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Release the figures, Nicola. The attitude of the NHS on this matter has been a total disgrace. Dare I say "If they have nothing to hide....." We are all looking to the new Government to empty the closet of skeletons, and this is the perfect opportunity to start clearing out the nuclear legacy cover-ups.

#Ron, Just down the road Totally agree - I think we need to also know the cost of what happened including the figures on the financial cost of the NHS's obstruction & tactics, including the legal costs of course, in this matter ...

I agree with the others, release the figures Nicola. This is news to me and also of personal concern as for 6 years we had a caravan parked in Southerness, where my childern played often on the shore and in the water.

It's not wise for the NHS spokeswoman to start comparing expertise. Dr. Busby, who showed the flaws in the Cancer Registry study, is a reviewer for the European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics, the European Journal of Cancer, and the Journal of Public Health, a member of two UK Government advisory committees, and author of many articles, reports and books about radiation and health.

We in Hawaii have a problem with DU contamination. DU primarily contaminates air through burning smoke and soil and water where it can remobilize into the air and circulate in the environment. It is a known leukemia agent in Iraq.

The nuclear and cancer establishments are serpentine. They use a chain of falsehoods to ensure that man made causes for the majority of cancers are kept concealed. Their victims are not just deceived but also suckered into pouring £billions into research designed never to shine a light on the real initiating causes of cancer. The focus is always on progression mechanisms geared to 'treatments' for the financial benefit of big Pharma and the medical wing of the nuclear industry. Massive profits always trump human safety. In this instance we have the serpent's nest - the military-nuclear establishment. Truly a twisted world. www.canceractive.com

Nicola, Publish and be damned by the self interested authorities trying to cover up the scale of radiation linked cancers such as myeloma (Cancer of the bone marrow) caused by the Chernobyl fallout. Prior to 1986 there was ONE case per 800,000 Scots and since then there have been 1,000's. I know of 160+ in Grampian alone including myself and the Cancer unit is not allowed to publish the statistics in case the public panic. What I want is the stark truth without all the cover ups and prevarications.

Dr Ernest Sternglass caught the US government falsifying cancer data in the 1960s. The government liars said the same kinds of things. Nothing changes. If the nuclear industry's and their sycophants' mouths are moving, they are lying. In 1963 Dr. Sternglass was invited by President Kennedy to address the US Senate on the issue of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He has been active in the to prevent just this sort of lying by nuclear authorities and frightened civil servants for over 40 years. The only solution is the light of day. Release the data, Nicola.

Only a small quantity of DU was aerosolised at Kirkcudbright, the rest ended up in the sea (where it corrodes and is dispersed - and is insignificant compared with natural uranium and other radionuclides, natural and anthropogenic). There are far worse DU contamination incidents, where health affects if any, are too subtle to have been proven. I very much doubt DU is significant here. If the registry data can identify individuals, it would be unethical to release it in that form, perhaps it could be released in a more acceptable form. However, Busby has made several controversial and unsubstantiated claims in the press - look at his track record over DU follow the stories up. They lead nowhere. Whilst we may recognise government propaganda, very few recognise the propaganda of left-wing peace campaigners. What is the real motive here?

The real Weapons of Mass Destruction - US & UK uranium munitions - look no further Soaring cancer rate and birth deformities in Iraq - http://www.wsws.org/ articles/2005/may200 5/iraq-m10.shtml and the cancer establishment trot out the diversionary excuses. Meanwhile the Chernobyl people struggle to get the World Health Organisation to throw off its subservience to the nuclear industry promoters of the IAEA, enforced by the '1959 Deal' - http://www.independe ntwho.info/spip.php? rubrique5

I'd like to know why Ms Sturgeon doesn't immediately act on this - talking about "what CAN be released", etc. I can't see why she doesn't take advantage of this chance to show she's a good new broom.

Nick of London accuses Busby of making unsubstantiated claims. Can he be specific? We might have a rational debate. His comments on Uranium make it clear that he's falling into the "radiation dose" trap, thinking that the relatively small amount of radiation from Uranium is what matters. In fact many authorities now agree that dose is pretty well meaningless for many types of radioactivity inside the body. For Uranium we have to think in terms of its high binding to DNA and its absorption of natural gamma rays. These factors make an atom of Uranium stuck to the DNA molecule nearly 80000 times more likely to convert gamma into a very localised shower of ionising photoelectrons than is the DNA on its own. This is probably the mechanism which mediates heavy metal toxicity; you probably heard it here first. It means that effects like the Seascale leukaemia cluster, the Menai leukaemia cluster and the cancer increases after Chernobyl cannot be dismissed in terms of the official radiation risk model. Is this just weirdy lefty propaganda, Nick?

