nuclear-news

Challenging New York Times’s Suggestion That We Should Stop Worrying and Love Radiation

The 2006 National Academy of Sciences report on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII) substantiates Liner No Threshhold LNT, as did the 2021 NRC decision to deny a 2015 request to get rid of LNT.

Karl Grossman, July 15, 2026 https://fair.org/home/challenging-nyts-suggestion-that-we-should-stop-worrying-and-love-radiation/

Alfred Meyer, long active in Physicians for Social Responsibility and former co-chair of its Radiation and Health Committee, challenged an article in the July 3 New York Times, headlined “US to Overhaul Radiation Safety Rules to Spur Nuclear Expansion.”

In a July 6 letter to the article’s author, Brad Plumer, Meyer wrote:

When I read the New York Times business page, I assume that there is a high level of investigative journalism being presented so that the news I read will present thorough and well-researched information about the topic at hand. This is not the case with this article.

Plumer began his piece by paraphrasing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposal on July 1 to overhaul its safety rules for radiation exposure at nuclear power plants. As he put it, the commission was concerned by the cost of the regulations and their tendency to “go beyond what is needed to protect human health.”

The NRC’s proposal asserted that current regulations often incur additional costs “without a measurable safety benefit”—for example, Plumer supplied, when regulators install additional equipment at plants in order to push radiation exposure “far below the legal limits.” Maximum dose limits, the agency said, are already set “well below levels associated with known health effects.”

This was meant to corroborate Plumer’s characterization about costliness, but Meyer noted the lack of substantiation:

You provide no rationale, evidence or citations for these claims, making simple conclusions about a very complex topic. How do you know that human health is indeed being protected, or as you imply, being over-protected? What examples can you provide of radiation exposure being “far below the legal limits”?

Trying to ‘simplify things’

Meyer focused on Plumer’s denial of “measurable safety benefits” from nuclear regulations, the premise of the central question Plumer posed in his piece: How much protection against low levels of radiation is worthwhile? Meyer took issue with Plumer’s framing:

For decades, many researchers and regulators have tried to simplify things by adopting what’s known as the “linear no-threshold model,” which says that the effects of radiation scale down linearly with the dose, and that even tiny amounts of radiation can have small negative effects.

Calling the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model an attempt to “simplify things,” Meyer noted, is “a rather pejorative comment in light of the significant scientific evidence at hand”:

The 2006 National Academy of Sciences report on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII) substantiates LNT, as did the 2021 NRC decision to deny a 2015 request to get rid of LNT.

Plumer “never mentions the history and current state of study and knowledge of the health effects of exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation,” Meyer said, pointing to 80 years of research:

The atomic photographer Robert Del Tredici includes a lengthy endnote in his 1985 book At Work in the Field of the Bomb, which recounts Karl Z. Morgan, the father of health physics—aka the study of the health effects of radiation—discussing how the effects of low-level radiation were well-researched in the late 1940s and were found to be significant. As Morgan’s medical perspectives raised public health questions about further expansion of the nuclear enterprise, they were minimized and ignored.

One of Plumer’s unquestioned and unexplored assertions especially stood out:

Experts agree that high doses of radiation are dangerous and can cause various types of cancer. But there’s much more disagreement about the effects of lower doses of radiation, such as the amounts that workers at nuclear power plants might receive in the course of their jobs. Different studies have found that low doses can be harmful, neutral or even beneficial.

The idea that low doses of radiation may be “even beneficial” refers to “radiation hormesis”—a widely dismissed claim of some nuclear promoters that exposure to radiation exercises the immune system and thus is healthy.

‘History of atomic press censorship’

“This piece,” said Meyer,

serves to promote the current government policies to greatly expand nuclear activities—it is not investigative journalism that thoroughly considers the topics at hand to give the public the information necessary for informed decision-making.

Meyer added: “The New York Times has an uncomfortable history of atomic press censorship.” Meyer cited as “a prime example” William Laurence, who, he noted, helped craft the official military line on Hiroshima while still ostensibly a Times journalist. Laurence was a  Times science writer who also worked for the Manhattan Project, for which he drafted press releases and other government statements.

