No proper assessment of radioactive iodine in Fukushima food and water
no iodine would be detectable at all, it was announced that a whole body counter study will begin to measure the internal exposure dose of Fukushima residents. Now, however, dose assessment is said to be impossible due to “the lack of direct measurements in residents immediately after the accident.” Government experts should have been well aware of the half-life of iodine 131. Why did they not conduct a thorough survey at the time while iodine 131 was still detectable?
Oshidori Mako Interviews Experts Regarding Excess Occurrence of Pediatric Thyroid Cancer in Fukushima, Fukushima Voice, English Version 6 Aug 15,”…….Issue to be considered #3: Truly independent research on ionising radiation – Concerted Uranium Research Europe (CURE)
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a Third Nuclear Atrocity: the Corruption of Science, CounterPunch, by CHRIS BUSBY 19 AUG 15 “………Finally, someone is trying to get to the truth of the matter
In case you think this is all mad stuff, there does at last seem to be some measure of concern evolving in this area of internal radiation, though no one in The Lancet articles mentions it. The European Union radiation research organization MELODI has finally moved into action, led by the French radiation protection agency IRSN.
The matter was raised (by me) at the inaugural MELODI conference in Paris in 2011, but nothing seemed to develop. I said that there are likely to be dose estimation problems associated with internal exposure to nuclides which bind to DNA, and particularly Uranium; that this potentially falsified the Hiroshima risk model.
A hugely expensive European research project has now been proposed. It is CURE: Concerted Uranium Research Europe. In the report launching this development in March 2015 the authors wrote: a large scale integrated collaborative project will be proposed to improve the characterization of the biological and health effects associated with uranium internal contamination in Europe.
In the future, it might be envisaged to extend collaborations with other countries outside the European Union, to apply the proposed approach to other internal emitters and other exposure situations of internal contamination, and to open the reflections to other disciplines interested in the effects of internal contaminations by radionuclides.
In the future, Hiroshima should not be remembered not just for the destruction of its inhabitants, but also for being the flag for the epidemiological cover-up of the biggest public health scandal in human history, whose victims number hundreds of millions – in cancer deaths and miscarriages, infant deaths, loss of fertility and the introduction of genomic instability to all creatures on Earth.
Let us pray that it will not be allowed to sanction the final nuclear exchange, on the mistaken prediction that such an event will be winnable.http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/19/after-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-a-third-nuclear-atrocity-the-corruption-of-science/
This article was originally published by RT, and is reproduced by kind permission of the author.
Dr Chris Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Riskand the author of Uranium and Health – The Health Effects of Exposure to Uranium and Uranium Weapons Fallout (Documents of the ECRR 2010 No 2, Brussels, 2010). For details and current CV see chrisbusbyexposed.org. For accounts of his work see greenaudit.org, llrc.org and nuclearjustice.org. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/19/after-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-a-third-nuclear-atrocity-the-corruption-of-science/
Uranium: a genetic poison that targets DNA
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a Third Nuclear Atrocity: the Corruption of Science, CounterPunch, by CHRIS BUSBY 19 AUG 15 “……… The origin was the “black rain” which contained Uranium-235, Uranium-238 and particularly Uranium-234, which is the missing exposure, and is probably responsible for most of the cancer effects in all the survivors. We know that the Uranium was there because it was measured by Japanese scientists in 1983.
A recently declassified US document tabulates the enormous U-234 content of the enriched Uranium used in the bombs, codename: Oralloy. The Uranium nanoparticles in the Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) black rain were available for inhalation by all the exposure groups in the ruins of Hiroshima for years after the bomb.
All the bombs were made of Uranium, about 1 ton per Megaton yield. For all those tests in Nevada, the Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan, Christmas Island, the results were the same: down came the nanoparticles to be inhaled by anyone nearby and distant.
Why does this matter? New research has been carried out on Uranium. We find that Uranium targets DNA through chemical affinity. This causes terrible and anomalous genetic damage, out or all proportion to its “dose” as calculated by ICRP. Other fallout components also bind chemically to DNA, e.g. Strontium-90, Barium-140.
Those exposed: Uranium miners, Gulf Veterans, Test Veterans, DU civilians, Nuclear Uranium workers, Nuclear Site downwinders, all suffer chromosome damage, cancer, leukemia, heart disease, the works. All this is published, as are the results of laboratory and theoretical studies showing mechanisms. But in the Lancet: nothing.
