Fighting for Hope Part 5 (cont’d) – There is only one World: Nuclear Power and Cancer

[Part 5 (cont’d) of Fighting For Hope by Petra Kelly]

NUCLEAR POWER AND CANCER

I am being sought
radical mother
mingling in the throng
laying the bomb of fear

I am shedding tear gas
for the power station
future

The trees are still
calendars
meadows are still being
born

But poison clouds are already
diving the heavens away

I see death
rays
over the face of the earth:

the last x-rays
man

Margret Schröder

There are more than 30 million people suffering from cancer in the industrialized countries every year. In West Germany 250,000 people develop cancer annually. Official figures published by German Cancer Aid show that this includes almost 1,700 children under the age of fifteen. About 4,000 children are receiving steels radiation or chemical treatment at any one time. These treatments only tackle the symptoms, but even when it is accepted that the turnout has already outstripped the body’s defence system, they are common practice. The number of people calling for non-toxic cancer therapy is on the increase.

The nuclear age has become the cancer age. Appalling instances of radiation damage are on the increase. My sister died at the age of ten after suffering radiation treatment Many people are now concerned that radioactive substances used on the pa dent may be extremely harmful, The number of children who have been damaged by radiation therapy has reached a very worrying level.

Some reports to make one’s hair stand on end:

In 1978 the government in Washington declared fifty nuclear installations a health hazard. Statistics show that there was a disproportionately higher incidence of leukaemia and other forms of cancer in these areas than in normal towns and communities. Eliminating the danger would have cost $250 million.
—The Harrisburg accident radiation dose unknown. “Just how much radioactivity escaped during the reactor disaster at the nuclear power station on Three Mile Island is something we shall never know for sure. Gibsen, the investigator, told the United States Atomic Energy Commission that all the radiation meter indicators had gone off the edge of the page that morning. However, about 80 per cent of the radioactivity discharged escaped through the used air chimneys, and the measuring instruments there were not set for radiation emission of that order. The curves also exceeded the upper limits of the measuring scales in the buildings adjacent to the reactor, even though these go up to 1,000 rem per hour. Five rem per annum is the maximum exposure to radiation for workers in power stations.”
—A dispute has been raging in Landshut, Bavaria since February 1980 over the sudden appearance of white sparrows, many of which are deformed. While the Bavarian Ministry of the Environment and the power station authorities deny any connection, many scientists put it down to radiation leakage from the local power station
—There is also the case of the Munich dentist who discovered that some children had radioactive strontium in their teeth. “Dr Korff noticed that there were always more cases of gum inflammation (stomatitis aphtosa), among children corning into his surgery after a south wind. On closer investigation, it turned out that when there had been a south wind, the radioactive waste from the nearby reactor was dispersed across Munich. Dr Korff then examined teeth extracted from children and established the presence of radioactive strontium. He also established that the radioactive deposits found in the teeth of children born in Eching were twenty-three times the normal level. Dr Korff also observed an increase in unexplained deaths among children as a result of blood diseases. The dentist alerted the authorities, but they have played down his findings and, according to Dr Korff the official measurements have been kept secret.” (Diagnosen 11July 1978).
—An investigation carried out by the Director of the County Health Department in Rocky Flats USA, came to the conclusion that there is a higher incidence of leukaemia and lung cancer in the vicinity of the plutonium works. In districts neighbouring the plutonium works there was a statistically significant increase in the incidence of leukaemia and twice as many cases of lung cancer as the national average. The number of miscarriages was also disproportionately high.
—An increase in the incidence of leukaemia was established in the vicinity of the La Hague reprocessing plant in France. These statistics can be obtained from the Health Department in Cherbourg (for the period 1976-7).
—In the view of one American scientist, the incident at the Three Mile Island power station near Harrisburg very probably contributed to the deaths of several hundred small children. Sternglass, a radiation scientist at the University of Pittsburgh comes to the conclusion, in a detailed study, that there was an actual rise in the infant mortality rate in the area affected by the radioactive cloud discharged at three Mile Island. Using data in the Health Department’s own publication Vital Statistics, Stemglass shows that infant mortality in Pennsylvania was almost twice as high in 1979 with 271 deaths (or 18.5 per 1,000), as it had been in March 1979 (141 or 10.4 per 1,000). At the same time, the American national average went down from 14.1 to 12.5 per 1,000. Radiologist Stemglass believes that, if their mothers were living close to the power station, it is possible that the thyroid glands of unborn children in the fifth to the ninth month in the womb, absorbed doses of radiation of between 200 and 1,100 millirem. And in areas where the radioactive cloud touched the ground, Sternglass estimated that a dose five or ten times higher was possible.

