No Safe Threshold
NO SAFE THRESHOLD
By Karan Rekasie (Henley Haugh, Ph. D.)
Published in Pittsburgh’s The New Sun – 3rd largest at the time.
Published shortly before Dr. Sternglass’ farewell from the physics research labs
at the University of Pittsburgh,
shortly before THREE MILE ISLAND . . .
- - -
"The real danger is in the subtle deterioration of the quality of the human mind."
[Dr. Sternglass/See p. 3, paragraph 10.]
Since 1961 Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, radiologist at the University of Pittsburgh has been a national spokesman
for the lowering of the radioactive level in the environment. His articles have appeared in Science, the New
York Times, and in September 1969, Esquire held its presses to permit the insertion of his article, "The Death
of All Children."
Sternglass has appeared before the Pentagon "think tank," has been interviewed by John Chancellor for
NBC, and has been called by Phil Boffey, "The Controversial Prophet of Doom." Yet for 15 years he was a
Westinghouse researcher, one of those many who were working to bring about the dream of the peaceful
atom, until it appeared that the atom could not be so easily cajoled.
Following his initial protests, his research funds were reduced to small grants. Nevertheless, he has continued
to do research and inform the public of the grave dangers of man-made radiation released into the
environment.
"I’m hoping this message can get out," said Sternglass. "It’s horrendous in its implications, and it’s difficult for
people to accept that something we’ve been doing for twenty to thirty years, may be the cause of this
monstrous increase in cancers and heart disease."
In December 1975 Sternglass testified at the Public Hearing for the Light Water Breeder Reactor planned for
the Shippingport Reactor, located 25 miles west of Pittsburgh. Last March he testified in Washington, at a
hearing of the Environmental Protection Agency, which is trying to set new standards for radiation.
At both hearings he produced evidence that, he said, "now indicates that the effects of low-level radiation on
the general population, and above all on the far more susceptible unborn and newly-born, are 100 to 1,000
times worse than even I had at first realized."
This new data comes from two independent studies, one by the Canadian physician and biochemist Dr.
Abram Petkau, the other by the Japanese Cancer Society.
In the fifties, it was widely believed that a safe "threshold" of radiation existed. This was assumed to be a level
of about 50 to 200 rads per individual over a few days, or as high as 1,000 rads over one year. Only at 100
rads were there supposed to be symptoms of "radiation sickness" – slight diminution in blood cell counts,
possible nausea, and vomiting, and some increase in cancer risk or genetic defects. Only doses as large as 500
to 1,000 rads were believed to be lethal, causing depression of blood cells and platelets, followed by death
within twenty days.
Initial disproof of the threshold theory came from x-ray studies done by Dr. Alice Stewart of Oxford and Dr.
Brian MacMahon of Harvard.
In 1955 Steward undertook to discover why the number of children in England, dying from leukemia, had
abruptly jumped by 50 percent in the post WWII years. She interviewed 1,299 mothers whose children had
died from cancer, and found that these women had received a series of pelvic x-rays while pregnant.
(The dose of such an exposure is about 200 to 400 millirads or 0.2 to 0.4 rads – the equivalent of an individual’
s exposure to fallout from a distant 100-megaton bomb.)
Stewart compared this data with that of an equal-size control group of mothers, who had not been x-rayed,
and had given birth to healthy children. In 1958 she published the results: the children who had been x-rayed
in utero were twice as susceptible to leukemia and other forms of cancer.
In 1961 Dr. MacMahon published results, which confirmed those of Dr. Steward, with the addition that the
risk of cancer increased with the number of exposures.
Thus the threshold theory was severely challenged. Only about half a rad or 500 millirads, instead of 200 rads,
could increase a baby’s chance of fatal leukemia by 50 percent.
Though these studies produced convincing results, it was clear that medical x-rays had not been the sole factor
in the 50 percent increase in cancer rtes in children following WWII. Since the 1920s medical x-rays had been
used without a noteworthy increase in cancer rates. Dr. Stewart estimated that only about 5 percent of the
increase in her study could be attributed to medical x-rays.
It was in the 50s however, that a totally unprecedented factor had been let loose on the world, in the form of
fallout from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Dr. Sternglass now feels that most of this increase was
due to worldwide fallout after these bombings.