S L Simon and A Bouville who wrote the article on the health effects of the nuclear testing did not even mention Uranium there, nor in their epic 2010 study of the Marshall Islands exposures. The Nevada site data that they used for their baseline calculations ignored it totally.
In 2012, I made a presentation for the Marshall Islanders at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, attacking the Simon et al analysis. In their Lancet nuclear test article, Simon and Bouville major on Iodine effects. So let’s look at those.
Scientific evidence from Fukushima: massive excess of thyroid cancers
In Fukushima Prefecture, surveys have confirmed 103 thyroid cancers in 380,000 18-year olds (25 or so are still being checked out). The Lancet article by Wakeford et al. presents an excess Relative Risk culled from the Hiroshima studies of 0.6 per Sievert (Fig 2 p 473). In the very same issue, the maximum thyroid dose was given as 18mSv with the median dose as 0.67mSv.
So in the two years of screening, if everyone screened got the maximum thyroid dose of 18mSv we should expect an increase of 0.018 x 0.6 = 0.011, a 1.1% increase in the background rate. This background is about 1 per 100,000 per year or 7.6 in two years in 380,000. So the radiation should increase this to 7.7 cases (i.e. one extra case in 10 years).
There are 103, that is 95 more cases than expected, an error in the ICRP model of 95/0.14 = 678-fold. That is, there are 678 times more thyroid cancers than the Hiroshima-based ICRP model predicts.
This calculation is based on what was written in The Lancet – but nobody made the calculation. This on its own should show the authorities (and the public) that the game is up. But instead of doing the simple calculation, another article in The Lancet, written by Geoff Watts, praises the work of those at Fukushima Medical University, who are busy telling everyone that the increases in thyroid cancer cannot be caused by the radiation.
In other words, once again, the predictions from Hiroshima are believed, rather than the evidence in front of their eyes. It’s a kind of mass hypnosis (or maybe not)…….” http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/19/after-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-a-third-nuclear-atrocity-the-corruption-of-science/
Pro nuclear search for making ionising radiation look good
The Israeli scientist who’s poisoning herself to find a vaccine for nuclear radiation http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/israeli-scientist-invents-vaccine-against-nuclear-radiation–but-is-she-just-poisoning-herself-10462040.html A retired medical professor thinks she has discovered a method for vaccinating against the effects of a nuclear fallout – and has been slowly poisoning herself in a bid to prove it.
Professor Brenda Laster’s theory, so far tested only on herself and mice, is that the body can be taught to react to radiation in the same way that traditional vaccinations can teach it to react to diseases.
Studies from nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima have shown that high doses of radiation cause the body to produce large and ultimately fatal quantities of hydrogen peroxide.
But experts say that less research has been done on lower doses of radiation – if, for instance, a person was an intermediate distance from the fallout itself.
Before Professor Laster retired, she was the director of the radiology lab at the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.
And she believes that delivering the body small doses of hydrogen peroxide, over a long period of time, would teach it how to respond in the event of a much larger attack.
Speaking to the Times of Israel, she said she had documented “an immune response” in mice three weeks after they began drinking water laced with hydrogen peroxide.
She is so confident in her theory that she started taking the solution too, up to five drops a day, “the day [we started] giving it to the mice”.
She said: “No one understands this concept. No one makes the connection between radiation viruses and bacteria and so on. People just don’t do it.”
According to the university where she taught, Professor Laster’s laboratory was set up to investigate “the biological effects of exposure to low-dose ionising radiation” in 2010 with a $500,000 donation.
That funding has now run out, however, and Professor Laster needs more money if she is going to get more mice to progress with her research.
But not everyone thinks the avenue of investigation is worthwhile. Dr Zvi Symon, the director of the Sheba Medical Center’s radiation department, told The Times the theory “sounds wild”.
“Exposing people to small amounts of radiation or to free radicals is a wild and actually dangerous, probably, idea,” he said. “I don’t think it has any scientific merit.”
Nuclear nations raise “allowable” limits of ionising radiation – knowing that this is unsafe
damchodronma, 15 Aug 15, This is why the policy of nuclear nations is to raise ‘allowable’ limits for nuclear workers and the population generally when there are accidents… and since Atomic Age began. Contamination gets worse, it is worse for all life, but nothing about it is really safe or acceptable. It’s propaganda.
