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Publication Laka-library:
Review of DOE reports (1988)

Author	R.Alvarez
Date	October 1988
Classification	6.01.4.80/42 (RADIATION - DISCUSSION ON LOW-LEVEL RADIATION)
Front

INTRODUCTION

In the fall of 1977, a study published in the Health Physics Journal ignited a
firestormof debate over the cancer risks of low-level ionizing radiation. The
outcome of this debate has important ramifications for the civilian and military
nuclear programs for decades to come. By addressing the human health legacy
of the past four decades of nuclear activities, this debate could also affect future
radiation protection standards for millions of people.
At the center of the controversy is a 36 year follow-up of 30,000 workers at the
Energy Department's Hanford nuclear operations in eastern Washington performed
by Dn. Thomas F. Mancuso. Alice Stewart and George Kneale. In 1977 Mancuso,
Stewart and Kneale (MSK) reported an association between radiation exposure and
excess deaths from cancer of the bone marrow (multiple myeloma), pancreas, and
lung. Moreover, the risk of dying from radiation-induced cancer at Hanford appears
to be 10 to 30 times greater than current protection standards assume. (l)
Mancuso's funds were severed by the Department of Energy (DOE) and unsuccessful
attempts were made to confiscate his data. Several papers critical of the MSK study
were generated by researchers sponsored by the DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC). (2) The contract originally held by Mancuso was transferred
to Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), Battelle Northwest Laboratory (BNL)
and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

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