More Sternglass, Wing, etc..... Jaro http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/090703/Local/ST002.shtml PUBLISHED SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2003 Radium's risk not agreed on Scott Streater @PensacolaNewsJournal.com No one argues that radium in drinking water is not a health concern. At high concentrations, it has been linked to bone and nasal cancers. But there is an ongoing debate among many scientists and health experts over how high radium concentrations need to be before there is a real health hazard. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a goal of zero radium in the nation`s drinking water. "There is always some potential risk," said Neal Nelson, a pharmacologist in EPA`s Office of Radiation and Indoor Air. Radium concentrations below the federal limit merely reduce the risk of developing cancer to no more than 1 in 10,000, he said. Sam Keith, a senior health physicist at the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, disagrees. Keith said people would need to drink water with radium concentrations hundreds of times the federal standard to suffer any severe health effects. At the concentration found in Pensacola`s wells, which in some cases exceeded more than twice the federal standard, "there should be no short-term health risks." Keith points to the EPA standard, which establishes a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for radium in water. It is based on a lifetime cancer risk from drinking 2 liters of radium- tainted water a day for life. But the average American male drinks 1.29 liters of water a day; the average female less than a liter, he said. "That`s quite a bit less than the 2 liters," Keith said. Other health experts insist water containing radium above the federal standard can have serious health effects beyond cancer, particularly for small children or a developing fetus. "Personally, there`s evidence that the government`s mainstream position on radium in drinking water is too conservative, in that there`s evidence that there may be health effects even below the MCL," said Steve Wing, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina`s School of Public Health. Ernest Sternglass, a nuclear physicist at the University of Pittsburgh`s School of Medicine, said drinking water with levels of radium even slightly higher than the federal standard can damage the body`s immune system. "The radium gets carried to the bone, and the bone marrow is where all the cells of the immune system are formed," said Sternglass, who has studied the effects of low-level radium on human health. "When you have radium lodged in the bone where the stem cells of the immune system are formed, exist and continue to give birth to new white cells, it`s very serious. The white cells are the policemen of the body, and they try to destroy cancer cells before they multiply. So, if you destroy the white cells, you do away with the police." The result: A wide array of illnesses ranging from asthma to autism are believed to be linked to radium pollution in drinking water. It`s a risk no one should have to take, said Dr. David Ozonoff, an environmental epidemiologist at Boston University`s School of Public Health. He likens the risk posed by drinking radium-tainted water to playing a game of Russian roulette. "Most people, if given their choice, wouldn`t want to live in a house where you had a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting cancer just because you drank the water," he said. ===================================================
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