#185: Human Harm From Low-Level Exposure.

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #185
---June 13, 1990---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
========================Original Source========================

HUMAN HARM FROM LOW-LEVEL EXPOSURE.

The federal government is proposing to allow large quantities of "low level" radioactive wastes to be declared non-radioactive ("below regulatory concern," or BRC, is their phrase for it; see RHWN #183). These radioactive wastes would then be handled like ordinary household trash; they would be transported, landfilled, incinerated, reused (for example, radioactive tools) or recycled (for example, radioactive metals) along with everything else we discard each day. Such a change would expose Americans randomly to more ionizing radiation than they are exposed to today. Government and industry both argue that this is acceptable. Industry uses one justification, government uses another. Many people in the nuclear industry argue that small increases in ionizing radiation aren't dangerous at all. They argue that there is a threshold dose of radiation, below which no effects occur, and above which people may be harmed (see RHWN #184). They say the BRC program will not expose anyone to a dose of radiation greater than the threshold dose, and therefore the BRC program will cause no harm.

Government approaches the matter differently. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) argues that any amount of radiation causes some damage to a large population of exposed individuals; they subscribe to the "linear theory" of radiation damage (see RHWN #184). They have set limits for radiation exposure based on the moral premise that it is acceptable to kill one citizen out of every 100,000 citizens by exposing them to radiation. Since the BRC program will not cause exposures that would kill more than one in every 100,000 citizens (and the linear theory tells them that, in reality, the program will kill many fewer people than one in every 100,000), the government argues that the BRC program is acceptable because it will save billions of dollars for the nuclear power industry (which must soon dismantle its aging nuclear reactors and put them "away" somewhere) and for the government itself (which must eventually clean up millions of pounds of radioactive contamination lying around near weapons factories).

Unfortunately, there is now very substantial evidence, from studies of human beings exposed to radiation, that both industry and the government have misunderstood (intentionally or not) the dangers of low levels of ionizing radiation. (By "low levels" we mean within the range 0 to 5 rem [centi-Sievert].)

The most compelling evidence comes from studies of 91,231 people who survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945. Contrary to popular belief, most of these survivors received only very low exposures to ionizing radiation. Their health has been continuously monitored by international scientific organizations, so they represent the best available information on the effects of low levels of ionizing radiation on humans. The bomb survivor data now shows without doubt that there is no safe dose of radiation and, furthermore, that the lowest doses have caused the greatest cancer increases per unit of radiation. (In other words, the shape of the dose-response curve is supra-linear; see RHWN #184.) This means that both the industry assumption (threshold theory) and the EPA's assumption (linear theory) seriously underestimate the dangers from exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation. Furthermore, the Japanese data reveal another important fact about low-level radiation: young humans (children and infants) are more sensitive to the effects of low levels of ionizing radiation than are older humans. We will discuss the Japanese data in detail at another time.

Here we will discuss more recent human data provided by accidents that released large amounts of ionizing radiation at Chernobyl (Soviet Union, 1986), Three-Mile Island (Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 1979), and Savannah River (Georgia, U.S.A., 1970). These accidents are the subject of a shocking new book: Jay Gould and Ben Goldman, DEADLY DECEIT, cited in our last paragraph. Page numbers inside parentheses in our text refer to this book. Like the Japanese bomb survivor data, these three accidents indicate that the lowest doses of ionizing radiation cause the greatest human damage per unit of radiation. This provides confirmation that the government's estimate of the hazards of low-level radiation is low; that is to say, today's allowable limits for human exposure to ionizing radiation will allow more deaths than our government officially admits. How many more is the question. Bomb survivor data indicate 30 times more, but even this may be low, according to Gould and Goldman.

The three accidental releases of large quantities of radiation also confirm what the bomb survivor data are showing: that infants and children are the most sensitive to damage from low levels of ionizing radiation. 

