Activist questions U.S. cancer-risk figures

Marshall Islands residents exposed to fallout from U.S. nuclear testing in the Pacific face a 9 percent increase in total number of cancers, according to a recent federal study.

But when the National Academy of Sciences reviewed a different federal draft report, the NAS said Americans have only a 0.03 percent chance of increased cancer deaths attributable to fallout, including that from the Nevada Test Site.

That difference — between 9 percent and 0.03 percent — seems strange to Vanessa Pierce, program director for the activist group Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

"I think that they've averaged the risk, which really seems like a meaningless scientific exercise," she said.

The comparisons aren't exact because the Marshall Islands study cites total number of cancers, both fatal and not, while the academy is talking about only cancer deaths in the United States. Still, an increase in cancer rates might be expected to result in a somewhat similar increase in cancer death rates.

The original draft report by CCD and NCI says Marshall Islanders were exposed to "substantially higher levels" of radioactive fallout. It does not say how much higher.

But the cancer increase cited for the Marshallese in the most recent report is 300 times that claimed for the U.S. population.

The Pacific Islanders' health injuries and deaths from fallout are detailed in a new National Cancer Institute study. (see accompanying story)

Pierce ran across the National Academy study when she followed up on an April 8 letter sent to HEAL-Utah by Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta.

HEAL had inquired about a draft report by the CDC and the National Cancer Institute on the feasibility of further studies of fallout consequences in the United States. The group is concerned that nearly four years after the study was finished, a final version has not been released.

Gerberding's reply mentioned the National Academy of Sciences review of the draft study, which the NAS carried out in 2003.

Pierce pointed out that the NAS review panel wrote "that the lifetime risk of death due to cancer is about 20 percent absent fallout radiation exposure. Then they say that fallout raises that risk of getting cancer to 20.03 percent."

That means the increased risk due to fallout is only 0.03 percent, which the NAS panel commented is "of little health consequence," she said.