Sir, - Dr Sowby states in his letter (June 5th) that I have cast doubt on the capacity of the RPII to make objective assessments of the amounts of emission from neighbouring nuclear establishments. Indeed I did state that we cannot have confidence in the statements of the RPII on the effects of emissions from Sellafield on the Irish people, if they are prepared to uncritically promote the conclusions of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) on Chernobyl. Cancer clusters discovered around Sellafield and La Hague in France have been through the same process of denial.
At this time, when many Irish people are welcoming the Chernobyl children into their homes, as a dedicated group are doing in my own home town, it is important for people to realise that the conclusions by bodies such as the RPII, the IAEA and the NEA are not academic, but can have fatal consequences, as did the conclusion in 1991 by the IAEA that there were no radiation induced conditions in the affected areas after Chernobyl. This conclusion prevented children with thyroid cancer from being properly categorised, and thus treated early enough to ensure the prevention of a fatal outcome.
It is equally misleading and dangerous to reiterate that the significant increases in cancers, leukaemia's, congenital abnormalities and adverse pregnancy outcomes in the affected areas of the Ukraine and Belarus are not radiation induced, but the result of psychological stress. This was the view of the only speaker invited to address the RPII's Chernobyl conference, a member of an organisation which promoted nuclear power and the author of a report on the radiological health impacts of Chernobyl published by that body, the Nuclear Energy Agency in 1995.
The RPII has at least the duty to present a balanced account, not simply give us an account which represents the view of the agencies working to promote nuclear energy. It could, for example, have presented doctors who had studied thyroid cancer in the affected areas, or scientists from Belarus or the Ukraine could have been invited. The Irish people must be enabled to have confidence in the RPII and I call on the board, to ensure that balance and, therefore, confidence is maintained in future. - Yours, etc.,
La Touche Place,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.