Consider these facts:

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up on April 26, 1986; nine days later, radioactivity monitoring stations in Washington state (9,000 miles from Chernobyl) detected radioactivity in rainfall. By May 16th, 50 EPA monitoring stations detected radioactive iodine-131 in cow's milk all across the U.S. Our government said "no problem." Now government data, analyzed by Gould and Goldman, show that in May, 1986, there was a 5.3% increase in the U.S. death rate, compared to the previous year; the chances are less than one in a thousand that this increase occurred by chance. During June, 1986, the infant mortality rate in the U.S. was 12.3% higher than it had been in June, 1985, and in some parts of the country it was much higher; for example, in the south Atlantic states, the infant mortality rate in June, 1986, was 28% higher than it had been the previous year. Based on this, and on much additional evidence that we haven't space to review, Gould and Goldman suggest that current EPA limits on exposures to low level radiation may need to be tightened by as much as a factor of 1000 (pg. 21).

In November and again in December, 1970, two nuclear rod meltdowns occurred at the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant in Georgia. The plant was operated for the government by DuPont, who never told the public anything about these accidents until Senator John Glenn grilled Dupont officials in public hearings in late 1988. To this day, DuPont claims that no radiation escaped outside the plant, but official government measurements of radioactivity in rain throughout the southeastern U.S. reveal highly suspicious increases immediately after the accidents. In South Carolina in December, 1970, rain carried six times as much radioactivity as it had carried in December, 1969. Radioactivity was also measurable in local fish; fish in the Savannah river contained radiation levels 100,000 times higher than fish sold in New York City in 1971. A child who ate 1/4 pound of catfish from the Savannah River in 1971 would have received a radiation dose equivalent to 20 chest xrays. Infant mortality in South Carolina in January, 1971, was 24% higher than it had been a year earlier; in contrast, infant mortality declined that month over the entire U.S. and over the southeastern states taken as a whole. During the following summer (May through September) infant mortality in South Carolina was 15% higher than it had been the previous year. Again, we are omitting a wealth of detail.

March 28, 1979, a meltdown at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant spewed more than 10 million Curies of radioactivity into the environment, most of it into the air. Because the radiation dispersed quickly, most people received only low levels of exposure. Government and industry spokespeople have repeatedly assured the public than no one was harmed. However, the government's own health data tell quite a different story. Comparing the period three months prior to the accident against the period four months after the accident, Pennsylvania's infant mortality rate increased 16% and the state of Maryland's increased 41%. All together, Gould and Goldman calculate that perhaps as many as 50,000 deaths occurred during 1980-1982 as a result of the TMI accident (pg. 63).

This is an important book. Any individual fact in the book may be disputed, but the cumulative weight of the evidence is persuasive. And though we generally do not give much credence to conspiracy theories, if you read this book from cover to cover, you will have difficulty believing that your government is telling the full truth about the effects of low-level radiation. We suggest that you act prudently to protect yourself and your family: do whatever it takes to keep BRC wastes out of your community.

Get: Jay M. Gould and Benjamin A. Goldman, DEADLY DECEIT; LOW-LEVEL RADIATION, HIGH-LEVEL COVER-UP (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows Press [P.O. Box 548, Village Station, New York, NY 10014], 1990). $19.95

And: Keep in touch with Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS), 1616 P Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 328-0002, and the Radioactive Waste Campaign, 625 Broadway, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10012; (212) 473-7390.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: brc; radioactive waste; llw; book review; deadly deceit; tmi; three mile island; savannah river, ga; dupont; jay gould; ben goldman; radiation; health effects; hiroshima; nagasaki; nuclear weapons; chernobyl; meltdown; pa, ma; groundwater;

#184: Bad News About Low-Level Radiation.

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #184
---June 6, 1990---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
========================Original Source========================

Radioactivity was first discovered in 1896, and its development for medical purposes has been one of humanity's proudest achievements. By various means, the nucleus of an atom can be made unstable and it becomes "radioactive." Once something becomes radioactive, it continuously gives off energy in small packets or "rays." These bundles of energy (called nuclear or atomic radiation, or, more generally, ionizing radiation) have many useful characteristics; for example, they can pass through the human body and thus allow shadowy pictures of our bones to be created on sensitized film; these are called "x-rays" and nearly everyone in the U.S. has benefited from an x-ray at one time or another. [The ionizing radiation from X-rays is produced by a high-energy electric source, not by a radioactive source such as uranium, which gives off ionizing radiation spontaneously and continuously without any external source of power necessary.]

