A day after receiving extensive complaints of bias and conflicts-of-interest, the National Academy of Sciences has abruptly canceled the first working meetings of its controversial new committee on radiation risks. The action occurred in the wake of accusations that the panel was packed with advocates of relaxing radiation protections for the public and people with conflicts of interests due to their close ties to the nuclear industry and associated nuclear agencies. Scientists who believe current standards are too lax have been excluded. The Academy's National Research Council said the meeting, scheduled for this weekend in Philadelphia, had been called off in order for the Research Council to be able to "assess the appropriate balance and potential conflict of interest issues associated with the membership of this committee."
The Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) committee is critical to a campaign to save billions of dollars in cleanup costs at contaminated sites. If agencies are allowed to relax radiation standards, contamination will be left at many nuclear sites. Environmental groups say this would result in significant increased risks of radiation induced cancers from the additional radiation exposure.
On Tuesday, 74 organizations wrote the Research Council complaining of extensive conflicts-of-interest involving members of the panel and lack of balance. The groups wrote, "We must say, with regret, that the composition of the panel creates the clear impression that it is dominated by people who have prejudged the issue, who have taken public positions that current official radiation risk estimates are too high. Not a single scientist who has done work concluding that 'low-dose' radiation appears more dangerous than currently presumed in official risk estimates has been permitted on the panel. There is no balance whatsoever in the panel, making it appear that the panel has been captured by the industry and agencies who stand to benefit financially from a skewed review. There can be no credibility to such a one-sided process, and the public will not, and should not, have any confidence in the claims that may result, if the National Research Council does not take immediate steps to cure this seriously biased process."
The panel was established to review the "Linear No-Threshold" (LNT) principle in radiation protection. The LNT model is that risks are linear with dose, i.e., the risk from a dose of 1 rem is 1/10th that of a dose of 10 rem. The principle has come under attack by nuclear agencies and industries that would like to save money on cleaning up contaminated sites. They would save money by not cleaning a site and therefore exposing the public to more radiation. Yet, not a single defender of the strict LNT principle to be examined by the panel has been permitted on it. Numerous strenuous advocates of relaxing radiation standards have been named to it, however, with strong ties to the nuclear industry and associated agencies.
"This is a completely stacked deck," said Daniel Hirsch, President of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los-Angeles based group critical of the panel's composition. "If the imbalance is not dramatically rectified," he said, " it will lead to significant increases in the amount of radiation that polluting nuclear industries and agencies can release, and significant increases in cancers induced thereby."
Those appointed to the panel include a Vice President of a major nuclear company, the former President of the main industry group lobbying for relaxed standards, at least four people who have testified as nuclear industry witnesses in radiation cases, and a whole phalanx of people who have repeatedly taken the position that current risk estimates should be lowered. No one on the side of the debate indicating current risk estimates are too lax has been permitted on the committee.
"This committee is a creature of the nuclear industry and associated agencies like the Department of Energy that view it as key to their hopes to save billions of dollars by relaxed radiation protection rules, even though that will result in untold numbers of increased cancer deaths," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C. "The nuclear industry and its allies have pushed hard to pack the panel and, to deflect attention from their capture of this critical panel, even now complain that it is not packed enough!"
One of the main industry lobbying groups pressing for relaxed radiation standards is the Health Physics Society (HPS). Indeed, the first meeting of the panel was to coincide with the annual HPS meeting in Philadelphia. The environmental groups who complained about the conflict of interest and bias in the panel also complained about this close association with the key industry lobbying group. "It would appear that cancellation of the Philadelphia meeting of the Research Council committee in conjunction with the annual meeting of the industry lobbying group has to do with the clear impression it creates that the Council has improperly tied itself to the industry campaign to relax radiation protection standards," said Mariotte.
The public interest groups have made clear that a 16-person panel dominated by industry and agency allies in the effort to reduce radiation risk estimates cannot be made balanced by cosmetic changes such as adding one or two new members. "A see-saw with more than a dozen people on one side cannot be made level with the placement of one or two people on the other side," their letter said.
"Significant numbers of people will die unnecessarily from radiation-induced cancers if the industry campaign to relax radiation protection standards succeeds, and if the Academy permits its process to be captured by those industry and agency interests," said Hirsch.
Copies of the groups' letter to the Academy detailing the imbalance and conflicts-of-interest on the panel are available upon request.