Although Steward and MacMahon replaced the threshold theory by a linear concept in which effects are in
direct relation to exposure, their findings did not reveal the full magnitude of the problem.
In 1972 Dr. Abram Petkau in his work with cell membranes, discovered that the greatest cell damage occurs,
not in flash exposures as in medical x-rays or in a Hiroshima-type bombing, but when radiation is given in
low dosage over a protracted period. Petkau found that the effects of low dose radiation are in fact "super
linear," since they rise rapidly for small, extended doses, then level off as radiation increases.
In a brief flash exposure, excited molecules of oxygen in a cell neutralize each other in a process known as
"recombination" or "de-excitation." Although this process has been known to occur in gases and chemicals
for many years, it was Petkau who first applied it to the reaction of activated oxygen molecules in cell
membranes, during periods of radiation.
Petkau also observed the effect on cell membranes during low-level irradiation, over an extended period. At
this time oxygen molecules leave their neutral or "ground" state and enter a "spin" state, by first accepting an
extra electron and then losing it. It thus becomes a free radical, diffusing to the cell membrane more efficiency
and initiating a chain reaction producing thousand of thousands of similar molecules.
This process of oxidation destroys the fatty lipid molecules of the cell membrane, weakens the membrane and
impairs the immune process by which a cell guards the body against infection by viruses, bacteria, or cancer
cells. Protracted low-level radiation can thus damage the cells and increase the organism’s susceptibility to
numerous forms of disease – leukemia, cancer, heart disease, chronic illnesses, and simple measles, among
others.
"We can now see where we made our mistake," said Sternglass. "We believed we could use the cancer data
directly from Hiroshima survivors. But these were irradiated in a brief flash that lasted for only a fraction of a
second. That involved an entirely different physically damaging process (mainly in the genes) when compared
with the same amount of radiation protracted over a period of years, as during nuclear fallout or emission and
leakage from nuclear plants.
"As compared with Stewart’s studies, instead of 100 to 200 rads, we now know that it takes as little as1/10ths
to 2/10ths of a rad (or 10 to 20 millirads) at very low levels to double the chance of cancer. The first 5 to 10
millirads are the most damaging, although there is no amount that is safe -- no threshold. Every fraction of a
millirad has some effect.
"The toxicity of the most radioactive substances is now known to be many millions of times greater than the
equal weight of the most toxic chemicals. One grad\m of strontium-90 in a city reservoir, for example, is
roughly equivalent to a few hundred tons of thalidomide in the same body of water, as far as a developing
baby in concerned. As a result, the EPA calculations on the risk to human life have been underestimated by a
factor of 100 to 1,000 times."
The present legal maximum exposure is 500 millirads per individual per year, with a recommended average of
170 millirads. By comparison, the total natural or "background" radiation is estimated at 100 millirads
annually.
The recent study by the Japanese Cancer Society confirms Petkau’s findings, showing a correlation of the rise
in cancer rates for the population of all ages, with the rise in general background radiation.
In the period from 1920 to 1950, although Japan was undergoing rapid industrialization, the cancer rate
remained relatively stable, fluctuating no more than 5 percent. Although chemicals and soot from power
plants were steadily being released into the atmosphere, there was no sharp rise in cancer until 4 to 5 years
after the first detonation of A bombs.
With continued bomb tests during the 1950s, cancer rates continued to climb. Then five years after the testing
moratorium (1959 to 1962), a dramatic leveling off in cancer rates took place. With subsequent testing;
however, the increase resumed. A new decline did not occur until some 5 years after the last big tests ended.
"In no way is this what one could expect from a general and steady increase in chemical pollution," said
Sternglass. "There would have been no sharp increase in a matter of a few years. And yet there is a 15 percent
increase in mortality in only 15 to 20 years. The correlation between increase and decrease in cancer rates and
periods of increased and decreased radiation is too strong to regard lightly."
The Japanese data matches that of the US and Europe, which records the same double peak effect.
Furthermore, the data is particularly important since it makes a comprehensive study of all age groups.
"This increase in cancer rates after four to five years is not a freak occurrence," said Sternglass. "I’ve predicted
such increases in cancer rates from fallout since the early 60’s. In December of 1970, the Baneberry test broke
through the surface and a cloud of radioactive gases, 8,000 feet high, drifted across the United States. Five
years later, in 1975, there was an unprecedented 3 percent rise in cancer in the United States.