One unsubstantiated claim was in the Sunday Times last year, relating elevated uranium concentration near Reading to the Iraq War. Scientists put their data into context, and test their hypotheses. Neither was done in his supporting [italic]'paper'[/italic] ([bold]un-peer-reviewed junk[/bold] ). No credible follow up has been made. Richard: your ideas are sensational, but where is the scrutinised evidence (i.e. science)? Why do I hear it here first? Which credible [italic]authorities[/italic] ? To put uranium into context, it is all around us, an extra percent is not likely to hurt us, and is well within natural variability. Perhaps it is our natural environment that is at fault? Or [italic]is anthropogenic uranium mystically special[/italic] ? Heavy metal toxicity is a chemical effect. The effects of lead are well documented, and it is a serious problem, but is not related to activity. No significance has been found for the 'Menai cluster' it is bogus. Uranium is not commonly cited as a cause for Chernobyl cancers, there are far more concerning radionuclides. And what became of the Lebanon isotope ratios? [bold]Dodgy data that has not been repeated, except in campaign group propaganda?[/bold]

As somebody who was born shortly after the Windscale disaster, and developed cancer by the time I was 1 year old (only member of my family known to have had cancerie we were a very healthy family in every other way) I would have no problem my name being released if it was to expose the dangers of nuclear power. It is not just leukaemia we are talking about but many other cancers.Areas of Dumfries &Galloway were heavily affected after Windscale I am told by my father who was a local police inspector. The claim above that 'the dose of radioactivity within the body is pretty well meaningless' is contrary to expert opinion and contrary to evidence of the very significant long term effects on many of those treated by radiotherapy (-an area of medicine which must grow massively in the near future).Radiation is known as the gift that keeps on giving I would hope very much that statisics would be pulled of the numbers from Dumfries and Galloway affected after the Windscale disaster of 1957- put me first on the list

Carol, you and I are in agreement - you have misunderstood what I wrote about radiation dose. What I meant was that the concept of absorbed dose is now widely recognised to be meaningless for many forms of radioactivity once they are inside the body. To put it another way, it is no longer rational to claim that doses from Uranium, for example, are too small to cause observed leukaemia clusters. I hope this page will stay open long enough for me to answer Nick's questions; I have no time to do so today. If it closes we can open a discussion on www.llrc.org mediated through emails to bramhall@llrc.org.

Richard: you can promote your left-field opinions as much as you like. However, you still have to accept that [bold]uranium has a natural background[/bold] , and put this into context. Public exposure to DU from Kirkcudbright is [bold]insignificant[/bold] compared to background, as was the uranium fallout from Windscale in Dumfries. Can you tell me where your critiques can be read? Is your [italic]scientific scrutiny[/italic] as [bold]insincere[/bold] as your call for rational debate?

The main point here is that the Scottish Cancer Registry study is very bad epidemiology. The SCR staff explicitly set out to test the hypothesis that leukaemia in Dumfries and Galloway is related to radioactive pollution in the sea but ignored Chernobyl. Fallout from Chernobyl affected the high ground, rather than the sea, thus reversing the exposure pattern. This is a massive confounding factor and it happened slap in the middle of the SCR study. The fact that the study was conducted in such a way is scandalous; that it was done at public cost is worse; that it passed peer review casts doubt on the already compromised system of scientific publication. Why is Nick defending such an appalling state of affairs? Why is he attacking us on all sorts of other issues, and why is he questioning my sincerity? In 15 years work in radiation protection I have found that people who can't impugn our science do tend to resort to personal abuse, as he has here. I'll address the specific points he raises if this page gives enough space. If not, my offer to carry on the debate as a blog on www.llrc.org remains open.

9. On Nick's idea that most of the Kirkcudbright DU ordnance ends up in the sea and is insignificant, it is too soon to know whether the doubling of leukaemia on the coast of the Solway Firth is caused by DU or by radioactivity from Sellafield (which still includes Uranium) or by both. Nick is concentrating on the Uranium; if he wants to make comparisons between anthropogenic exposures and the levels of Uranium that would be available if mankind had never started digging up Uranium perhaps he could find relevant data. I'd be very interested. Dr Busby, a member of the MoD Depleted Uranium Oversight Board, agrees that the Uranium ordnance in the sea will readily be dissolved, but radioactivity tends to adhere to the fine sediment particles with which the Solway Firth abounds. Sea-to-land transfer of such particles is a well-described mechanism which makes the radioactivity readily available for inhalation, so there's no room for complacency. What is certain is that there are excesses associated with other places were there's radioactive contamination and episodes like Chernobyl which, now that dose is recognised as a virtually meaningless concept, cannot be dismissed on the grounds of "low doses".

