Chernobyl disaster caused cancer cases in Sweden

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@HOTMAIL.COM>]

It is embarassing with all these alarms from my Country: "....disaster 

CAUSED..."



The Swedish record holder of unjustified cancer alarms is a co-author of 

this report.

(if any candidate can compete I want to know)



I also note that the first author occurs as a reference together with 

Rosalie Bertell at the major anti-nuclear website in Sweden - see the 

references at the bottom of the following page (sorry about the Swedish - it 

is about low dose radiation):

http://www.folkkampanjen.se/lagdoss.html



According to my opinion this webpage is biased to make ionizing radiation 

appear as scary as possible and the idea is to discredit the ICRP from every 

aspect - their objectives and so on (Bertell level). I do not agree with 

aspects of the historical description - the one who wrote the webpage text 

either lacks fundamental knowledge or wants to screw up the ideas about what 

the ICRP has been doing over the years.





Now a few first comments to the report:



With the agenda context above (among other things) every aspect of data 

handling in the paper can be questioned: How the cuts were made in the 

material, how the background was taken into account, time periods, 

geography, age groups and so on. A thorough analysis has to be made with 

regard to the older fallout from Soviet bomb tests and so on. To gain 

credibility an independent group of scientists should analyze the same data.



Since the over all collective radiation doses in Sweden were low (6000 manSv 

for the 50 years following the Chernobyl disaster) compared to natural 

background radiation a statistical analysis should be made to give an 

analysis of whether it can be expected to be possible to even 

(significantly) detect any effects on cancer incidence. The paper gives a 

maximum possible individual dose of 4 mSv (7-10 mSv?) (low dose rate) extra 

for the first year. This dose level must reflect quite extreme eating habits 

so one may wonder how many people are in that dose category. The report is 

based on ground deposition (Bq Cs-137 per m2) however - not on individual 

dose estimates. This weakness is serious as we are a radon country (radon 

and related gamma has not been taken into account).



For comparison - see the RERF work on atomic bomb survivors where there is 

real quality work in the individual dose assessments (discredited by the 

authors with a reference to Stewart & Kneale - the argument is that the 

cohort was created five years after the atomic bombs had been exploded - 

thus "ignoring" early cases - I ask to what degree this really is an 

argument: I spoke with Alice Stewart for about 4 four hours in 1986 - to my 

surprise (considering her important contributions about the cancer risks 

related to fetal X-rays in the early 1960:ies) she used a very vulgar 

anti-nuclear language about "...the nuclear establishment..." and so on. 

This is "guilt by association" but as Stewart & Kneale are referred to I 

want to know if the reference is scientifically solid and justified or if it 

is just part of an anti-nuclear context.



As excess leukemia and thyroid cancers (we had iodine fallout as well but it 

was relatively low and of course the exposure was very time limited) did not 

turn up in excess - the conclusions of the report (849 extra cancers) the 

study does not support that ionizing radiation is the cause (I doubt that 

any of the authors has a degree in radiation biology or physics BTW). The 

authors speculate about a cancer promoting effect (speeding up the growth of 

already existing cancers).



It may also be mentioned that a publication from around 1990 (in the Swedish 

physicians' journal Lakartidningen (in Swedish): what I write here is taken 

from my memory as I haven't localized the paper yet) showed that the 

Laplanders ran lower cancer risks than Swedes in general. The only exception 

was for gastric cancer - supposedly related to high consumption of smoked 

meat and fish. The Laplanders eat a lot of reindeer meat which also may be 

of interest because of the cesium (in particular) fallout related to Soviet 

atomic bomb tests around 1960. It is of course important to correct for any 

differences in age distributions and focus on any age truncations (as cancer 

increases exponentially with increasing age, as I interpret the study, no 

one over 70 years old was included): Laplanders probably has a shorter life 

span than the average Swede (some areas up north are already down to -25 C 

or less).



My personal actions and ideas only - not approved by anyone - I here 

represent myself. If anything is wrong that I have written I am of course 

willing to correct it.



Bjorn Cedervall               bcradsafers@hotmail.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------

PS1. Besides my associate professorship in medical radiation biology I have 

been affiliated with the Swedish nuclear power industry since 1984. I write 

this as it has happened a few times that some probably paranoid individual 

pops up to "reveal it" (why don't these individuals argue for academic 

salaries for radiation biologists?). I have, in the above, clearly indicated 

my own suspicious approach and given some of my reasons for it. I want to 

see the facts clearly sorted out - but statistics with a lead author who is 

key reference together with another reference who is Bertell ("AIDS is due 

to radiation" and so on - competing with the mobile phone hypothesis by 

Coghill) and in turn in the worst Swedish anti-nuclear context - of course 

that results in more questions than it answers.



PS2. I eat much more reindeer meat than people in general - I estimated the 

doses long ago (don't have the weighting factor Sv/Bq(intake of Cs-137 at 

this moment of writing) even with quite conservative assumptions and 

concluded that the doses were uninteresting on an individual basis. The fast 

food fraction should probably be of more concern - plus the cold (=less 

excerice because one does not want to go outside) - but radiation may sound 

more frightening for those who follow the worst parts of the media.





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