"When you release Carbon 14, Tritium, Krypton into the air, it just doesn’t stay in one place. It travels with
the winds all over the globe, in a matter of a week to 10 days. A bomb detonated in China rains out on the US
then on Europe. It covers Russia with fallout and ironically ends up damaging the Chinese children."
The dangers of radiation are great on many levels. Besides increasing an organism’s vulnerability to all types of
disease, radiation affects the protective layer of ozone in the upper atmosphere with the end result of
disrupting the process of photosynthesis, increasing skin cancer in man and animals and disrupting the total
food cycle.
In addition, studies show that radiation actually multiplies the effects of chemical poisoning. If uranium
miners have a 10 percent chance of cancer from exposure to uranium in a mine and a 10 percent chance of
cancer from smoking, the combined effect is not a 20 fold but a 100-fold increase in the risk.
"But what worries me the most," said Sternglass,"is the subtle effects that lead to brain damage, minimal brain
dysfunction, learning disabilities, visual problems and hearing loss—all the things that make it more difficult
for a child to learn. That’s where this society can really destroy itself. The real danger is in the subtle
deterioration of the quality of the human mind."
In his book Low Level Radiation, Sternglass writes: "Statistics from all over the world kept indicating that
radiation was the dominant factor in these changes in mortality trends. The only introduction of some new
and enormously powerful biological agent on a worldwide scale could produce such sudden rises in death
rates. And this new agent clearly seemed to be fallout that had been released into the atmosphere in quantities
equivalent to tens of millions of pounds of radium, the most powerful biological poisons yet created by man,
circling the world in a matter of a few weeks and attacking mainly the weakest in every living species – the
developing young and the very old."
In 1973, 27,000 copies of these books were removed from the Ballantine warehouse and burned after the
company was taken over by (RCA) Random House, which has strong ties to the military and industrial
establishment. Other titles destroyed included: Nuclear Dilemma by Gene Byerton, The Diligent Destroyers
by George Laycock, and Chemical and Biological Weapons by Dr. George Wald, (a UN study.)
At the time, 22,000 copies of Sternglass’ book had managed to leave the warehouse. Although the copies were
selling well, in less than one year the book was no longer available from the publisher.
A few months later, the same thing occurred with this book in England. The publisher was forced out of
business and the books were confiscated by court order. "I tried to buy them back," Sternglass said, "but they
were ‘unavailable.’
"A very terrible form of censorship has been instituted in the US with regard to the biological effects of
nuclear weapons and reactors," said Sternglass. "It appears that all efforts are being taken to prevent situations
from arising that would be too upsetting to industry and the military. The tragedy is that the people are being
lied to. Secrecy has been used to promote this whole technology. As we know this is not anything new. We’
ve already been through Watergate, FBI, CIA. . . "
Considering the enormous investment in nuclear technology, it’s not surprising that there is an attempt to
minimize the danger involved, even if to a ridiculous level. The total capital investment, projected ‘til the end
of this century, is 600 billion dollars – one billion per reactor for 600 reactors – plus 50 to 60 billion in
research, plus another 500 to 600 billion in estimated sales of electricity.
"After this enormous investment," Sternglass said, "who wants to see his life’s work go down the drain? Who
wants to see all these hundreds of billions of dollars go down the drain? It’s infinitely easier to remove DDT
from the market than it is to remove plutonium.
"Under pressure from industry, the White House and the military," Sternglass said, "the AEC recently raised
the maximum dosage to 5 millirads per reactor. So, if you live near a site that has 5 to 10 reactors, they could
give you 25 to 50 millirads, legally, with a 25 to 50 percent increase in risk of leukemia and cancer."
In addition to the legal dose, there are also doctored reports of emissions and "accidental" leakages that just
pass by unnoticed. Leakage can occur from malfunction of equipment, loose valves, or corrosion, which
causes pinholes and cracks to develop in the fuel elements. Radioactive material also escapes in steam, through
faulty valves in tanks containing radioactive gases, or while fuel rods are being changed.
