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Features

Special Series: 60 Years of RERF, Part I [1]

Moving beyond its past: Science as virtue and vice

by Hiromi Morita, Staff Writer

This feature series on the past and future of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) originally began to appear in the Chugoku Shimbun in February 2007.

Wavering between military and peaceful purposes in the past

The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) in Minami Ward, Hiroshima, has accumulated unprecedented research on A-bomb survivors (hibakusha), gradually illuminating the effects of radiation on the human body. The results of RERF studies are invaluable assets of Hiroshima's experience, along with the lesson that the world must create no further hibakusha. How will this wisdom be passed on to the future? As RERF marks the 60th anniversary of its establishment, the Chugoku Shimbun focuses on current conditions at the institute.

When the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, it bathed the city in an enormous amount of radiation, a tragedy unique to human history. One scientist in the United States, though, dubbed the situation "a natural laboratory." The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, commonly known as ABCC, was the forerunner of RERF. In 1951, a science advisor at the U.S. Department of State who was arguing for the significance of establishing ABCC used this phrase in a letter addressed to the director of the Biomedical Department at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (now, the U.S. Department of Energy).

Yasuo Nakamoto, 80, who has observed ABCC as a doctor since the 1950s, reflected on the institute's past: "ABCC's research on hibakusha were findings for the United States to prepare for the next nuclear war. Hibakusha were brought to ABCC by jeep and blood samples were drawn. Many hibakusha held antipathy toward the institute, feeling as if the institute was conducting human experiments."

A number of declassified documents have confirmed that RERF's research in the past had a distinct military bent. Added Dr. Nakamoto: "The staff made heavy-going efforts to gain the cooperation of hibakusha."

RERF, rising above its darker history, made a fresh start in 1975 as a Cooperative Japan-U.S. Research Organization. Kazunori Kodama, 59, chief of the Department of Epidemiology, has worked for the institute since its days as ABCC. "Our mission is to illuminate the effects of radiation on the human body to promote peace," he said. "We must not forget that this research on hibakusha we're now engaged in should be the last human beings ever undertake."

The annual meeting of the Japan Epidemiological Association was held at the end of January in Hiroshima. Professor Otsura Niwa of the Radiation Biology Center of Kyoto University, a lecturer at the gathering, offered praise for RERF. "The institute has provided the world with highly-reliable data on the largest scale in the world," he said.

RERF has played a central role in the development of the international standard for radiation protection and risk estimation at the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. It has continued to conduct follow-up surveys on groups of hibakusha, proved the correlation between radiation exposure and diseases, such as leukemia and cancer, and steadily produced results.

Still, there are many questions to which RERF cannot provide answers even now, more than half a century later. Such questions involve the effects of radiation on younger hibakusha as they approach the cancer-prone age as well as the effects on second-generation A-bomb survivors and hibakusha who suffered prenatal exposure to the radiation. "Why is it that cancer tends to develop in some areas and not in others, even within the same tissue?" "Are there any diseases where the risk increases when other factors are added to the radiation exposure, such as smoking?" The effects of exposure to low-level radiation is another question requiring further research.

As RERF's research has drawn increased attention, some of its results have been twisted to controversial ends. The data accumulated by RERF have been cited by the national government as a basis to dismiss the claims of hibakusha in lawsuits over relief measures for A-bomb survivors. RERF has inherited the vulnerability of science that once saw it waver between military and peaceful purposes.

Miyoko Watanabe, 76, an A-bomb survivor and a resident of Nishi Ward, Hiroshima, experienced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima with her older brother. Her brother, who cooperated in the health checkup study at RERF, died of leukemia nine years after the atomic bombing. He also agreed to a pathologic autopsy at RERF. "I hope that my brother's cooperation will help further peace in the world so that other human beings will never have to experience the sort of suffering that my brother was forced to endure," Ms. Watanabe said.

How will RERF respond to such a wish? The institute's vision for the future must now be weighed.

(Originally published on February 26, 2007)

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