Nick says "One unsubstantiated claim was in the Sunday Times last year, relating elevated uranium concentration near Reading to the Iraq War. Scientists put their data into context, and test their hypotheses. Neither was done in his supporting 'paper' (un-peer-reviewed junk ). No credible follow up has been made." I reply that the simple fact is that High Volume Air Samplers around the Aldermaston area picked up a substantial and unprecedented increase in Uranium nine days after the start of Gulf War 2. Wind patterns showed that it could have come from the battle fields where by the end of the campaign 2000 tons of Uranium had been fired at the Iraqis. Despite what Nick says, the Green Audit paper (http://www.mindfull y.org/Nucs/2006/DU-E urope-Contamination1 jan06.htm) considers all the relevant factors and it has not been refuted — there's just been a lot of unscientific spluttering, as you can see on http://www.llrc.org/ du/subtopic/breaking winds.htm. It's hard to see what Nick has in mind as a "credible follow up"; the original data all comes from credible external sources, like AWE. Green Audit just put it together and drew the obvious inference that if Uranium aerosols can travel that far in measurable amounts we're all potential casualties.

Nick asks why I say this blog is the first place readers are likely to hear about the mechanism which mediates heavy metal toxicity, which I outlined above. It's because the mechanism depends on two factors; each has been known for a long time but few people seem to have realised the importance of considering the interaction between them. The two factors are the affinity between Uranium and DNA, and the fact that elements of high atomic number convert the energy of gamma and X-rays into secondary photo-electrons far more effectively than elements of low atomic number. Busby proposed this to the CERRIE committee on radiation risk in 2003 but it was omitted from the majority report. A similar idea is being used as an effective cancer treatment, in the form of gold particles injected into a tumour which is then irradiated with low doses of X-rays, but in this case the gold has no affinity for DNA. The relevance of Uranium is very new information, although I suspect that the nukes realised it long ago and kept quiet about it. A patent application for using Uranium salts and X-rays as a cancer treatment has been filed in the last few weeks. Nick's assertion that heavy metal toxicity is a chemical effect is just wrong. It has been [italic]assumed[/italic] to be chemical, but nobody has explained why heavy metals with vastly different chemistry have similar toxic effects, but now we can it's blindingly simple, and yes, Nick's right — it's not related to the intrinsic radioactivity of the element.

Nick asks "Which credible authorities?". I suppose he refers to my statement (above) that "…many authorities now agree that dose is pretty well meaningless for many types of radioactivity inside the body." I cite CERRIE (the UK Government's Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters), of which I was a member; the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the European Committee on Radiation Risk, and the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, the official French agency analogous to the UK's Health Protection Agency Radiation Protection department, which used to be the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB). You can see relevant material gathered together at http://www.llrc.org/ wobblyscience/subtop ic/dosemeaningless.h tm.

Nick raises the Menai Strait cluster of childhood leukaemia, which is a 20-fold excess in the coastal communities of north Wales discovered by the Low Level Radiation Campaign using official data leaked to us in 1995 and individual cases identified by an HTV reporter. (see http://www.llrc.org/ health/subtopic/mena i.htm). Nick says "No significance has been found". This is the official view put forward by the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (WCISU). It is a statistical fiction, achieved by dividing the observed cases into several arbitrarily chosen populations. The issue here, though, is exposure to radioactivity from the sea so the valid approach would be to treat the coastal population as a single population. When this is done, statistical significance is high. WCISU's logic could be reduced to absurdity by analysing disease incidence street by street, which would allow them to deny the significance of any leukaemia increase on the grounds that the population of any particular street was so small that it could be a random blip. The fact is that WCISU used the wrong population data in its first analysis, making a simple but fundamental error which inflated the base populations three-fold. This has been published in the Journal of Public Health and WCISU has had to admit it. The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radioactivity in the Environment (COMARE), who endorsed WCISU's version, have also had to admit making a mistake (see http://www.comare.or g.uk/statements/Fina lWelshStatement.htm) . So this is bad epidemiology on the part of another Cancer Registry. It's becoming a habit, I think. Why does Nick defend it?

Nick asks "what became of the Lebanon isotope ratios". He's referring to the discovery by Dai Williams and Green Audit of enriched Uranium in bomb craters after the Israeli war against Hizbollah last summer. (See http://www.llrc.org/ du/subtopic/lebanon. htm).The isotope ratios showed the presence of enriched Uranium. The analyses were done on multiple samples, some of which were obtained by the United Nations Environment Programme team and handed to Dai Williams. We used separate laboratories, including one at Harwell used by the Depleted Uranium Oversight Board, so Nick's slur about this being "dodgy data that has not been repeated" is wrong; actually libellous, I'd say.

