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RE: Radiation on Southern India Coast




Very interesting posting ...too bad the AP story doesn't draw any parallels
to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone -- the dose rates are comparable, yet there
is no evacuation in the Indian case...
jaro
frantaj@aecl.ca
> ----------
> From: 	Mario Iannaccone[SMTP:miannacc@dhhs.state.nh.us]
> Reply To: 	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> Sent: 	Tuesday, May 11, 1999 8:43 AM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	Radiation on Southern India Coast
> 
> 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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