FOURTEEN years after the world鈥檚 worst nuclear reactor accident, Chernobyl鈥檚
last working reactor finally closed down last year. But its intended
replacements are already causing international consternation. In December 2000,
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved a
拢147 million loan for two new reactors. However, the Austrians complained
that Ukraine is subject to earthquakes, which the chosen replacement reactors
were not designed to withstand (快猫短视频, 16 December, p 7). I
asked Scottish Secretary Helen Liddell, when she was still minister for energy
in Europe, what her expert advisers were saying about the matter.
Liddell replied that Russian and Ukrainian nuclear institutes took account of
the earthquake hazard during the design and initial construction stages of the
new reactors. Western experts did likewise when they assessed plans for the
modernisation programme. Preliminary findings presented in November 1998 to
Energoatom, the government organisation that oversees the Ukrainian nuclear
industry, indicated that the reactor designs would meet standards set by the
International Atomic Energy Agency. But the minister added that the EBRD intends
to make sure that seismic data is checked during the construction and, if
necessary, that corrective action is taken.
AT WHAT age should women start being routinely screened for breast cancer?
Recent studies have suggested that there are medical benefits from starting
X-ray screening at 45 or even earlier. However radiation carries a small risk of
causing cancer. A Spanish research group says that younger women require higher
doses of X-rays as their breast tissue is denser, so delaying screening until
the age of 50 might reduce the risk of radiation triggering a tumour. I asked
health minister Yvette Cooper for the government鈥檚 view.
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Cooper replied that the Forrest report, on which the NHS breast-screening
programme is based, recommended that further research is needed to assess the
effectiveness of routine screening for women under 50. An ongoing study
involving 160,000 women began in February 1991. Its main aim is to determine
whether screening women from as young as 40 has any effect on breast cancer
death rates. Interim results are expected later this year, but the full findings
will not be available until 2005.
I trust that guidance will be forthcoming, once the results are on the
minister鈥檚 desk.
KATHLEEN, my wife, and I are representatives of the National Trust for
Scotland at the 17th-century House of Binns, Linlithgow. Built by my ancestor
Thomas Dalyell as his family home, it became the first property to be taken over
by the National Trust for Scotland, in 1944. It is surrounded by 95 hectares of
prime livestock-grazing land. As I write, only essential traffic is allowed onto
the property, because of the epidemic of foot and mouth disease sweeping
Britain. We are only 6 kilometres from the nearest 鈥渦nconfirmed鈥� outbreak, and
have been kept busy nailing up 鈥淣o entry鈥� notices around our lands, and begging
people to keep away.
Business in Linlithgow has slowed up. Local agricultural towns, usually
vibrant with their Friday markets, stand paralysed. Abattoirs throughout Britain
are on short time, while truck drivers sit and twiddle their thumbs. MPs are
wondering whether Britain鈥檚 forthcoming general election should be put on hold
until our farms are well clear of this virulent disease.
As 快猫短视频鈥檚 recent editorial put it
(3 March, p 3) the situation is grotesque.