According to previous RIVM research from April, more health problems occur in the IJmond region than anywhere else in the Netherlands. From a 22 percent to here and there, a 50 percent greater chance of developing lung cancer among others. A second study of sweeping samples of sediment that circulates over the area each day has yet to be presented. But this research does not answer the question: Where do these materials come from? In addition, more suspicion arose against the “government” in the region after it became clear that the director of GGD personally had deleted Tata’s name from a health survey.
The famous forensic scientist Frank van de Goot also agrees. The coroner spoke this weekend with Jan de Jong, the senior president of investment firm Nedamco and the leader of a plan to conduct his own research. Van de Goot can check dead bodies from the area for chemicals and then compare them to a control group “far” from Tata Steel.
However, he cautions, it cannot simply be concluded that a person has fallen ill from those substances and that this is all Tata’s fault. Van de Goot already noted that many foreign studies on the relationship between steel mills and cancer were not included in the RIVM reports. To check if this is really true and why, Van de Goot sees an important KWF in this.
Annebel Schipper does it quickly: “We’re not yet at the point where we really know what we can do,” she says. However, RIVM knocked on the KWF’s door again, according to Schipper, to also report on what’s currently going on.