Back at the Times after the war, for years Laurence glorified nuclear technology. As author Beverly Deepe Keever wrote in her book News Zero: The New York Times and the Bomb, Laurence “served as a scribe writing government propaganda” to obscure the deadly and harmful effects of radiation.

More recently, Matthew Wald, who spent 38 years at the Times with a beat including the nuclear industry, left the paper in 2014 and the following year joined the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry’s Washington-based trade group, as a policy analyst and communications consultant.

“Is history repeating itself, or can the New York Times cover the whole story here?” Meyer wrote. “The future of our genome is at stake.”

Meyer signed his letter as the treasurer of Physicians for Social Responsibility New York. He was also formerly the chapter’s president, the executive director of PSR Wisconsin, a longtime member of PSR’s national board, and the program director of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. He has not yet received a response from Plumer.

ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com or via Bluesky: @NYTimes.com. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread here.

Research Assistance: Emily Marie Spencer

July 20, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Radiation Protection -analysis of NRC proposals

the US NRC is under pressure to weaken its current standards at a time when the scientific
evidence suggests these need to be tightened.

Tony Webb, July 2026.

Current standards under threat
Operating under a Directive from US President Donald Trump the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) proposes to weaken its current radiation protection standards – at a time when
the scientific evidence suggests these existing standards underestimate the risks faced by workers
and the public – and need to be significantly tightened. Unions, public health and environment
groups around the world are pressing governments, international and national protection agencies
to resist pressure from the USA to follow suit – and are calling for a comprehensive review the
evidence leading to increased worker and public protection.

In May 2025 US President Trump issued a Directive to the NRC to revise all its current regulations
and specifically those relating to radiation protection. It called for the NRC to abandon the
fundamental principle that underpins standards worldwide that there is no threshold or ‘safe’ level
of exposure to Ionising radiation. Any dose however small can be the one that triggers what are
known as ‘stochastic’ health effects that emerge over time from damage to individual cells in the
body – damage that is inadequately repaired and where the cells go on to reproduce in in
this damaged form, later manifesting as cancers, genetic, or other health damage. Some
other effects such as skin damage are called ‘deterministic’. A minimum or ‘threshold’ level
of exposure is required, and the severity of the damage increases with the level of exposure.
The severity of stochastic health effects is independent of the dose received – you either get
is or you don’t but the risk-probability that you do increases with the dose received over
your lifetime exposure.

Following from this principle that there is no safe level radiation standards required that all
exposures be kept ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ – known as the ALARA principle. . The
Presidential directive specifically instructed the NRC to reconsider this principle. It also required
review of the legal dose-limits for the amount of non-naturally occurring radiation that workers and
the public can be exposed to in any year. These annual dose limits have been set by national
standards agencies based mainly on international reviews of studies of Japanese survivors of the
bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. These survivors who received relatively
large doses over a short time period. The level of damage to their health, notably their rates of
cancer has been tracked over time and used to estimate the probabilistic risk of stochastic damage
from lower doses spread over longer time periods using a ‘Linear No-Threshold’ (LNT) model –
essentially based on the no safe level principle. The risk estimates have been revised over time as
evidence emerged for higher cancer rates among the survivors and revision of the estimates of
doses they received that might have caused these cancers.

More recently large scale studies of nuclear plant workers in France the UK and USA – known as the
INWORKS studies (with more accurate measures of doses received and health effects compared to
non-exposed workers) have shown that the estimates used to set the current standards significantly
under-estimate the risk, and that the risk at low doses – over longer time periods may be
proportionately greater than the LNT model estimates suggest. These studies also show significantly
elevated levels or cardio-vascular diseases such as heart damage and strokes, and other worker
studies show elevated levels of dementia associated with radiation exposure. Together these
studies suggest there is an urgent need to comprehensively review the evidence of risks on which
the current national and international standards are based – particularly worker dose limits . In
addition recent meta analyses of cancer rates in large populations living close to nuclear power plants in Europe and the USA show that there is a significant general increase the closer people live
to these facilities particularly affecting the young and the elderly. These suggest the need to review
the standards that set dose-limits for public exposures alongside those reviewing expsore of
workers.

In short, the US NRC is under pressure to weaken its current standards at a time when the scientific
evidence suggests these need to be tightened.

