The CERRIE Minority Report,
which was excluded from the Main Report at a late stage, provides strong
biological and epidemiological evidence that current models of hazard from
radioactivity inside the human body underestimate risks by at least 100 and
possibly up to 1000 times. For the persistent excess of leukaemia in young
people in Seascale, near the Sellafield reprocessing plant, COMARE has
concluded that “on current knowledge” doses would have been 300 times too
small to cause the number of cases observed. However, two Members of the
Committee pointed to numbers of other disease anomalies which suggest that
the risk estimates are in error by a factor of just that scale. A clear
example is the sharp increase in infant leukaemia in several countries after
Chernobyl. CERRIE’s Final Report accepts that this would be expected on the
basis of the radiation doses to the foetus. It also accepts that the
benchmark is up to a 40% increased risk at a dose of 10,000 microsieverts
from obstetric X-rays. Doses in Greece were 200 microsieverts but infant
leukaemia increased by 160%; in Germany doses were 100 microsieverts and
there the increase was 48%; in Wales and Scotland doses were 80
microsieverts and the increase was greater than 200%. The Final Report of
CERRIE fails to observe that these data are a serious challenge to the
conventional radiation risk model’s fundamental assumption that cancer risk
is linear, or strictly proportional to dose.
CERRIE was set up by Michael Meacher in
2001 following representations from LLRC. The remit was to identify areas
where consensus could and could not be reached, to explain the reasons for
any areas of disagreement and suggest research to resolve them. The Final
Report was to be agreed by all members. Two members dissent because while it
does identify the existence of disagreements it notably fails to explain
them. Large areas of evidence have been misrepresented, for example the
post-Chernobyl infant leukaemia referred to above, DNA minisatellite
mutation and the Second Event theory of radiation mutagenesis.
The Minority Report contains the letter
in which Marion Hill, a widely respected expert in the field of radiation
protection standards, resigned from the CERRIE secretariat in February 2003.
She alleged that the Chairman and Dr. Ian Fairlie, another member of the
Secretariat, were excluding her with serious consequences for bias in the
work of the Committee. A Statement by Dr. Paul Dorman, who is still a member
of the Secretariat, expresses reservations about his exclusion from the
final reporting process, about whether the Committee has fulfilled its remit
and about the impact of legal threats on Members’ preparedness to
accommodate scientific dissent.
There is section of “Defining Questions”
posed by Green Audit at the outset to facilitate debate and crystallise
views. Most Committee members provided answers early in the discussions and
these are reproduced (Appendix 2). The Committee later drew back from this
technique and voted to exclude it from the Final Report. As a result the
Committee had no clear procedure to identify Members’ views, nor the balance
of views – these were interpreted by the secretariat.
Two Russian Academicians who attended
CERRIE’s three-day workshop in Oxford in July 2003 said there were thousands
of studies in Russian which were relevant to the Committee’s work. They
strongly recommended that resources should be devoted to translating at
least the abstracts to make them available to a wider scientific audience.
This issue has been ignored by the Committee but LLRC has summarised around
100 studies from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and other territories affected by
the Chernobyl accident which report a wide range of health effects (Appendix
3). The authors, who include personnel from government ministries, clinics,
research institutes and universities, frequently criticise bodies such as
WHO, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Commission for
adhering to ICRP’s modelling and denying the clear association between the
observed disease and radioactive pollution.
The Minority Report also contains a brief
account (Appendix 4) of an international conference on Chernobyl effects in
Kiev in 2001 at which Swiss TV reporters filmed the progress of a cover-up
of resolutions passed by the conference.
The authors of the Minority Report
believe that the suppression of material which has occupied much of the
three year CERRIE process was motivated by fears that, if it were published
in an official report, it could precipitate legal challenges to the
emissions authorisations without which nuclear reactors cannot function.
This could have a significant impact on the future potential for nuclear
power.
In July the Final Report was leaked to
New Scientist, leading to news media suggesting that CERRIE would report
that, due to uncertainty in estimating risk, Plutonium might be 10 times
more dangerous than previously thought. In a letter published in New
Scientist (14th Sept) a Committee member noted that this was an
understatement, since the Final Report identifies multiple uncertainties,
some of which cover several orders of magnitudes and none of which can be
taken in isolation.
Notes:
The version of the Final Report addressed by the Minority Report is the
draft dated 23rd July 2004, which is close to that adopted at the last
meeting 24th June. It is the latest available to LLRC.
In October 2002 the Chairman wrote it would of course be possible for
members to have minority reports. A Committee meeting in March 2004 voted
unanimously in principle to include a dissenting statement in the Final
Report. In May Members voted by 10 to 1 to accept a late draft. The Chairman
then asked Departmental lawyers for opinions and in papers provided as the
last item of business at the next and final meeting on 24th June 2004 the
lawyers advised that Members might be held liable for any libels or
“negligent misstatements” the dissenting statement might contain. The
Chairman had previously made references to “offensive material” and
“potential libels” but had identified no specific points despite repeated
requests from LLRC. No valid criticisms were ever identified.
The motion to exclude the Dissenting
Statement alleged that it did not adequately identify the grounds of dissent
from the Main Report. This topic had been discussed at previous meetings and
was resurrected at the last moment (i.e. after discussion of the legal
opinions) by Dr. Philip Day, the Friends of the Earth nominee, Peter Roche
(Greenpeace), Professor Jack Simmons (academic) and Professor Eric Wright
(academic). The Chairman did not allow discussion. The vote was 5 in favour
(the 4 proposers plus Dr Richard Wakeford of BNFL) 2 against (Richard
Bramhall, LLRC and Dr Chris Busby, Green Audit) 2 abstentions (Dr Colin
Muirhead and Dr John Harrison, NRPB). 2 Members were absent (Professor Sarah
Darby, academic, and Dr Roger Cox, NRPB).
