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Kondo discussion of longevity
Dr. Goldsmith,
I don't believe that you, or most people who accept the current
data have conflicts. I believe that most people have a reasonable
faith in the veracity of governments in its dealings in these
matters. I do believe that faith is misplaced.
I also believe, from personal knowledge and experience starting
in the early 1970s, standing back from the science in efforts to
acquire valid scientific data in the efforts to establish design criteria
and analysis data, that government actively suppressed data and
redirected honest scientific work. (It's amazing how such efforts
are perceived to be the result of "bureaucratic stupidity of non-
technical managers", rather than perceiving their intent of not
supporting selected lines of work. Of course the normal actions
of all of us to produce results that are "important", and to argue
for continued funding for our area of interest, played into arguing
that "more work" is needed due to "fears" of radiation.) I contributed
to establishing design standands and building unjustified systems
and costs into nuclear power and waste management solutions.
In the 80s and into today, what was then a minor, conservative,
misdirection of resources and data, has become the devastating
uncontrolled bureaucratic frenzy to call any radiation exposure
worthy of regulation, and to justify programs to spend $$100s of
billions reduce <1% of human exposure to <<1%.
Then we come to radon, which of course must be attacked by the
bureaucracy when it delivers 2500-3500 mrem to the lung
(~200 mrem dose eq). And understated at that! (if we account for
the decay products on the same basis as man-made radioactivity
discharged to the environment, while the bureaucracy pushes to
spend $100s of billions to "protect us" from a few mrem, to
maintain any kind of consistent rationale of need to support the
radiation protection policies. Never mind the lack of effect in high
variations in radon-exposed populations (natural and occupational,
and in millions who have used radon balneology as a therapy!).
I was in error in my recollection. The original source was not
Shimizu, but Mine et al 1981, "The current mortality rates of
A-bomb survivors in Nagasaki City", Jpn J. Public Health, 28,
337-342 (English abstract). This was followed by Dr. Kondo's own
test of the "healthy survivor effect". As noted, he further
addresses these issues in subsequent chapters.
Note that Dr. Kondo has gone thru a difficult personal
experience, much more difficult in Japan even than the west,
which has ostracized him with much pain, separated from
friends and collegues with pressures to conform to the RERF
line, who consider his courageous stand not a matter of
scientific inquiry and objectivity, but "disloyalty" in possibly
contributing to the demise of the RERF program (due to
experience with gov't treatment of programs that come up with
wrong answers, ie, the Center for Human Radiobiology.
And we all know DOEs sudden action last year to cut the National
Academy of Sciences out of the RERF program, and administer
the program at Columbia U. (The substantial adverse reaction
comes, without explicitly saying so in public, from the precise
knowledge and fear that is represented here.)
Having been stymied in that effort, DOE has now contracted with
the head of NRPB/ICRP which have been aggressively fighting
rearguard actions to defend the linear model in the face of
mounting, devastating, data and SCIENCE, to "review" and
recommend new directions and controls for funding RERF.
An extract of Dr. Kondo's presentation, in the context of
considering the removal of Chernobyl area residents in
contaminated areas, follows (from Chapter 2, "Health Effects
of Low-level Radiation", 1993, Medical Physics Publishing,
800-442-5778).
-------------------
"Furthermore, I would not be surprised if those who stayed in
houses contaminated by radioactive fall-out lived longer than
those who moved away. There are many lines of evidence for me to
believe so. The first is described below and the others in the
following chapters.
"The first line of evidence is based on the results of an
epidemiological study of deaths among survivors of the atomic
bomb in Nagasaki, published by Mine et al (1981) after surveying
7,782 deaths occurring in 1970-76. As indicated in Figure 2.7,
the age-specific mortality rates among the bomb survivors over
the age of 60 were significantly lower than among control
citizens.
