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1/11/2013 @ 5:30午後 |6,774 views
Like We've Been Saying -- Radiation Is Not A Big Deal
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has finally admitted that we can't use the LNT hypothesis to predict cancer from low doses of radiation. Now the Japanese people can start eating their own food again and stop being as afraid. Source: United Nations
A very big report came out last month with very little fanfare. It concluded what we in nuclear science have been saying for decades – radiation doses less than about 10 rem (0.1 Sv) are no big deal. The linear no-threshold dose hypothesis (LNT) does not apply to doses less than 10 rem (0.1 Sv), which is the region encompassing background levels around the world, and is the region of most importance to nuclear energy, most medical procedures and most areas affected by accidents like Fukushima.
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) (UNSCEAR 2012) submitted the report that, among other things, states that uncertainties at low doses are such that UNSCEAR “does not recommend multiplying low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects within a population exposed to incremental doses at levels equivalent to or below natural background levels.”
You know, like everyone’s been doing since Chernobyl. Like everyone’s still doing with Fukushima.
Finally, the world may come to its senses and not waste time on the things that aren’t hurting us and spend time on the things that are. And on the people that are in real need. Like the infrastructure and economic destruction wrought by the tsunami, like cleaning up the actual hot spots around Fukushima, like caring for the tens of thousands of Japanese living in fear of radiation levels so low that the fear itself is the only thing that is hurting them, like seriously preparing to restart their nuclear fleet and listening to the IAEA and the U.S. when we suggest improvements.
The advice on radiation in this report will clarify what can, and cannot, be said about low dose radiation health effects on individuals and large populations. Background doses going from 250 mrem (2.5 mSv) to 350 mrem (3.5 mSv) will not raise cancer rates or have any discernable effects on public health. Likewise, background doses going from 250 mrem (2.5 mSv) to 100 mrem (1 mSv) will not decrease cancer rates or effect any other public health issue.
Note – although most discussions are for acute doses (all at once) the same amount as a chronic dose (metered out over a longer time period like a year) is even less effecting. So 10 rem (0.1 Sv) per year, either as acute or chronic, has no effect, while 10 rem per month might.
UNSCEAR also found no observable health effects from last year’s nuclear accident in Fukushima. No effects.
The Japanese people can start eating their own food again, and moving back into areas only lightly contaminated with radiation levels that are similar to background in many areas of the world like Colorado and Brazil.
Low-level contaminated soil, leaves and debris in Fukushima Prefecture piling up in temporary storage areas. (Photo by James Hackett, RJLee Group)
The huge waste of money that is passing for clean-up now by just moving around dirt and leaves (NYTimes) can be focused on clean-up of real contamination near Fukushima using modern technologies. The economic and psychological harm wrought by the wrong-headed adoption of linear no-threshold dose effects for doses less than 0.1 Sv (10 rem) has been extremely harmful to the already stressed population of Japan, and to continue it would be criminal.
To recap LNT, the Linear No-Threshold Dose hypothesis is a supposition that all radiation is deadly and there is no dose below which harmful effects will not occur. Double the dose, double the cancers. First put forward after WWII by Hermann Muller, and adopted by the world body, including UNSCEAR, its primary use was as a Cold War bargaining chip to force cessation of nuclear weapons testing. The fear of radiation that took over the worldview was a side-effect (Did Muller Lie?).
Background Radiation Differences on Annual Cancer Mortality Rates/100,000 for each U.S. State over a 17-Year Period. There is no correlation with radiation dose. States with significantly higher doses, greater than 2.7 mSv/year (270 mrem/year) like Colorado, have lower cancer rates than States with much lower average doses like Georgia, and vice versa. (from Frigerio and Stowe, 1976 with recent radon data)
Of course, doubling the dose doesn’t double the cancers below 10 rem/yr (0.1 Sv/yr). It has no effect at all. The millions of nuclear workers that have been monitored closely for 50 years have no higher cancer mortality than the general population but have had several to ten times the average dose. People living in New Mexico and Wyoming have twice the annual dose as those in Los Angeles, but have lower cancer rates. These cannot occur if LNT were true, because LNT states this could not occur.
There are no observable effects in any population group around the planet that suggest LNT is true below 10 rem/yr (0.1 Sv/yr) even in areas of the Middle East, Brazil and France where natural background doses exceed 10 rem/yr (0.1 Sv/yr).