The NRC proposals
Following the May 2025 Presidential Directive, the NRC has now, after several delays, released its
proposed revision of the standards. It clearly faced a dilemma as adopting the President’s suggested
changes would mean reversing its earlier 1991 decision that specifically rejected these same
proposals requested by industry lobbyists. In essence the 179-page proposal document (open for
45-days for comments) offers its reasoned judgements on the three key aspects of the review: the
LNT model, the ALARA principle and the occupational and public exposure limits.

To its credit the NRC retains the LNT as the basis for assessing risks at lower doses than those
received by Japanese bomb survivors. Hardly surprising as to have rejected this would have flown in
the face of international scientific pinion worldwide and its own 1991 decision. It does give some
credence the highly contested ‘Hormesis’ model based on limited studies suggesting that there may
be positive effects on health at low doses due to the capacity for cellular repair but ultimately
concludes that there is no scientific consensus that would support this or any other alternative to
the LNT model.

Unfortunately, proposes abandoning the ALARA principle arguing that it is subject to ‘excessive
subjectivity that leads to overly conservative assessments’ for managing exposures below the the
occupational and public dose limits. It is clearly identified as a burden on the nuclear industry – and
thus an impediment to the policy of reducing barriers to its development and operation. In its
place the NRC proposes ‘operating principles’ for managing doses below the legally enforceable
limits. Above (and perhaps only above) an expected dose of 100 mrem (1 MSv) per year – the limit
for public exposure – employees would need to be given ‘radiation worker training’. Above (and
again perhaps only above) an expected dose of 500 mrem (5 mSv) /year). i.e., at 10% of the
regulated exposure limit, employers would be required to monitor individual workers exposures. It
further suggests a cost-benefit approach for reducing exposures indicating that it would be
appropriate for employers to spend up to $5,200 (in 2014 US $) to avert each rem of occupational
exposure. If a radiation protection measure were more costly than that, the licensee would have an
acceptable cost-justified basis for not implementing the measure and instead accruing the dose as
long as that dose was within the regulatory dose limits.

The occupational dose limit is however further weakened by allowing exposures up to double the 5
rem (50 mSv) annual limit. Previously employers could apply for ‘planned special exposures’ for
situations needing higher worker-doses. These are no re-badged as ‘occupational dose limit
extensions’ (DLEs) permitting male workers (female workers are excluded) to receiving a dose of up
to 10 rem (100 mSV) in any year provided these do not result in the worker’s five-year average
exceeding the 5 rem (50mSv) annual limit – i.e. a total over any five year period of 25 rem (250 mSv).

These proposals will leave US workers facing permitted exposures greater than recommended by
international bodies and adopted by most national standards-setting agencies where the targeted
annual limit is 20mSv with exceptional exposures permitted up to 50 mSv provided these do not
exceed 20 mSv averaged over any five-year period. This 20 mSv annual averaging standard has been
in place since 1991 but was never adopted in the USA which retains the earlier 5 rem (50 mSv) annual limit. As indicated above the scientific evidence now calls for a revision of the stochastic
health damage risk estimates and a further tightening of the standards rather than their relaxation
as proposed by the NRC. Indeed it is notable that nowhere in the NRC proposals is here any mention
of, let alone critical review of the peer reviewed INWORKS studies.

The NRC does reject the Presidential Directive’s suggestion that the public exposure limit be raised
to 500 mrem (5 mSv). it leaves it at 100 mrem (1 mSv) in line with the international norm though it
does propose relaxing the emissions standards for radiation and radioactive material from nuclear
facilities from the existing 10 mrem to 25 mem. Again, these proposed relaxations come at a time
when the evidence suggests higher risks to the public living close to such plants and that a tightening
of existing standards is warranted. And again, nowhere does the NRC mention let alone critique this
evidence for increased health risks for populations living close to nuclear facilities.