“The evidence from the Chernobyl affected territories reveals the real-world consequences of a simple and terrible new discovery: that the effects of low dose internal irradiation cause subtle changes in the genome that result in an increase in the general mutation rate. … first seen in cells in the laboratory. The Chernobyl evidence, shows that this seems to be true for all species, for plants and
animals and humans. It has profound implications that go beyond radiation protection and risk models.
“Krysanov …find that mice living in the high irradiation zone, 22 generations after the initial exposure, are MORE radiosensitive than mice living in lower exposure areas. The same effect is reported for plants by Grodzhinsky who wryly points out that plants cannot exhibit the ‘radiophobia’ that many of the Chernobyl effects have been blamed on. This flies in the face of current ideas about genetic selection.
“The effects of genomic instability are apparent in the evidence of massive harm to the organs and systems of living creatures at low doses of internal exposure, resulting in a kind of radiation ageing associated with random mutations in all cells. At the higher doses in the ‘liquidators’, after some years, their bodies seem to simply fall apart. In an astonishing statement we hear from Yablokov that in Moscow 100% of the liquidators are sick, in Leningrad 85%. These are men that ran like hares into the radiation fields with improvised lead waistcoats cut from roofs and who, by stabilising the situation at the reactor, saved Europe from a nuclear explosion equivalent to 50 Hiroshima Bombs – an outcome that would have made most of it uninhabitable. They are forgotten.
[THEY SIMPLY FALL APART]
“WHOLE BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS COLLAPSE; at the cell level, at the tissue level and at the population level. Burlakova and Nazarov describe these subtle effects at lower doses of internal irradiation in laboratory cell systems and also people, Grodzhinsky shows the effects in plants, – higher for internal exposures than external, Krysanov shows the effects in wild animals and Yablokov and the Nesterenkos in the children and adults living and continuing to live in the contaminated territories. The effects clearly operate at what are presently thought to be vanishingly low doses.”
“ECRR Chernobyl: 20 Years On” (2006) pg 2
ECRR = European Committee on Radiation Risk
Dr. Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary wrote Introduction.
co-edited with Dr. Alexey Yablokov
http://life-upgrade.com/DATA/chernobylebook.pdf
Spanish http://ciaramc.org/ciar/boletines/cr_bol226.htm
How radioactive isotopes impact on the human body
Lies, damn lies, and radiation health, A Prosperous Way Down by Mary Logan Health impacts of unseen dangers
Each isotope has different rates of biomagnification and then uptake and also different impacts in the body. Strontium follows calcium pathways in the body, so it settles in bone marrow, replacing structure and weakening bones and teeth, and causing leukemia.Cesium follows potassium pathways, lodging in muscle such as the heart. Many other isotopes act in other damaging ways in the body.
The dangers are probably still small for most foods, but hazards are tenfold to a hundredfold for children, infants, and fetuses, who have the fastest rates of mitosis and development. Rapidly dividing cells in the young are most sensitive in any organism. Similarly, organs with rapidly dividing cells are affected (bone marrow, digestive tract, skin). So risk avoidance is most important for the young.