UNSCEAR is an independent body of international experts that has met regularly since 1955 and helped establish radiation as the best understood, though weakest, carcinogenic agent in the world through its studies of atomic bomb survivors, the effects of the Chernobyl accident, industrial radiological accidents, and medical radiation treatment.
Many of us have been at them for years to stop procrastinating and prevaricating on something so important that the inaction itself is harmful. This report is a welcome change. The report, approved by the United Nations General Assembly, will now serve to guide all countries of the world in setting their own national radiation safety policies.
This is incredibly important to Japan where national guideline changes have been horribly over-reactive in response to Fukushima, especially for food, using LNT in a way it should not be used.
Regulatory Limits On Radioactivity In Foods (in Bq/kg)*
Country Water Milk Foodstuffs Babyfoods
Japan 10 200 100 50
U.S. 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200
E.U. 1,000 1,000 1,250 400
*Japan’s new limits for radiation in food
Accepted global limits on radioactivity levels in foods is 1000 Bq/kg (1,200 Bq/kg in the U.S.). Dominated by cesium-137 and Sr-90, these levels were set by organizations like the IAEA and UNSCEAR after decades of study. Because of public radiation fears broadcast in the press after the Fukushima accident, Japan cut the limit in half hoping it would have a calming influence. But the level of fear remained high, so Tokyo lowered the limits to one-tenth of the international standards.
This was supposed to induce calm? Telling the public that radiation is even more deadly than they thought? That their food is toxic? Were they nuts?
This has had the unintended consequence of making people even more afraid of what they are eating, moving safe foods into the scary category and limiting food exports, causing even further economic and social damage.
Suddenly, all sorts of normally safe foods are now banned. Wild mushrooms from Aomori Prefecture are now banned because they have cesium levels of about 120 Bq/kg. This cesium has nothing to do with Fukushima, it’s the same type as is in everyone’s food around the world, and it wouldn’t have rated a second look before the accident (Japan’s Contamination Limits Way Too Low).
The Japanese people should not be punished for nothing. But these new results and the UNSCEAR reports demonstrate that they are being punished. There was no reason to lower the rad limits on food, especially after the short-lived nuclides have long decayed away. One of the incorrect assumptions was that people in Japan would be eating only contaminated food, which is quite wrong. The international limits were set for very good reasons, lowering them makes no sense except to further hurt farmers and consumers in Japan.
UNSCEAR’s chair Wolfgang Weiss stated that no radiation health effects had been observed in Japan among the public, workers or children in the area of the damaged nuclear power plants, in keeping with studies already published by the World Health Organization and Tokyo University. Doses of radiation received by people near the damaged power plant were so low that no discernible health effect could be expected.
The Japanese government, for all its failures, did the right thing in evacuating Fukushima Prefecture quickly and by preventing contaminated food and water from being consumed. This was in stark contrast to Chernobyl where the Soviets intentionally kept the public in the dark.
Ingestion of the short-lived isotope iodine-131, with its well-known risk of thyroid cancer when absorbed in the thyroid glands of children and young people, was the only major radiation-related health effect of the Chernobyl accident on the public. And the Soviets could have prevented that by acting quickly and openly. Of course, the Soviets didn’t much care about the public.
This will not happen in Japan. Iodine-131, with a half-life of only 8 days, decayed away in a few months following the accident and no one was found to have ingested any significant amount.
According to the reports, six Fukushima workers received total doses of over 0.25 Sv (25 rem) during their time fighting the emergency, while 170 workers received doses between 0.1 and 0.25 Sv (10 to 25 rem). None have shown ill effects and most likely never will. Radiation played no role in the coincidental deaths of six Fukushima workers in the time since the accident, who died from accidents, e.g., being crushed by debris or being swept out to sea.
Yes, there are health effects of radiation above 0.1 Sv (10 rem) that statistically increase up to 1 Sv (100 rem) but even in this higher range it’s hard to see them without a big enough population. The only radiation events on this scale, where large populations received 0.1 Sv (10 rem) to 1 Sv (100 rem) have been the atomic bomb blasts from World War II.
The effects of radiation only start to become clear at high acute absorbed doses of over 1 Sv (100 rem), and even then it is necessary to eliminate other potential causes before radiation can be unequivocally said to be the cause, advised UNSCEAR.
What this means for nuclear waste disposal is even more dramatic, but more on that later!
In the end, if we don’t reorient ourselves on what is true about radiation and not on the fear, we will fail the citizens of Japan, Belarus and the Ukraine, and we will continue to spend time and money on the wrong things. I’m sure the anti-nuke ideologues and conspiracy theorists will not accept these U.N. reports, but then…they don’t like the United Nations anyway.
