Evidence of meeting #60 for Veterans Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
February 26th, 2013 / 9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Priest, for coming to the committee this morning.
First, you mentioned the uranium in drinking water that's found naturally, and you mentioned Finland, where the levels are quite high. I'm asking this question because I also drank well water for a good part of my life: does this have a lasting effect, that you know of, on people's health?
9:35 a.m.
As an Individual
No. I've never seen any data that suggested there were any toxicological consequences to drinking well water.
Can I tell you how the WHO derives their drinking water limit for uranium? They start off with something they call the “lowest observable adverse effect” level. They go through all the experimental evidence and find the lowest concentration they can find in effect.
Now, when you're exposed to uranium, the kidney does adjust. It actually changes. It becomes more resistant to uranium. So we're not quite sure whether the lowest observable effects are actually adverse or whether they're adaptive—but that's besides the point.
So we find these levels, and these levels are found in animals. Then the WHO says, right, because this is a lowest adverse effect level, we'll say that the no adverse effect level is ten times lower. We're putting a conservative factor of ten so that this is now the level at which we would expect no effects. We're confident there are no effects in these animals at below this level. But we don't know how the animal works relevant to man, so we're going to put another safety factor of ten to account for the possible differences between the animal model and man.
Then they turn around and say, yes, and we don't know if there are sensitive individuals within the population, so we'll put another factor of ten in to account for those sensitive members of the population.
We now have a level that is a thousand times lower than the level that was shown to produce these effects, which may or may not be adverse, in these animal populations. So I'm really not surprised that people drinking well water have never seen any adverse effects in the population.
There are some ways that you can find out. You can actually get your urine tested to get an estimate of what your uranium burden is. Also, if you do have kidney damage or changes in the kidney, there are some proteins that are increased in the urine. You also increase the level of an enzyme called catalase, which makes hydrogen peroxide bubble if you put hydrogen peroxide in the urine.
But no, there's not.... And as I said, it's hugely variable. Some water wells contain none and some contain huge quantities. Really, the more worrying thing is that radium is a daughter of uranium, and radium tends to be much more soluble than uranium. If you have high uranium in water, then often there's a lot more radium there as well.
I was asked to participate in an engineering project in Jordan, where an aquifer had been discovered that actually spanned across Israel and Saudi Arabia as well. They wanted to use it to extract water for the population. The levels of radium in that water were high. What they wanted to do was to dilute it. They wanted me to say how much it had to be diluted with clean water, such that it could come under the regulatory limits.
I said, no, you can't do that, because you're just halving the dose to twice the people, and that's of no benefit. So I didn't participate.
But no—and I'm wandering, sorry—there's no indication that uranium in our well water is harmful.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Thank you.
Going back to the report review, you were one of the three individuals who were tasked with reviewing the report. Can you tell us the specific role that the scientific advisory committee on veterans health tasked you and your colleagues with?
9:40 a.m.
As an Individual
Pierre Morisset gave me no preconditions. He said, “This is the report. Can you go through it? Can you find anything that you think is factually inaccurate? Can you find anything that we've missed? Can you add something that will help?” Basically, I was given a free hand to completely review the document.
I made one criticism. These reports follow on from each other, and there's a tendency, I feel, for people to review the previous reviews rather than go back to the original data. I made the comment that, personally, I thought that the review was a bit heavily reliant on the IOM study in the United States, but it's minor because I've got confidence in the IOM study, and I'm not really worried by that. But there's a tendency to do sequentially review each previous review rather than going back to the original data. But I'm completely happy with the report.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
If there were changes to be made, what was the process for editing the report?
9:40 a.m.
As an Individual
I produced comments in the form of suggested changes. I have here all the suggested changes that I made. As I said, some of them were picked up, some of them weren't. That's fair enough. Some of them were a little bit to one side. But on things like depleted uranium, it's not an absolute thing where you can be pedantic. You get a graph or a table, and it says “Isotopic Comparison of Natural and Depleted Uranium”. I just put “U.S. sourced” in. It wasn't picked up; it wasn't necessary. But those are the sorts of things I was suggesting.
That's how I did it. I went through the document making changes within the document in MSWord and highlighting where I made changes and then sent them back to Pierre and the committee to either accept or reject. I guess they did that for each of the reviewers, and some comments they accepted and others they thought didn't add very much, and so they left them out.
9:45 a.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Peter Stoffer
Thank you, Mr. Priest.
Now we'll go on to Mr. Zimmer for five minutes, please.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks for coming, Mr. Priest. We're glad to have your expertise at our committee today.
I have about six questions, so I'm going to try to be as rapid as I can, and if you could agree to answer fairly rapidly—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
I realize that with your wealth of understanding, it's tough to stop at a small answer.
Again, to refer back to the reason this study was enacted, it was to really get to the bottom of the health concerns of our veterans.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
We care about them and we want to make sure that they're being treated correctly. If this is the wrong target, then we should move on and find the right one.
In your opinion, was the scope of the report great enough to provide a helpful scientific opinion on the potential health effects faced by Canadian Forces members due to depleted uranium?
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
Sure.
In your opinion is the scope of the report great enough to provide a helpful scientific opinion on the potential health effects faced by Canadian Forces members due to depleted uranium? And the answer—
9:45 a.m.
The Chair
Thank you.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
I know you've just spoken about how familiar you are with other international studies. Do you agree that the report's findings are in line with the findings of most other international studies on depleted uranium?
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
You do.
Boy, you're too fast, and I'm going to have more time than I need. That's okay.
Since the study summarizes and assesses the research conducted to date rather than proposes new research, do you agree that the committee effectively reviewed the current research on depleted uranium?
I can repeat that if you wish.
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
No, I'm just thinking, because it's actually quite wide. Where do you draw the line? line?