Some of the list of long-term impacts for human health include the following:
- Circulatory damage (high blood pressure, rhythm disturbances, MI, stroke, cardiomyopathies, rhythm disturbances artery spasm, especially during cardiac stress such as temperature extremes, physical/emotional stress) (Bandazhevsky, 2001)
- Hematologic problems (leukemias especially)
- Endocrine problems (especially Hypothyroidism, thyroid nodules/Cancer, and Diabetes)
- Immune system
- Uro-genital system
- Musculoskeletal system
- Dental problems as cesium replaces calcium in teeth and bones
- Central nervous system and psyche
- The eye (cataracts and retinopathies)
- Increase in congenital malformations
- Increase in cancers
- Accelerated aging
- Increased frequency of mutations
- Fertility problems and Change in secondary sex ratio (Yablokov, 2012)
- Because exposure to radiation is invisible and difficult to detect, it is far under-represented as risk factor for disease. Causes of mortality for radiation exposure are difficult to track beyond the obviously linked leukemias and cancer. Manmade radiation from above-ground testing beginning in the 1950s has been added to by military depleted uranium from expanding use in the Middle East and expanding failures in the 435 nuclear power plants (NPPs) around the world, along with the reprocessing plants. Radiation is often ignored as a reason for immunosuppression, various cancers, and perhaps even endocrine dysfunction, especially thyroid. Because radiation impacts have not been measured in the general population, radiation’s contribution to cancers and other diseases go unnoticed. Women are more vulnerable than men, and children are at least ten to perhaps hundreds of times as vulnerable as adults, because of the rapid mitosis of their cells as they grow. Fetuses are even more vulnerable…..http://prosperouswaydown.com/epistemology-radiation-health/
USA government makes rules on ionising radiation in water more lax
EPA raises permissible levels of radiation in drinking water https://thewrongblogg.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/epa-raises-permissible-levels-of-radiation-in-drinking-water/ The White House has given final approval for dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs. The final version, slated for Federal Register publication as soon as today, is a win for the nuclear industry which seeks what its proponents call a “new normal” for radiation exposure among the U.S population, according Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) allow cleanup many times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These guides govern evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.” The Obama administration blocked a version of these PAGs from going into effect during its first days in office. The version given approval late last Friday is substantially similar to those proposed under Bush but duck some of the most controversial aspects: Continue reading
The effects of radiation have haunted the lives of atomic bomb survivors.
The A-bombs fell / Specter of radiation lingers on , Japan News, , August 04, 2015, August 04, 2015 The Yomiuri ShimbunThis is the second installment in a series. “……….When hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) need treatment due to malignant tumors, leukemia, cardiac infarcts and other ailments, they may be officially recognized as having radiation sickness. This entitles them to a special monthly medical allowance of about ¥140,000, which is provided by the government apart from medical costs.
However, there are certain requirements for receiving the allowance, such as how far they were from Ground Zero when they were exposed. There were a total of 183,519 holders of special hibakusha health-care certificates for the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as of the end of March, but only 4.8 percent of them, or 8,749, were recognized as having radiation sickness………..
Poverty and discrimination
The effects of radiation have haunted the lives of atomic bomb survivors.
“Just as I expected.” So thought a 72-year-old woman in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, when she was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma at a hospital nine years ago.
Her older brother and sister, both hibakusha, died from cancer after the war. The woman was the youngest of seven siblings, a boy and six girls. She experienced the bombing when she was 2 years old, in Ushita-Honmachi, now Higashi Ward, in the city of Hiroshima, about 2.5 kilometers from the blast center.
Looking for her brother and sisters, she entered the central area of the city while being carried by her mother for several days.
Her mother died eight months later, probably as a result of that exposure, while her father also died from a disease. The woman was adopted by another family, but three years later, her brother, who was also exposed to the Hiroshima bombing and had reached the age of 17, took her back……..
The woman was recognized as having radiation sickness in 2009. However, a neighbor told her, “You’re lucky to be a recipient” of the special monthly medical allowance. These words were very painful and in May this year, she refused to accept the money.
She wants people to know about her suffering but does not want them to know that she is hibakusha. This spring, a shadow was also found in her pancreas.
“My family was devastated, and I suffered from poverty and discrimination. My life is bound to the atomic bomb. I want to be freed from this,” she said in a trembling voice http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002331263
Canada’s pro nuclear government keeps mum about the dangers of radioactive strontium 90
The government puts labels on cigarettes and warns of the danger to health. People have the right to know and the right to smoke cigarettes if they choose. People have the right to know what is in their milk and decide whether or not they want to drink it.
Could it be that the Canadian government’s involvement in the mining, processing and selling of uranium to other countries, its selling of nuclear technology to the world as well as its profiting from Canada’s own nuclear power plants and nuclear research reactors, makes it not want to draw attention to the dangers of radioactivity?
Canada’s Land of Milk and Strontium 90, Enviro reporter, February 28, 2013
We live on the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada. By many accounts, our area was particularly hard hit by the radioactive fallout that came directly over to us, in the jet stream, from the triple meltdown and hydrogen explosions at the nuclear power plant at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan, in March of 2011.
In Seattle, it was reported that the air was so contaminated after the accident that people were breathing in five “hot” radioactive particles a day!