The penetrating power of ionizing radiation makes it useful but also makes it dangerous. When radiation penetrates human tissue (which is composed of billions of cells), the radiation pierces the cells like a tiny but powerful bullet, disrupting the structure of any cells that take a direct hit. Under certain circumstances, which are still not understood, some disrupted cells start multiplying without limit, and this is a condition known as cancer. By direct observation of humans exposed to radiation, it has been definitely proven that radiation causes cancer in humans; only the exact mechanism of causation remains in doubt.

Americans began creating radioactive wastes shortly after 1896, but no special precautions were taken for handling such wastes until 1954 when the federal Atomic Energy Commission began licensing all radioactive materials. During this period of neglect, many places, including large sections of whole states (for example, New Mexico and Colorado, where uranium mining occurred), were contaminated with low-level radioactive trash.

As radiation became more widely used in industry and even in consumer products, the public has become concerned about possible hazards and about the carelessness of the people who handled and regulated radioactivity in the past. Since tighter restrictions on radioactivity could result from such concerns, and since tighter restrictions would inevitably cost money, people who profit from radioactivity have mounted a campaign in recent years to convince the world that there is some "safe" dose of ionizing radiation. These people argue that there is a "threshold" dose of radiation below which no damage occurs, and above which someone might be hurt. Existence or non-existence of this threshold is the key point in the radiation debate today. Pictures explain this story best.

Figure 1 represents the "threshold theory." Look across the bottom of Figure 1. As you move your eye from left to right, the numbers represent an increasing dose of radiation. However, until you get to a dose of 4, the line doesn't begin to move upward. When you get to 4 or more, the line moves upward, representing an increase in the number of cancers being caused by the dose. Four represents the "threshold dose" in Figure 1. If Figure 1 accurately represents reality, it means you could give everyone a small dose of radioactivity without any ill effects whatsoever. Many people in the nuclear power industry favor this theory.

Figure 2 shows a competing theory of how radiation affects people. It is called the "linear theory" and it indicates that any dose of radiation causes some consequences. Notice that, as soon as you move your eye to the right across the bottom of the figure, the line rises, indicating some cancer effect. The only way to get zero cancer effect is to administer zero dose. (This does not mean that a low dose will cause cancer in everyone who receives the dose; it means that a low dose administered to a large group of people will cause cancer in some number of those people--but everyone in the group is at risk.) This is the theory that health authorities have used to set today's allowable limits for radiation exposure.

Figure 3 represents a different theory (called the "supra-linear" theory" of how radiation affects humans. It shows that low doses cause greater damage, per unit of dose, than do high doses. For example, look across the bottom of Figure 3 until you get to a dose of 4; you can see that this causes a cancer effect of between 6 and 7. But if you move your eye to the left, to a dose of 2, the cancer effect has not been cut in half; it is still up around 5. The "supra-linear theory" indicates that low levels of radiation will cause more cancers, per unit of radiation, that will large doses. This view of radiation chills the hearts of those who profit from using radioactivity because it means "low level" radioactive waste is more dangerous than previously thought, and must be handled with greater care (and therefore greater expense).

Two new books have just been published showing, from studies of humans, that the supra-linear theory is the one that best represents the actual facts. We will explore the human consequences of this information as our series continues.

Get: John Gofman, RADIATION-INDUCED CANCER FROM LOW-DOSE EXPOSURE: AN INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS (San Francisco, CA: Committee for Nuclear Responsibility [P.O. Box 11207, San Francisco, CA 94101. First copy, $29.95; $15.00 each copy thereafter.], 1990). This is one of the most careful and thorough pieces of technical writing we have ever read.

