Letter: Radiation scare

Published on Monday 4 April 2011 17:33

Elizabeth Marshall (Letters, 4 April) assures us that "nuclear health specialists anticipate many thousands of deaths" from the Japanese reactors.

This would be in line with the million cancers anticipated by similar self-styled "experts" from Chernobyl, none of which has in fact happened.

The fact is that the scare stories about miniscule levels of radiation are simply that - scare stories with no scientific foundation whatsoever.

There are many places in the world with natural background radiation level far higher than that at Chernobyl, let alone Fukushima - Kerala in India, Ramsar in Iran, Yellowstone in the United States, even parts of Cornwall and Aberdeenshire.

By the theory, millions of excess cancers should have been recorded, but in fact the number of cancers is lower than average.

There is not and never has been any scientific evidence for the bureaucratic decision that low-level radiation is harmful. I would challenge Ms Marshall or the Green Party, or indeed anybody scientifically qualified, to produce the evidence which would be needed to make this claim scientific.

The truth is that the opposite theory, known as radiation hormesis, has a vast amount of evidence, from numerous unrelated sources, to prove it. The truth may not get the publicity that false scare stories do but the facts are unequivocal.

The anti-nuclear movement and its fraudulent claims have cost the human race 40 years of inexpensive electricity. It can be proven that, simply because of increased deaths among pensioners because of fuel poverty, it has killed 19 million people. By comparison Fukushima has killed precisely zero.

Neil Craig

Woodlands Road

Glasgow

Week after week we read of doom and gloom and criticism of First Minister Alex Salmond from Mr Andrew HN Gray (Letters, 4 April. Allow me to remind Mr Gray that it was not the SNP that has made Scotland the most polluted nation in the world other than Russia.

Scotland is now stuck storing highly dangerous atomic residue from reactors in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Australia.

The Scottish people were persistently lied to by Westminster, who assured us that the highly toxic waste would be returned to the countries of origin from Dounreay, in Caithness, and that Scotland would not become a nuclear dustbin.

The atomic waste was mixed with concrete, stored in 500 drums and made ready for shipment back overseas.

Instead, an equivalent amount of waste will be substituted from England and sent back in its place, thereby reducing England's nuclear dump at Scotland's expense.

These are facts the electorate will deliberate upon before the forthcoming election for the sake of our children's children.

Donald J Morrison

Haig Street

Portknockie, Buckie