Radioactive coastal region hosts 100,000 Indians

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Radioactive coastal region hosts 100,000 Indians

By NEELESH MISRA 

AZEEKKAL, India (May 11, 1999 10:06 a.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) - More than 100,000 villagers live 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's 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. 
-- 
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