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Moruroa report: Critics reaffirm demand for medical survey

The bland, reassuring report by the team of two New Zealand radiation experts, a geologist and an environmental scientist from Australia, and a marine biologist from Papua New Guinea, who made a flying visit to Moruroa in October 1983, which was eventually released eight months later, did not convince many people that 106 atomic bomb explosions can do no harm whatsoever. Least of all did it impress those for whom it was intended: the heads of the 13 South Pacific Forum nations, who have con tinued to oppose the French nuclear tests with the same, or even greater vigor.

In our column in PIM, Octo ber, 1984, we analysed in detail the numerous shortcomings of this Atkinson report, so named after the leader of the inspec tion team, who was at the time director of the New Zealand Radiation Laboratory. The best way to sum up our criticism is to say that it was, in our consi dered opinion, the wrong sort of investigation, undertaken at the wrong place by the wrong kind of scientists.

Our reasons for this rather harsh conclusion were those advanced by all other critics: the number one problem today is not to determine with preci sion the extent of the consider able pollution which has taken place at Moruroa, but to find out how many people living in the other 99 islands of French Polynesia have contracted can cer as a result of having absorbed into their bodies radioactive substances emitted mainly by the 41 bombs deton ated in the atmosphere be tween 1966 and 1974. This is why the Territorial Assembly in French Polynesia has repeated ly, but always in vain, deman ded that a medical survey be made.

In a belated face-saving effort, Mr Atkinson’s successor as director of the New Zealand National Radiation Laboratory, Mr A C. McEwan has written to PIM (April issue) complaining that our criticism is unfair on the following three counts, upon which we shall immediately comment: a) We have “overlooked or missed the whole significance of the conclusions of the report. A fundamental consideration is that if there is no significant radiation exposure, there can be no radiation-induced can cers. ”

As anyone who cares to reread our October 1984 col umn can ascertain, far from overlooking the significance of the strange method used by the Atkinson-McEwan team to de termine the prevalence of can cer in French Polynesia, we actually criticised it in the strongest terms. For what these radiation and environmental experts have done, unable as they were to make any inde pendent medical observations, is simply to speculate on the possible ill-effects suffered by the inhabitants of French Polynesia, basing their esti mates solely on the yields of past explosions, as estimated by the French bombers them selves. How fallacious such a purely deductive method of determining the number of can cer victims is has been amply proven by the recent revela tions of various British and American commissions that, contrary to the assurances of all radiation experts and govern ment officials back in the 1950 s and 19605, a great number of people who lived in or near the test sites in Australia, Mic ronesia and Nevada, have in deed been contaminated. b) We harbor “the miscon ception that leakage would

occur at the time of the tests. In fact leakage of radio-activity would occur as a slow process over a period of time.”

Whether slow or rapid, leak age of radioactivity into the ocean is a serious source of contamination of marine life.

And does Mr McEwan really believe that the leakage was slow also on the numerous well-documented occasions when holes were blasted in the flank of the atoll by bomb accidents, as for instance the one that occurred on July 25 1979? The French Government Commissioner for Natural Dis asters, Professor Haroun Tazieff, who has visited Morur oa twice, estimates that one million tonnes of rock and coral were tom out on this occasion, obviously creating an enor mous escape route for radioac tive substances. c) We “continue to raise the bogy of radioactive waste dis persed in storms some years ago”.

It is a well-known fact, con firmed by French Minister for Defence Charles Hemu himself in parliamentary speech, that through criminal neglect of a succession of Moruroa military base commanders, nuclear waste material, including 10-20 kg of plutonium, was allowed to accumulate in the 1960 s and 1970 s on the reef on the north side of Moruroa. As certified by the French CEA-CEP techni cians, much of this was waste dispersed by two cyclones which hit Moruroa. The team to which Mr McEwan belonged could therefore have performed a useful service by visiting this nuclear waste dumping area, but was refused permission by the French base commander to do so. It seems therefore perfectly justified to press for more precise information about what has happened to all this

lethal material.

Marie-Therese And

Bengt Danielsson

Papehue Tahiti French Polynesia

If only our

bodies could

choose...

The letter of A C. McEwan (PIM April) tells us: “The aver age contribution of fallout radionuclides in soil to human exposure at Moruroa is . . . much lower than those of naturally-occurring radioactive materials. ”

His assurance would be more meaningful if our bodies could choose between natural back ground radiations and man made ones.

In reality our bodies are exposed to the former ones plus the latter ones.

And even the proponents of nuclear power don’t deny the increase in public health risk according to the amount of this additional exposure. They tell us to accept the risk for some benefit from the “peaceful atoms”.

But for what benefit should Polynesians accept this additio nal health risk?

Another Hiroshima or Naga saki won’t bring us the end of a war but will be the beginning of another world war and possibly the end of the earth.

The study of the deve lopment of more effective bombs at Moruroa, I think, provides no benefit to anybody.

That is the reason why we are so sensitive of these man-made radiations.

Fuciwaki Koichi

4-3-1-108 Masago Chiba 260 Japan