Editorial The silence is deadly The 1957 Windscale nuclear catastrophe in Cumbria, England was to be a closely guarded secret. In the interest of state security a media blackout was imposed. All information concerning the accident was strictly classified. Thirty years later, British freedom of information laws bring the story to light. The government of former Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan hushed up events, fearful of jeopardizing their nuclear partnership with the United States and skittish about growing public distrust of the nuclear industry. The cover-up continued, even though MacMillan’s government was fully aware that radioactive fallout had blanketed about 800 surrounding farms. No action was taken, and milk, laced with high levels of deadly Strontium 90, continued to be produced and sold to the public without warning. To this day, Windscale children are dying of leukemia at rates three to five times the national average. The British revelations raise questions about high infant mortality rates in areas surrounding nuclear plants here. Last month, Durham Nuclear Awareness released a report charting a dramatic correlation between infant mortality rates and tritium leaks from the Pickering, Ontario nuclear plant. Tritium is probably one of the most serious forms of radioactive pollution released from CANDU reactors. In 1978 and 1979, tritium emissions were 10 times their usual rate. In the late Seventies, newborn infants died in Pickering at rates twice the provincial average. In 1980, 3.7 times as many babies were born and died from birth defects. Mortality rates returned to normal levels until 1984, when they again doubled the provincial average, and the death rate due to birth defects climbed to 3.2 times the norm. The environmental group has been pressing the provincial government to undertake its own comprehensive study of Pickering residents to establish whether the nuclear plant is affecting their health. Queen’s Park stalled, hemmed and waffled before agreeing to a limited project which would only look at leukemia rates in children under five. Its guidelines are not open to public review. The very usefulness of the study is under suspicion, since experts universally agree that radiation can cause health problems which may not manifest: themselves for 20-30 years. - Why is the government so hesitant to do a body count? Because it doesn’t want to expose the glib assurances of the industry that spends eae money on an ad campaign to convince us nuclear pollution is “harmless” or “acceptable.” Is it worried the findings would be a poor backdrop a its expected announce- - ‘ment to commence construction on a new nuclear station? Is it concerned about its cozy relationship with its U.S. buyers? Including those who would like to get their hands on Ontario tritium to keep their military stockpile alive? Or will we have to wait 30 years to get the full story? pLh We BorBed THE CHEMICAL WEA Pont av OF AN IRRATIC LeEAdDES = EDITOR Sean Griffin ASSISTANT EDITOR Dan Keeton BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Proniuk GRAPHICS Angela Kenyon Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C., V5K 1Z5 Phone: (604) 251-1186 Fax: (604) 251-4232 Subscription rate: Canada: @ $20 one year @ $35 two years @ Foreign $32 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 t is a sad note on which to usher in the new year, but we must report with regret the passing Jan. 7 of Irma Johnson, who P£.0-P JE ag ea GS PU EEN IN ETN EIN. PE BSE EME OATES EORTC ; died in hospital after a long bout with cancer. Irma was born Irmgard Sophie Klettke in Bottrop, a community in Westfahlen, in what is now West Germany, on Nov. 7, 1922. She emigrated to Canada in_ 1952, and, after a brief stay in Winnipeg, moved to Vancouver. There she met and married John Johnson, a veteran of the Mackeni- zie Papineau Battalion that fought in the Spanish Civil War. Irma spent most of her working life in Canada as a practical nurse in Vancouver '. General Hospital until illness forced her retirement. While not a member of any progressive organization, she was a sup- porter of several causes. Friends mark her keen interest and wide reading in women’s and trade union issues, and her broad appreciation of music. A memorial was held at Bell Funeral Chapel in Vancouver on Jan. 12. The fam- ily asked that donations to the Tribune be made in lieu of flowers. * * * at period of intensity and catharsis during which we put out the Christ- mas issue (Dec. 19) always seems to pro- duce a few mistakes along with the paper. Included here are some rectifications. In the review article “Doctor in the eye of the Beirut firestorm” by Maureen Eason (page 