Petition: Nuclear-Related Health Concerns in Port Hope Impacting Residents and Workers in the Nuclear Industry, 2008

Our Committee formed in 1995 in an effort to obtain comprehensive, independent health studies for our community due to decades of exposure to radioactive materials from careless historic waste disposal practices and daily radioactive and heavy metal emissions from two facilities. Our goals were to work with a multi-disciplinary team of professionals to develop a design for independent community health studies that would be relevant for Port Hope’s situation, and also to secure promised federal funding for the health studies dating back to 1979 when a commitment of $5 million was made to the town. This commitment occurred when the news of extensive radioactive contamination throughout our town became very public with extensive national media coverage and questions raised in the legislatures as to the possible effects on the people and the obvious need for health investigations. The only health outcome study to result directly from this public commitment was the small Lees Study of radon and lung cancer which is described later.

Our Committee established a multi-disciplinary roundtable of local residents and professionals which included representation from Health Canada, the Atomic Energy Control Board, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Environment Canada, the local Medical Officer of Health, independent epidemiologists and professors of environmental science, etc. Together we produced a community health study design for Port Hope in 1995 which would include a variety of methodologies such as a community health survey, selected biological testing of people, high level statistical studies of disease incidence and mortality to see if trends emerged, case control studies of specific disease trends, cohort studies of particular populations at-risk, and a complete inventory of contaminants and locations.

The 1979 federal commitments have not been fulfilled despite the ongoing efforts of our Committee and others before us and with us, to have a variety of health studies included in facility licensing and environmental assessment processes. Despite elevated rates of disease for Port Hope in the limited data available, and the elevated levels of radiation and other contaminants to which we are exposed, Health Canada and the federal nuclear regulator have held to their positions for many years now that no health effects should be expected from our increased levels of exposure to radioactive and heavy metal pollution in our environment, including daily inhalation of emissions from two facilities.  

A number of promises for studies have been broken starting with 1979 when people living in contaminated properties were supposed to be studied including those who had already moved away, and again when our Committee worked with the AECB in the late 1990’s to select and implement studies of value to the community. Several examples:

            a) The AECB funded Dr. Trevor Hancock to design an excellent community         health survey for Port Hope (which he did using Health Canada survey tools as           models) then, when the work was completed in 1998, AECB announced it would not be implemented as the AECB did not believe in health surveys.

            b) The AECB told us in writing it would fund a tracking study to locate and           survey people who had lived in the core zone of greatest air emissions near the plant. They subsequently said this would not be useful and it never happened.

            c)  The AECB announced at a Cameco re-licensing hearing in 1999 that it would   work with the local Medical Officer of Health to implement a bio-study of 600             school-age children in Port Hope to look for signs of early kidney problems           possibly due to uranium exposure. Funding was not made available to the Health      Unit and this study never happened.

            d) The two Health Canada/CNSC statistical studies that were released in 2000 and            2002 (although not done independently as we requested) were done to determine     if there were elevated rates of certain diseases and if so, detailed follow-up studies            would be done. In spite of the fact that elevated rates of diseases did emerge in the      data, the follow-up studies were never done and these elevations have been             consistently dismissed as unimportant even though a number were statistically      significant and an environmental causal factor was possible.

We have been dismayed by the theoretical reassurances given by public health guardians and regulators in the face of documented increased risks to our health; this contradicts science with respect to there being no safe level of radiation exposure (US American Academy of Sciences) as well as strong public health advocacy in Canada, including by Health Canada, and other nations against particle inhalation in public health debates on smog and smoking.

Excerpts below from Health Canada web site “Health Effects of Air Pollution”:

            The health of our lungs and entire respiratory system is affected by the quality of the air   we breathe.  In addition to oxygen, this air contains other substances such as pollutants,   which can be harmful.  Exposure to chemicals by inhalation can negatively affect our        lungs and other organs in the body.  The respiratory system is particularly sensitive to air          pollutants because much of it is made up of exposed membrane.  Lungs are anatomically             structured to bring large quantities of air (on average, 400 million litres in a lifetime) into    intimate contact with the blood system, to facilitate the delivery of oxygen.