"Human error, greed, inability to anticipate emergencies are responsible for the malfunctions of nuclear
reactors," Sternglass said. "Since radioactivity cannot be easily detected, the damage is done before anyone is
even aware of it. Then five to ten years later, the children die of cancer and leukemia."
In January 1973 Sternglass finished his paper, "The Significance of Radioactive Monitoring Results for the
Shippingport Reactor," in which he made the following observations:
--The dose of strontium-90 to the resident population represented 56 percent of the permitted average of 170
millirads.
--Official EPA reports claimed doses from gaseous release were "less than 0.001 percent of permissible," or
0.0017 millirads per year with "0" gaseous release.
--Aliquippa reached the highest mortality rates for diseases of early infants in 1970, as listed in the Annual
Vital Statistics of Pennsylvania.
In conclusion: "The seriousness of these findings put into serious question the adequacy of existing release
monitoring techniques and the competence or integrity of the individuals responsible for the safe operation of
the Shippingport facility."
"In the reports to Governor Shapp, never fully presented to the public," he said, "it is evident that Duquesne
Light’s own measurements show that there was radioactivity all over the place – in the milk, soil, fish, water,
air. . . They denied everything. They later said that computer error had produced the results."
As for the EPA hearings: "We have no assurance at all about the result, which may not come out for another
half a year or longer. Then, that may be followed by legal battles and Congressional hearings. I certainly hope
so. The six examiners, however, did not discover any obvious flaws in the thirty publications by researchers
from all over the world that I presented.
"I think it’s most important to stress that we can do something. We can turn the tide around," Sternglass said.
Primarily he recommended switching over to alternate sources of power –clean coal burning, solar, geo-
thermal, wind, and ocean current, for examples. "We simply never invested the necessary capital into research
in these areas."
But apart from these means, one can combat radioactivity’s effect through diet. "Certain natural radio-
protective chemicals," said Sternglass, "such as alcohol and vitamins –Vitamin E and other anti-oxidants, tend
to prevent damage from the oxidation process begun in the cell by radiation."
"The best news I received this month was subsequent data from the Japanese Cancer Society, which shows
that cancer rates have begun to decline considerably. This is only a beginning, but it is an optimistic one."
# # #
By Karan Rekasie (Henley Haugh, Ph. D.)
Published in Pittsburgh’s The New Sun – 3rd largest at the time.
Published shortly before Dr. Sternglass’ farewell from the physics research labs
at the University of Pittsburgh,
shortly before THREE MILE ISLAND . . .
- - -
"The real danger is in the subtle deterioration of the quality of the human mind."
[Dr. Sternglass/See p. 3, paragraph 10.]
Since 1961 Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, radiologist at the University of Pittsburgh has been a national spokesman
for the lowering of the radioactive level in the environment. His articles have appeared in Science, the New
York Times, and in September 1969, Esquire held its presses to permit the insertion of his article, "The Death
of All Children."
Sternglass has appeared before the Pentagon "think tank," has been interviewed by John Chancellor for
NBC, and has been called by Phil Boffey, "The Controversial Prophet of Doom." Yet for 15 years he was a
Westinghouse researcher, one of those many who were working to bring about the dream of the peaceful
atom, until it appeared that the atom could not be so easily cajoled.
Following his initial protests, his research funds were reduced to small grants. Nevertheless, he has continued
to do research and inform the public of the grave dangers of man-made radiation released into the
environment.
"I’m hoping this message can get out," said Sternglass. "It’s horrendous in its implications, and it’s difficult for
people to accept that something we’ve been doing for twenty to thirty years, may be the cause of this
monstrous increase in cancers and heart disease."
In December 1975 Sternglass testified at the Public Hearing for the Light Water Breeder Reactor planned for
the Shippingport Reactor, located 25 miles west of Pittsburgh. Last March he testified in Washington, at a
hearing of the Environmental Protection Agency, which is trying to set new standards for radiation.
At both hearings he produced evidence that, he said, "now indicates that the effects of low-level radiation on
the general population, and above all on the far more susceptible unborn and newly-born, are 100 to 1,000
times worse than even I had at first realized."
This new data comes from two independent studies, one by the Canadian physician and biochemist Dr.
Abram Petkau, the other by the Japanese Cancer Society.