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James Conca – you are my new hero. http://www.radonmine.com
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blatant nuclear industry lie base propaganda. The UN, unfortunately, has also become a tool of the corporate states that continue their campaign to deceive the public with reports which deliberately confuse the issue of a one time external dose of radiation with a continuous INTERNAL exposure to radiation from radionuclides which have been inhaled or ingested and integrated into body tissue.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-UN-Cover-Up-of-Ionizi-by-Lynda-Williams-110402-173.html -
Oregonstu: You seem to be unaware that we already, everyday, as a normal part of existence on radioactive planet earth, in a radioactive universe, INGEST radiation. Many foods contain naturally occurring radioisotopes which are exposing us to internal radiation on a continuous basis from conception to death. Potassium, which is a vitamin that most people are encouraged to consume more of, to avoid depletion, is naturally radioactive.
When you educate yourself about the truth, you can let go of fear and conspiracy theories, and we can all move forward with a safer, healthier, richer world for all. Nuclear power is an incredible opportunity to clean up the environment from the very real and hazardous pollution and damage from fossil fuels while ensuring a reliable, economic (if you don’t burden it with completely unreasonable clean-up requirements as they are doing in Japan, which are not based on good science, but on fear) supply of electric power and industrial process heat in any quantity we could desire, with fuel resources that can last at the very least many thousands of years.
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Yes, radiation is all around is and guess what? DNA is mutable and that’s a good thing or we wouldn’t have evolved on this planet with its radiation. DNA has to have the inherit property of mutability in order to survive changing environmental conditions.
Cancer is the evolution of human cells in the micro-environment of the human body. It also results from DNA mutations.
Radiation mutates DNA which helps drive evolution and cancer.
It is a weak carcinogen, though.
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jsbiff: You seem to be unaware that the radionuclides dispersed into the environment by Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. represent a health calamity orders of magnitude beyond that of normal background radiation. Furthermore, you seem to miss the point that this industry propaganda is based upon a deliberately misleading methodology which conflates a dispersed EXTERNAL source of ionizing radiation with an extremely concentrated, localized INTERNAL source of radiation that has been incorporated into body tissue.
Of course there is a certain amount of naturally occurring sources of radioactive particles which we ingest, and these are also harmful. There are also trace amounts of toxic heavy metals that are naturally occurring, but it would be idiotic to assert that this means higher levels of heavy metal ingestion is harmless. The majority of the isotopes released by these events do not occur in nature, they are man made – and are now present in many areas in quantities that dwarf natural sources of radiation. This article makes assertions about the quantity of radionuclides in the food supply which are nothing but bald faced lies.
If you can shed your attachment to nuclear industry dogma long enough to educate yourself about the truth, you might be amazed that you have allowed yourself to be a part of this grotesque corporate campaign to mislead the public. -
No that is absolutely incorrect. Except for very close to Chernobyl there is no impact at all from what was dispersed, especially since I-131 decayed away in the months following. Globally, it is no where near background. You’re also forgetting about biological half-life and steady-state processes that determine what is in your system. The medical monitoring of anyone working with radiation is more extensive than any other industry or risk, which is why we know so much about it relative to other health issues. And stop with the corporate junk, I don’t trust corporations any more than any other group of humans, and I don’t work in the nuclear “industry.”
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———-” Except for very close to Chernobyl there is no impact at all from what was dispersed, especially since I-131 decayed away in the months following.”————
Yes, after the tornado passes by the wind calms down too, but by then it is too late—the damage is already done.
Chernobyl is still radioactive, and still under quarantine. An area roughly the size of Delaware.
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The presently stated formalism on radiation risk has its beginning in a position statement declared by the US Health Physics Society in 1996 and reformulated in 2010. Thus:
In accordance with current knowledge of radiation health risks, the Health Physics Society recommends against quantitative estimation of health risks below an individual dose1
of 50 millisievert (mSv) in one year or a lifetime dose of 100 mSv above that received from natural sources. Doses from natural background radiation in the United States average about 3 mSv per year. A dose of 50 mSv will be accumulated in the first 17 years of life and 0.25 Sv in a lifetime of 80 years. Estimation of health risk associated with radiation doses that are of similar magnitude as those received from natural sources should be strictly qualitative and encompass a range of hypothetical health outcomes, including the possibility of no adverse health effects at such low levels.
