Report is good news for nuke power industry

Monday, Dec. 4, 2000 | 11:15 a.m.

A report on radiation exposure says medical uses of nuclear materials are the largest and fastest-growing man-made source of public exposure to radiation, and nuclear power plants contribute only a fraction of the amount.

The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation said that for most people, the biggest source of radiation exposure -- 240 millirems a year -- comes from natural sources such as the sun, cosmic rays from distant stars and natural radioactive deposits within the Earth.

However, nuclear workers in industry, medicine and research receive about double that dose on the job, the 1,220-page U.N. report said.

For the public, the second largest source of nuclear exposure is medical radiation, about 100 millirems per person per year, said the report, which was released in November. An average chest X-ray is 10 millirems, compared with the average dose at the fence line of a nuclear power plant of 0.0002 millirems a year.

That's good news for the nuclear power industry, Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Steve Kerekes said.

Building more nuclear power plants could help clear the air of harmful pollutants from coal-fired generators, Kerekes said. The Nuclear Energy Institute is the chief lobbying group for nuclear power.

The institute has been a leading advocate of building a repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to store 70,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel that is piling up at nuclear power plants nationwide.

The U.N. report does not relieve the nuclear power industry of responsibility for its radioactive contribution.

"Nuclear power plants and other nuclear installations release radioactive materials into the environment and produce radioactive waste during operation and on their decommissioning," the report said.

The U.N. report also does not declare nuclear power safe. It noted that scientific controversy continues over whether low doses of radiation exposure, from any source, increases the risk of cancers and other diseases.

In addition, the U.N. report said that the process of mining ores containing naturally occurring radiation and burning coal containing radioactive substances, as well as residues from nuclear weapons fallout, "continue to be a global source of human radiation exposure."

Dr. John Gofman, a physician who is also a physicist, said his research over the past 10 years supports the U.N.'s conclusion.

Fallout from 47 years of nuclear weapons tests and radioactive releases from nuclear power appear to make a small contribution of radiation exposure in humans, he said.

Nuclear medicine, on the other hand, is a dangerous source of radiation. Gofman's study, published last month through the nonprofit Committee for Nuclear Responsibility in Berkeley, examined medical records from 1920 to 1990 across the country, then compared them to death rates.

Gofman found a link between nuclear medicine and coronary heart disease, the largest category of cardiac illness. Half of all heart disease patients who died had had nuclear materials used in their diagnosis or treatment.

Gofman said his study has led him to conclude that nuclear medicine causes more serious diseases and death.

Gofman has called on medical doctors to cut radiation exposures to their patients in half. He does not advocate abolishing X-rays, Gofman said, but urges physicians to take the best possible internal picture without damaging the patient.

"Physicians could revolutionize mortality rates by reducing radiation exposure to their patients," Gofman said. "That's a matter for physicians to take seriously."