(521.5111) Rosalie Bertell - In December 1953, in the midst of the Cold War and while atmospheric nuclear tests were taking place almost every fortnight, US President Eisenhower made his famous "Atoms for Peace" speech before the United Nations. He announced a major program to use nuclear energy to produce "energy too cheap to meter", to bring prosperity to the poor countries of the world and prevent future wars. Behind these phrases was the military realization that nuclear bombs were now able to be built without any upper limit in size. In order to change the entire US arsenal into thermonuclear bombs, it would be necessary to turn the whole of North America into a factory for the uranium mining, milling, fabrication, enrichment, reactor operation, reprocessing and weapon production. They needed the Universities to teach nuclear physics and engineering, and the public to tolerate the waste and transportation. In short, they needed a front industry which everyone would welcome and assist, even if or when they protested the Bomb.
The United Nations' response was the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA-1956) which should both prevent the horizontal spread of nuclear weapons and promote the peaceful uses of atomic energy. This double mandate continues to pose conflicts of interest for this organization, and many feel that its regulatory goals need to be structurally separated from its promotional goals. Often promotional goals take priority over regulation!
By 1957 the World Health Organisation (WHO), worried about the proliferation of nuclear energy, called a meeting on the Genetic Effects of Radiation, (WHO, "Effects of Radiation on Human Heredity", 1957) attended by the world's experts. This committee recommended further study on the long term genetic risks associated with increased general radiation exposures. In 1958, in response to the Genetic Conference, the WHO was asked to host a conference on "Mental Health Aspects of the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy", (WHO Technical Report Service, 1958). The general discussion was about the inevitability of radiation exposure in the nuclear age, and the problems posed by excessive worry about health effects by the public. It was proposed to shield the public from the full disclosure of the health effects.
On May 28, 1959, an agreement was signed between the IAEA and WHO in which both parties recognized that: "the IAEA has the primary responsibility for encouraging, assisting and coordinating research on, and development and practical application of atomic energy for peaceful uses throughout the world, without prejudice to the right of WHO to concern itself with promoting, developing, assisting and coordinating international health work, including research in all its aspects."
(Article I)
IAEA has since considered itself to be the watchdog over the information about radiation health effects which is distributed to the public, while the WHO can contribute to medical care and public health assistance.
The work of the WHO is further constrained in Article I (3), which states that "whenever either organization proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organization has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual consent". These considerations appear to have been interpreted by the IAEA as giving its physicists the primary decision about radiation health research, and the suppression of such information as it would negatively affect the promotional work of the IAEA.
The result of this agreement was especially obvious after the Chernobyl disaster, where IAEA (not WHO) took the lead in reporting radiation health effects. IAEA, enforcing the philosophy of the International Commission for Radiation Protection (ICRP), denied that any of the catastrophic health problems in the exposed population were related to radiation.
In a letter to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, Rosalie Bertell asked him to intervene by sending a message to the WHO asking that the agreement between the IAEA and the WHO be reviewed, and that it be discussed as an agenda item at the May 2000 meeting of the WHO Governing Board. The agenda for this board meeting is to be set at a January 2000 meeting of the Executive Committee of the Board. Already in February 1999 the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom started a petition for amending the WHO-IAEA agreement.
Source and contact: Rosalie Bertell, President International Institute of Concern for Public Health (1984+)
710-264 Queens Quay West, Toronto ON M5J 1B5 Canada.
Tel: +1-416-260-0575
Fax: +1-416-260-3404
E-mail: IICPH@compuserve.com
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