In the fifties, it was widely believed that a safe "threshold" of radiation existed. This was assumed to be a level
of about 50 to 200 rads per individual over a few days, or as high as 1,000 rads over one year. Only at 100
rads were there supposed to be symptoms of "radiation sickness" – slight diminution in blood cell counts,
possible nausea, and vomiting, and some increase in cancer risk or genetic defects. Only doses as large as 500
to 1,000 rads were believed to be lethal, causing depression of blood cells and platelets, followed by death
within twenty days.
Initial disproof of the threshold theory came from x-ray studies done by Dr. Alice Stewart of Oxford and Dr.
Brian MacMahon of Harvard.
In 1955 Steward undertook to discover why the number of children in England, dying from leukemia, had
abruptly jumped by 50 percent in the post WWII years. She interviewed 1,299 mothers whose children had
died from cancer, and found that these women had received a series of pelvic x-rays while pregnant.
(The dose of such an exposure is about 200 to 400 millirads or 0.2 to 0.4 rads – the equivalent of an individual’
s exposure to fallout from a distant 100-megaton bomb.)
Stewart compared this data with that of an equal-size control group of mothers, who had not been x-rayed,
and had given birth to healthy children. In 1958 she published the results: the children who had been x-rayed
in utero were twice as susceptible to leukemia and other forms of cancer.
In 1961 Dr. MacMahon published results, which confirmed those of Dr. Steward, with the addition that the
risk of cancer increased with the number of exposures.
Thus the threshold theory was severely challenged. Only about half a rad or 500 millirads, instead of 200 rads,
could increase a baby’s chance of fatal leukemia by 50 percent.
Though these studies produced convincing results, it was clear that medical x-rays had not been the sole factor
in the 50 percent increase in cancer rtes in children following WWII. Since the 1920s medical x-rays had been
used without a noteworthy increase in cancer rates. Dr. Stewart estimated that only about 5 percent of the
increase in her study could be attributed to medical x-rays.
It was in the 50s however, that a totally unprecedented factor had been let loose on the world, in the form of
fallout from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Dr. Sternglass now feels that most of this increase was
due to worldwide fallout after these bombings.
Although Steward and MacMahon replaced the threshold theory by a linear concept in which effects are in
direct relation to exposure, their findings did not reveal the full magnitude of the problem.
In 1972 Dr. Abram Petkau in his work with cell membranes, discovered that the greatest cell damage occurs,
not in flash exposures as in medical x-rays or in a Hiroshima-type bombing, but when radiation is given in
low dosage over a protracted period. Petkau found that the effects of low dose radiation are in fact "super
linear," since they rise rapidly for small, extended doses, then level off as radiation increases.
In a brief flash exposure, excited molecules of oxygen in a cell neutralize each other in a process known as
"recombination" or "de-excitation." Although this process has been known to occur in gases and chemicals
for many years, it was Petkau who first applied it to the reaction of activated oxygen molecules in cell
membranes, during periods of radiation.
Petkau also observed the effect on cell membranes during low-level irradiation, over an extended period. At
this time oxygen molecules leave their neutral or "ground" state and enter a "spin" state, by first accepting an
extra electron and then losing it. It thus becomes a free radical, diffusing to the cell membrane more efficiency
and initiating a chain reaction producing thousand of thousands of similar molecules.
This process of oxidation destroys the fatty lipid molecules of the cell membrane, weakens the membrane and
impairs the immune process by which a cell guards the body against infection by viruses, bacteria, or cancer
cells. Protracted low-level radiation can thus damage the cells and increase the organism’s susceptibility to
numerous forms of disease – leukemia, cancer, heart disease, chronic illnesses, and simple measles, among
others.
"We can now see where we made our mistake," said Sternglass. "We believed we could use the cancer data
directly from Hiroshima survivors. But these were irradiated in a brief flash that lasted for only a fraction of a
second. That involved an entirely different physically damaging process (mainly in the genes) when compared
with the same amount of radiation protracted over a period of years, as during nuclear fallout or emission and
leakage from nuclear plants.
"As compared with Stewart’s studies, instead of 100 to 200 rads, we now know that it takes as little as1/10ths
to 2/10ths of a rad (or 10 to 20 millirads) at very low levels to double the chance of cancer. The first 5 to 10
millirads are the most damaging, although there is no amount that is safe -- no threshold. Every fraction of a
millirad has some effect.