And: Jay M. Gould and Benjamin A. Goldman, DEADLY DECEIT: LOW-LEVEL RADIATION, HIGH LEVEL COVERUP (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows Press [P.O. Box 548, Village Station, New York, NY 10015; $19.95]), 1990. A shocking revelation of U.S. government efforts to hide evidence of human birth defects caused by low-level radiation.

=====================================
Increasing Number
of Cancers
(arbitrary units)
.
12                               *
.                              *
10                           *
.   Figure 1: Threshold    *
8   Theory               *
.                      *
6                    *
.                  *
4                *
.              *
2            *
.          *
0    2    4    6    8    10    12
=====================================
Increasing radiation dose -->

=====================================
Increasing Number of Cancers
(arbitrary units)
.
12                       *
.                      *
10   Figure 2:       *
.    Linear        *
8    Theory      *
.              *
6            *
.          *
4        *
.      *
2    *
.  *
0   2   4   6   8   10   12
=====================================
Increasing radiation dose -->

=====================================
Increasing Number of Cancers
(arbitrary units)
.
12
.    Figure  3                   *
10   Supra-linear         *
.    Theory         *
8               *
.           *
6        *
.
4     *
.
2    *
.    *
0    2    4    6    8    10    12
=====================================
Increasing radiation dose -->

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: cancer; radiation; supra-linear theory; linear theory; threshold theory; jay gould; john gofman; ben goldman; ionizing radiation; risk assessment; health effects; aec; uranium; nm; co;

#187: Niagara River--Part 2: A Gold Standard for Control of Toxics.

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #187
---June 27, 1990---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
========================Original Source========================

The area along the Niagara River in northern New York state has the heaviest concentration of chemical dumps in North America. The river connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario and forms the border between the U.S. and Canada. Some 5 million people drink water that flows through the Niagara River and into Lake Ontario, including 25% of the entire population of Canada. The international process for cleaning up 66 toxic dumps along the Niagara River, which began in 1979, has become the subject of an excellent video called TESTING THE WATERS. Lynn Corcoran, who produced the video, chose this topic because cleanup of the Niagara River will set precedents for the way other areas are cleaned up.

The video looks at two aspects of the problem: industrial dumping directly into the river through discharge pipes, and industrial dumping into holes in the ground (so-called landfills). In each case the video tries to show how we got where we are today, and what our options are for the future.

Industrial Discharge Pipes

Dumping industrial poisons into the drinking water supplies of 5 million people is entirely legal, so long as you request a permit to do it. How does our government decide how much dumping is OK and how much is too much? On the video, a representative of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) explains that they dole out river dumping permits by first deciding how much waste the entire river can "assimilate," then they divvy up this "assimilative capacity" among the various dumpers. This explanation is followed immediately on camera by a representative of Environment Canada, which is Canada's equivalent of our federal EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), who explains that many chemicals such as PCBs, dioxin, and the pesticides Lindane and Mirex aren't "assimilated" or degraded at all by the River. They merely flow downstream and settle in Lake Ontario, where they build up year after year, slowly accumulating and concentrating in food chains. This aspect of the problem is not considered by New York state officials.

In addition to using "assimilative capacity" to apportion dumping permits among the dumpers, New York DEC and our EPA also use "risk assessment," we are told on camera. For each chemical that a company wants to dump, the government decides how much of that chemical will kill one in a million people (this is considered an "acceptable risk.") They then license the polluter to dump sufficient quantities of poisons to kill just that many citizens and no more. However, Professor Ross Hume Hall from McMaster University appears on camera pointing out that no one really knows how much of a chemical causes what effects; and, he points out, each "risk assessment" is carried out as if the human body only encountered that one chemical alone. Despite large gaps in our knowledge, and despite incorrect assumptions, governments routinely use risk assessments to make life or death decisions that are binding on the citizenry.

