] and for a period of time postwar [another 10,000 or so persons] . 
Also, from 1946 to 1961, per a CDC review of the issue they were forced to 
make following a US Senate Hearing on NRI in Aug. 1994, between 571,000 and 
2.6 million children  in the US received NRI "treatments" from hospitals, 
clinics, and private physicians to minimize the risk of otitis media or 
middle ear problems, an all too common problem in young children.

The NRI procedure delivered a contact dose to the adenoids of no less than 
2,000 rads although the dose has been subject to some great uncertainty 
because the majority of the dose is due to beta and there was quite a 
question as to its magnitude at various close in distances. Dr. Chris Soares 
of NIST just completed a characterization of a Monel encapsulated [0.3 mm  50 
mg Ra-226] applicator  which I had been able to locate in an ENT's office in 
TN, typical of those used from 1945 forward and found the beta dose to be 30 
to 40% higher than had ever been calculated or measured previously. Soares' 
results on the NRI source dosimetry were just reported at the most recent HPS 
meeting in Denver. 

Based on several long-term epidemiological studies of NRI as the treatment 
was used in the US, about 1 in 100 children treated with NRI  are predicted 
to develop a fatal brain cancer in their lifetimes. I have referred to this 
excess of brain cancer mortality [ and there is new evidence of a significant 
excess of nonmalignant brain tumors as well which Johns Hopkins is 
deliberately withholding from the public] in the treated US population as a 
domestic "Nagasaki up the Nose". This "Nagasaki up the Nose" moniker is 
legitimate, because for a cohort of NRI treated children in the US equal to 
the combined Life Span Study populations in Japan, there is expected to be 
more brain cancer mortality alone than all cancers documented among the LSS 
cohort.  However, we don't have 60,000 NRI treated children [now adults] in 
the US, we have about 1,000,000 as the best estimate. The "Nagasaki up the 
Nose" characterization for NRI outcomes,  is a completely defensible, and 
even conservative comparison. Given that the CDC has taken no action on NRI 
and takes a position that:

"There is no significant neoplastic or other disease risk from NRI"

contrary to numerous scientific studies [see REAP webpage Annotated 
Bibliography  for Sandler, 1980; Matanoski, 1980, Sandler, 1982; Verduijn, 
1996; Yeh, 1997]  it is clear that actions taken by governmental agencies 
like the CDC, and major medical centers like Johns Hopkins  on radiation 
risks like NRI document  situational ethics and a crude disregard for public 
health and medical ethics on matters of important vs. trivial radiation risk 
issues. The latest research completed as a Ph.D thesis at Hopkins School of 
Public Health [Yeh, 1997] on long term health effects of NRI on children 
treated at a Johns Hopkins Hearing Loss Clinic in Hagerstown, MD reported an 
Adjusted Relative Risk of benign and malignat brain tumors of 30.9!! [based 
on 7 cases observed in about 600 treated children followed through 1996 vs. 0 
in a control group twice as large]. This is per the author, an  RR=30.9  for 
benign and malignant brain tumors, not a 30.9% increase. This equals an 
increased benign and malignant brain tumor Relative Risk of  2,990%!!  Yeh, 
1997 also reported a statistically significant overall doubling of head and 
neck cancer in the NRI treated group, evidence of pituitary damage, and a 4.2 
fold increase in thyroid cancer. A Ph.D. was awarded to Dr. Jessica Yeh by 
the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in June, 1997 containing these 
findings. However, in July, 1999 Johns Hopkins declared the Yeh thesis to be 
"Restricted Access Only --not available without permission of author". 

Yeh is now working for Hopkins and no one who requests permission to order a  
copy of her thesis from UMI Thesis Service in Ann Arbor, MI has been able to 
get a return call from her. I was able to order the Yeh, 1997 thesis for 
about $46 from UMI during a brief period in late 1998 when it was available, 
before Johns Hopkins declared it "Restricted Access" following a feature 
article on NRI in July 1999.  UMI is a private company that has been in the 
business of selling Ph.D. Theses awarded by Universities since 1861. In July 
1999, UMI had the audacity to call me and request that I send back my copy of 
the Yeh thesis since Hopkins had told them they should not have sold it!  I 
asked UMI to put their request in writing, explaining why they were asking 
for it to be recalled, so that I might consider the request. Not 
surprisingly, a written request was not forthcoming.

Is NRI a domestic "Nagasaki up the Nose".  Yes. Does the handling of Nasal 
Radium Irradiation risk to 1,000,000 Americans document situational ethics 
regarding radiation risk actions by government and academia?  What do you 
think? Judge for yourself. 

If anyone wants more information about the issue of NRI, go to the REAP 
webpage noted below. See my testimony given to a US Senate Hearing of the 
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in 1996 about Human Radiation 
Experiments. This testifmony [ACHRE and NRI -"Bad Science, Bad Medicine, Bad 
Ethics"] reviews the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments having 
concluded that NRI had the highest risk to health of any of the 4,000 human 
radiation experiments and was the only experiment to exceed their threshhold 
for medical notice and followup. I will also be adding additional photos and 
references to the REAP webpage over the next few weeks so bookmark it if 
you're interested.

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project
Consulting Public Health Scientist
172 Old Orchard Way
Warren, VT 05674


Phone/FAX: (802) 496-3356 
E-mail: radiumproj@cs.com   <A HREF="radiumproj@cs.com">Click here to send 
e-mail to REAP</A>

Web site: http://www.delphi.com/carsreap <A 
HREF="http://www.delphi.com/carsreap";>Click here for REAP Website</A>

The Radium Experiment Assessment Project is a project  of the 
Center for Atomic Radiation Studies, Inc., 
a Massachusetts'  based  501(c)(3) educational organization. 

==========================
==========================

In a message dated 8/6/00 10:44:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time, ccare@minot.org 
writes:

> DEAR COLLEAGUES:
>  
>  PLEASE, REMEMBER THE VETERANS WHO WERE CRAMMED TOGETHER ON TROUP SHIPS 
AWAITING THE INVASION OF JAPAN WHEN THE WORD THAT THE JAPANESE SURRENDERED
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