There is substantial and convincing scientific evidence for health risks following high-dose exposures. However, below 50–100 mSv (which includes occupational and environmental exposures), risks of health effects are either too small to be observed or are nonexistent.The statement has practical implications. It is very useful.After having asserted in many a fora that LNT concept is gospel truth, many, with ICRP’s puritanism in mind, may find it difficult to accept the proposed formalism
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Yes, it is hard to give up any ideology, but in the absence of any real effects, it is pretty hard to keep spending time on an issue that never seems to appear. The only thing changing here is that above 10 rem or so, there really are effects that increase with dose, so yes, we really need to address this region, but below that it’s just not important enough and ALL other health issues are more important. This is not saying radiation is not dangerous, it’s saying there is a threshold, just like any other carcinogenic agent. Not sure why this bugs so many people, except it really is ideology.
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Logged in as 2432, am I? Not sure how that happened, my handle is usually GRLCowan.
“… it really is ideology”, says James Conca. I agree it often sounds that way, but let’s not forget that the Japanese government’s income increased 4.8 percent between February 2011 and February 2012. The English-language edition of The Mainichi reported this April 2, 2012. Royalties and/or import duties on $16/MMBTU liquefied natural gas are a *lot* nicer for a government than the same on $0.25/MMBTU uranium.
Backing up this interpretation is the tendency of ionizing radiation fear to detach very readily from radiation sources that do not threaten governments’ fossil fuel profit: X-ray machines, the cosmos (when an airliner has lifted one closer to it), and propane tanks, for instance.
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The spontaneous (endogenous) DNA damage rate is many orders of magnitude larger than the DNA damage rate induced by low level radiation like natural background levels. So we should not expect to see long-term health effects from the radiation levels around the damaged Fukushima reactors, which are within the normal range of natural background. The appropriate radiation level for evacuations should be about 50 times higher than the level specified in Japan, which is recommended international radiation protection organizations, see my commentary available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3526322/ . So the precautionary relocation of about 150,000 residents was not “conservative” because is resulted in the deaths of approximately 1000 people, who would likely still be alive today. We need to dispel the enormous fear of low level radiation by informing the public (and the media) about the real health effects of low level radiation. After almost 120 years of experience with nuclear radiation, we certainly know the real health effects (much better than other biological stressors).
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Excellent point. Conservative, as used in many cases like this, just means wrong, it has been used to give credence to fantasies wrought from fear. If you can conceive of a horrible result, then addressing that is seen as conservative. This is scientifically false. Conservative means there are variables that are real, and you are merely taking one or a set of them to one side, but the magnitude you take it to must still be real, it must still fall into the range of observable. It is similar to the fallacy of “if one is good, ten is better, a hundred is great and a thousand must be really excellent.”
I agree, Jerry, relative risk is the real issue. If you understand the actual risks, you can choose the best response. The fear engendered by LNT has killed so many more people than any real radiation effects. We saw this with Chernobyl. Well over 50,000 dead from fear – depression, alcoholism, suicide. But well under 1,000 from actual radiation effects, and that number depends dramatically on how you use LNT. No one will die from radiation from Fukushima, but the over-reaction has already killed many and much more harm will follow, just from fear and ignorance – and continued over-reaction.
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Wow. Let’s see that quote again: “we should not expect to see long-term health effects from the radiation levels around the damaged Fukushima reactors, which are within the normal range of natural background”. It never ceases to amaze me how outrageously you nuke industry trolls can fold, spindle, and mutilate the truth… it seems like you compete with each other to see who can tell the biggest and most ridiculous lie.
In fact, the evacuation zone around the Fukushima site should be much larger due to the incredibly radioactive hot spots well outside the existing evacuation zone. You nuke industry trolls can lie until you are blue in the face, but this does not alter the reality which is affecting the lives of millions of people around the world. -
“It never ceases to amaze me how outrageously you nuke industry trolls can fold, spindle, and mutilate the truth…” Just read the UNSCEAR 2000 Report and other UNSCEAR reports in the series (1988, 1993 and 1998). Then make up your own mind about what you want to believe about the range of natural background radiation.
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The “range of natural background radiation” theme is a repeated canard of health physics deniers.
When we study radiation effects, we study a population. That population has a certain genomic background, diet, background radiation, smoking patterns, etc. We want to understand the baseline cancer risk and then see how it increases with excess radiation dose to that population.
To go across different populations is much more difficult because not only is the background radiation different, but so are all those other things.
That’s why historically it’s not been studied much…the radiation differences are so trivial relative to the other potential confounders that it would probably be a waste of money.