Again, according to Vital Statistics, after the Three Mile Island incident there was an increase in Pennsylvania in the number of children born alive, yet dying within a few days of birth, between March (141), May (198) and July (271). There were similar figures for the city of Pittsburgh, about 290 kilometers to the west of Three Mile Island, and hence in the path of the radioactive cloud. In the Magee Maternity Hospital, where 65 per cent of all children in Pittsburgh are normally born, the infant mortality rate went up from March (14 deaths per 1,000 births) to May (31.6 deaths per 1,000 births) to July (30.1 deaths per 1,000 births).

—A further study was conducted on the population in the vicinity of the Big Point reactor on Lake Michigan. The results showed that infant mortality was 50 per cent, leukaemia 40 per cent and the incidence of congenital deformities 230 per cent higher than the average for the state of Michigan as a whole.
—In 1975, no less than 998 workers at the Windscale nuclear power station were exposed to quantities of radiation which will mean the loss of many years of life.
—In a study of the Hanford nuclear workers by Dr Alice Stewart and Dr Mancuso, it was established that workers in the nuclear industry receive an annual dose that corresponds to anything between 500 and 5,000 full breast X-rays a year.

It cannot be emphasized enough that the World Health Organisation in Geneva ascribes 80 per cent of all cancer conditions to environmental factors. Health hazards from the food supply are probably much more common than is generally supposed. They arise as a result of industrially produced chemical fertilizers, by using biocides to combat insects, bacteria, weeds and destructive rodents, by deliberate or thoughtless emission of harmful substances by the chemical industry, in the form of harmful substances from the combustion of carbon dioxide and in the release of radioactive gases, condensation, waste air and effluent from nuclear installations. In the view of the experts, the future of cancer relief lies to a large extent in the elimination of these environmental factors.

In October and November 1979, doctors’ conferences were held in London, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Hamburg on the subject of the dangers of radiation treatment. The participants included leading international scientists, Dr Alice Stewart and Dr George Kneale (UK), Dr Rosalie Bertell (USA) and others. Following increased awareness of the dangers of even low doses of radiation, the maximum permitted levels have been steadily reduced. But now that there are plans to build a large number of fast breeders and re-processing plants all over the world, these levels are being raised again.

An exhaustive statistical study conducted by Dr Stewart showed that children whose mothers had been X-rayed in pregnancy were twice as likely to develop leukaemia. More and more scientists and doctors are warning the population of the dangers of low levels of radiation from nuclear power stations. The dangers of small doses of radioactivity are even recognised by established radiation biologists. The notion of “harmless tolerance doses” should be dropped.

Notwithstanding these findings, the International Commission on Radiological Protection is recommending a drastic increase in maximum levels. This includes an increase to more than twice the current permitted level of lung exposure to radiation. EURATOM is recommending its member states to accept the new levels because they are necessary for the operation of fast breeders and reprocessing plants. So as not to jeopardise the smooth passage of these efforts, the public will not be informed of the dangers of low levels of radioactive exposure, nor about the further increase in maximum levels.

Meanwhile, Dr Karl Morgan and Professor Rotblatt have issued the following joint statement:

There will never be a complete cure for radiation damage to people; even at a low level of exposure to radiation, many thousands of interactions take place between radiation and human body cells . . . It is clear that if the cell core is damaged and some of the genetic information units are lost, or if a similar set of circumstances leads to malignancy, no dose can be set so low that there is a nil risk. Thus the risk of an outbreak of cancer as a result of the effects of radioactivity increases in more or less direct proportion to the increase or accumulation of radioactive treatment.

There is no threshold of safety; the effects of radiation on the body mount up from one treatment to the next.

Statements which seek to play down the pressures on the environment caused by nuclear installations are irresponsible. Professor Dr Schellong, Director of the University Children’s Hospital in Münster, is right in saying that

“the introduction of a legal requirement to register cancer conditions and congenital abnormalities is essential if we are to establish the incidence, and possible fluctuation in incidence, of these conditions. Parliament and Government should make this matter one of urgent priority, especially as the use of nuclear energy is being developed at great speed, despite all the unresolved problems and despite the misgivings of wide sectors of the population.”

The risk of developing cancer from low doses of radiation is evidently much greater than we had ever supposed.