The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) on Thursday contested a report headlined “Cancer behind 70% deaths in India’s atomic energy hubs” that appeared in a section of the media, by saying it was a “gross distortion of facts”.
“The total number of deaths of DAE employees in service during the period of 1995 to 2014 works out to 2564 and this includes 69 cases of suicides (as against the report claiming 3887 deaths and 255 suicides). The number of deaths reported by DAE units due to cancer-related causes is 152 out of the 2564 deaths,” DAE spokesperson SK Malhotra said in a statement here.
Reacting to a media report purportedly based on RTI replies received by Mumbai-based activist Chetan Kothari, the DAE spokesperson said: “This is a gross distortion of facts. The report has cited ‘2600 deaths due to cancer, out of a total of 3887 deaths of employees in 19 centres (during 1995-2014)’, attributing the information to responses to RTI queries made by Kothari. The malicious report also quoted a ‘shocking revelation of 255 suicides’ in BARC during the same period 1995 to 2014. However, nothing can be farther from the truth”.
“The outlandish claim on the rate of cancer deaths and suicides among DAE employees seems to be based on grossly erroneous and distorted interpretation of the information provided by DAE units in their responses to the RTI query,” Malhotra said, adding that the media report in question did not reflect the information given by the DAE units to Kothari.
“The DAE has once again scrutinised the information provided by its units, especially the major units, directly to Kothari in July-August 2010 (for the period 1995-2010), and in April-June 2014 (for the period from 2010)...All the responses do not necessarily contain information on the cause of deaths thus the actual number of deaths of employees due to cancer related causes could be higher than the above figure of 152, but this would in no case be anywhere near 2600 cases, as being made out in the media report,” the DAE spokesperson said.
Malhotra said that the incidence of cancer-related deaths among DAE employees is similar to what is seen in other sectors of society was also borne out of a study conducted by the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) covering 22,224 DAE workers and their families at three major Indian nuclear installations (Tarapur, Kaiga and Kakrapar) between 1981 and 2012.
“The TMC study found that cancer accounted for 9% of all deaths in this population group. In contrast, the said report quotes the highly exaggerated figure of 70% of cancer deaths (2600 cancer-related deaths out of a total of 3887 deaths of DAE employees),” the DAE spokesperson said.
According to Malhotra, the average number of deaths of DAE employees while in service over the period 1995 to 2014 works out to about 130 per year.