Nonetheless, just a few months ago one such studied was published:
http://www.sc.edu/news/newsarticle.php?nid=5214#.UPHD-m9kyAh
HP deniers fail again.
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You are misinterpreting a detection threshold (where health effects cannot be statistically discerned) with an effect threshold. In order to determine if an effect is still plausible below a detection threshold, one has to look to basic mechanisms and surrogates.
The basic mechanism, that DNA is ionized by even a single photon, and that DNA repair mechanisms are not 100% perfect, suggests that there is damage below the epidemiological detection threshold. When we use non-human animals (where we can have large numbers and control exposures) we find cancer induction at lower doses.
So LNT still applies, but we use a dose and dose rate effectiveness factor to estimate the slope of the line below the human epidemiological detection threshold using non-human data.
There is no evidence Muller lied about anything. In Muller’s speech he did not use the word “linear” at all, and only once did he use “threshold” in passing. Calabrese has manufactured a controversy to promote his hormesis society and its agenda of which Jerry Cuttler is also associated.
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You are wrong. As Calabrese has documented, and as you can check, in his Dec. 12, 1946 Nobel speech, Muller stated that there is “no escape from the conclusion that there is no threshold” for radiation effects, although he knew this to be untrue, based on the research results of a respected colleague.
It seems that your LNT agenda has prevented you from reading the historical facts.
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No, you are wrong.
You (and Fast Eddy) have picked the one mention in all of 35 paragraphs of Muller’s speech with the word “threshold”. That’s what I said, one mention.
Muller was right. He was learning that a single photon of IONIZING radiation could cause genetic damage. The only thresholds are an energy threshold (go below the energies of ionizing radiation & upper UV, and damage does NOT occur) and a statistical detection threshold which Muller referred to as “statistical laws” (whether you can detect the excess damage from the delivered dose in a background of other phenomena is subject to a statistical detection threshold).
These early insights have been vastly improved upon in the modern theory of LNT (not a “supposition” like Conca describes), which is as robust a theory as evolutionary biology (though it’s not exactly as Darwin described, oh, now Darwin’s a liar). The structure of DNA was not even known when Muller gave his speech!
But even if Muller had been wrong (or had lied), so what? If Pasteur falsified some early data, it would have nothing to do with modern medicine today. Early errors or lies get vetted out. Strong theories (like LNT, relativity, evolution, etc.) persist.
So Calabrese is technically wrong.
Muller’s “respected colleague” didn’t call Muller a liar. Neither did any of the hundreds of scientists who worked for him or with him. Because there was no lie.
Ironically, it is Calabrese who is being dishonest (and not the first time), both technically and in calling Muller a liar (if he had mis-spoke, there may have been many reasons why. No evidence of lying).
Just like there is global warming denial and evolutionary biology denial there is health physics denial. Calabrese is at the forefront, but he copied this particular ploy of looking for “dirt in the past” to inject doubt on the uninformed from a biology-denialist (Jonathan Wells). In early 2000′s, Wells recognized that some embryo pictures by Ernest Haeckel in late 1800′s, showing similarities between species were off.
Therefore, Wells claimed the artist was lying, and modern biology is false. HA!
In both cases, neither Wells nor Calabrese did any modern science to overturn the science consensus, because they can’t.
No modern student of evolutionary biology thinks biology is true because of those old embryo pictures, nor is any modern student of health physics relying in any way on Muller’s speech (which WAS accurate for his time) for LNT.
Don’t get sucked in by the denialists…whether health physics, biology, anti-vaxxers, climatology, etc.
My agenda is to expose the “merchants of doubt” and I’m a student of agnotology.
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Dear Anon, Have you read Muller’s published papers? Read the Muller paper in Science (no data presented) and then his Berlin 1927 paper (no radiation dose measurements, but very high mutation rates). Then read his Nobel Prize speech, and then read his articles, e.g., Radiation and Heredity, in Am J Public Health Nations Health, 1964 Jan: 54(Suppl 1):42-50.
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What’s the point? What has he done wrong?
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Actually, it’s neither. The important threshold is risk. Yes, there can be an effect but the magnitude and the frequency are so low that it is inconsequential with respect to other risks. A photon can certainly break a DNA strand, or even a thousand within a cell, but the effect is still small unless enough cells are damaged. In a 100,000-person population, one person may eventually get cancer from a five rem annual dose, but you could never find them in the 15,000 people who will die from cancer from a host of other causes. If the effect is in the noise, that’s important, not the academic question of which one person will die. If you’re going to spend a billion dollars, it better be trying to prevent the 15,000, not the one.
