Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 14th, 2013

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

In the course of your study you sought input from veterans. You made contact by e-mail. You had six veterans contact you by e-mail and you actually heard from two. Is that right?

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

There were two aspects. There was this open e-mail account that was created, and any veteran could send in his remarks or suggest any literature that we might look at relating to depleted uranium. That would cover the whole ground. Surprisingly, we did not get that much traffic through that e-mail account. In fact, there were only six veterans. This went from February until.... It didn't stop. It didn't close. It's still open, I guess. Those veterans who asked to appear before the committee, were all invited individually, personally, at no cost to them. We offered also that if they wished to have a specialist with them, of their choice, to better explain their point of view, we were happy to hear that, at no cost. Two out of three responded and came to the committee.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay.

At page 20 of the English version of your report, in the final paragraph, you said that your review “...excluded case reports, cross-sectional studies and clinical studies of hospitalized Veterans...”.

You didn't consider case reports or clinical studies of hospitalized veterans.

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

Yes.

Go ahead, ask your question.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Is there not some valuable information that could have been gleaned from these sources?

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

I admit it's not very clear.

This is jargon from the epidemiologist. Case report means an individual report. That's what it means. One person would say, “Well, our study includes one case, and this person had this and this...”, and so on and so forth. This is usually not used in any kind of epidemiology.

And “hospitalized patients”, what is really meant by that is that just by the hospital diagnoses, just using the hospitalized patient diagnoses to base your report on, because you have no indication of whether or not they were exposed or potentially exposed or not, the information would be incomplete and your findings would be incomplete.

That's pretty standard in epidemiology, but that is not to—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Thank you.

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

Excuse me, but that is not to say the studies were not comprehensive.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Thank you, Dr. Morisset.

Now we'll go to Mr. Hayes, for five minutes, please.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to take a step back, just so people understand in very, very basic terms, because I don't think it was covered. The report covers it, but I want to hear it from you. What is depleted uranium, exactly, and how is it created, in very basic terms?

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

I mentioned earlier the whole idea of mining uranium. At the end of the process there is uranium that is purified enough to be used to produce nuclear weapons, but the main production line is for nuclear energy. In this process—and I have to get just a tad scientific here—uranium itself appears in three different variants. These different variants have a number attached to them. One is called uranium-235, the other one is uranium-238, and there's another one, but I won't get into that. They are different. They're like siblings: they have the same last name, but not the same first name, if you wish, and like siblings, they're different. How are they different, these two forms? They're different in that one of them, which is called uranium-235 and is the important one for creating nuclear energy, is fissile. Therefore it can be used to create energy by a chain reaction, and it is more radioactive. Essentially, those are the two main differences.

The depleted uranium is the residual product that is left after you have separated these two forms, the two variants. The depleted uranium that is left is less radioactive, is not fissile at all, so it cannot be used at all to produce any kind of energy or weapon.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

So if it's less radioactive, that's the part that concerns people's health, the radioactive component, i.e., the lung-cancer-causing component.

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

Yes.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

So depleted uranium is less radioactive and therefore less likely to cause lung cancer.

I just want to understand, in civilian populations what workplaces would be exposed to uranium. Obviously this is the higher content of radioactivity. In which civilian workplaces would we see this?

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

Depleted uranium?

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

No, normal uranium.

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

Normal uranium is in these processing plants all over the world. This is where they're most likely to be exposed.

But we're exposed to uranium, every one of us, by drinking water. It's constant—right now, I'm drinking uranium—but at levels that are not harmful.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Going back to the civilian populations, did research results show adverse health effects in civilians who work in these environments?

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

That's correct.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

No, that's the question. What did the research results say in terms of adverse health effects in civilians who work in these environments? Can you speak to that a little bit?

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

Yes. I thought I had addressed that, but maybe I wasn't clear.

Many, many studies were done, and they were very comprehensive. They're really well covered in here; it's a good part of our report. It's very technical and it's tough slogging.

Essentially, some studies have shown a relationship, an effect. In a group of, let's say, 3,000 workers, yes, looking at the outcomes, some of them...there's a higher rate of cancer, of lung cancer, maybe. But how high? Is it statistically significant? No. Some other studies have shown that there is no effect. They basically cancel themselves out.

When you summarize all of them mathematically to see what all of these studies say, our conclusion is this. I should know it by heart, but I'll read it. We're talking about these populations that you're referring to, these workers. It says:

There is no strong evidence of adverse health effects reported in larger civilian studies with longer follow-up periods of populations with increased exposure to uranium (e.g. uranium production and fabrication workers).

That's what we have concluded in this report.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Thank you very much, Dr. Morisset.

Now the committee would like to go to “Madam Butterfly”; sorry, I just had to say that.

Madame Papillon, please, for five minutes.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Morisset.

I would like to see doctors briefing us about the health of our veterans much more frequently at this committee. In my opinion, veterans are not the only ones worried about their health. It is a concern for all Canadians.

In your seventh conclusion, you say this:

There are many veterans suffering from persistent symptoms following deployment or military conflict which…can cause considerable suffering and can be effectively treated.

That conclusion is a little different from the others. Could you shed some light on it for me?

[Dr. Pierre Morisset]

You want to know why we came to that conclusion?

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

That's right.