Re: FW: Atomic Bomb Testing Radiation Dosage Re-estimation

[epirad@mchsi.com]

Report avaialble on the web -



http://www.nap.edu/books/0309089026/html/



Regards, Bill



bill-field@uiowa.edu

> 

> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/09/national/09NUKE.html?tntemail1

> Atomic Bomb Testing Radiation Dosage Re-estimation

> 

> WASHINGTON, May 8 - Some soldiers, sailors and aviators who developed cancer

> from exposure to radiation from 1945 to 1962 were denied compensation

> because the Pentagon grossly underestimated their doses, a panel of

> independent scientists said today.

> 

> For a majority of veterans who took part in cold war nuclear tests or were

> in Japan near Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the underestimation does not matter

> because "ionizing radiation is not a potent cause of cancer," said the

> panel, which was convened by the National Academy of Sciences at the request

> of Congress.

> 

>  Congress has classified 21 kinds of cancer as "presumptively" caused by

> radiation exposure. About 4,000 veterans with other kinds of cancer or other

> diseases applied for compensation, and all but around 50 were turned down,

> the study found.

> 

> The study's authors said they could not estimate how many of the others



> should have been compensated. "Let me emphasize how difficult it was to even

> sort out this number of 50," said John E. Till, committee chairman and

> president of the Risk Assessment Group of Neeses, S.C. "It is impossible for

> us to say how many claims might be successful should these claims be

> recalculated." But it was appropriate to reject most of the 4,000, the

> report said.

> 

> It was unclear whether the doses of unsuccessful claimants would be

> recalculated. Mr. Till said this was outside the committee's assignment.

> 

> Lt. David Guy of the Navy, a spokesman for the Defense Threat Reduction

> Agency, which made the calculations in the first place, said that the agency

> was in general agreement with the report but that it would use it to reform

> its procedures, not to revisit past work.

> 

> Mr. Till's committee, the National Academy of Sciences Board on Radiation

> Effects Research, stated that in some of the 99 cases it reviewed in depth,



> the calculations were illegible or unexplained. In other cases, dose

> analysts ignored the possibility that a blast at the Nevada Test Site would

> kick up fallout deposited in previous tests, the panel said. And information

> from the veterans about their activities at the test scenes was often

> ignored, the reviewers said.

> 

> In one case, a major who said he was present at 21 detonations was credited

> with having been at only 11.

> 

> Congress intended the dose reconstruction process, which, by definition, is

> an estimate, to give the benefit of the doubt to the veterans, and told the

> Pentagon to calculate the maximum possible exposure for each veteran, and

> use that as the working figure.

> 

> Veterans were to be compensated if the probability was 50 percent or more

> that the exposure was the cause of their disease. But the reviewers said

> that in many cases the Pentagon's estimate was 10 times too small.

> 

> The question of "atomic veterans" has persisted for more than 20 years, but



> as the debate has continued, the number of veterans has dwindled. Of those

> covered in the study released today, the oldest were prisoners near

> Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 or stationed there after the war. The

> youngest were those exposed in the last days of atmospheric nuclear testing,

> in 1962.

> 

> William A. Harper, commander of the National Association of Atomic Veterans,

> said in an interview that "if guys could get some kind of compensation out

> of it while they are still living, that would be nice." His group has fewer

> than 5,000 members, down from 10,000 at its peak, he said.

> 

> Mr. Harper, 77, was a Navy petty officer in the South Pacific during two

> nuclear blasts in July 1946. He developed polio a few years later, and said

> it was caused by radiation's effect on his immune system. He was turned down

> for compensation.

> 

> Mr. Harper said that the Pentagon had applied a single dose estimate to

> everyone on a ship, even though sailors had different jobs that resulted in

> differing exposures.

> 



> An independent radiation expert, Arjun Makhijani, who in 1983 published a

> critique of dose estimates from the July 1946 tests, said the government

> should simply provide compensation and medical care to the surviving

> veterans.

> 

> But a member of the committee, Clarice Weinberg, chief of the biostatistics

> branch of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said that

> the recognition that the dose estimates were poor was not the same as saying

> that they were high enough to cause cancer. "Even at those levels of

> exposure, radiation is not that potent as a carcinogen," Ms. Weinberg said.

> 

> Studies of the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki exposed to far higher

> levels found that only about 5 percent of the cancers they suffered were a

> result of radiation, she said.

> For the veterans, she said, "For many of these doses, you could multiply by

> 10 and even 100, and not come up to a level that would warrant the claim

> being awarded."

> 



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