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Anon
While you describe a differentiator that is valid, the concern is about probable harm from radiation that is greatly overwhelmed by metabolic processes and the body’s own chemistry with respect to DNA damage that may be mutagenic. Dr. Cuttler’s response pretty thoroughly dispatches that issue for radiation, since the body’s own processes swamp radiation effects at even a cSv per year by factors of 10,000 to 1,000,000.
My concern with your response is the tone suggesting that radiation effects are still somewhat “special” and that the public should be fearful of what are truly small doses in the larger scheme, even for credible nuclear energy events. All the research, even RERF, shows that is VERY far from the truth.
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No, I never addressed the fear factor at all. I’m addressing the tactics of science denialists to undermine science (the tactics are very similar whether biology, health physics, climatology, etc.). People have no reason to fear low radiation doses. They contribute trivially to cancer, just like people shouldn’t fear processed red meat, though it also contributes to cancer.
Cuttler fails to point out a whole multitude of significant differences between metabolic processes and ionizing radiation.
Briefly, most metabolic processes which result in reactive O2 species occur in the mitochondria. The mitochondria has its own DNA and this gets more heavily damaged than nuclear DNA, which is the DNA of concern for ionizing radiation. Metabolic DNA damage is largely composed of point mutations, while ionizing radiation results in large number of double strand breaks. Point mutations are repaired with much, much, much greater fidelity (less errors) than double strand breaks which uses an entirely different repair mechanism which almost always results in error (rarely error-free).
I could go on…..do some of these facts change your perspective? Why weren’t they previously mentioned?
Study agnotology.
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Dear Anon
Your comments and concerns about radiation effects on DNA have been carefully addressed in the article, Pollycove M and Feinendegen LE. 2003. Radiation-Induced Versus Endogenous DNA Damage: Possible Effect of Inducible Protective Responses in Mitigating Endogenous Damage. University of Massachusetts. BELLE Newsletter 11(2): 2-21. Available at: http://www.belleonline.com/newsletters/volume11/vol11-2.pdf
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HA! This is a blog comment section so I’m not going to get too technical. But since you brought the paper up, it’s a great example of science denial in action. Science is a process where evidence is provided and then accepted by a consensus of peers. In the process, some people’s views are not accepted. The stable people accept that and move on to the next thing. A denier can’t accept it, for whatever reason and clings to his refuted “belief”.
Our best scientific conclusions are formed by meta-analysis, in which many studies are reviewed by experts at a particular time to give us the state of the science of a particular field.
Now, here is a link to a video of Pollycove from 1997 video in which he is addressing a right-wing doctors group. At about 6 minutes he says “LNT is dead”.
That’s funny! If LNT was dead in 1997, why did he write his 2003 paper? Why, in 2012, did he attend an American Nuclear Society meeting telling the audience LNT was dead? Why isn’t LNT dead?
Maybe Calabrese should write a paper about Pollycove’s lies!!!!!! HA!
Meanwhile, over the DECADES the consensus science has reaffirmed LNT over and over again. Meanwhile, the deniers stage propaganda campaigns outside of mainstream science to sucker in the innocent ignorant.
So, now it’s 2013 and here’s Cuttler, cherry-picking a particular 2003 paper that doesn’t carefully address my comments (those few comments are just openers to raise awareness to the public as to your tactics.) Well that paper was submitted to a meta-analysis along with hundreds of others and found to be wanting (BEIR VII, 2005, App. D).
Of course Cuttler doesn’t mention the failings of paper.
And for those who missed it, look at the introduction of that paper….it’s Fast Eddy Calabrese!
These science denier groups are cults of people who just can’t come to grips with reality. So they obfuscate, tell half-truths, cherry-pick, etc. to fool the public.
And if you watched the first bit of the video, Pollycove mentions Cohen who was another denier associated with the George C. Marshall Institute. The same institute that lied about tobacco safety (LNT was part of their game) a few decades ago and today lies about global warming.
Shameful bunch you are.
I need a shower.
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I forgot the YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTQrRakmKjE&playnext=1&list=PL70AFD582F306FCBE&feature=results_video
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James Conca—–” I agree, Jerry, relative risk is the real issue. If you understand the actual risks, you can choose the best response. “———-
There is a potential risk of death and injury to thousands or even millions of people from a serious nuclear accident. You are not even remotely qualified to determine the risks involved. We could have genetic risks from Fukushima for example that will not even show up until 1 or 2 generations from now.