"The toxicity of the most radioactive substances is now known to be many millions of times greater than the
equal weight of the most toxic chemicals. One grad\m of strontium-90 in a city reservoir, for example, is
roughly equivalent to a few hundred tons of thalidomide in the same body of water, as far as a developing
baby in concerned. As a result, the EPA calculations on the risk to human life have been underestimated by a
factor of 100 to 1,000 times."
The present legal maximum exposure is 500 millirads per individual per year, with a recommended average of
170 millirads. By comparison, the total natural or "background" radiation is estimated at 100 millirads
annually.
The recent study by the Japanese Cancer Society confirms Petkau’s findings, showing a correlation of the rise
in cancer rates for the population of all ages, with the rise in general background radiation.
In the period from 1920 to 1950, although Japan was undergoing rapid industrialization, the cancer rate
remained relatively stable, fluctuating no more than 5 percent. Although chemicals and soot from power
plants were steadily being released into the atmosphere, there was no sharp rise in cancer until 4 to 5 years
after the first detonation of A bombs.
With continued bomb tests during the 1950s, cancer rates continued to climb. Then five years after the testing
moratorium (1959 to 1962), a dramatic leveling off in cancer rates took place. With subsequent testing;
however, the increase resumed. A new decline did not occur until some 5 years after the last big tests ended.
"In no way is this what one could expect from a general and steady increase in chemical pollution," said
Sternglass. "There would have been no sharp increase in a matter of a few years. And yet there is a 15 percent
increase in mortality in only 15 to 20 years. The correlation between increase and decrease in cancer rates and
periods of increased and decreased radiation is too strong to regard lightly."
The Japanese data matches that of the US and Europe, which records the same double peak effect.
Furthermore, the data is particularly important since it makes a comprehensive study of all age groups.
"This increase in cancer rates after four to five years is not a freak occurrence," said Sternglass. "I’ve predicted
such increases in cancer rates from fallout since the early 60’s. In December of 1970, the Baneberry test broke
through the surface and a cloud of radioactive gases, 8,000 feet high, drifted across the United States. Five
years later, in 1975, there was an unprecedented 3 percent rise in cancer in the United States.
"When you release Carbon 14, Tritium, Krypton into the air, it just doesn’t stay in one place. It travels with
the winds all over the globe, in a matter of a week to 10 days. A bomb detonated in China rains out on the US
then on Europe. It covers Russia with fallout and ironically ends up damaging the Chinese children."
The dangers of radiation are great on many levels. Besides increasing an organism’s vulnerability to all types of
disease, radiation affects the protective layer of ozone in the upper atmosphere with the end result of
disrupting the process of photosynthesis, increasing skin cancer in man and animals and disrupting the total
food cycle.
In addition, studies show that radiation actually multiplies the effects of chemical poisoning. If uranium
miners have a 10 percent chance of cancer from exposure to uranium in a mine and a 10 percent chance of
cancer from smoking, the combined effect is not a 20 fold but a 100-fold increase in the risk.
"But what worries me the most," said Sternglass,"is the subtle effects that lead to brain damage, minimal brain
dysfunction, learning disabilities, visual problems and hearing loss—all the things that make it more difficult
for a child to learn. That’s where this society can really destroy itself. The real danger is in the subtle
deterioration of the quality of the human mind."
In his book Low Level Radiation, Sternglass writes: "Statistics from all over the world kept indicating that
radiation was the dominant factor in these changes in mortality trends. The only introduction of some new
and enormously powerful biological agent on a worldwide scale could produce such sudden rises in death
rates. And this new agent clearly seemed to be fallout that had been released into the atmosphere in quantities
equivalent to tens of millions of pounds of radium, the most powerful biological poisons yet created by man,
circling the world in a matter of a few weeks and attacking mainly the weakest in every living species – the
developing young and the very old."
In 1973, 27,000 copies of these books were removed from the Ballantine warehouse and burned after the
company was taken over by (RCA) Random House, which has strong ties to the military and industrial
establishment. Other titles destroyed included: Nuclear Dilemma by Gene Byerton, The Diligent Destroyers
by George Laycock, and Chemical and Biological Weapons by Dr. George Wald, (a UN study.)
