Radiation on Southern India Coast

["Mario Iannaccone" <miannacc@dhhs.state.nh.us>]

01:35 AM ET 05/11/99


 Radiation on Southern India Coast
 By NEELESH MISRA=
 Associated Press Writer=
        AZEEKKAL, India (AP) _ More than 100,000 poor villagers are
 living in a small coastal region of southern India that is
 unusually rich in naturally occurring radioactive materials.
        The result is a constant bombardment that bathes them with
 yearly radiation doses up to 30 times higher than most people on
 the planet experience, scientists say.
        Most of the residents of the 77-square-mile stretch are only
 vaguely aware of the situation. They go through their days eking
 out livings oblivious to a war of words and statistics between
 environmentalists who say the radiation is killing them and
 government scientists who argue there is no reason to fear.
        The argument is heating up over a nine-year government-financed
 study to be made public later this year that comes to the unlikely
 conclusion the area's inhabitants have become immune to the
 radiation and may even be developing immunity to other diseases as
 well.
        Several international experts expressed skepticism about those
 conclusions.
        ``I doubt very much that immunity to radiation damage occurs in
 humans, and my experience tells me `watch out' with respect to
 government-funded research,'' said one, John W. Gofman, professor
 emeritus of molecular and cell biology at the University of
 California, Berkeley.
        ``Next they will tell us about extraterrestrials,'' Gofman told
 The Associated Press via e-mail.
        The affected area, in Kerala state, is one of India's most
 popular beaches for foreign tourists, who are unaware of the
 questions about the ``black sands of Kerala.'' Middle-class Indians
 from other parts of the country avoid the region because of
 frequent news stories about the radiation.
        ``I know there are some sort of rays here,'' said Pushpasundar
 Sukesan, a 63-year-old fisherman in Azeekkal, a village in the
 radiation zone 1,350 miles south of New Delhi. ``We feel some kind
 of attraction when we sleep on the sand. We feel weak.''
        Other villagers say they get the same feeling when they sleep on
 the sandy beaches or the mud-thatched floors of their huts.
        Scientists involved in the survey say the background radiation
 gives residents an annual dose of radiation 5 to 30 times higher
 than normally recorded elsewhere on Earth. That is equivalent to
 the radiation from 17 to 100 chest X-rays, according to the
 Radiation Effects Research Organization in Hiroshima, Japan.
        The glistening black sand on the beaches overlooking the roaring
 Arabian Sea contains radioactive materials such as thorium, uranium
 and monazite. India is trying to use the area's abundant deposits
 of thorium to replace the uranium that powers its nuclear power
 reactors.
        There are similar radiation zones in southern China, Iran and
 Brazil, but the Kerala coast is believed to be the only high
 radioactivity region with a high population density. There are
 about 5,200 per square mile here.
        Hundreds of scientists and doctors divided the Kerala coast into
 square mile grids and began studying the area in 1990. They checked
 the 100,000 people in the zone plus 300,000 in areas where there is
 no radiation and studied nearly 36,000 children for congenital
 disorders. They also examined soil, air and water.
        Doctors conduct regular medical examinations of the area's
 residents and keep elaborate records of past medical histories of
 each individual to keep track of health changes.
        Now, they say they are looking at groundbreaking findings.
        ``The cancer incidence in the region is the same as in the whole
 state,'' M. Krishnan Nair, director of the government's Regional
 Cancer Center in the provincial capital, Trivandrum, said in an
 interview. ``Since 1990, 2,500 people have been diagnosed with
 cancer, and there are 300 new cases every year.''
        Finding a normal incidence of cancer led the researchers to
 conclude that ``there seems to be some sort of immunity, and the
 radiation here could be producing certain changes in the system
 which could make them more resistant to diseases,'' Nair said.
        David A. Savitz, chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at
 the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, said the
 study is likely to excite supporters of a theory that prolonged
 exposure to very low levels of radiation may stimulate the human
 body to be more resistant.
        But Savitz stressed it is difficult to draw a clear link between
 background radiation and cancer incidence, since other
 environmental or lifestyle factors could be at work.
        At the same time, he said, experts also have been unable to link
 background radiation to health problems.
        Jim Plambeck of the University of Alberta, Canada, is among the
 experts who are doubtful about the preliminary findings of the
 government study. He said it can be very difficult to interpret
 data on the incidence of disease.
        David Hunter of the Harvard School of Public Health added, ``I
 am not aware of any precedent for immunity from the health effects
 of radiation.''
        Environmental activists, meanwhile, contend the radioactive
 minerals have, in fact, led to a spurt in cancer cases in the
 region. Government experts and some local aid groups question the
 accuracy of those studies, arguing the figures have been
 exaggerated.
        ``Blood cancer, Down syndrome, epilepsy and genetic disorders
 are common in this area, but the link with radiation is not yet
 established,'' said P. Pradeep, an environmental activist who
 formerly worked with the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, the hub of
 atomic energy research in India which financed the Kerala study.
        Still, Pradeep thinks, residents ought to be moved out of the
 area, but they won't go. ``People here have more visible problems,
 like their poverty. This is an invisible problem,'' he said.

Mario Iannaccaone,
Health Physicist
miannacc@dhhs.state.nh.us


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