nuclear-news

Important new BMJ article increases our perception of radiation risks

September 3, 2023

The BMJ article which was published on Aug 16, 2023 (accessible free of charge) is the result of a lengthy occupational study by US Professor David Richardson and a team of 11 academics and public health researchers in the US, UK, France and Spain. https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj-2022-074520

Its conclusion states

“This major update to INWORKS provides a direct estimate of the association     between protracted low dose exposure to ionising radiation and solid cancer  mortality based on some of the world’s most informative cohorts of radiation  workers. The summary estimate of excess relative rate solid cancer mortality per Gy is larger than estimates currently informing radiation protection, and some evidence suggests a steeper slope for the dose-response association in the low dose range than over the full dose range. These results can help to strengthen radiation               protection, especially for low dose exposures that are of primary interest in  contemporary medical, occupational, and environmental settings.”

In a nutshell, the article’s findings

1. substantially increase our perception of radiogenic risks
2. confirm that the linear no threshold model for radiation risks is acceptable
3. give new hard evidence of increased risks at low levels of exposure
4. act to question the continued use of the LSS studies of Japanese bomb survivors in deriving absolute radiation risks for the public
5. act to question the ICRP’s continued use of DDREFs which at present halve radiation risks, and
6. act to put pressure on ICRP, WHO, IAEA, etc to revise upwards the current low risks of radiation.

DISCUSSION

1. Numerical Risk of Radiation…………………………………………………………………………………………………..So it can be shown that the INWORKS study increases the currently perceived absolute risk of fatal cancer in the UK from ~ 5% to 13% per Sv. This is a substantial increase and will need to be addressed by the ICRP and national authorities.
2. 2. Strengthens and Increases the risks found older studies. Second, the new study strengthens an earlier 2018 study (Richardson et al, 2018) by the same team by adding another 10 years’ data to the epidemiology datasets used in the metastudy. It not only strengthens the findings but actually increases the observed ERR risk by ~10% ie from 0.47 to 0.52 per Gy.
3. 3. Increased Risks at Low Doses. Perhaps most significant, are the study’s findings of higher risks at very low doses between 0 and 150 mGy which are the doses we need to be concerned with………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………more https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/important-new-bmj-article-increases-our-perception-of-radiation-risks/?fbclid=IwAR0TtpWfyxm1ebiaHGw_eUJd1n1PWRfkmGF3n-YtBnO0rMIRi2XqcPzYYWY

September 6, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, Reference