The fallout was found to come down heavily in the rain that is so frequent in this rain forest we call home. Initially Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, detected Iodine 131 in the rainwater on Burnaby Mountain They also found it in the seaweed on the shores of North Vancouver
Eventually we learned that the Air Monitoring Stations on Vancouver Island had picked up Radioactive Iodine 131 at levels 300 times higher than normal background.
A lab in Washington State found levels of radioactive xenon gas 40,000 times higher than normal levels.
So we knew the fallout had reached us. And we knew that there were at least 200 other radioactive substances that came along with the fallout from the nuclear plant accident. What we didn’t know was the level of contamination.
We learned that in California the tuna, milk, pistachios, naval oranges, prunes, wild mushrooms, strawberries, seaweed, beef, kale and spinach had been shown to be contaminated with radioactivity. However, having watched the jet stream patterns, we saw that our area in south western British Columbia was often missed by the atmospheric airflow from Japan.
After the initial study came out from Simon Fraser University, no more radioisotope studies were conducted by the researchers at that university So we set about trying to find out if anyone else was testing for radioactive fallout in Canada. Continue reading
What Strontium 90 does to the body
Canada’s Land of Milk and Strontium 90, Enviro Reporter, February 28, 2013“…….Strontium 90 never occurs naturally. It is man-made by the nuclear fission reaction. Strontium 90 is a “bone seeker.” It mimics calcium and if a bone is deficient in calcium, it will take up Strontium 90 in place of the calcium.
But whereas calcium will make your bones strong, Strontium 90 gets deposited in the bones and bone marrow and causes bone cancer and cancer of the tissues nearby. It can also get into the blood and cause leukemia.
Strontium 90 decays by practically pure beta radiation. When beta particles are ingested, they penetrate cells at the molecular level and are so strong that they can actually change the structure of the molecules they strike. If the molecule it strikes is a DNA molecule, then it can cause a spontaneous mutation.
Babies and pregnant women are the most sensitive to the effects of radiation. If a pregnant woman is drinking milk that has radioactive Strontium 90 in it, the fetus will concentrate that radioactivity. If a woman who is breastfeeding is drinking radioactive milk, the Strontium 90 will concentrate in her breast milk and thus get transferred to her baby.
Young children are the next most affected. Young girls are more affected than young boys. Women are more susceptible to the effects of radiation than men.
Strontium 90 has a half life of 28.79 years so it will be around for about 290 years before it completely decays away to a nonradioactive and risk-free form. That is, any Strontium 90 you ingest and lodges in your bones will remain in your body, decaying away, for your entire life.
There is no question about it – Strontium 90 is a man-made poison that we should never have to consume………http://www.enviroreporter.com/2013/02/canadas-land-of-milk-and-strontium-90/
As ionising radiation increases in ecosphere, cancer incidence rises
There are 437 operative nuclear power plants world wide, and another 68 under construction. A dozen more are at the planning stage. Are we really so hungry for electricity that we are willing to risk annihilation to get it? What’s the point if generation after generation will suffer increased cancer rates?
It fairly hard to find historical data on cancer incidence.Cited near the bottom is an article that state circa 1900, 3 of 100 deaths were due to cancer.
A chart from the town of Boston 1811 showed 5 cancer deaths of 942.. Link and picture is at the far bottom herein.What are the current stats on cancer deaths? Honestly I haven’t included any information here except in links. I deem the answer to that question as so absurdly obvious to not deserve energy put into it.
How may people do you know who have cancer right now?
They try to avoid clear presentation of “incidences” of cancer, aka new cases. Some data is out there, but the spin is to try to show how Big Med/Big Pharma is “sucessful”. Continue reading
Increasing low dose ionising radiation increases cancer risk in a linear way with no safe level
The prestigious Biological Effects of Ionising Radiatioan (BEIR) Report VII states: ‘A comprehensive review of available biological and biophysical data supports a “linear-no-threshold” (LNT) risk model—that the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans’ – http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/beir_vii_final.pdf
The BEIR report is based on huge epidemiological studies, especially on survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing.