International Opposition to the US NRC proposals
The NRC proposals are currently open for comments with a final decision on the revised regulations
due by the end of 2026. While any revised radiation protection standards will initially apply only to
the USA there are implications for radiation protection in other countries. Pressure on international
and national standards bodies can be expected. As well as the civil nuclear program it is expected
that the revised standards will apply to US based military facilities. Whether these US, or other
countries’ standards will apply to US military facilities and to any jointly owned civilian enterprises
based in other countries may be in doubt. In Australia for example a Naval Nuclear Powered
Submarine Safety Regulator (ANNPSR) has been created to oversee construction, operation,
maintenance, decommissioning and radioactive waste management from the UK, US (AUKUS)
nuclear submarine program. This new regulator reports to the Department of Defence and is
separate from the existing regulator, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency
(ARPANSA) which reports to the Department of Health. How these regulators will collaborate, and
which standards will prevail is yet to be determined.

In Australia, as in other countries, notably the USA, Canada, coalitions bringing together the
concerns of trade unions, public health organisations and environment groups are campaigning for
rejection of the US NRC led proposals that would weaken current radiation protection standards
and for a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence that now strongly suggests the risks to
health of workers and the public are greater that when standards were last revised – now some 25
years ago – and need to be revised and significantly tightened.

July 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Trump Administration Scrapping Nuclear Energy Rules Requiring Plants to Keep Radiation Levels “As Low as Reasonably Achievable”

Horrifying.

By Joe Wilkins,  Jul 12, 2026, https://futurism.com/science-energy/trump-nuclear-regulation-radiation-energy

As government agencies go, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has left a lot to be desired, often operating less like a government watchdog and more as an industry partner. There’s fee recovery, for example, which effectively mandates the industry pay its own regulators’ salary, as well as the NRC’s habit of trusting voluntary leak reports from reactor operators, not to mention its history of hiding internal safety data to protect its reputation.

As if those deficiencies weren’t bad enough, president Donald Trump is now stripping what’s left of the commission’s mandate down to the bone. Last week, the NRC proposed a bold amendment to its long-standing nuclear safety principles: deleting a line requiring nuclear plant operators to keep radiation exposure “as low as is reasonably achievable.”

According to the Hill, the NRC justifies the move by saying it will remove “unnecessary ambiguity.” But critics say this rule is the whole reason energy companies bother keeping radiation levels as low as possible in the first place.

“Facility owners felt like… ALARA [as low as reasonably achievable] was forcing them to go well below the allowable radiation limits and spend a lot of money to do that,” director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists Edwin Lyman told the Hill. “This is opening the door for sloppier practices,” Lyman continued, and “worse management.”

It gets worse. Also per the Hill, the NRC likewise announced plans to significantly weaken its approach to the National Environmental Policy Act, a foundational piece of legislation dating back to 1970. On Wednesday, the NRC said it wants to gut draft environmental reviews entirely — which, in practice, means kneecapping the public’s chance to weigh in before a reactor gets the green light.

If that weren’t enough, the commission also wants to wash its hands of its mandate to review basic environmental nuisances like noise, dust, and air pollution associated with nuclear facilities. That’s if they even do a review in the first place, as the proposed changes would exempt certain existing reactors, and even new reactors from regular inspection altogether, the Hill reports.

The proposed changes come just a few months after the US Department of Energy began stripping safety regulations that limited nuclear workers’ exposure to radiation. In effect, these changes allow energy companies to speed up productivity, unlocking higher profits at their workers’ expense.

The timing of it all is hard to overstate: with several new nuclear reactors gearing up for operations throughout the US, it’s clear the Trump administration is doing all it can to fast-track incoming nuclear facilities, consequences be damned.

July 17, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Changes to radiation protection in the USA -could have been worse but are still bad.

Tony Webb 2 July 26

The US NRC has now released its proposed revisions to radiation protection standards
mandated by President Trump’s 2025 Directive (EO14300). It could have been worse. The
proposals do not completely abandon the established principle that there is no safe level of
exposure in favour of the contested view that low level exposures are ‘beneficial’. They do
not propose raising the existing permissible limits on exposure for workers and the public.
They do however abandon other important principles such as that all exposures should be
kept as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) and give the nuclear industry flexible options
for a whole range of ‘operating procedures’ that can be used to control and limit exposures

– all overtly designed to ease the regulatory burden on the industry.

