Cancer of the Asse employees not by radiation?

Radiation exposure allegedly not cause the cancer of Asse employees

08/09/2012

For years, the dispute over a potentially increased risk of cancer in the environment of the ailing nuclear waste storage Asse. Employees of the Asse, who had cancer, attributed their suffering back to the radiation exposure and tried, such as the locksmith Eckbert Duranowitsch, to assert their cancer at the professional association as an occupational disease.

After Duranovich was suffering from leukemia following a three-year activity as a locksmith in the Asse, he indicated the former Asse operator, the Helmholtz Zentrum München, and tried to claim his cancer as an occupational disease. The locksmith complained that for most employees of the aces in his time had given neither protective clothing nor dosimeter. Since Duranovich was not the only Asse employee who went public with his cancer, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, which has been responsible for the Asse since the beginning of 2009, was forced to react and started the Asse health monitoring to determine the radiation exposure of the employees in the mine.

No cancers due to radiation exposure detectable
On Tuesday, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BFS) announced the results of the final second phase of the monitoring. However, for the Asse employees affected this should rather be a bad joke, because the agency comes to the conclusion that the employees of the nuclear waste disposal facility could not detect any cancer due to radioactive radiation at work. „Their individual exposure to radiation due to their activity in the aces was too low to be able to detectably cause cancer according to the state of the art“, so the message of the FSO. The second phase of the monitoring confirmed the results of the first phase of investigation, in which the FSO had already established that the cancer could not be induced by the radiation exposure of the Asse employees. Basis of the first evaluation until the beginning of 2011 were the measurement and employment data of the Helmholtz Zentrum München for the almost 700 employees who worked in the Asse from 1967 to 2008. On the basis of the available data, the FSO calculated the so-called effective dose of radiation in Millisievert in order to be able to make a statement about the burden on Asse employees. The calculation also took into account external radiation from the environment and radionuclides on the skin as well as the internal exposure to inhalation and ingestion.

Radiation exposure of Asse employees below the prescribed limit
The result of the first phase of the investigation was an anonymous assessment of the Asse employees between 12 and 115 millisieverts, with seven persons who worked in the Asse or who worked for a long time in the dilapidated nuclear waste repository burdening more than 100 Millisievert had. All values ​​were well below the „Occupational life dose“ of 400 millisieverts, which are permitted under the Radiation Protection Ordinance. However, it is not clear whether or not there is an increased health risk associated with this burden, as assumed by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection. Here also helps the statement, „that according to the state of science“ no cancer can be triggered by such pressures. The state of science has changed considerably in recent decades. So far, much higher doses of radiation were considered safe and the limits were lowered again and again due to new scientific findings. According to the FSO, it can not be ruled out that employees who did not make use of the offer of an individual evaluation of their radiation exposure had higher radiation exposure, which at least doubts the validity of the monitoring.

Criticism of the statements of the monitoring
Admittedly, the experts of the FSO tried to fill in the existing data gaps of the first phase of the investigation, which were criticized a year ago, through personal interviews and the definition of „replacement values“ close. However, of the almost 700 health monitoring employees, only 33 use the data supplement offer and only 22 completed the questionnaire. For example, there are still uncertainties regarding the informative value of monitoring. The repeated statement by the competent authorities in the past that an increased risk of cancer due to the radiation exposure of the aces can be ruled out is, for this reason too, incomprehensible to most critics. Especially since the FSO was also on an end 2010 in the vicinity of the ailing nuclear waste disposal camp ascertained increased cancer rate in the population, so to speak the same answer and excluded a connection with the radiation exposure of aces in principle. As Leonardo da Vinci emphasized at the time, the true teacher of things should be the experience. To rely here on calculated values ​​and thus absolve the aces from a possible increase in the risk of cancer, although the cancer of the former Asse employees and the inhabitants of the integrated municipality Asse can not be dismissed out of hand seems extremely questionable. In particular, since the critics already made in the run-up to the monitoring of the claim that the authorities will support with the monitoring only their previous position. (Fp)

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