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Demise of UNSCEAR?
The following appeared in the October 2002 issue Physics Today. I thought
it would be of interest to the group.
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024
E-mail: jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
--------------------------------
Radiation Assessment at Risk
For nearly half a century, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the
Effects of Atomic Radiation has been an influential resource on radiation
sources and their effects on human health and the environment. But if its
budget is not resuscitated, UNSCEAR's data compilation and evaluation
activities will grind to a halt.
UNSCEAR's budget, $674 000 for the two-year period 2002-03, is roughly half
of what it was a decade ago. Because of the crunch, UNSCEAR cancelled its
annual meeting this spring and will instead meet just once, in January,
during the current two-year budget period. But hardest hit is the portion of
UNSCEAR's budget that covers travel and honoraria for outside consultants:
10 years ago, it was $180 000; by 2000-01, it had shrunk to $52 000; and for
2002- 03, it was further chopped in half. "We can't run on that," says
Norman Gentner, scientific secretary for UNSCEAR, which is based in Vienna,
Austria, and has 21 member countries. "[The consultants] are world-level
people. They get a pittance. It's become impossible to function."
UNSCEAR assembles experts who comb through and analyze the literature on
such topics as the health effects of the Chernobyl accident, non-cancer
mortality from ionizing radiation, and the risks associated with
radiation-based medical procedures. Their work forms the core of the tomes
the committee puts out every few years. The International Atomic Energy
Agency, the International Commission on Radiological Protection, and other
international and national bodies use data from UNSCEAR in setting safety
standards and making policies, says the committee's chair, Joyce Lipsztein,
a radiation protection scientist at Brazil's National Atomic Energy
Commission. "UNSCEAR is not biased. It's just scientific, not political.
That's why it's so valuable."
The squeeze on UNSCEAR's budget is part of a broader belt-tightening at the
UN, Gentner says. UNSCEAR was especially vulnerable because during the last
negotiating phase, which took place before Gentner came on board, it was
without a leader. The committee comes under the umbrella of the UN
Environment Programme, and UNSCEAR members and others describe the
UNEP-UNSCEAR relationship in terms ranging from "neutral" to "benign
neglect" to "a divorce would help." Last year, the UN complimented UNSCEAR's
work and directed UNEP "to continue providing support for the effective
conduct of the work of the Scientific Committee and for the dissemination of
its findings to the General Assembly, the scientific community and the
public." But, says Lipsztein, "that hasn't happened."
More than neglect is at work, says Poland's representative to UNSCEAR,
Zbigniew Jaworowski of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in
Warsaw. "UNSCEAR dared in 2000 to state that practically no adverse
radiation effects were observed among the post-Soviet population exposed to
Chernobyl radiation, and that no genetic effects have been observed in the
children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors. As a result, UNSCEAR's
activities have been all but stopped, and there are real prospects that
UNSCEAR could disappear," he says.
While politicians may not always like UNSCEAR's conclusions, says Lipsztein,
"among scientists, they are not controversial." At a General Assembly this
month, Brazil's mission to the UN will try to bring attention to UNSCEAR's
plight. "Without the appropriate funding, UNSCEAR cannot continue," says
Lipsztein. For countries around the world, she adds, "that would be like not
buying insurance."
Toni Feder
© 2002 American Institute of Physics
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