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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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