Friday, 13 December 1991 Washington, DC
1. DOES EXPOSURE TO LOW-LEVEL GAMMA RADIATION INCREASE
LONGEVITY?
Well, it seems to for workers in nuclear
shipyards. The final report of a ten-year study to determine
whether exposure to low-level gamma radiation is associated with
an excess risk of cancer has been released after being held up
for three years. Perhaps the best epidemiological study ever
done of exposure to low-level occupational radiation, it compared
workers in non-nuclear ship-yards to workers in nuclear yards who
were exposed to radiation. The surprising finding was that
nuclear workers had significantly lower mortality rates from all
causes than their non-nuclear counterparts--and those with the
greatest exposure had the lowest rates. No one seems ready to
suggest that low-level radiation is good for you. But, in a
review of the report, John Cameron of the University of
Wisconsin, a physicist who served on the Technical Advisory Panel
for the DOE study, points out that if the study had found an
excess of 24% in mortality among nuclear workers, instead of a
24% deficit, the report would have been on CBS News.
2. CAMERON PROPOSES A NEW RADIATION UNIT FOR PUBLIC
DISCUSSION
of exposure to ionizing radiation. Public fear of
radiation, Cameron argues, is made worse by mysterious units. He
proposes expressing radiation exposure in terms of time periods
over which you would accumulate the same dose from natural
background radiation (about 1 millirem per day). Exposure during
a trans-Atlantic Jet flight might be expressed as a five day
increase over natural radiation.
3. DOES EXPOSURE TO EMF TURN BRAINS OF RESEARCHERS INTO
OATMEAL?
Congress declared its support for research into
possible health effects of electromagnetic fields in the FY 92
energy and water bill. In an attempt to avoid duplication of
effort, the DOE was identified as the lead agency for such
research. That role would be solidified by a bill introduced by
Rep. George Brown (D-CA) in the waning days of the fall session.
The National Electromagnetic Fields Research and Public
Information Dissemination Act would put the DOE at the head of an
interagency committee charged with setting the research agenda.
The choice of DOE to be the lead agency seems to reflect a loss
of confidence in the Environmental Protection Agency. A draft of
an alarming EPA report on health risks from EMF was leaked to CBS
18 months ago; the report was subsequently trashed by an outside
review panel (WN 9 Aug 91).
4. MARY GOOD HAS RESIGNED AS CHAIR OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE
BOARD
to become a member of the President's Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology. The Board elected James J.
Duderstadt, President of the University of Michigan, to fill the
unexpired term, which ends in May 1992. Duderstadt, a nuclear
engineer, was named to the NSB by President Reagan in 1985, and
reappointed by President Bush last year. In another change at
NSB, Ian Ross, former President of AT&T Bell Laboratories, was
confirmed to fill the unexpired term of Howard Schneiderman, who
died recently.
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