At the time, 22,000 copies of Sternglass’ book had managed to leave the warehouse. Although the copies were
selling well, in less than one year the book was no longer available from the publisher.
A few months later, the same thing occurred with this book in England. The publisher was forced out of
business and the books were confiscated by court order. "I tried to buy them back," Sternglass said, "but they
were ‘unavailable.’
"A very terrible form of censorship has been instituted in the US with regard to the biological effects of
nuclear weapons and reactors," said Sternglass. "It appears that all efforts are being taken to prevent situations
from arising that would be too upsetting to industry and the military. The tragedy is that the people are being
lied to. Secrecy has been used to promote this whole technology. As we know this is not anything new. We’
ve already been through Watergate, FBI, CIA. . . "
Considering the enormous investment in nuclear technology, it’s not surprising that there is an attempt to
minimize the danger involved, even if to a ridiculous level. The total capital investment, projected ‘til the end
of this century, is 600 billion dollars – one billion per reactor for 600 reactors – plus 50 to 60 billion in
research, plus another 500 to 600 billion in estimated sales of electricity.
"After this enormous investment," Sternglass said, "who wants to see his life’s work go down the drain? Who
wants to see all these hundreds of billions of dollars go down the drain? It’s infinitely easier to remove DDT
from the market than it is to remove plutonium.
"Under pressure from industry, the White House and the military," Sternglass said, "the AEC recently raised
the maximum dosage to 5 millirads per reactor. So, if you live near a site that has 5 to 10 reactors, they could
give you 25 to 50 millirads, legally, with a 25 to 50 percent increase in risk of leukemia and cancer."
In addition to the legal dose, there are also doctored reports of emissions and "accidental" leakages that just
pass by unnoticed. Leakage can occur from malfunction of equipment, loose valves, or corrosion, which
causes pinholes and cracks to develop in the fuel elements. Radioactive material also escapes in steam, through
faulty valves in tanks containing radioactive gases, or while fuel rods are being changed.
"Human error, greed, inability to anticipate emergencies are responsible for the malfunctions of nuclear
reactors," Sternglass said. "Since radioactivity cannot be easily detected, the damage is done before anyone is
even aware of it. Then five to ten years later, the children die of cancer and leukemia."
In January 1973 Sternglass finished his paper, "The Significance of Radioactive Monitoring Results for the
Shippingport Reactor," in which he made the following observations:
--The dose of strontium-90 to the resident population represented 56 percent of the permitted average of 170
millirads.
--Official EPA reports claimed doses from gaseous release were "less than 0.001 percent of permissible," or
0.0017 millirads per year with "0" gaseous release.
--Aliquippa reached the highest mortality rates for diseases of early infants in 1970, as listed in the Annual
Vital Statistics of Pennsylvania.
In conclusion: "The seriousness of these findings put into serious question the adequacy of existing release
monitoring techniques and the competence or integrity of the individuals responsible for the safe operation of
the Shippingport facility."
"In the reports to Governor Shapp, never fully presented to the public," he said, "it is evident that Duquesne
Light’s own measurements show that there was radioactivity all over the place – in the milk, soil, fish, water,
air. . . They denied everything. They later said that computer error had produced the results."
As for the EPA hearings: "We have no assurance at all about the result, which may not come out for another
half a year or longer. Then, that may be followed by legal battles and Congressional hearings. I certainly hope
so. The six examiners, however, did not discover any obvious flaws in the thirty publications by researchers
from all over the world that I presented.
"I think it’s most important to stress that we can do something. We can turn the tide around," Sternglass said.
Primarily he recommended switching over to alternate sources of power –clean coal burning, solar, geo-
thermal, wind, and ocean current, for examples. "We simply never invested the necessary capital into research
in these areas."
But apart from these means, one can combat radioactivity’s effect through diet. "Certain natural radio-
protective chemicals," said Sternglass, "such as alcohol and vitamins –Vitamin E and other anti-oxidants, tend
to prevent damage from the oxidation process begun in the cell by radiation."
"The best news I received this month was subsequent data from the Japanese Cancer Society, which shows
that cancer rates have begun to decline considerably. This is only a beginning, but it is an optimistic one."
# # #