News from Germany

["JOHN E HUGHES"<hughesj@songs.sce.com>]

     --THE LEADING CANDIDATE TO HEAD GERMANY'S RADIATION PROTECTION AGENCY has 
     come to the defense of renegade health physicist Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, in 
     a letter sent to German authorities. Schmitz-Feuerhake, a specialist at the 
     University of Bremen, claimed two weeks ago that plutonium and americium 
     she collected in dust samples near the Kruemmel BWR were from spent fuel. 
     The claim was discredited after her colleague Gerald Kirchner accused 
     Schmitz- Feuerhake of withholding evidence which did not fit her strong 
     belief that a local leukemia cluster was caused by Kruemmel emissions. But 
     Dr. Edmund Lengfelder, a physician and nuclear critic at the Institute of 
     Radiation Biology of the University of Munich, accused Kirchner of a 
     ''disgusting behavior'' to discredit Schmitz-Feuerhake and of ''trying to 
     step into the shoes of your academic patroness to get more scientific 
     recognition.'' Lengfelder is said to be the Greens' leading candidate for 
     the post of director of Germany's Radiation Protection Agency (BFS). 
     Numerous other experts have also disputed Schmitz-Feuerhake's claims.
     
     --INGE SCHMITZ-FEUERHAKE FAILED TO SHOW UP AT A HEARING DECEMBER 2, 
     scheduled by regulators in the state government of Schleswig-Holstein to 
     probe her claim, launched into the German media two weeks ago, that 
     plutonium from the Kruemmel BWR had been found in the vicinity of the 
     reactor. Last week, her claim was discredited by German radiation 
     protection experts, including Gerald Kirchner, an associate of 
     Schmitz-Feuerhake at the University of Bremen who charged she had doctored 
     their evidence to blame emissions from Kruemmel for a local leukemia 
     cluster. Wilfried Voigt (Green), top Scheswig-Holstein regulator, then 
     summoned both Schmitz- Feuerhake and Kirchner to the ministry to clarify 
     the matter. Sources said that Schmitz-Feuerhake had told colleagues prior 
     to the December 2 meeting that she ''is not a servant'' and would refuse to 
     explain herself in a formal confrontation with Voigt and Kirchner. State 
     officials said afterward, however, that unless Schmitz-Feuerhake does 
     successfully defend her research, she will be fired as a radiation 
     protection consultant of the state.
     
     --FINDING A NEW CHIEF GERMAN REACTOR SAFETY CONSULTANT WILL HEAD THE AGENDA 
     of a meeting tomorrow of the board of directors of Gesellschaft fuer 
     Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit mbH (GRS). Sources said that the current 
     head of GRS, Adolf Birkhofer, may be offered a severance package for 
     leaving GRS in favor of Lothar Hahn, a leading German safety critic. Hahn, 
     a former staffer at reactor inspectorate Technischer Ueberwachungsverein 
     (TUeV), is the reactor safety director for the Institute of Applied Ecology 
     (Oeko- Institut) in Darmstadt. The GRS board will be chaired by Reiner 
     Baake, a former Green regulator from Hesse who is now State Secretary of 
     the Federal Ministry of Environment and Nuclear Safety (BMU). Birkhofer 
     strongly favors nuclear energy and served as head of GRS under outgoing 
     Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Hahn is favored by the Greens to head GRS, the 
     Birkhofer succession is not altogether clear since in the past the choice 
     has been a consensus decision including opinion from the TUeV and the 
     German states, which are indirect GRS shareholders. The president of GRS is 
     normally appointed for a five-year term.

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