By contrast, the USA Department of Energy has been funding poxy little studies such as one at Flinders University, South Australia, on a small number of mice – to try to prove this quack science “hormesis” idea. http://antinuclear.net/2012/09/03/flinders-university-participates-in-usa-department-of-energys-pro-nuclear-propaganda/
Ionising radiation: there is no safe level
Why There Is No Safe Level of Man Made Radiation, Radiation Prevention, [Good diagrams, photos and video] People on the west coast of North America inhaled an average of 5 hot particles every day during the month of April 2011 alone. Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds, 8 July 15
Nuclear Myths Abound
Many public figures like to equate environmental effects of the Nuclear Industry to things such as bananas, X-rays, and even taking a flight to Mexico. Below we will do our best to explain to you, exactly why they are so very, very wrong.
This article is an excerpt of a larger feature coming out in May, and specifically focuses on man made radiation. It isn’t meant to minimise the health affects of natural forms of radiation, as there is no safe dose of radiation.
Let’s Talk Bananas
There exists in the world, naturally occurring forms of radiation. There are many of them, they come in many different shapes and forms. We have adapted to some of them, others, not so much.
Bananas contain a radioactive isotope called Potassium40 (k40). This isotope is also naturally found in milk, soil, and countless other things. Even oranges, as noted here.
If you have one gram of potassium from a banana, only 0.0117% of that potassium is considered radioactive.
Now to put things in perspective, if you have one gram of cesium (which mimics potassium in our bodies) 100% of that gram is radioactive.
And that’s not all.
I’m sure everyone has heard the term “half life” by now. Without getting too geeky on the subject, I will try to explain exactly what that means below………… http://radiationprevention.com/safe-level-manmade-radiation/#ixzz3fR1xuR8z
Radioactivity detected in 2 places at Czech Temelin nuclear station
Radioactivity unexpectedly detected in 2 places at Czech Temelin nuclear plant, no safety risk http://www.startribune.com/radioactivity-detected-in-2-places-at-czech-nuclear-plant/311569951/Associated Press JULY 3, 2015 PRAGUE — An official says low radioactivity has been unexpectedly detected in two places outside one of the two reactors at a Czech nuclear power plant.
Study of over 300.000 nuclear workers confirms increased health risks from low dose radiation
Researchers pin down risks of low-dose radiation Large study of nuclear workers shows that even tiny doses slightly boost risk of leukaemia. http://www.nature.com/news/researchers-pin-down-risks-of-low-dose-radiation-1.17876 Alison Abbott 30 June 2015 For decades, researchers have been trying to quantify the risks of very low doses of ionizing radiation — the kind that might be received from a medical scan, or from living within a few tens of kilometres of the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan. So small are the effects on health — if they exist at all — that they seem barely possible to detect. A landmark international study has now provided the strongest support yet for the idea that long-term exposure to low-dose radiation increases the risk of leukaemia, although the rise is only minuscule (K. Leuraud et al. Lancet Haematol. http://doi.org/5s4; 2015).
The finding will not change existing guidelines on exposure limits for workers in the nuclear and medical industries, because those policies already assume that each additional exposure to low-dose radiation brings with it a slight increase in risk of cancer. But it scuppers the popular idea that there might be a threshold dose below which radiation is harmless — and provides scientists with some hard numbers to quantify the risks of everyday exposures.
“The health risk of low-dose radiation is really very tiny, but the public is very concerned,” says Bill Morgan, who heads a systems-biology programme in low-dose radiation at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, and chairs the committee on radiation effects at the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) in Ottawa, Canada. That concern has driven a lot of investment in programmes trying to quantify the risk, he says. The European Commission, for example, has a 20-year road map to assess the problem. “We don’t do a very good job of explaining ourselves to the public, which finds it hard to put radiation risks in context — some people go to radon spas to treat their rheumatism while others won’t board planes for fear of cosmic rays,” he adds.
Radiation risks
Ionizing radiation — the kind that can pull electrons from atoms and molecules and break DNA bonds — has long been known to raise the risks of cancer; the higher the accumulated dose, the greater the damage. But it has proved extremely difficult to determine whether this relationship holds at low doses, because any increase in risk is so small that to detect it requires studies of large numbers of people for whom the dose received is known. A study of more than 300,000 nuclear-industry workers in France, the United States and the United Kingdom, all of whom wore dosimeter badges, has provided exactly these data. A consortium of researchers coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, examined causes of death in the workers (one-fifth of whom had died by the time of the study) and correlated this with exposure records, some of which went back 60 years. Continue reading
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