Richard, Firstly an apology, any comments taken personally should not be part of a rational scientific debate. This should not be about politics or personal opinions. However, comments attributed to you of “[italic]outrageously bad epidemiology[/italic] ” of professional epidemiologists are personal. I do not believe you are in a position to judge on this, nor am I. Yes, I have raised a number of other issues, which I did to put the credibility of Busby’s research into context. I disagree with the presentation of the AWE data, it is not placed in context. An idea was raised that could only have been tested as a scientific hypothesis by demonstrating depleted uranium isotope ratios. There is no mention of particulate mass loading, other radionuclides, long-term natural variation. I see that it is now published in a new ‘peer-reviewed’ journal (European Biology and Bioelectromagnets). However, this is still in the grey literature. It is not recognised by ISI WoK or Scopus. Chris Busby is on the editorial board, a gross conflict of interest for this paper. This journal and its editorial board are not appropriate for an environmental study of this kind, the core assertion is not about biology. If this idea could be defended as science I suggest a conventional high-end journal would be very interested. The ‘paper’ cites much grey literature and very few of the references given are from published peer-reviewed papers. UNEP found no evidence of elevated uranium in the Lebanon samples. I have not seen the Busby data presented in peer-reviewed journals. I will continue to sincerely doubt their credibility unless they make a respectable peer-reviewed journal. As regards your heavy metal theories. I believe that the adverse effects of lead are well documented in the literature, and that there have many victims of lead poisoning due to chemical toxicity. In high doses this causes acute sickness, brain damage and death, this is not attributed to radiation. You have a separate idea with uranium and DNA binding, which I ask you to refrain from lumping together with heavy metal toxicity. Your ideas are not widely held or accepted in the scientific community. Please cite from a respected peer-reviewed journal evidence that uranium is found bound to DNA in human cells, taken from a victim of chronic uranium poisoning, or at the least exposed to significant anthropogenic uranium. Richard you state that you have 15 years experience in radiation protection. Could you give examples of peer-reviewed work, and qualifications held in this field? Perhaps you could defend your attack in the original article by stating the significance of the Chernobyl effect. I do not believe that can casually be cited, without backup. [bold]How many cancers inland in Dumfries and Galloway are attributed to Chernobyl? In the absence of the data that you wanted, state with justification these numbers, and show that they would sway the summary data from the NHS study.[/bold] Perhaps you can address all of the above points for the readership, and we’ll leave it at that.

Nick's posts reveal the reverence for peer review that a timid journalist might be expected to have, anxious about using his or her own intelligence to investigate official bullshit. He ought to broaden his horizon, because peer review is a flawed system, as any scientist could confirm. The reviewer of Scottish Cancer Registry study ought to be censured for passing a paper that ignored such a massive confounding factor. Epidemiologists can make mistakes, even if they are "professional"; as I said in an earlier post the Welsh cancer registry (WCISU,) made mistakes over populations which a GCSE student would have been ashamed of. Nick seems to have glossed over that one. Further, as Nick ought to be aware if he's going to invoke UNEP, there are many organisations which do not submit their work for review. ICRP is one example, UNEP is another. There are many aspects of UNEP's work which do not pass scrutiny, including the fact that the instrumentation they took into the Lebanon wasn't up to detecting the type of contamination associated with the use of Depleted Uranium rounds. [bold]Nick's apology[/bold] is curious and heavily qualified. His idea that I offered personal criticism of the Scottish Cancer Registry staff is plain silly. I criticised their work, which, for a study as bad as theirs, is fair and necessary. I most certainly am in a position to do it, since the paper gave the data in a format that allowed it to be reanalysed. Nick issues a garbled challenge to me to justify my criticism. Well, see previous posts. This is not a suitable place for a more exhaustive analysis; it is a complex matter and the Journal which published the SCR study is reviewing a letter from us which runs to nine pages. Nick'll have to wait for that. [bold]He also asks[/bold] about the number of cases in the inland area of Dumfries and Galloway that can be attributed to Chernobyl. This information is not given separately in the SCR paper (maybe that's why Nick asks for it – was it a trick question?) but we applied for it months ago, specifying the years 1986 to 1989 as a "Chernobyl exposed" period. Here are the figures: in SCR's band A (nearest the sea) there were no cases; there was 1 in band B, and 5 in band C. Now Nick can figure it out for himself. He has all the information we have. [bold]You can't destroy a message[/bold] by discrediting the messenger, so there's no real reason for me to jump through hoops of Nick's devising, but here goes anyway. He insists that Green Audit's paper showing that [bold]Uranium from Gulf War 2[/bold] was found in England should have included uranium isotope ratios. Clearly he hasn't read the relevant material, or he'd have known that AWE hasn't given the ratios. "Other radionuclides" have nothing to do with it. "Long-term natural variation" was implicitly considered. "Particulate mass loading" sounds like something that would have to be studied in a follow-up if useful data could be found, which I doubt. Maybe Nick would like to explain what data he thinks could be available and relevant. Contrary to Nick's assertion, [bold]UNEP did find evidence of elevated uranium[/bold] in the Lebanon samples – they just denied it, claiming “The results confirmed the original findings that no DU, enriched uranium or higher than natural uranium levels are present at the site, and that the readings are due to natural causes.” (UNEP Lebanon report, page 151) But have a look at http://www.llrc.org/ du/subtopic/unepleba nonfailure.htm. It shows that UNEP's water sample (the one they reported) was unnaturally high in Uranium. Soil samples show between 10 and 20 times what is expected in a limestone geology such as the Lebanon. Other soil sample data from UNEP's first report show unmistakable signs of having been airbrushed for the second. UNEP reports isotope ratios close to that of natural Uranium, but there is significantly enriched Uranium in samples from Green Audit's first mission and some from the second. This is for the combatant forces and their governments to explain. The appropriate forum would be a war crimes trial, since using Uranium is contrary to UN conventions on ordnance whose effects are indiscriminate. Given the reputation of the labs that did the analyses for Green Audit there's not a lot to be added by insisting that the findings be published in a "respectable peer-reviewed journal". It would be ideal, but beware Nick's double standard — UNEP publishes without review. [bold]Heavy metal toxicity[/bold] . Nick's beliefs about lead poisoning are all sound, including the fact that SO FAR it isn't attributed to radiation. This is the point, but he doesn't seem to have understood it. I outlined it in my 2.10 pm post on Saturday 16th, so I won't go over it again. He asks for "[bold]evidence that uranium is found bound to DNA in human cells[/bold] ". In a lot of science one has to extrapolate to human beings, since what one would really like to do is unethical. This is particularly true of radiation research - the recent Plutonium autopsies scandal is an example of what used to happen. Relevant papers are [bold]Constantinescu[/bold] DG (1974) Metachromasia through uranyl ions: a procedure for identifying the nucleic acids and nucleotides. Anal. Biochem. 62 584-587; [bold]Huxley[/bold] HE and Zubay G (1961) Preferential staining of nucleic acid containing structures for electron microscopy. Biophysical and biochemical cytology. 11(2) 273; [bold]Nielsen[/bold] PE, Hiort C, Soennischsen SO,, Buchardt O, Dahl O and Norden B (1992) DNA binding and photocleavage by Uranyl VI salts. J.Am.Chem. Soc 114 4967-4975; [bold]Zobel[/bold] CR and Beer M (1961) Electron Stains: Chemical studies on the interaction of DNA with Uranyl Salts J. Biophys. Biochem. Cytol. 10 336-346. [bold]Nick demands " … respected peer-reviewed journal evidence[/bold] that uranium is found bound to DNA in human cells, taken from a victim of chronic uranium poisoning, or at the least exposed to significant anthropogenic uranium" but he can look for himself — I suspect that he has more resources available for searching the literature than I do. I think he'd search for a very long time and not find anything that meets his very specific demands; I doubt it's been done. [bold]I am very familiar with this kind of knocking technique;[/bold] faced with evidence that's way out of line with the conventional radiation risk model (a leukaemia cluster, for example) apologists demand absolute proof that we are right, rather than accepting that the model, shot through with theoretical assumption as it is, needs to be overhauled. They demand that we show the cluster is irrefutably caused by the radiation. This just isn't the way science works. [bold]Finally Nick[/bold] asks me for my peer-reviewed work and qualifications. He knows who I am, where I am, and what I do (he has not been similarly forthcoming about his own status). He knows I make no claim to be a scientist and that my role in all this is to co-ordinate the Low Level Radiation Campaign — an organisation that campaigns for an end to the false assumptions, the guesswork and the suppression of knowledge that have bedevilled radiation research since 1944. I don't need qualifications for that.