I don’t even know what ALL the risks are………………no one does. But the risks I do know of, there is no doubt in my mind that no nukes is the very best response.
If we do not use nuclear power—-there is no risk of a serious accident.
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Well, it’s not just 1 or 2 generations. We have almost 120 years of human experience with nuclear radiation, starting with radium and radon. The ANL report, Radium in Humans, available at: http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/10114798/ , provides some of the early experience. There is much more in the American Journal of Radiology. Nuclear energy is about the safest way to make electricity. Just think about the risks of using the other options.
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Naturally occurring radium and radon pale in comparison to the spectrum of man made nuclear isotopes in terms of quantity, persistence (half-life), and overall harm to humans. The fact that you can maintain your laughable conviction that “Nuclear energy is about the safest way to make electricity” in the face of Fukushima speaks volumes. People like you are impervious to reason, and you clearly are so committed to your (well paid) position that you have no qualms about using any specious junk science or bald faced lies to attempt to buttress your opinions.
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It seems these comments have departed from reason into emotion, so I’ll sign off at this point.
The readers have received some facts here and can decide for themselves what they want to believe.
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Lol. The purveyor of junk science and industry lies, impervious to reason himself, can only make the feeble claim that his detractors have “departed from reason” or are “emotional”. Yes, the readers have received some facts in this forum, as well as blatant lies promoted by entities under the sway of powerful interests with massive taxpayer subsidized profits at stake.
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Yes, and if we don’t use fossil fuel there is no risk of climate change (well, that’s not really true…it’s not as large a risk), and if we don’t use metals there’s no risk of Hg, Pb or Cd poisoning, and if we don’t eat meat we prevent a whole host of health and environmental problems, etc. Yes, if we don’t use something there is no risk from it, but there’s still the reason we are using it, to get energy which itself reduces most health risks. This is all a trade-off of needs versus risks. The risk of nuclear energy is still small compared to all others. We will never get rid of risks, we can only manage them.
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———–” This is all a trade-off of needs versus risks. The risk of nuclear energy is still small compared to all others. We will never get rid of risks, we can only manage them.”————-
The statistical odds of an adverse incident happening with any given reactor is small, but the more reactors and peripheral systems that are added the inventory—-the greater the odds of an adverse incident become—at exponential rates. The passage of time in use also increases the odds of an adverse incident. The statement that we have been using nuclear power for
xx years without a serious accident is really saying that the odds of an adverse incident happening are increasing each day.The risk is the potential damage that can possibly occur. In the case of nuclear power—-that is very grave indeed—actually, grave literally.
Exposure is the statistically probablity the such an incident will happen at any given time. It is like a password combination in reverse. The more systems you have in operation, the greater the likelyhood that one of those systems will blow up in your face—-and the addition of each new system increases your odds of a system failure exponentially.
The fallacy in all this is that we “need” nuclear power.
We do not need nuclear power. We have better ways of providing for our energy needs that do not have the risks nor the exposure that nuclear power does.
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Since Dr. Cuttler has been called out and defamed, but as usual, is too much of a gentleman to flout his academic credentials, I want the disinterested reader to know something about his background. Also Dr. Pollycove, who was cited unfavorably earlier.
In my opinion Dr. Cuttler is one of the foremost scientists in the world in the field of radiation protection. Maybe this will help you decide who here is operating from a platform of knowledge, experience, and scientific reason, and who is the hysterical radiophobe clinging to outdated myths: http://www.computare.org/Support%20documents/Guests/Computare%20PDF%20Western%20Focus%20Seminar/Bios/WF4/6%20-%20Cuttler_Polycove%20Bios.pdf
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atomikrabbit (aka Jerry Cutler): Every academic discipline has examples of those who sell their integrity to the powers that be, and nowhere is this more pervasive than in the fields related to the nuclear industry, with the possible exception of economics. If you think that having a Phd behind your name should give anyone carte blanche to get away with blatant falsehoods and bogus methodology you should think again.
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Well nice attempt to insinuate that atomikrabbit is is Dr. Cuttler. You’re incorrect, but I guess when you don’t have a legitimate argument you must resort to these tactics.
Do you have a legitimate arguments against anything Jerry Cutler has done or said other than an attempt to now insinuate that he is somehow bought off by a big bad “nuclear industry”? What is the nuclear industry anyway? I work in nuclear power and I am yet to find a big bad nuclear industry or lobby. There are companies that own nuclear plants, but they also own a lot of fossil fuel plants. Just please point me to any evidence of a nuclear industry that is somehow the puppet master behind international scientific bodies but yet can barely get plants built in North America.
