Ratepayers' Request for Study

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Letters to the Editor
• Ratepayers request for study
By Dale Dewar 

 It was encouraging to see this request by the Ratepayers Association in the Northumberland Today (Feb. 4).
As an outsider to Port Hope, I first became interested in radiation and health as a rural family physician in Northern Saskatchewan 20 years ago. A colleague and I requested a baseline health study of the Northern population at the Lee Federal-Provincial Commission. A baseline health study is the type of study that collects health, dietary, migration and environmental data of a population over time, perhaps ten or twenty years. We were neither opposed nor supportive of the mining initiative but were concerned about the possible effects on the eco-health of the North. Because of my interest, I reviewed most of the current and historic literature on radiation and health for the Saskatchewan Medical Association during the Uranium Development Partnership hearings in Saskatchewan in 2009.
Physicians for Global Survival, the organization I have represented as executive director since October 2009, is intensely committed to eradicating nuclear weapons and has been studying the issue for thirty years. PGS, an affiliate of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), believes that nuclear weapons - by accident, terrorist, or planned use – are the biggest threat to life on this planet. PGS has taken the position that nuclear weapons and nuclear power are intrinsically linked; it proposes a gradual decrease in reliance upon nuclear power as well as a moratorium on uranium mining. (This is not all that PGS stands for but these are most pertinent to the topic at hand.)
Concerning the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's Synthesis Report, 2009:
Reference # 3 leads to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR):
"Consensus reports by the United States National Research Council and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) have upheld the linear no- threshold model (LNT) concluding that radiation is dangerous no matter how low the exposure and discounting the existence of radiation hormesis in humans." ["Hormesis" is the unsubstantiated claim that radiation exposure can be beneficial.]
References 73 and 74 actually do indicate increases of childhood leukemia, an increase to 97% when it needs to be 97.5% to reach "statistical significance". The studies are flawed but even the authors admit that "further study is needed".
Reference #79 - a survey, not a study – actually states that "a statistically significant excess of brain cancer amongst children was seen for the period 1971-1985...". Diseases in adults are referred to as "increased" or, in reference to pharyngeal cancer, in "excess" of those expected for Ontario. As a physician, I want to know more.
Good research will require money which should come from industry and government yet be arms-length - with a board overseeing the methodology. The research should be performed by a consortium of university departments at several universities. For such a contentious issue, the researchers must be balanced with respect to bias.
Thorough examination of relevant evidence and its honest interpretation is essential for public health. This is important not only for the people in Port Hope but internationally for people in communities located near mining, refining, nuclear power and waste sites.
Dale Dewar