NT denies uranium mine to blame for cancer
Thursday, 23 November, 2006
by Tara Ravens
The Australian
The disturbing findings are part of a preliminary discussion paper into the health affects of Energy Resources of Australia's (ERA) Ranger mine, which is surrounded by the world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.
The NT Government says the cancers found in nearby Aboriginal communities are of the type caused by lifestyle and not radiation.
However the Commonwealth's peak indigenous research body, which commissioned the report, says its discovery of a near doubling in the overall cancer incidence rate, compared to other areas of the territory, is a cause for "serious concern".
It wants an investigation into a possible link with the mine.
"There is an excess of cancer in the Aboriginal communities of the Kakadu region," says the leaked report from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Studies (AIATSIS).
The study found 27 people were diagnosed with cancer in the Kakadu region between 1994 and 2003, compared to an estimated 14.4 people elsewhere in the territory.
This represents a 90 per cent increase, or almost doubling, of the cancer rate.
"Although the effects of continuing, low-dose radiation on health are clearly contested, a sufficient body of evidence has been accumulated to warrant concern," says the report.
"There is urgent need for continued, comprehensive monitoring of health wherever uranium mining occurs."
A concrete link was not made between cancer rates and the mine because the report found there was not enough available evidence to support the claim.
But it called on both territory and federal governments to investigate a possible connection.
The NT Government dismissed any link with the mine.
"The report does not show that excess cancers in Kakadu are caused by mining," Tarun Weeramanthri, Chief Health Officer of the Northern Territory, said.
"The excess cancers found are not typical of cancers caused by radiation but rather cover the range of cancers that reflect lifestyle issues such as smoking, diet and infection."
AIATSIS today distanced itself from the report, saying it had not commissioned the findings.
"This paper was neither commissioned nor authorised by the Institute's Governing Council and should not be seen to represent the views of council," said AIATSIS chair Mick Dodson.
The report is the first to examine health issues since ERA first started mining at Ranger in the 1980s, despite more than 120 recorded 'mishaps' including leakages, spillages and breaches of regulations.
ERA said its radiation measures were well within the limits recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
"Research and monitoring by ERA and the Commonwealth Supervising Scientist demonstrate that doses to residents of Jabiru and surrounding communities have always been a very small fraction of recommended limits," the company said.
But traditional owners in the region welcomed the report's findings.
"Scant attention has been paid to the health effects of this development ... these health effects include the social and cultural impacts of mining," said the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, representing the Mirarr People.
One of the report's four authors, Alan Cass from Sydney University, said he stood by the report's cancer findings.
"This was exploratory research and the report indicates the limitations of the data collected," he said.