Next we see a representative of Occidental Chemical (the people who created the Love Canal toxic dump), Thomas Jennings. Mr. Jennings says, "I think we're all familiar with the way new drugs and pharmaceuticals have to go through rigorous testing. Well, to a lesser extent, industrial chemicals have to go through the same thing." Unfortunately, Mr. Jennings is simply wrong. Congress did pass a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 1976 containing language about testing all new chemicals before they are marketed. But EPA has neither the will nor the money for such testing, so about 1000 new chemicals are put into commercial use each year without any testing for their health effects. This part of TSCA is simply ignored.

Next Mr. Jennings explains that for each chemical there is a threshold, an amount below which no health effects occur and above which people get sick. He says, "We have to determine what that level is. That's a major task for industry and for health officials into the future," he says.

Then we hear once again from Professor Hall who points out that there are 60,000 chemicals in industrial use and we have "absolutely no information whatsoever" on 40,000 of them. He goes on to note that studies aren't being done and to ask, without studies, how can we conclude there's no problem?

The narrator then frames a key question: In the absence of information proving that a substance is dangerous or safe to humans and the environment, how should government regulators act? Should they wait for evidence of danger or should they err on the side of caution and restrict the discharge of a substance into the river because it might cause harm? Should chemicals be assumed innocent until proven guilty, or the other way around?

So there you have the present regulatory system in a nutshell: 40,000 chemicals already in use have never been studied for their effects on humans and on the environment. Despite what the gentleman from Occidental says, new chemicals are not tested before they are put into use. The government hands out dumping permits on the incorrect assumption that the river can "assimilate" all the chemicals that will be dumped. Furthermore, dumping permits are issued based on health "risk assessments" which assume that the government knows the health consequences of the chemicals that are being dumped (an incorrect assumption), and further assumes that any individual is only exposed to a single chemical at any moment, which is clearly not the case. Industry says it's up to government and industry to find "safe" levels of chemicals; the way this is being done today is to expose large human populations to a witch's brew of chemicals without studying the consequences in any systematic way; when a cluster of birth defects or cancers shows up and citizens start hollering, then the government may grudgingly conduct a study. 

Meantime, the dumping continues on a grand scale and many fish in the Great Lakes now suffer from goiter and liver cancer and have become unsafe to eat (see RHWN #146).

The alternative, of course, is to declare that this massive experiment on the environment is unacceptably Russian roulettish and to require industry to shift to closed-loop technology, designing every industrial system to meet a goal of zero discharge. As the narrator of this video points out, it has been the stated intention of all four governments since before the turn of the century that water used in industrial processes should be free of contaminants before it is discharged into the river. Zero discharge of toxics has been the goal for 100 years.

But now a representative of DuPont appears on camera saying zero discharge sounds good but cannot be achieved. And Mr. Jennings from Occidental Chemical says zero discharge will simply shut down industry.

Clearly these gentlemen misunderstand. We are not advocating perfection. We are merely advocating a gold standard for toxics. Some 3 billion Troy ounces of gold have been mined during the past 6,000 years. A tiny fraction of this has been sunk at sea, has been buried in tombs now lost, or has otherwise become irretrievable. But in general, we notice that there is not a "waste gold" problem anywhere in the world. Today gold is successfully mined at concentrations of only 3 or 4 parts per million (ppm). At even lower concentrations, it is readily reclaimed from scrap. Nanograms are captured.

Historically, the real value of gold has not been that it constantly increases in value, but that it rarely declines in value. As society applies the "gold standard" to polluters, zero discharge of their poisonous wastes will likewise allow them to retain what they already have and cherish: their good names, the absence of leg irons, and the uninterrupted flow of life fluids between their shoulders and their heads.

Get: TESTING THE WATERS from Bullfrog Films, Oley, PA 19547; phone (800) 543-3764. $350 purchase or $75 rental for schools and citizen groups.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: zero discharge; gold standard; remedial action; niagara river; love canal; assimilative capacity; water pollution; rivers; occidental chemical; oxy; tsca; risk assessment; how clean is clean; great lakes; ny; landfilling; drinking water; tsca; chemical industry; ross hall; government;