Uranium: The Deadliest Metal

by Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of CCNR

This article appeared in Perception magazine, v. 10 n. 2, 1992

Dying for a Living

As early as 1546, and for centuries afterwards, it was reported that underground miners in Schneeberg, Germany, suffered an unusually high incidence of fatal lung disease. In 1879, it was demonstrated both clinically and anatomically that about half of these miners were dying of lung cancer. This was a much higher incidence of lung cancer than that found in the general population. The same grim statistic -- 50 per cent mortality from lung cancer -- was later found among the miners in Joachimsthal, Czechoslovakia. The ores in question were particularly rich in uranium.

Similar excesses in lung cancer incidence have occurred among iron, lead and zinc miners in Sweden, in fluorspar miners in Newfoundland, and especially among uranium miners in all parts of the world. Scientific papers published in the 1930s, even before the outbreak of World War II, clearly indicated that airborne radioactivity in the mines was the most likely cause of this lung cancer. The principal culprits are radon gas and its solid by-products, the so-called "radon daughters."

Acceptable Doses?

According to all scientific evidence, there is no such thing as a "safe dose" of radiation. Every dose of radiation will cause a corresponding increase in cancers and other diseases. Spreading a given dose out to a larger number of people -- so that each individual dose is smaller -- does not reduce the number of resulting illnesses. In fact, in the case of alpha radiation, there is very strong evidence from many different quarters that spreading a dose out among more people actually increases the total number of cancers and other diseases. Uranium and most of its by-products, including thorium, radium, radon and most of the radon daughters fall into this category of alpha-emitting substances.

Since the town of Port Hope had been thoroughly contaminated with alpha- emitting radioactive substances, the Canadian nuclear authorities had to make a political decision back in 1975: What was an acceptable level for radioactive contamination in a private residence?

And so a standard for an "acceptable level" of radon contamination in a private home was set at about 20 times the normal background levels of radon, to guide the cleanup operations at Port Hope. Before long, that same standard was being used for the construction of whole subdivisions of new homes in Elliot Lake in the late 1970s. Radon levels in these new homes were so unacceptably high that fans had to be installed under the floorboards to blow the radon out of the house. Sometimes two fans had to be installed to bring the contamination levels down to the"acceptable" level.

Boosting the Cancer Rate

In testimony to the Elliot Lake Environmental Assessment Board in 1978, mortality figures published by the Ontario government were used to show that even the "acceptable" levels of radon contamination in homes would result in an extra 17 lung cancer deaths per thousand people chronically exposed to such levels. In other words, instead of 54 lung cancers per thousand, one would expect 71, a 31 per cent increase. In light of this evidence, the Board recommended that the radon standard for homes be reassessed. But no such reassessment has taken place.

Since 1980 the B.C. Medical Association has published a slightly higher risk estimate and has condemned the radon standard for homes "as tantamount to allowing an industrially induced epidemic of cancer." A 1982 report published by the Atomic Energy Control Board concurs, estimating a 40 percent increase in lung cancer among those living in homes contaminated to the "acceptable" radon level.

Radioactive Smoke

Radon gas is also given off by phosphate fertilizers (since phosphate ores are rich in uranium). When tobacco crops are so fertilized, radon gas accumulates under the thick canopy of tobacco leaves, and tiny dust particles impregnated with radon daughters adhere to the sticky, resinous hairs on the underside of each leaf. When harvested, the tobacco contains high concentrations of radioactive lead-210 and polonium-210. Cigarette smokers breathe these radon daughters into their lungs with every inhalation.

Some of these radioactive particles lodge in the lungs of smokers, as confirmed by autopsies. Others enter the bloodstream along with oxygen and carbon monoxide. Radioactive deposits of this kind have been found in plaque removed from sclerotic arteries. Many researchers now believe these excessive concentrations of radon daughters are responsible for most of the 135,000 deaths each year in the U.S. from lung cancer, strokes and heart disease which the American Medical Association attributes to smoking.

Fallout from Uranium Mines

In addition to killing uranium miners and those living in contaminated homes, each uranium mine is, in effect, a "slow bomb" -- spreading deadly radioactive poisons over vast areas of the earth, as surely as the Chernobyl disaster did, as surely as atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons have done, but at an insidiously slower rate. Radon gas can travel a thousand miles in just a few days, with a light breeze. As it travels low to the ground (it is much heavier than air) it deposits its "daughters" -- solid radioactive fallout -- on the vegetation, soil and water below; the resulting radioactive materials enter the food chain, ending up in fruits and berries, the flesh of fish and animals, and ultimately, in the bodies of human beings.

On February 25, 1986, the Wall Street Journal printed a front page story that portrayed the 220 million tons of uranium tailings in the U.S. as an ecological and financial time bomb. (In Canada, we have about 150 million tons of such tailings.) Everyone agrees that these materials are too dangerously radioactive to leave on the surface of the earth, yet no one has devised a satisfactory method for permanently containing them. Even at a very modest rate, say $10 per ton, it will cost billions of dollars to dispose of these wastes.

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