Finally, and for one last time, as we obviously have fundamental disagreements here. The point regarding the numbers for Chernobyl cancers is that you believe they are relevant, but then you say you don’t know how many there are. [bold]So how do you know they are significant?[/bold] Surely the statement of ‘outrageously bad epidemiology’ must be based on something significant? AWE did not provide isotope data, as that is imprecise by routine gamma-spec. Surely a filter from that period could be analysed, from somewhere in England or Europe? Data for natural radionuclides would show if anomalous dust levels were being picked up. Particulate mass loading would also show this, or from construction dust. The short period of data used in the ‘paper’ has many unexplained spikes, why is the war spike significantly different? [bold]The claims made were based on circumstantial evidence only, which is not science.[/bold] When such sensational and sensitive claims are being made, a high degree of proof is needed. The UNEP report found high natural uranium, i.e. higher than average concentration. [bold]Uranium concentrations vary in our environment[/bold] . 28 mg/kg does not demonstrate contamination. Plenty of igneous rocks and shales have this level, and could easily have been used in the construction of the building, or be present in the area. Thanks for the references. I made a request for [bold]evidence[/bold] that I think would show DNA-bound-uranium could be relevant to chronic poisoning. I don’t think it exists either. I don’t think your heavy-metal idea can explain acute poisoning. Work on it. Convince the scientific world. [bold]Prove it with hard-science.[/bold] You’ll earn Nobel prizes galore. [bold]Peer-review is the back-bone of academic research.[/bold] It is not faultless, and can stifle research. But it does provide scrutiny that the media and other grey-literature does not. More awareness of this fact would prevent so much wasted time. Bottom line: I don’t trust your claims. They are not backed up by peer-review. Neither are UNEP, but I trust them to be more impartial and thorough than you. [bold]You have a cause, a campaign. I don’t trust that.[/bold] Goodbye Richard, yours can be the last word.

