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... Nevermind.
The 25 April 1997 issue of Nature had a striking paper (Baker et al.,
High Levels of Genetic Changes in Rodents of Chernobyl, Nature, v. 380,
pp. 707-708) on unusually high mutation rates in the mitochondrial DNA
of voles captured near the Chernobyl plant vs. more normal rates in
voles captured 28 km from the plant. With another paper on high
mutation rates at minisatellite loci in human germline cells from
Belarus populations highly exposed to Chernobyl fallout in the same
issue (Dubrova et al., op. cit., pp. 683-686), the cover of the issue
had a picture of Chernobyl 4 and the sarcophagus and the news and
editorial sections of the issue had additional comment on the two papers
and other questions raised by the accident.
The current issue (6 November 1997) of Nature has on the last text page
a retraction of the main conclusion of the Baker et al. paper. No
fanfare accompanies the retraction. Baker et al. were unable to
replicate their work when the DNA sequencing was done using an automated
sequencing machine instead of the manual methods used in preparing their
1996 paper. The recalculated mutation rates are still elevated, but,
because of the small sample sizes, no longer statistically significant.
An interesting issue raised by the original papers and by some earlier
work (specifically, the study of Chinese populations from regions of
high background radiation) is the relevance of cytogenetic damage in
conjunction with absent or unexpectedly low observable health impacts.
Both the Baker et al. paper and the accompanying News and Views
commentary by Hillis note that in spite of the high mutation rates the
vole populations at the Chernobyl site are thriving and reproducing.
Hillis offers some hypotheses regarding this apparent paradox. Since I
am not familiar with the methodology or the literature on the use of
minisatellite loci and other biomarkers, I would appreciate comments by
others who are.
Best regards.
Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
js_dukelow@pnl.gov
These thoughts are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my
management or by the U.S. Department of Energy