=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #200
—September 26, 1990—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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SACRIFICING CITIZENS.
A most remarkable book has been published, entitled MULTIPLE
EXPOSURES, and subtitled, CHRONICLES OF THE RADIATION AGE, by
Catherine Caufield. As the subtitle implies, it is a history of
the development of ionizing radiation since the discovery of
X-rays by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895 and of natural radioactivity
by Henri Becquerel in 1896. The tone of the book is even-handed,
factual and understated. Much of the book is based on interviews
with important U.S. scientists and government officials, and on
official government records. The book does not draw many
conclusions; it tells what happened and what people said. Events
are narrated in a dry, passionless voice, leaving the reader to
draw his or her own conclusions. (In our text, below, page
numbers inside parentheses refer to pages in Ms. Caufield’s
book.) In a sense, this is the story of a long trial-and-error
process that extended over a 70-year period as industrialized
nations, led by the U.S., experimented with ionizing radiation
and its associated machines such as X-ray devices, atomic and
H-bombs, medical isotopes for diagnostic and therapeutic use, and
nuclear power plants to generate electricity. Sprinkled
throughout this 70-year-long story are items of interest to
toxics activists because so much of what’s happening today has
occurred before. The chemical industry is younger than the
70-year-old use of ionizing radiation. Things occurring today in
the chemical industry may seem new to us, but similar things have
occurred before. Here we will emphasize just a few events and
offer just a few of the conclusions that can be drawn from this
rich historical record.
X-ray Therapy
From the 1920s to the present, medical doctors have treated more
than 100 ailments with X-ray therapy. Large numbers of people
with relatively minor problems such as ringworm and acne have
been subjected to high doses of powerful X-rays. Birthmarks,
bursitis, and sinusitis have been treated by X-rays. Many women
have had their ovaries irradiated as a treatment for depression.
Excessive bleeding during menstruation has sometimes been treated
by irradiating the uterus..”
All across the U.S. in the ’20s and ’30s, entrepreneurs started
installing X-ray machines and irradiating the public. Beauty
shops started using Xrays to remove unwanted facial and body
hair: hit with enough ionizing radiation, hair falls out. The
biggest operation was the Tricho Institute, founded by Albert
Geyser, a New York physician. Geyser leased X-ray machines to
beauty parlors and offered two-week training courses. Two
physicians gave this summary of Tricho’s results in 1947:
“As the years passed, cases of radiodermatitis [skin ailments due
to radiation], horrible burns, painful ulcerations, and cancer
resulting from the Tricho system of treatment were observed by
dermatologists in all sections of the country… the number of
cases of x-ray burns, cancer and death resulting from the
treatments administered by the Tricho Institute must have run
into the thousands. It is impossible to obtain or estimate the
actual number because the cases were not recorded.” (pg. 16)
Between 1947 and 1960, doctors irradiated the scalps of 10,000
children in Israel, and an equal number in New York City, who
were infected with ringworm. The idea was to irradiate the
children until their hair fell out, so the ringworm could be
treated more efficiently. (pg. 141)
Studies published in 1974 and 1977 showed that these children had
six times as much thyroid cancer as a control group, as well as
an excessive number of brain cancers and leukemias.
Throughout the ’70s, other studies showed that people exposed to
X-rays for back ailments had a leukemia death rate 10 times
higher than normal and a lung cancer rate twice normal. Women
sterilized by radiation to curb menstrual bleeding were the
subject of five separate studies; all five found excessive
leukemias, as well as an unusually high incidence of cancer of
the intestines and other organs that had been inadvertently
irradiated during treatment.
As recently as 1973, a survey of dermatologists in the U.S.
revealed that 44% still used X-rays at least once a week to treat
conditions such as acne, eczema, psoriasis, and disfiguring scar
tissue.
The conclusions to be drawn?
1: The medical community has been slow to catch on to the dangers
of ionizing radiation. Suggestions of danger have been met with
skepticism, indifference, hostility and ridicule by medical
scientists and practitioners.
2: Publicity by newspapers, not action by government officials,
has been the usual means for curbing excessive and dangerous
exposures to radiation. For example, the Tricho Institute’s
operation was shut down by adverse publicity, not by government
action.
3: The regulatory system has lagged behind the problems by years,
and there is substantial evidence that the system is lagging
behind the available evidence today. People who want to protect
themselves and their children cannot rely solely on regulatory
officials to do their thinking for them.
4: A lot of people have to be hurt before regulators begin to
regulate. The rule has been consistent: Until there are a large
number of victims, every new technology is assumed safe. In fact,
Lauriston Taylor, the head of the National Council on Radiation
Protection (NCRP) [the agency then responsible for setting
radiation standards within the U.S.] in 1948 said it explicitly:
“I see no alternative but to assume that the operation is safe
until it is proven to be unsafe. It is recognized that in order
to demonstrate an unsafe condition you may have to sacrifice
someone. This does not seem fair on the one hand, yet I see no
alternative. You certainly cannot penalize research and industry
merely on the suspicion of someone who doesn’t know, by assuming
that all installations are unsafe until proven safe.” (pg. 67)
Radioactive Fallout from Bombs
Operation Crossroads involved two A-bomb explosions on Bikini
atoll in the South Pacific, one in the air (July 1, 1946) and one
under the sea (July 25, 1946). Quite unexpectedly, the undersea
explosion heavily contaminated all the U.S. Navy ships carrying
more than 40,000 troops participating in the operation. In 1948
David Bradley, a U.S. Army doctor who had participated in
Crossroads, published his diary of what he had seen and
experienced at Bikini, under the title No Place to Hide. The book
stayed on the Best Seller list for 10 weeks and began to give
radiation a bad name.
Advocates of nuclear weapons were alarmed at the impact Bradley’s
book had on the public. They developed a public relations
counter-attack with three main themes: (a) radiation is natural;
(b) the public is protected from it by high safety standards
administered by well-trained scientists; and (c) fear of
radiation is more dangerous than radiation itself. (pg. 102). The
campaign continued for several years; in 1950 our government
published the first nuclear-age civil defense manual, called How
to Survive the Atomic Bomb. The author, Richard Gerstell (another
Crossroads participant), told his readers, “You can easily
protect yourself” from radiation, and he said that “much of the
danger from radioactivity is mental.” Gerstell concluded that
radiation is “much the same as sunlight,” that in ordinary doses
it presents no danger, and that the experts have things under
control. (pg. 103)
President Eisenhower himself encouraged the Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC) to exploit the public’s ignorance on atomic
matters. After meeting with Eisenhower on May 27, 1953, to
discuss the problem of bad publicity from radioactive fallout,
AEC chairman Gordon Dean, wrote in his diary, “The President says
‘Keep them confused as to fission and fusion.’” (pg. 118)
[To be continued.]
Get: Catherine Caufield, MULTIPLE EXPOSURES, CHRONICLES OF THE
RADIATION AGE (NY: Harper & Row, 1989).
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: catherine caufield; radiation; exposure; x-ray
therapy; nuclear weapons; health effects; skin disorders;
radiodermatitis; children; thyroid cancers; brain cancer;
leukemia; studies; reproductive disorders; intestinal cancer;
ethics; ncrp; nuclear weapons; richard gerstell; federal
government;