[bold]1. We do have the data for the Chernobyl period[/bold] of the Dumfries and Galloway study. I gave it above, which Nick seems not to have noticed. Together with the data in the Cancer Registry's paper it is enough to explode their findings. There is detailed analysis on www.llrc.org/epidemi ology/subtopic/dundr ennan.htm [bold]2. We have looked for data from other filters[/bold] to confirm or deny the Gulf War 2 Uranium peak but AWE seems to be the only site using them. We found no others, and none of our other critics have found any either. There are filters at Springfields, but those are swamped by Uranium from the Irish Sea, which is possibly relevant to the Dumfries and Galloway leukaemias! The Gulf War 2 Uranium peak is obviously far, far bigger than the random scatter; that's why it is "significantly different ". (see the paper on http://www.mindfully .org/Nucs/2006/DU-Eu rope-Contamination1j an06.htm) [bold]3. I already said the geology in Lebanon is limestone[/bold] , so I don't see why Nick is talking about levels of Uranium in igneous rocks and shales. [bold]Trusting UNEP is a bit naïve[/bold] , in view of the political control that can be exerted. I have already given links (on this page) to critiques of their methods. The shortcomings are obvious and gross and they all remain unanswered. It's frustrating when people with axes to grind turn their backs on scientific discourse and retire behind their belief systems.

Richard, I really hope this is the last time from me, but I cannot leave your final comments. 1.) [bold]Detailed analysis is not available on your website[/bold] : it is conveniently [italic]embargoed[/italic] . I do hope that it is submitted to credible journals, and can be scrutinised if it makes it past peer-review. The numbers you gave above are meaningless. You might be able to increase the SIR, but the confidence interval is still going to be massive. [bold]That still leaves you with no significance.[/bold] [bold]The argument is circular[/bold] : uplands must have more cancer because of Chernobyl, coastal area has similar cancer incidence, therefore there must be a coastal source (randomly attributed to DU testing and Sellafield), therefore uplands cancer must be caused by… Chernobyl. [italic]Now who is wasting public money?[/italic] And yes I have looked at the Menai study – [bold]no cluster has been demonstrated[/bold] . 2.) The scatter is not random in the data, [bold]a basic understanding of the processes[/bold] that load these filters would help you here. Increase particulate loading due to weather conditions or local construction and you increase uranium activity. The presentation of this as a paper is a deception – it does not look around the problem, and the references are mainly drivelling grey-literature. I doubt that many scientists bothered engaging with you on this, I know I regret wasting my time. Please tell me the concentration of uranium in the Irish sea, and what proportions are natural and anthropogenic. [bold]How is this relevant when placed in context?[/bold] 3.) The geology of the Lebanon is mainly limestone, there is a basalt province in the southeast. Plenty of materials have 30 ppm uranium, we do not need to invoke mini-nukes to explain it. And as for trying to mask the ratios with EU! Coal ash or building materials are more likely explanations – are you going to tell me it is all limestone. [italic]Perhaps they fill limestone cars with limestone fuel, and carry out terrorist actions with limestone rockets?[/italic] The whole argument here is ridiculous. DU’s recognised use is against hard armour, so was unlikely to have been used in this conflict. High explosive rounds are much more effective here. I have seen no credible evidence that DU is used in bunker-busters, yes the media is full of rumours, but based on? These were serious political allegations, and have no doubt inflamed the situation, so if wrong as I suspect, I think Busby has blood on his hands. I came into this debate with serious doubts about your claims and yes, I have been aggressive, but I had hoped to be convinced. Get hard proof, and stop wasting time with the dross. [bold]All that I can see in your work is circumstantial evidence leading tenuously to sensational and controversial claims, dressed up as research.[/bold]