While repeatedly claiming that existing standards are already  “conservative” these US
regulations already permit higher exposures than recommended internationally. The US 5
Rem (50 mSv ) occupational exposure limit is 2.5 times greater than the internationally
recommended limit used in most countries. Far from placing the proposals in the context of
the scientific evidence the proposals refer only to the outdated and flawed Life-span studies
of the Japanese bomb survivors who received high doses over short time periods rather
than studies of populations receiving low doses over longer time periods. In the whole 180-
page document outlining the proposed new regs I could not find a single mention of the
INWORKS studies of European and US nuclear plant workers that show the current
international standards underestimate the current internationally accepted level of
radiation-induced cancer risks used to set occupational exposure limits.

There is also no
mention of the increased risks for cardio-vascular diseases and dementia faced by such
workers and no mention of the studies of populations living close to nuclear plants that
show higher cancer rates – increasing the closer people live to these facilities. Buried in the
detail where devils usually hide there are also proposals that would weaken the so called
‘planned special exposures’ limits – the carve out that is used in the USA and elsewhere to
permit hiring of casual workers as ‘radiation sponges’ for the radiation-dirty jobs in annual
shutdown maintenance and clean-up operations for nuclear power plants. A closer reading
will probably reveal a more concerns but overall, the NRC proposals represent a significant
weakening of US standards that need to be opposed both within the USA and globally lest
they lead to weakening of standards or operating procedures for protection in other
countries. Other countries have reason to worry that joint operations with the USA (like the
Australian AUKUS nuclear submarine deal) and shared technologies that use these weaker
NRC standards as the basis for their design will be used as a backdoor for relaxation of
protection standards worldwide. US groups and others interested have 45 days to register
objections with the NRC to this latest Trump Dictated obscenity. Comments must be
submitted electronically using https://www.regulations.gov

On the positive side the legitimate concerns raised by these US proposals provide unions,
public health and environment groups in all countries with a ‘calling card’ to raise the demand with our national protection agencies for improved regulations for occupational
and public exposures in line with the available scientific evidence that shows current
standards need to be significantly tightened.

July 8, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

US moves to eliminate longtime radiation safety principle for nuclear power

“the change could ultimately make it so that currently low doses of radiation that workers and the public are exposed to “could increase really all the way up to regulatory limits without any sanction from the NRC.”

by Rachel Frazin – 07/02/26, https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5951671-nuclear-power-radiation-exposure-nrc/

The federal government is proposing to overhaul radiation safety regulations for nuclear power, including by eliminating a long-term principle for nuclear safety.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) this week proposed to get rid of the requirement for nuclear plants to ensure that radiation exposure is “as low as is reasonably achievable.”

Proponents of the change say just using radiation dose limits is less subjective than going by the “as low as is reasonably achievable” principle — and that it led to overly conservative protections that stifled the nuclear industry.

Supporters of the current language, however, say that having the “as low as reasonably achievable” principle, also known as ALARA, in place ensures that nuclear plants take all measures possible to reduce exposure for workers and the general public.

NRC Chair Ho Nieh said in a statement that the agency is “raising the standard for regulatory clarity, not lowering the standard for safety.”

“Our radiation dose limits remain unchanged — what we’re eliminating is unnecessary ambiguity,” he said.

But critics say that eliminating ALARA means getting rid of a key incentive for energy companies to keep radiation levels as low as possible — and could mean more cancer cases.

“Facility owners felt like … ALARA was forcing them to go well below the allowable radiation limits and spend a lot of money to do that,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Lyman warned that the change could ultimately make it so that currently low doses of radiation that workers and the public are exposed to “could increase really all the way up to regulatory limits without any sanction from the NRC.”

He said this could include by having employees work longer shifts and therefore getting more radiation exposure.

Overall, he said, “this is opening the door for sloppier practices” and “worse management.”

In addition to axing ALARA, the NRC is proposing other changes, including loosening emissions limits for radioactive material.

It said that under one of the rules it is proposing to change, current regulations would allow for an estimated four excess cases of fatal cancer for every 10,000 people exposed to the maximum allowable radiation for 70 years. It said that the change it is making would allow this number to go up to nine cases for every 10,000 people. 

It also proposed increasing how much radiation caregivers for people who receive radiation treatment can be exposed to.

The agency said that all of the changes it is proposing would save the industry about $9.53 million per year. 

