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‘Low level’ ionizing radiation, and the history of debate about its effects

From Hiroshima to Fukushima to You, Dale Dewar,  4 July 2024

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………. Humans have lived with natural radiation for thousands of years – has it caused damage?

There are two distinct examples of natural radiation causing cancer: radon, largely in basements, and skin cancers from cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 by an Austrian physicist, Victor Hess. He went up in a balloon and measured the ionizing radiation as he ascended and found that it was three times higher at 5300 meters elevation than at ground. Others discovered that cosmic rays were largely made up of protons (89%) and alpha particles (10%).

Alpha particles are stopped by skin, beta particles pass just through the skin and x-rays and gamma rays pass completely through a human body. This would make x-ray and gamma rays seem to be the most dangerous as they leave a trail of ions in their passage but if the particles become internal (by eating or breathing) they are up to 20 times more dangerous. 

When any of these particles or rays interact with anything including biological matter, they cause ions. Sometimes the damage can be repaired, sometimes it cannot, and the cell dies or replicates the damage. Sometimes the damage affects the very process of replication itself.

This is what happens when a tumour is formed. A cell “goes wild” and doesn’t know when to turn off its growth.

If radioactive dust is inspired or eaten, the release of radioactivity occurs in the body. If it is radium dust, for example, the release of radioactivity continues for as long as the tiny bit of radium is present or 16,400 years (the half-life of radium x 10). The skeletal remains of the “radium girls” will still be radioactive for 16 millennia!

In 1927, an American, Hermann Muller was able to show the effect of radiation (he used x-rays) on genetic material. He had no doubt that it produced mutations in succeeding generations and remained a staunch defender of radiation protection measures and was opposed to atmospheric nuclear tests^[iv].

To answer the question, how dangerous is the radiation that we call “background” radiation, the radiation that we cannot avoid? Some European researchers compared the incidence of cancers in children who lived in areas with low background radiation (0.70 mSv) to those who lived in areas with higher background radiation (2.3 mSv). Every tumour marker studied was higher in the children with the higher background radiation.^[v]

Why do we know so little about radiation’s danger to health?

The nuclear industry has a singular interest in keeping populations ignorant. It continues to market nuclear energy as “safe” when no nuclear power plant can be operated without release of radiation in the form of tritiated hydrogen gas. By the time that Japan has released all its tritiated water (from Fukushima) into the Pacific Ocean, there will be no “unexposed” population with which to compare cancer rates.

In 1962 Dr. John Gofman was recruited by the US Atomic Energy Commission to head a biomedical unit. He was told that “the AEC was on the hot seat because a series [of atmospheric atomic bomb tests] had clobbered the Utah milkshed^[vi]with radioiodine. And they have been getting a lot of flak. They think that maybe if we had a biology group working with the weaponeers at Livermore^[vii], such things could be averted.”

The recruitment came with a very generous budget – 3 million dollars (almost three trillion dollars in 2020 dollars). John surrounded himself with scientists and technicians along with an outstanding colleague and Nobel laureate, Arthur Tamplin. 

His first task as the chair of the biomedical unit was to squash a research paper^[viii] by Dr. Harold Knapp that concluded a one hundred fold increase in the amount of radiation received from fallout by the people who lived in the downwind areas.  Gofman and five other experts reviewed the data, asked technical questions and concluded that the research was scientifically sound and ought to be published.

The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) balked,” We’ve told these people [in the fallout zone] all along that it’s safe and we can’t change our story now.”

Gofman’s committee remained firm.

It was clear that Gofman was not a lapdog hireling. When his department could not support the “Plowshares Project”^[ix], the use of atomic bombs for “good”, they became known as the “enemy within”. Gofman thought that they were being teased and it was all in fun but this was the beginning of his demise as a go-to person for the AEC.

In 1969, Dr. Ernest Sternglass published research papers claiming that up to three hundred thousand children might have died from radioactive fallout from atmospheric bomb testing. It received popular coverage in Esquire under the title “The Death of all Children”. John’s colleague Arthur Tamplin re-calculated the data, and his result was an estimation of four thousand. Unfortunately, the AEC was still deeply displeased. The only answer they wanted was zero, that is, no children affected.

The Atomic Energy Commission had been promoting a “safe threshold” of radiation below which no health effects could be detected. A safe threshold made it possible to expose servicemen to atomic bomb tests, for workers in nuclear power plants to receive yearly doses of radiation and for people living near nuclear power plants to receive regular discharges of radiation. Drs Gofman and Tamplin estimated that the cancer risk from radiation was twenty times as bad as the most pessimistic estimate previously made.^[x] Not only did they conclude that the risk was high, they also concluded that there was no safe amount of radiation and that it could be assumed that there was some risk all the way down to zero.” They presented their research at the Institute for Electrical Electronic Engineers (IEEE) meeting in October, 1969. A month later, John was invited to give the same paper to hearings convened by Senator Muskie. 

Their research was picked up by the Washington Press. Their bosses in the AEC made a decision and started rumors. John heard that he “didn’t care about cancer at all and that he was trying to undermine national defense”^[xi]. (He had already resigned his directorship of the laboratory but remained as a research associate.) Dr. Tamplin’s research staff was fired.

When John was called before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, a Congressional committee, he and Arthur reviewed all the data they could find. They concluded that “as a matter of fact, we’d underestimated the hazard of radiation when we’d given the Muskie testimony”. They wrote fourteen more research papers. John’s main research was now into chromosomes and their response to radiation. He applied elsewhere for funding to continue, including the Cancer Society but research funding had dried up. The AEC restructured its biomedical unit; it had discovered that doctors and health researchers were hard to control. 

At the same time, two scientists with the Union of Concerned Scientists revealed that AEC didn’t know if the cooling system for a type of reactor worked. The credibility held by the AEC became questioable. 

The government abolished it and created two new agencies: ERDA (Energy Research and Development Agency) and NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), the former to oversee research and the latter to regulate the industry.

Drs John Gofman, Arthur Tamblin, and Harold Knapp were harassed, ridiculed, and sidelined because their research showed that radiation affected health. The industry didn’t stop there. Drs. Linus Pauling, Alice Stewart, Ernest Sternglass and Hermann Muller suffered similar fates. The US desire for nuclear arms required nuclear power plants. Nuclear radiation had to be safe…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………  https://ionizingradiationandyou.blogspot.com/

July 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, radiation, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties | 2 Comments