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German radioactive spa says 'Hail, Radonia!'
German radioactive spa says 'Hail, Radonia!'
GERMANY: January 17, 2001
SCHLEMA, Germany - As NATO's Balkans veterans fret
about health risks from uranium munitions, a
generation old enough to remember the last great
European war is happily paying for a bit of extra
radiation exposure.
Every day hundreds of elderly Germans splash around in
the spa waters at Schlema, which contain low levels of
radon, a radioactive gas generated from the decay of
uranium, with the conviction it can cure a variety of ailments
like rheumatism.
"I'm here for the first time and it's rather nice," said Gerda
Wolf, a 67-uear-old retired farmer, after a swim in a large
pool overlooked by hills famous for their rich lode of
uranium. "I'm not afraid of radiation...I plan to come again
next week."
As in the current debate over the risks faced by NATO
soldiers because of the use of depleted uranium munitions
in Kosovo and Bosnia or early in the Gulf War against Iraq,
experts disagree over the possible dangers from radioactive
spas such as Schlema and Bad Gastein in Austria.
German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping, who said this
month that soldiers were not at risk from contact with
depleted uranium shells, raised some eyebrows by
comparing their exposure to the radioactive spas.
"For example, one gram of depleted uranium that was used
for this type of ammunition is about the same amount of
radiation as in 10 litres of water from the Bad Gastein spa,"
he told reporters.
AN IRRADIATED PAST
Germany's handful of radioactive spas have a tradition
dating back a century. And even during this post-Chernobyl
age, more sensitive to radioactivity, local officials are
betting that the town's future revives that radioactive spa
past.
Schlema, with a population of about 6,000, enjoyed its
heyday during the Nazi era when it boasted of being the
most radioactive spot on Earth and had more than 100
hotels and guesthouses to receive visitors. It thrived even
during World War Two, receiving its record number of spa
visitors in 1943.
After the war, the victorious Soviet occupiers realised the
uranium in this region, about 230 km (150 miles) south of
Berlin, was too valuable for just splashing around in.
They sent in an NKVD secret police general who once ran
gulag labour camp to set up a giant mining operation for
Soviet nuclear warheads. The spa was destroyed, visitors
barred.
The mining continued until the collapse of East German
communism in 1990, when the reunified Germany inherited
an ecological disaster, even though much of the uranium
was by then already extracted.
"The strongest radioactive source in the world was right
here," said Peter Wolff, 58, head of the ongoing local
clean-up operation, which is expected to cost 13 billion
marks ($6.3 billion) across the region.
He led a visitor to an elevator shaft and descended into the
maze of dimly-lit mining tunnels where he has worked since
1960.
"No one needed to be forced to mine here. Miners earned
lots of money back then, twice as much as in other jobs,"
he said. "It was known that uranium was radioactive, you
learned that in school. But it's like flying. There are
accidents, but you think it won't happen to you."
The danger was always there however.
Experts say more than 5,000 miners died from
radon-related lung cancer which developed while mining
uranium for the Soviet Union after the war.
SPA AS NEW BEGINNING
Yet few dwell on these past dangers, least of all those
running the town's 43-million mark ($20.7 million) spa
facility that opened two years ago. In front, Radonia, a
statuary tribute to radon personified as a water nymph,
stands naked inside a fountain, drinking from a jug of
irradiated water.
"Two thousand patients die from aspirin a year," said spa
director Steffen Matthias. "There is not one known case of a
patient dying from radon."
"It's more dangerous to take three flights a year to London
or New York," he added, noting the additional solar
radiation exposure people receive while flying at high
altitude.
Spa marketing director Evelyn Weiss says the radon
treatments not only cure ailments, they revive visitors' sex
lives. As is normal in Germany, male and female guests
share a naked sauna.
At the government's Radiation Protection Agency, officials
say the radon spa is fine for those suffering health
problems.
"One does get a bigger exposure to radiation here, but one
cannot say it is a bigger risk," said official Winfried Meyer.
"Patients who receive the spa cure have less pain, so they
need less medicine. The savings in medicine, which itself
can pose risks, is worth the small exposure."
Germany is not alone in promoting radioactive spas, which
still operate in Austria, the former Soviet Union, Japan and
elsewhere. But some experts say the healing powers of
radioactive radon are dubious and risky.
"Other aspects of the 'spa experience' may be beneficial
overall. But the irradiation of internal organs by radon and
its decay products or exposure to radon, per se, is unlikely
to be helpful," said Otto Raabe, professor emeritus of
radiation biophysics at the University of California at Davis.
William Field of the University of Iowa's College of Public
Health points out that patients suffering from arthritis may
feel better after any regular hot water bath. Yet he says
there are health risks from radon.
"Numerous epidemiological studies of radon-exposed
underground miners and the recent residential epidemiolgic
study we performed in the United States indicate that radon
gas exposure causes lung cancer," he said.
"The radon spas should not serve as a substitute for
conventional health care," he continued. "While it is
possible that the radon gas exposure does cause some
beneficial health effect, owners of the spas should inform
the spas' users that there might also be some risk
involved."
RADONIA AEROBICS
In Schlema, nearly everyone discounts such risks and cites
a 1992 study that said radon was more effective than hot
water.
"On weekends we have little babies swimming here," said
marketing director Weiss. "We couldn't do it if it were
dangerous."
Just in case, however, workers in the area of especially
concentrated radon baths wear a dosimeter on their
smocks to measure radioactivity.
At the spa's main swimming pool, a disco version of the
Beatles "All my Loving" started playing as a geriatric water
aerobics class got under way. Grey hair and
candy-coloured bathing caps bobbed up and down.
Off to the side rested Gerd Richter, 66, who once mined
uranium in the nearby hills. Now he is turning to Radonia
again, hoping she can cure his aching joints from decades
of tough work in the mines.
"I've noticed that it does help," he said, adding that he now
comes twice a month.
Spa director Matthias said the baths are also the only hope
for the region's economic woes such as high
unemployment.
"Economically the whole region has suffered the shutdown
of many firms since reunification," he said. "This is the only
future for the city...It would be very sad here without spa
tourism."
Story by Adam Tanner
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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