something for David to check into...

fair use...

Link

Radiation doses may have been underestimated for American Indians living near Columbia River

KENNEWICK, Wash. (AP) American Indian tribes that fished in the Columbia River were exposed to more radiation from the bordering Hanford Nuclear Reservation than previously thought, a federal report suggests.

The Indians ate so much fish they were more exposed to potentially cancer-causing radiation than were white farmers and other people living in the area, according to a draft report prepared for the U.S. government by Risk Assessment Corp.

The study, presented Wednesday, looks at fish consumption and radiation releases from 1944 to 1972.

Previous studies had been aimed at estimating the exposure rates for people living downwind of the nuclear reservation when radioactive iodine was released into the atmosphere in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Those studies had assumed that people ate about 90 pounds of fish per year, said Ed Liebow, a cultural anthropologist and consultant on the new study.

But historians and representatives of tribes that fished downstream from Hanford say fish were so central to the diet of many Columbia River Indians that they might have been consuming as much as 1 1/2 pounds a day.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2002

Answers

David. . .

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2002

OG, we're thinking alike. I hadn't even finished the article, and I thought of David.

Darn.

Wish there was something more we could do.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2002

Keeping this bumped for David for when he returns. Hope he'll alert all his family and friends.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2002

Well, heck, radiation dose exposure to all segments of our population has been routinely lied about for over 50 years. Three Mile Island, Oak Ridge, uranium mining by Native Americans under government contracts, etc, etc. Sure, David should see this. But nobody ever seems to be able to get anyone in the government to act responsibly, unless they're willing and able to get involved in a looooong, expensive, trial.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2002