25), a paragraph was inadvertently dropped. Intended to follow the sixth paragraph, it read: “It is a cruel irony that the hideous crimes committed by AMAL against these people rival anything the Israelis are doing in the West Bank and Gaza today.” Additionally, the first sentence in the eighth paragraph should read: “In fact, they were strangely surprised when the international community finally shifted focus from the handful of western hos- tages to the Palestinian pogroms.” The sentence refers to the slaughter of Palesti- nians in the refugee camps and the fact that it was ignored for so long. The feature, ““Guatemalan union battles on after 14-month strike,” by Murray Bush (page 18), stated that the employer- sponsored phoney trade union “Solida- rismo” took 41 per cent of the Lunafil workers’ paycheques. In fact, the figure is - five per cent. Finally, we were remiss in failing to name the two children who appeared in the photo on page 6 under the heading, “Vigil hits $50 cut.” They are Crystal (on the left) and Stephanie Archambault, and they were helping their mother and other vigil participants express the disdain for the Social Credit government’s cutting $50 from the GAIN cheques of some 20,000 British Columbians. Anita Archambault was one of.two single parents who took the government to court over the cut, which, thanks to the campaign waged by the recipients — along with End Legis- lated Poverty and other anti-poverty organizations — was reinstated just before Christmas. * * * hat lightness in your wallet after the groceries, mortgage or rent have been paid is an all too familiar feeling. In the ISSUES unlikely event that you’ve been puzzled as to why this is, here’s some statistical info from the pages of The Financial Post. An item by reporter Jill Vardy states that in most of the past 11 years, wages have failed to keep up with inflation. Since 1980, she writes, wages have risen by an estimated 60.7 per cent, while inflation has increased 61.9 per cent. Last year the Con- sumer Price Index rose 4.1 per cent while wages advanced only by four per cent. This contrasts with the 1950s when, according to the Post’s sources, wages exceeded inflation by three per cent. In the next decade they outstripped inflation by two per cent, and 3.5 per cent between 1970 and 1977. That ended in 1978 and in only three subsequent years — 1984, 1985 and 1987 — have wages risen above inflation, and then only by about three quarters of a percentage point, the Post reports. The Post item doesn’t mention the obvious reason: an endless series of government austerity measures that began in earnest with the federal Liberals’ wage and price controls in 1975 and has con- tinued through programs such as the Socreds’ wage restraint. Those corres- ponded with a slowdown in economic growth, and hey, profits had to come from somewhere. * o * nitem in EARnews, the publication of End the Arms Race, caught our eye the other day. It urges the organization’s member peace groups to order buttons for the upcoming Walk for Peace on April 22 in Vancouver early, to help raise funds and ensure a large turnout for the annual event. The bulletin expresses the concern that.“‘ironically, the recent INF treaty has led to some complacency of late.” It’s true that the historic agreement is removing U.S. and Soviet. intermediate range missiles from European soil, and the world’s peace forces can understandably take great pride in the first real proof that their efforts count. It’s also evident that the problems of the environment — the depletion of the ozone layer, the green- house effect, and the loss of life-sustaining tropical rain forests — have tended to put the issue of nuclear annihilation on the back-burner. But if anyone is labouring under the illusion that the arms race has been halted, they need look no further than the pages of their daily newspaper. The search for newer and more efficient ways of waging nuclear war continue, as a recent item in The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business shows. The article in question reports that the U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics of St. Louis a $726-million contract to build the first Seawolf attack submarine, continuing the spiral of arms buildup in the oceans. “The SSN-21 Seawolf is designed to dive deeper, move faster and run more quietly that current SSN-688 Los Angeles- class attack submarines,” the Globe article reports. The U.S. Navy-reportedly wants to build 30 of the new subs. That’s just one reason why there should be tens of thousands of marchers at the Vancouver walk, and at all the other annual marches around the province, this spring. te Pacific Tribune, January 16, 1989