The moves come as the Trump administration has been pushing for the U.S. to build more nuclear power. Last year, an executive order from President Trump set the goal of quadrupling the nation’s nuclear power capacity by 2050.

It also directed the NRC to reconsider its use of ALARA and to speed up approvals for nuclear reactor licenses.

While the NRC is technically an independent agency, it is made up of three Republicans and two Democrats.

Last year, the White House fired a Democrat from the commission, which at the time, had a 3-2 Democratic majority. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled the White House can conduct such firings.

July 7, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

US looking at easing restrictions on radiation exposure at the nation’s nuclear power plants

“This will only increase the disease burden at a time when cancer rates are already rising among younger people,”

The proposal would eliminate a standard to keep radiation exposure ‘as low as reasonably achievable’

The Independent, Rachel Dobkin in New YorkThursday 02 July 2026

Federal regulators are looking at easing restrictions on radiation exposure at the nation’s nuclear power plants.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency aimed at ensuring the safe use of radioactive materials, proposed Wednesday eliminating a standard to keep radiation exposure “as low as is reasonably achievable,” also called ALARA.

ALARA is based on the linear no-threshold model, which presumes that any dose of radiation carries a proportional risk of harm.

The commission said in a press release that the proposal would introduce changes, including a graded approach to radiation dose management “based on risk and operational circumstances” and expanding options for managing workplace radiation exposure.

The Independent has reached out to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for comment.

The changes could save the nuclear industry about $9.53 million a year, according to documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission obtained by The Hill.

Edwin Lyman, a physicist ​and nuclear safety advocate at the ​Union of Concerned Scientists, told Reuters, “In eliminating its use of ​the ALARA principle, the agency’s sweeping new proposed rule would allow nuclear facility workers and ​the general public ⁠to be exposed to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation just to save the nuclear industry money.”

“This will only increase the disease burden at a time when cancer rates are already rising among younger people,” Lyman said.

The number of new cancer cases increased among people under age 50 from 2010 through 2019, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission noted in documents that the proposal would address part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to reform the agency. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/nuclear-plants-radiation-exposure-rules-b3007995.html

July 6, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, radiation | Leave a comment

CHANGES TO RADIATION PROTECTION STANDARDS – FOR WORSE OR FOR BETTER?

Tony Webb, May 17, 2026, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/WhctKLcDwkXLRPthNZwfjCSsBVWXNmPvNPFqnmqNVGDcPLVtBDMvdgXHsDPZrKHkgNfHZjG?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1.1

Changes for worse or better protection for workers and the public is on the international
and national political agenda in a number of countries. Trade Union, environment and
public health groups around the world are concerned that the USA is considering proposals
that would weaken radiation protection standards at a time when the scientific evidence
suggests these need to be significantly tightened.

Our concern arises as a result of a Directive (EO 14300) 1 issued in May 2025 by US President
Donald Trump requiring the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to review nuclear
safety regulations with particular reference to radiation protection of workers and the
public. The Directive instructs the NRC to abandon fundamental principles that have
formed the basis for radiation protection for much of the past century. These include: the
internationally accepted position that there is no threshold or safe level of exposure; that,
as a consequence, all exposures should be kept as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) ;
and all exposures to workers and the public be kept below strict annual limits in line with
the best evidence of radiation-induced health risks.

The evidence used to set current standards was drawn mainly from the studies of cancer
rates among the Japanese A-bomb survivors who were exposed to relatively high doses over
short time periods. Since then studies of workers in nuclear power facilities exposed to
lower doses over long time periods show higher rates of cancer than predicted by the
Japanese studies. Rather than indicating any threshold these studies suggest that at low
doses the cancer rates are proportionately higher than expected from the Linear No-
Threshold model used to set current standards. 2 Worker studies also show elevated rates of
cardio-vascular diseases 3 , and increased rates of dementia 4 . In addition, studies on
populations around nuclear power plants are now showing higher cancer rates affecting
particularly children 5 and the elderly 6 – correlated to how close they lived to these facilities.
Despite this mounting evidence that exposure limits should be lowered the likely result of
changes in line with the Presidential directive would be to increase the permissible exposure
limit for workers and the public to five times the current internationally recommended
level.