[bold]The detailed analysis[/bold] (of the Dumfries and Galloway paper) is embargoed precisely because it has been submitted to a credible journal. I said this already. If I published it somewhere else the Journal would not accept it — they're just like newspapers in that respect. Nick can't have it both ways. Nick attacks our argument about the Cancer Registry paper on grounds of statistical significance and an alleged circularity of logic. Once again he ignores the main point, which is that the Cancer Registry paper is fatally flawed in omitting to consider the confounding factor of Chernobyl and that it therefore fails to disprove the hypothesis the Cancer Registry set out to test. The statistical significance argument is spurious, and Nick is also failing to see the relevance of what I wrote about subdividing the data in an earlier post (Saturday 16th 3.49). Childhood leukaemia is a rare disease and the population of Dumfries and Galloway is relatively small, so statistical significance is, indeed, low. That doesn't mean there is no cause for concern. As the eminent epidemiologist Professor Sir Austin Bradford Hill laid out in his "canons", we cannot put too much weight on formal significance testing; we have to look at factors such as whether an observation is repeated in different circumstances. And what we see is that there are clusters of childhood leukaemia near every reprocessing plant, and in places like the Menai Strait and the Solway Firth where reprocessing discharges accumulate. In order to learn anything we have to take these observation in the aggregate, not chop them up into arbitrary locations and pretend that they can be ignored. That said, the Menai cluster is statistically significant all by itself, as is Seascale. Whether or not the Menai cluster has been demonstrated depends on whom you believe and [italic][bold]that[/bold][/italic], now the Welsh authorities have stopped using grossly inflated populations, depends on what significance test is applied. I won't address the allegation that my argument is circular; Nick's version is garbled and anyone who has read this far has seen what the case really is. As far as the [bold]Gulf War Uranium[/bold] being monitored in the Home Counties is concerned, Nick is not being rational. First, he seems to have lost his respect for statistical significance, because the findings are significant. Second, if he's going to invoke weather conditions or local construction for the increase in Uranium in the AWE filters he needs to show some pretty extreme weather or a large but very short-lived construction project at the exact time of the bombing campaign in Iraq. Either would have to have produced so much Uranium dust that it affected all the filters over quite a large area. Third, to describe the references in Busby and Morgan's paper as "mainly drivelling grey-literature" is nonsense (a URL where readers can find the paper and all the references is in an earlier post). Nick wants to know the [bold]concentrations of uranium in the Irish Sea[/bold], and what proportions are natural and anthropogenic. Good question. Various official agencies in UK (the Environment Agency included) publish data. They give information on Uranium in seafood, calling it "natural"; how they know it's natural is a mystery but even more mysterious is that they publish no data on [bold]UN[/bold]natural Uranium in seafood. So there's no way to make a comparison. We'll be looking into this, now that it looks as if Uranium is in the frame as never before. The "relevance" Nick asks about is obvious. Turning to [bold]the Enriched Uranium ordnance[/bold] in the Lebanon, Nick agrees the geology is mainly limestone but he raises a red herring, I think, in referring to basalt. A bit of googling turned up a paper showing that Khiam is on "thick shelf limestone". QED. The point, which Nick seems to have forgotten in his splenetic outburst, is that UNEP reported Uranium levels far in excess of normal for a limestone geology but claimed it was all natural Uranium. I don't see Nick offering any explanation of how coal ash or building materials could put Enriched Uranium into a bomb crater. He wants Busby to be wrong about everything, and he seems to be prepared to fling any amount of inflated rhetoric around in order to discredit him. Rhetoric doesn't negate facts.

Finally managed to get hold of a copy of the paper reporting the NHS study that has been "critiqued" by Busby. It quickly became apparent that this so-called "critique" is, of course, complete garbage. The "critique" is based largely on the premise that the "massive confounding factor" of Chernobyl has been ignored. According to the table in the NHS study, there were 23 cases of childhood leukaemia in Dumfries and Galloway (study area "C") during the 15 years, 1975-89. According to Richard Bramhall's posting (above), 5 of these cases arose during the 4 years, 1986-89 (post-Chernobyl). This must mean that 18 cases arose during the 11 years pre-Chernobyl, 1975-85, an average of 18/11 or 1.64 cases per year. This would give an expected number of cases for the period 1986-89 of 6.56 (4 X 1.64). Even if the childhood population of Dumfries and Galloway had fallen by 20% between 1975-85 and 1986-89 (which seems highly unlikely), the expected number of cases would still exceed 5 (0.8 X 6.56 = 5.25). Given that only 5 cases were actually observed, it is impossible to comprehend how anyone could conclude that there is a "confounding influence of the Chernobyl accident" based on fewer observed than expected cases! How the Chernobyl accident also managed to temporarily suspend the claimed excess coastal risk (zero cases in the coastal area during 1986-89 according to Richard Bramhall's post above) is beyond me. When dealing with so few cases, the expectation that they will be exactly evenly distributed throughout the population from one year to the next seems extraordinarily naive. There is bound to be an element of randomness, hence the need to test for statistical significance, which Richard Bramhall conveniently dismisses on the basis that they have shown coastal effects elsewhere, eg, the Menai Straits. I took a closer look at the un-peer-reviewed "report" about the Menai Straits displayed on the llrc website. In this "report", when Chris Busby calculates expected numbers of cancers, he concludes that the 4-year period 2000-03 is only 3 years. This seemingly trivial error is important because it leads to an under-estimation of expected numbers (by a factor of 3/4 or 75%). Even in the absence of any genuine increase in risk, this error misleadingly inflates the ratio of observed to expected cases, generating an apparent, but spurious increase in risk of 33%. Of course, everyone makes occasional mistakes, but the same report contains other errors of very basic arithmetic, eg, page 2 "..in the 16 years between 1963 and 1982". Actually that's 20 years (count it out on your fingers). It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Chris Busby is not competent to perform even simple calculations, or alternatively that he sets out deliberately to mislead. Either way, his "analyses" simply cannot be trusted. Although Chris Busby's and Richard Bramhall's brand of junk "science" may seem plausible to a few vulnerable, naive, or gullible individuals (including, apparently, the Green Party), it is sad that anyone is conned by it. And by the way, as Nick from London observed, the European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics is not listed among official catalogues of scientific periodicals and so has equivalent status to the Sunday Herald. Anyone can set up an online only journal and appoint themselves to the editorial board. As for "government expert", as the llrc website makes apparent, Chris Busby and Richard Bramhall were invited on to the CERRIE committee by Michael Meacher to represent a minority view shared by virtually no scientists with any credible scientific record. Rob/John - all this stuff is on the internet. You need to be a little bit more critical next time someone feeds you a "story". But like Nick from London, I don't propose to waste any more time on it.

