Unknown Factors In Radiation Rise

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29841, 6 June 1962, Page 14

Unknown Factors In Radiation Rise

(Aiu> Zsatanq Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 5. Increasing radiation in the earth's atmosphere was “a step into the unknown." Sir Ernest Marsden told the Wellington Lions’ Club today. “Normal” radiation hazards had increased 40 per cent, before the present nuclear test series began and the chances for genetic impairfnent had already increased, he said.

"But we haven’t got the facts, so we can't turn to Khrushchev or the United States and tell them what they are doing to us,” he said.

At present scientists did not know enough about the possible effects, although he and others were trying to find out. he said. Referring to the United States high altitude tests he suggested that scientists were now "playing with things of which they are not certain.” Step by step scientific procedure was being abandoned in the Power struggle. It was this lack of definite information that was causing the expression of different views from prominent scientists. • 1 It was a vital branch of knowledge that had to be extended. What, fot instance, were to be the future results in Rhodesia, where radiation was four times as high as in New Zealand. Genetic impairment, he warned, could have effects

on ability as well as physical results, and it would be ridiculous for the British Foreign Office to impose democracy on a nation where the genetic impairment hsd

affected the spread of ability. This was a probability, not a certainty. But not enough was known. “I say this because I want you to be a little sympathetic to changes in education. "Get some biology taught in schools so that children can at least have the background to live in this modern world,” Sir Ernest Marsden said.