            Lung tissue cells can be injured directly by air pollutants such as ozone, metals and free   radicals.  Ozone can damage the alveoli -- the individual air sacs in the lung where   oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged. More specifically, airway tissues which are     rich in bio-activation enzymes can transform organic pollutants into reactive metabolites         and cause secondary lung injury.  Lung tissue has an abundant blood supply that can      carry toxic substances and their metabolites to distant organs.  In response to toxic insult,    lung cells also release a variety of potent chemical mediators that may critically affect the          function of other organs such as those of the cardiovascular system.  This response may also cause lung inflammation and impair lung function.

            The cardiovascular system has two major components: the heart and a network of blood vessels.  The cardiovascular system supplies the tissues and cells of the body with     nutrients, respiratory gases, hormones, and metabolites and removes the waste products             of cellular metabolism as well as foreign matter.  It is also responsible for maintaining the optimal internal homeostasis of the body and the critical regulation of body temperature    and pH.

            The inhalation of air pollutants eventually leads to their absorption into the bloodstream    and transport to the heart.  A wide spectrum of chemical and biological substances may         interact directly with the cardiovascular system to cause structural changes, such as        degenerative necrosis and inflammatory reactions.  Some pollutants may also directly          cause functional alterations that affect the rhythmicity and contractility of the heart. If             severe enough, functional changes may lead to lethal arrhythmias without major evidence of structural damage to the myocardium.

            There also may be indirect actions secondary to changes in other organ systems,            especially the central and autonomic nervous systems and selective actions of the endocrine system.  Some cytokins released from other inflamed organs may also             produce adverse cardiovascular effects, such as reducing the mechanical performance            and metabolic efficiency of the heart and blood vessels.

            Many chemical substances may cause the formation of reactive oxygen.  This oxidative   metabolism is considered to be critical to the preservation of cardiovascular function.  For      example, oxygen free radicals oxidize low-density lipoproteins, and this reaction is           thought to be involved in the formation of the atherosclerotic plaques.  Oxidized low-   density lipoproteins can injure blood vessel cells and increase adherence and the            migration of inflammatory cells to the injured area.  The production of oxygen free       radicals in heart tissues have been associated with arrhythmias, and heart cell death.

After reading just these excerpts, one has to ask, how and why can particle inhalation of radioactive and heavy metals in Port Hope be considered safe by Health Canada and on what medical basis? We have challenged their position with respect to Port Hope which is primarily based on risk assessments and guesswork. Assumptions have been made about radiation exposures, calculations have been done and predictions made over the years by federal departments and their agents about what our health outcomes should be. Risk assessments, based on incomplete information and inappropriate models, have been relied upon to excuse not examining health outcomes for real people as a result of their unique living and working situations surrounded daily by contaminants.

The fact is that the limited health outcome data for Port Hope available years ago, as far back as 1984 (the Lees Study on lung cancer), tells a very different story from the “predictions” and reassurances.  The data of several studies contradict what we are repeatedly told by the departments with the duty to protect us and act on our behalf.

We have been and continue to be subjected to sweeping reassurances not supported by science and medicine, the outright misrepresentation of report findings (see below) and a refusal to properly investigate and monitor public health. We can only conclude that these departments are more concerned about their liabilities if harm has been caused, than they are for our wellbeing and protection into the future. Clearly this is unacceptable.

Just recently, when contamination was documented in the bodies of 9 former nuclear workers and local residents including a child, Health Canada has re-stated its position both in person to Town Council and on its web site that “all of this monitoring consistently indicates Port Hope residents are not at risk”.  This position by a federal guardian of our public health is not precautionary as it should be, it is not defensible and it is not acceptable. It is not supported by science or medicine and must be challenged – it must be changed.  

Please receive this petition on behalf of the Committee with our questions for federal departments with a responsibility for nuclear matters in Canada.

Key Questions:

1. On what scientific, peer-reviewed basis does Health Canada tell Port Hope that there is no health risk from particle inhalation of uranium, uranium compounds, fluoride, ammonia, arsenic, among other toxic materials released daily?

2. Why does Health Canada not have a radiation in air detection system operating in Port Hope when it has them elsewhere in Ontario?

3. Why does Environment Canada not have a wind and weather monitoring capacity for Port Hope specifically given the emissions and possibility of serious accidents?

4. How has Port Hope’s geography of hills and valleys, wind patterns and maritime climate due to location on Lake Ontario been factored into the dose calculations?

5. Has the Government of Canada ever done a true cost estimate to determine costs of all liabilities related to nuclear activities in Port Hope?