My point is that what no one seems to question is the fact that Mr Nickfromlondon and Mr Junk remain anonymous whilst everyone knows where Richar Bramhall comes from. Richard tirelessly and painstakingly spells out his responses to two anonymous clowns who, when they lose one argument, just switch to something else that has no connection with the question under discussion. These people should tell us who they are and what their affiliation is. Because it is quite clear that they have some major axe to grind and I should like to know why they are spending so much time on this. The correct way to do this is to write to the editor of the journal where the report or paper is published with their own paper: then their arguments go before the referees of that journal and are scrutinised. The paper on the Dumfries and Galloway leukemias written by Scottish cancer registry people was terminally confounded by Chernobyl. My paper on this issue has been accepted for publication by the same journal. Nick and Mr Junk can wait and see what it says and then send their own criticism to the journal, or another journal. Finally, lets hear from Mr Junk Science what his identity is and his affiliation. It is a cowardly thing to hide behind anonymity. Sincerely Chris

Chris Don't be so petulant. Your failure to address any of the legitimate points I raised in my previous posting merely confirms that you haven't a clue what you are talking about. No-one will fall for your feeble attempt to distract attention from this by resorting to insults. The only reason I am not prepared to give you my name and e-mail address is that I don't want to be pestered by a torrent of junk e-mail from you. But you are right about one thing - I do have an axe to grind. I have absolute contempt for pseudo-science that seeks to mislead the naive. It actually doesn't matter who I am - as your friend, Richard, observes, "You can't destroy a messenger by discrediting the messenger" and "Rhetoric doesn't negate facts". Two plus two equals four, no matter who says so. You put this junk in the public domain - now you suddenly don't want to debate it in this forum anymore. I wonder why? Even if the journal has been misguided enough to accept your paper, I am confident that its presumably limited readership of scientists will see through your ridiculous assertions immediately, as I did. As Richard keeps saying, peer review is imperfect - it obviously is in this instance. But I am more concerned about you conning the lay public as you have tried to do through this newspaper. So here's another opportunity for you to respond. I'll make it really easy for you by posing a series of simple questions, most of which relate to my previous posting. If you fail to provide any satisfactory responses yet again, I am sure that any readers of this forum are capable of drawing their own conclusions. (1) Do the multiple errors of simple arithmetic in your Menai Straits "report" indicate (a) complete ineptitude; (b) fraud; or (c) both? (b) If you had a shred of integrity, you would withdraw the Menai Straits "report" from your website as soon as the mistakes in it were drawn to your attention. Do you agree? (3) How could anyone (except a complete idiot) conclude that there has been a major effect of Chernobyl on the incidence of childhood leukaemia in Dumfries and Galloway when the observed numbers of cases are less than expected for 1986-89? (4) How did radioactive fallout from Chernobyl make your coastal effect disappear [bold]completely[/bold] in Dumfries and Galloway during 1986-89? (5) Apparently, it causes you great irritation that you don't know who Nick and myself are or where we come from. Does this mean that you know the identity and background of all the other posters on this forum, in which case have you just mobilised all your friends to foster an illusion of support for all your unsubstantiated ideas? Looking forward to your responses to the five questions, but I won't be holding my breath - I expect evasion as usual.

Well, fortunately, I didn't hold my breath... Funny how Bramhall and Busby were so up for a debate until the terminal flaw in Busby's "analysis" was pointed out to any readers of this forum, ie, based on the data that they volunteered, there were [bold]FEWER[/bold] than expected cases of childhood leukaemia in Dumfries & Galloway during the years immediately following Chernobyl. For anyone still interested in this saga, Busby's "paper" has now been published in the journal, Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Except it turns out that its not a paper as "honest Chris" led us to believe - its merely a letter to the editor. This is an important distinction, because letters to scientific journals are often not externally peer-reviewed and attract far less kudos than an original scientific paper. Fortunately, the authors of the original article have bothered to respond to Busby's simplistic letter, and have comprehensively demolished his flawed reasoning. End of story. But for more insights into Chris Busby's behaviour, including his ambitions to join the political gravy train as a representative of the Green Party, copy and paste the following url into your internet browser: http://chrisbusbyexp osed.spaces.live.com

And how long do we have to hold our breath until Mr Junk reveals his (or her) identity? Anonymous criticism carries little weight.