The US NRC is clearly faced with a dilemma. To adopt the changes demanded by the
President would require reversing its 2021 decision that specifically rejected these same
proposals 7 . The initial date for publication of the NRC’s draft response for public
consultation was 23 February 2026. This was deferred to 30 April and again at short notice
to 24 June. One might speculate that despite large scale resignations and lay-offs among
NRC staff there remain some with scientific integrity opposing the changes. However the
final revision of standards is required by end of November 2026. Given the President’s
record for seeking retribution on government representatives or officials who oppose his
plans it is hard to see any outcome from the NRC other than a change to weaken the US
standards.

There will also likely be pressure on international and national standards agencies to align
with changes in the USA. Some push-back can be expected. Already the heads of European
standards agencies have issued a statement supporting the LNT and ALARA principles and insisted that exposure standards be set on the basis of the scientific evidence without
undue influence. 8 However NRC changes in line with the Trump Presidential Directive will
embolden the nuclear power lobby and create pressure for change where there are joint
ventures involving US military or industrial interests. These changes are also likely to
impede public pressure for review and improvement of current standards.

In Australia, for example, there are a number of joint ventures in uranium and radioactive
rare earths and mineral sands mining and the government has already established a
separate Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator (ANNPSR)to oversee all aspects of
construction, operation, maintenance, decommissioning and nuclear waste management
under the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) nuclear submarine program. While these standards are
expected to be consistent with those of the current Australian Radiation and Nuclear Safety
Agency (ARPANSA) the pressure for change can come from either agency. Hopefully it will
be politically independent science-based pressure to not merely oppose the direction
prompted by the US President’s directive but for better standards to protect health of
workers and the public where they are routinely exposed to ionising radiation.

References and Further Reading……………………………………

May 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Infant mortality rates in San Luis Obispo County in proximity to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) Joseph J. Mangano MPH MBA, April 29, 2026

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The two Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors in San Luis Obispo County CA began operations in 1984
and 1985. They have generated enormous amounts of highly radioactive waste. Most is stored at
the site, but some is routinely released into the environment – and into humans through breathing,
food, and water. However, no studies on health effects to the local population have been done.

Exposure to radiation is especially harmful to the fetus and infant. This report analyzes trends and
current patterns of newborn and infant health in San Luis Obispo County, compared to the state of
California. Results show that county rates have shifted from below to above the state:

Infant Deaths. Before Diablo Canyon opened (1968-1984), the county death rate under one year
was 16% below the state. Most recently (2010-2024), the county was 1% above the state, including
11% and 23% higher for white non-Hispanics and white Hispanics.

Premature Births. In the earliest period available (1995-1999), the county rate of premature births
(<36 weeks gestation) was 21% below the state. Most recently (2020-2024), the rate was 3% above
the state (8% and 31% higher for white non-Hispanics and white Hispanics).

Birth Defects. In the period 2016-2024, the county rate of 12 types of birth defects was 114%
greater than (more than double) the state, 3rd highest among the 35 largest California counties.

Other Newborn Health Measures. In addition, the county also has higher current (2016-2024) rates
of common newborn risk factors, including those requiring assisted ventilation, those with low
five-minute Apgar scores (a measure of infant health), and newborns transferred to another facility.

Child Cancer. Child cancer is believed to often be an adverse outcome that began in pregnancy.
Early in Diablo Canyon’s operation (1988-1992), county cancer incidence 0-19 was 26% below
the state; in the 30 years since then (1993-2022), the county rate was just 2% below the state.

No explanation for these findings is apparent, as risk factors in the county are not elevated.
Compared to the state, the county has low rates of minorities, uninsured, foreign born, and
languages other than English spoken at home; and similar rates of income, education, and poverty.
The county rate of the most common maternal birth risk factors are below the state
(overweight/obese mothers, mothers <20 or >35, mothers on WIC or Medicaid, and previous
Cesarean section).

Further review of county health patterns is warranted to assess what role exposures to radioactivity
from Diablo Canyon has played in these trends. Results should be made available to officials and
the public. No major decision on the future of the plant should be made without a thorough
understanding of the impact exposures have had on local health………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://radiation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Diablo-Canyon-report-November-2025.pdf

May 10, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | radiation, USA | Leave a comment