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But do such statistics prove a cause-and-effect link between low-level radiation and cancer? To answer this and other questions about radiation hazards, President Carter in 1978 appointed an interagency investigative task force. Last week the team of scientists, lawyers and bureaucrats came to a troubling conclusion: while it conceded that researchers still cannot say for sure how much radiation is safe, it said that the amounts that they used to regard as safe apparently are not.
Speaking on the task force's behalf, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano admitted that "the incidence of leukemia produced by low levels of radiation may be higher than scientists previously thought." But the report added: "Because the clinical features of cancer do not reveal its cause, it is impossible to distinguish the few [people] with radiogenic cancer from the larger group whose cancer was caused by other factors." What is more, it usually is impossible to determine just how large a dose of radiation a victim received. Consequently, although Califano professed dissatisfaction with the recommended safe level of 170 millirems a year (Americans typically receive 70 to 100 millirems a year from medical X rays), he said that the Government does not have enough information to lower permissible emission. While scientists seek more definitive information, he is directing the Food and Drug Administration to step up its efforts to dissuade doctors from ordering any unnecessary X rays.
"The Federal Government has a considerable regulatory apparatus to prevent nuclear radiation poisoning. Nothing is being done about dioxin, and it is just as toxic and there is a lot more of it around." So complained Victor J. Yannacone, Jr., the lawyer who got DDT banned.
Last week Yannacone had reason to be pleased. Citing an "alarming" incidence of miscarriages among women in Alsea, Ore., where there has been considerable forest spraying, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered an emergency ban on two popular herbicides, both of which contain dioxin. One is 2,4,5-T, an ingredient of the Viet Nam defoliant, Agent Orange. The other, Silvex, is used in many popular weed killers.
The Dow Chemical Co., a major producer, denied there was any proof that in normal agricultural use the herbicides hurt humans and promised court action to stop the ban. But the EPA said it had no choice. Explained Deputy Administrator Barbara Blum: "The warning signals from the miscarriage study, the preponderance of strong animal test data and the low short-term economic impact compel emergency action. Taken together these facts sound an alarm." ∙