Letter: Nuclear power cost

Sir: Nuclear power (letter, 6 September) is not an energy option. All nuclear installations, even without accidents, routinely emit radioactive elements which did not exist on earth until man invented nuclear fission. We are all internally contaminated, and there is now abundant evidence that this is contributing to rising numbers of cancers, birth defects, and immune, respiratory and neurological problems.

The official view is that radiation doses are too low to account for the disease observations. Either they are dismissed as mistakes, or alternative hypotheses like population mixing (the nuclear lobby's favourite) are puffed to the point of exploding.

But the official model of radiation risk depends on studies of Japanese A-bomb survivors which are completely silent on the effects of internal contamination. Such a situation should remind us of BSE, which "could not possibly cross the species barrier" until the facts overwhelmed official complacency.

RICHARD BRAMHALL

Low Level Radiation Campaign

Llandrindod, Powys