Letter: Nuclear issues

This is totally unacceptable as it is utterly meaningless. For example, the permitted dose for the emissions from our nuclear power stations is 1mSv. There is absolutely solid proof that a dose 500 times that amount produces radiation hormesis, which prevents cancers and improves health.

Robert Pate

Minnigaff

Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire

Neil Craig's letter about nuclear contamination (5 April) is short on facts. For example, the Ukranian health ministry estimates that more than 12,000 deaths have resulted from the Chernobyl incident; radiation-related illnesses have quadrupled since 1986.

Other scientific studies have shown similar results.

There are also deaths not included in the statistics. I know of a number of people who were outdoors when the Chernobyl cloud passed over Scotland. They were healthy people, yet a high proportion of them died from unusual cancers in the years following.

Niall Walker

Princes Gardens

Glasgow

Neil Craig writes (5 April) that there is no evidence that low level radiation is bad for you and issues us a challenge to produce some.

Nearly two billion of the present world population will eventually die of cancer. They will have been smoking, using mobile phones, eating junk food, flying at high altitudes, using household cleaners and absorbing background radiation.

It is very difficult to plan an ethical, controlled, accurate experiment to attribute the cancer deaths to any cause.

A 1 per cent error would be 20 million people. However, work by Richardson and Wing on long-term health of workers at Oak Ridge does get close. They found 4.98 per cent increase in mortality per 10mSv for doses received before the age of 45 and a 7.3 per cent increase after that age.

Their report can be found in Environmental Health Perspectives August 1999 and contains 62 references.

Stephen Salter

Blackford Road

Edinburgh