"Fig. 2.7 Comparison of age-dependent rates of mortality
(1970-76) for atomic bomb survivors (solid line) and controls
(broken line) in Nagasaki
(Mortality rates are averages for 1970-76 at five-year intervals;
e.g., the rate at age 30 is the average for ages 30-34 years
(constructed from data of Mine et al., 1981)
"In the comparison of Mine et al, atomic bomb survivors are
defined as people who were given an 'Atomic Bomb Survivor Health
Handbook' ( hibakusha techo' in Japanese) by the Japanese
"Government via the Nagasaki City Office after they had been
confirmed as authentic atomic survivors, whereas unexposed groups
are defined as people living in Nagasaki City but without a
health handbook. The health handbook holders receive free
medical care and subsidies for diseases for which a possible
causal relation with the atomic bombing is presumed, and, when
they die, funeral subsidies are given to their relatives by the
Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan. According to a survey,
health handbook holders undergo more frequent health examinations
than people who do not have the handbook. Slight changes in the
life style of atomic bomb survivors, who are more concerned with
their health than other people, may also have a favorable effect
on their longevity, despite the exposure to radiation.
"Experts in epidemiology and other branches of life sciences
criticized the study of Mine et al. (1981)and argued that the
atomic bomb survivors must have suffered from worry and anxiety
during the long period since they were exposed to the bomb; most
of them may have had to live more stoically, in fear of potential
diseases, than unexposed citizens. Therefore, it is possible that
changes in life style, rather than radiation, reduced the
mortality of atomic bomb survivors compared with unexposed
citizens.
"I, too, would regard this paper as of little value if I were
still in the ivory tower of the National Osaka University School
of Medicine, because the comparison of the two groups described
in the paper lacks scientific rigidity. Now, however, I greatly
appreciate the value of this paper because of its view of the
real world. The real data on survivors of the atomic bomb in
Nagasaki might be very valuable to those residents of the ex-USSR
who have decided to continue living in their highly contaminated
homes, opposing the governmental order to evacuate them.
"Human beings cannot be studied like experimental animals, and
data on humans are almost always considered to be incomplete from
the academic point of view. The available factual data on humans
exposed to low-level radiation are, however, invaluable, and I
propose now that we exercise rationality in handling these
incomplete but important data. This change in my view of the
evaluation of scientific data has come about gradually, since
April 1986, when I retired from the National Osaka University and
took a research job at Kinki University, a private establishment.
This was also at the time of the Chernobyl accident. I was thus
forced to face public opinion, because I met more people in
private enterprises than I did Government officials.
"I considered that it might be worthwhile to test the possibility
that the atomic bomb survivors overcame the harmful effects of
radiation and lived longer than unexposed people, not because of
a 'healthy survivor effect', but because of a beneficial effect
of low-dose radiation. To exclude the 'healthy survivor effect',
mortality rates were compared between two subgroups of health
handbook holders: an exposed group made up of people exposed to
more than 1 rad and an 'unexposed' group made of people exposed
to less than 0.5 rad. As can be seen from the preliminary data
given in Table 2.7, the mortality rates of people exposed to more
than 1 rad of radiation are lower than those of the people
exposed to less than 0.5 rad. This finding was true for both men
and women, except for women aged over 80 and men aged 30 39
years. The data I show here can be readily understood by ordinary
people. I shall not bother my readers with the statistical
analysis, which will be published elsewhere.
"Table 2.7 Annual mortality rates (per 100,000), 1970-76, in
Nagasaki
Sex Age Bomb survivors* Controls#
-----------------
(years) >1 rad <0.5 rad
Male
30-39 205 201 188
40-49 375 489 417
50-59 1,036 1,201 957
60-69 2,119 2,485 2,640
70-79 6,342 6,856 8,856
> 80 15,758 16,319 32,673
Female
30-39 78 87 103
40-49 218 224 223
50-59 428 569 510
60-69 833 1,303 1,516
70-79 3,242 4,161 5,305
> 80 13,158 12,626 19,634
Personal communication from M. Mine and Y. Okumura
* Holders of the Atomic Bomb Survivor Health Handbook
(see text)
# Citizens without the health handbook
"However, cautious readers may raise the possibility that the
decrease in mortality in every age group above 30 is simply
because the less healthy 10-20% of the exposed population have
already died as the result of the bomb explosion. This
possibility is discussed in the next chapter, using data on
mortality in 1950-1985 among bomb survivors in Hiroshima as well
as Nagasaki."