Re: Leukemia in the news -Reply

[Charles Willis <CAW@nrc.gov>]

Glenn,

The cause for concern here is the seemingly endless propagation of
misinformation.
There may be no villains involved but there is a problem.

Steve Wing seems to have done the best he could for his clients, the plaintiff in the
TMI law suite.  He simply took the data took the data from the Columbia study,
dropped the confidence interval to 67 percent, and viewed the results with alarm.

It is not clear why EHP would publish such a report but at least the EHP published
a rebuttal by the Columbia researchers along with the Wing study.

Responsible government agencies reviewed the Wing study and concluded that it
did not justify any change in the standards.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
staff concluded that "the article dose not credibly support the contention that there
were discernible ill health effects from the releases from the TMI attendant."  

The Leukemia Society of America seems to have felt that the Wing report
supported their purposes and so proclaimed it on the web page, naturally ignoring
the rebuttal and the general rejection by the scientific community.

Mr. Ith then picked up on the LSA post, found it suitably alarmist for his article,
and published.  Of course he ignored the innumerable studies that reached
contradictory conclusions; such results would not excite his readers.  Mr. Ith's
position is made clear by his statement about the A bomb victims; Ith implies that
the deaths from radiogenic leukemia were worse than the direct effects of the
bombs, even though tens of thousands of people died from the direct effects of the
bombs and the latest report from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation places
the number of radiogenic leukemia deaths at about 94.  This information is readily
available but it is not alarming and so is of  little interest to the media.

Generally, we are aware of the problem but we are not finding solutions.  The
Science Teachers' Workshops program offers some hope and so is worth the effort.
We do not yet know how effective it will be, but we try.

Charlie Willis
caw@nrc.gov