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hanford thyroid editorial
The following editorial from the Seattle Times was posted to the
DOEWATCH email list. The comments that follow the article are the
poster's and NOT MINE.
Mike ... mcbaker@lanl.gov
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Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 12:28:06 EST
From: Magnu96196@aol.com
Subject: Hanford radiation worries unfounded
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January 14, 1999
Guest columnist
Hanford radiation worries unfounded
by John E. Sonneland
Special to The Times
SHOULD people who live in areas near nuclear centers, such as Hanford, be
worried about an increased incidence of cancer?
In a nutshell, scientific and statistical evidence in Washington state over
the past two decades strongly suggests that such fears are unfounded.
What is fact and what is fancy?
Scientific sources agree that cancer of the thyroid is the yardstick by which
we effectively measure radioactive exposure. No other organ of the body
responds so early and so efficiently to radioactivity. Thyroid cancer is the
"canary in the coal mine" of radioactive contamination. If there is nuclear
pollution in the environment, the number of thyroid cancer cases then forecast
an increase in the number of cancer deaths from all causes.
Almost all sources also agree that about 20 years is the reasonable period by
which we should see an increase in thyroid cancer, if we are to see it at all.
Recently, Dr. Don Williams, a respected surgeon practicing 70 miles from
Hanford, and I questioned the conventional wisdom that residents of Eastern
Washington were at increased risk. We sought to learn if, as compared to
national figures, there had been an increase in thyroid cancer in our home
cities of Yakima and Spokane, and then in Washington state.
In the 1995 meeting of the Washington State Chapter of the American College of
Surgeons, Dr. Williams reported on his study of 102 thyroid cancer patients
admitted to Yakima hospitals in the previous 20 years. A year later, I also
addressed the state surgical meeting, adding 387 patients from Spokane's
Sacred Heart and Deaconess medical centers, again all in the 20-year period
ending in 1993.
What was learned? By comparing our findings with reports from the National
Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, we learned two things.
First, there was no increase in the numbers of patients with thyroid cancer in
the respective hospital populations of Yakima and Spokane, as compared with
other areas in the United States, whether or not there was a nearby nuclear
center.
Furthermore, there was no increase whatsoever over the norm throughout the
country in the most lethal type of thyroid cancer, so-called anaplastic
carcinoma. Only 11 of the some 500 patients, all well along in years, had this
unfortunate and always quickly lethal form of thyroid cancer. If there had
been the wild card of harmful radioactivity, we would have found an increase
in those bizarre, anaplastic cancers.
My most unusual finding targeted the occurrence of thyroid cancer deaths in
each of the 39 counties of Washington state. This occurrence, as the rate of
deaths per 100,000 population, showed that the lowest rates in the state, in
terms of thyroid cancer, were actually in the three counties in and around the
atomic site at Hanford! The accompanying map graphically illustrates the
point. The numbers are so small, however, that it stretches statistical
significance to report one area is at greater risk than another. These results
are based on official material obtained from the state Department of Health.
Placing the thyroid deaths in perspective, there are 500 people dying in
Washington state from all cancers for each person dying of thyroid cancer.
Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to the repeated pronouncements of
the American Cancer Society, as found most recently in their 1998 edition of
Cancer Facts & Figures:
"Nuclear power plants: Ionizing radiation emissions from nuclear facilities
are closely controlled and involve negligible levels of exposure for
communities near such plants. Although reports about cancer case clusters in
such communities have raised public concern, studies show that clusters do not
occur more often near nuclear plants than they do by chance elsewhere in the
population."
Before the most recent federal grant, Congress had appropriated some $20
million to study the problem. Most of the grants have gone to the Fred
Hutchinson Research Center in Seattle, with a recent thyroid work force of
over 40 people. The government has recently added $5 million to monitor the
health of people supposedly exposed to Hanford materials. The study, which was
to have been completed in 1993 but postponed, now should have an early
conclusion.
In summary, there is no supporting evidence from hospital studies in Yakima
and Spokane, nor from the state Department of Health that there has been an
increased occurrence of thyroid cancer in any region within the state of
Washington. And the American Cancer Society finds no increased incidence of
thyroid cancer comparing Washington state with the rest of the nation.
John E. Sonneland, M.D., is a Spokane-based surgeon.
=========================================================
Comments:
This is an atypical understanding of the medical profession on radiation.
They typically don't even understand the immune system and its affects on
health.
I-131 is not always the problem. However the model for the organ
specific dose to the thyroid is the same one as the bone organ and the bone
seeking metals and isotopes. It is a simple fact that the bone becomes the
most affected organ due to persistent low dose exposures to bone seeking
toxics.
We all should remember doctors practice------and sometimes not very well.
This doctor is by no stretch of the imagination qualified to make opinion on
radiation and its effects.
He does however make large amounts of money on treating the cancers and
other illnesses related to the immune dysfunctional disease processes that he
fails to mention quite obviously.
He quite clearly has an agenda in this opinion in the paper that is quite
misleading.
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