Radioactive sea
Sir: In the Observer dated 22 May Jean McSorley writes, 'the Irish Sea is the most radioactively contaminated sea on earth (the Dead Sea is naturally radioactive)'. She might have added that there is far more natural radioactivity in the Irish Sea than man-made, or that all seas are natur- ally radioactive. She might even have pointed out that some of the tourist beaches of the Eastern Mediterranean also beat the Irish Sea, or that the Dead Sea is over ten times as radioactive. But at least she allowed her readers to raise in their own minds the question as to why we have no evidence of increased leukaemia in these areas, let alone in Cornwall with its hotspots of natural radon. The thought at least challenges the common assumption that any excess of leukaemia near Sella- field is the result of simple radioactive discharges.
It is therefore especially sad to note that in her letter to The Spectator (27 May), less than a week later, she returns to the old fiction that the Irish Sea is the most radioactive in the world. Such statements make good headlines, I am sure, but hardly help researchers to evaluate a complex situation.
M. C. Grimston
67 Trevelyan Road, London SW17
Previous page
