RADIATION RISK - ECRR REPORT CLAIMS 65-MILLION DEATHS FROM PRE-1989 RELEASES

Tony Wesolowsky (freelance writer based in Prague), "Low Exposure, High Risk; E.U. study finds radiation riskier than previously thought", In These Times, June 9, 2003

PRAGUE - Sixty-five million people will die from pollution caused by nuclear energy and weapons programs built before 1989, according to a report published earlier this year by a European scientific committee. The research, from the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), raises doubts about previous estimates of the risk posed to humans from exposure to radiation from nuclear power and weapons.

The study by the ECRR, based on a risk-assessment model developed over the past five years, challenges previous assumptions about the safety of even minimum exposure to low-level radiation. With lower-threshold calculations for the risk of exposure to radiation than have been used in the past, the report found that radioactive releases up to 1989 have caused, or will eventually cause, the death of 65 million people worldwide.

For years, scientists have debated claims that radiation causes the higher incidence of cancer rates observed near nuclear power plants.

The ECRR is an international group of 30 independent scientists led by Chris Busby, a member of the British government's radiation risk committee and adviser to the Ministry of Defense on the use of depleted uranium, and Professor Alexey Yablokov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The study was commissioned by the European Union.