Re: News Item: Radiation on Southern India Coast

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

The rad protection disinformation campaign in damage control mode?


Regards, Jim Muckerheide
========================

Carter Schroy wrote:
> 
> Radiation on Southern India Coast
> .c The Associated Press
>  By NEELESH MISRA
> 
> 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.
> 
> AP-NY-05-11-99 0135EDT
> 
>  Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP
> news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
> distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press.
> 
>         ***********     ************
> Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Medphys at:
> http://sherouse.home.mindspring.com/MPFAQ/
> 
> Archives of recent Medphys Postings at:
> http://www.escribe.com/medicine/medphys/
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html