Cancer epidemic blamed on nuclear power

A major review of the risks of radiation links nuclear pollution with increased rates of breast cancer and child leukaemia. This new assessment appears at a time when environmental groups are urging a reform of Euratom, the European nuclear energy treaty.

The present cancer epidemic is a result of pollution from nuclear energy and of exposures to global atmospheric weapons fallout, which peaked in the period 1959-63, according to a report from the European Committee of Radiation Risk (ECRR) published in January 2003. It estimates that radioactive releases up to 1989 have caused, or will eventually cause, the death of 65 million people world-wide.

Commenting on the report Dr Caroline Lucas, MEP (Greens/EFA, UK), said: "We have known for years that nuclear pollution, from nuclear power plants, reprocessing plants and from weapons, has been very damaging for human health. Only with the publication of this research do we see the full scale of the folly of the nuclear industry. This new research cites vast amounts of evidence such as the levels of breast cancer in women who were adolescent between 1957 and 1963 when nuclear weapons testing was at its peak."

The report uses a new risk assessment model developed over the last five years. This modelling system has been developed to predict and explain all the observations, from leukaemia clusters near nuclear sites to the effects of the Chernobyl disaster in the contaminated regions of Belarus and the Ukraine.

The ECRR findings are a direct challenge to the conventional methods of calculating risk of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). The ICRP had been widely criticised as being too close to the nuclear industry and lacking balance. ECRR is an international group of 30 independent scientists led by Dr Chris Busby (member of UK government’s radiation risk committee and advisor to the Ministry of Defence on the use of depleted uranium) and Professor Alexey Yablokov (member of the Russian Academy of Sciences).

Dr Lucas says that these shocking new figures give the nuclear debate a renewed urgency. "People are dying - and continue to die - in their millions," she said.

Time to reform Euratom?

Friends of the Earth Europe are running a campaign calling for the abolishment of Euratom. They say that while virtually all the EU’s institutions have developed and changed, The European Atomic Energy Community, or Euratom Treaty, founded in 1958, remains unaffected by the democratisation of the EU institutions and Treaties. Because it remains a "stand-alone" treaty to support a specific energy technology, it is difficult to make even limited and minor reform of the Euratom agency. The European Parliament has no authority on Euratom issues.

The Convention on the Future of Europe is in the process of developing a proposal for a new constitution for Europe. The intention is to streamline the institutions and legal base of the EU to enable it to function efficiently in the 21st Century. Friends of the Earth argue that the Euratom Treaty must be reviewed in this framework. A number of Member States, Members of the Convention and Members of the European Parliament have called for such a review.

Simultaneously, the European Commission has proposed to significantly increase the power of Euratom. It proposes to both extend the Euratom loan ceiling by a further Euro 2 billion, and to dramatically increase Euratom’s powers to enable it to set nuclear safety standards and timetables for the disposal of nuclear waste. Despite widespread opposition, the Commission approved the proposals in January 2003, which will now be debated in the European Parliament and Council.

The proposals from the European Commission highlight the contradictory role of Euratom, namely that it both promotes nuclear power while at the same time regulating its activities. At the national level, a single entity is not allowed to both promote and regulate nuclear technology. This development highlights the need for its reform.

Friends of the Earth-Europe have organised a petition signed by around 100 non-government organisations from across Europe calling for the Convention to address this crucial issue.

For more information on the Foe-Europe Euratom campaign visit: http://www.foeeurope.org/activities...

The ECRR was formed in Brussels in 1998 following concern about existing methods used to calculate the effects of nuclear pollution, which had failed to explain the massive evidence of ill health in populations exposed to nuclear pollution.

Info

More information on ECRR can be found at

http://www.euradcom.org