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James Conca,
Clearly, you have not been following the harrowing health effects on minors in Fukushima Prefecture and surrounding areas. Presently, 40% of all minors are presenting with inflammation, nodules and tumors of the thyroid gland. No health effects? Please research the realities which continue, while 26 out of 47 prefectures in Japan are reporting Cesium tainted levels in municipal water supplies. If there were no health effects, why did special envoy to the UN (Anand Grover) make a special report on Fukushima, criticizing the handling of the radiation catastrophe to the Japanese government for its negligence and inaction after the 3/11/11 disaster which continues to promulgate deleterious health effects, evident in women and children in Fukushima and surrounding areas. Here is the report: http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2012/11/26/un-special-report-on-fukushima-criticizes-handling-of-radiat.htmlAnother link to debunk your irresponsible claims of “no health effects”: http://www.wtop.com/46/3176017/Md-woman-sees-long-term-effects-of-radiation-in-Fukushima
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By the way, I’m married to a Japanese national, lived in Japan for 25 years, raised two daughters and have evacuated them to my home in CA in April of 2012. Your claim of “no health effects” is a farce. Ask any evacuee who has the knowledge and resources to get out of northeastern Japan.
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As a former Milt person that’s been TRAINED on such issues as exposure, and who is a rapid responder to nuclear accidents and attacks… You folks should be FINED for repeating of such LIES! THERE IS NOT A SAFE LEVEL OF EXPOSURE! PERIOD!
Every single time you are exposed, it accumulates in your body! It only take ONE (1) hot partical in your body to give you CANCER! And that is not all you get from such contaminations. It causes lukemia, cardiac degradation, and many other problems. But the worst of them is that each one breaks your very DNA strands, and so in the end it causes mutations in all future generations! The damage done is at its worst in children! They have bodies that produce the most cells due to the natural growth cycle. Therefor, they then do NOT GROW PROPERLY! Your comments are condeming our children, and all future children as well! YES!… YOU are most likely past the age where it matters much to YOU on a personal level. The old will die before the cancers can take them! SHAME ON YOU !!!
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I guess you don’t eat bananas, drink water, breath air… well this is awkward because your body is full of “hot” particles. Carbon-14 is naturally present in every part of your body.
It is amazing that the people who never evacuated from around Chernobyl are still alive. How did they manage that since a single “hot” particle will undoubtedly give you cancer, according to you.
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Kiev-UkrainianNationalChernobylMuseum_15.jpg
One of the harmless and non existent results of nuclear radiation on display in the Ukrainian National Museum in Kiev.
A result of the Chernobyl disaster.
So long as you have reactors in operation, you have a possiblity of releasing this kind of destruction on people and the environment again.
And the push to extend the life of current nuclear reactors well past the 30 to 40 year active use period they were designed for is only increasing the possiblity that such an occurance can happen again—exponentially.
Full description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
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History is littered with the rants of physicians, experts and paid shills upholding a status quo of monied interests of a poison industry, for instance; the tobacco companies, leaded gasoline and paint, asbestos products, mercury in dentistry, MSG; the list is very long, like a rat’s tail.
There is a study commencing soon in particular zones of radioactive exposure at nuclear power generating stations in the United States of America. True to form and as reliable as a rat in a cheese cooler, there has been little to no advance communication to the communities or physicians, population at large or the media. There is just no profit to be made by making a study sure to indict an industry too easy to participate for the clients.
My observation is this: I witnessed the tobacco lies and public domination of the issue by “media experts”, personalities of note, advertising groups, paid physicians as shills for a deadly industry, and I wonder how their lives concluded with the blood on their hands of millions of Americans who believed lies posed as truths by a company of willing participants dedicated to a status quo for reasons of job advancement, monetary gain or short term notoriety as a “spokesperson”, paid or not.
I invite those who have read this column, based on the pap derived from a wholly compromised United Nations department that is run under the complete control of the IAEA, to consider the source of the report. For the public information, the IAEA is an association that by the very charter has one clear and single mission – to promote and develop the atomic energy sector as the mission of the association, and there is no other overriding mission beyond advancing nuclear energy to the unwitting public. It is analogous to a Federal Reserve Bank perceived to be a “Department” of the United States of America’s Government, whereas the Federal Reserve has as much relation to the Federal Government as FedEx retains in the daily operations of its global delivery systems – nothing at all. The IAEA is currently directed by a “gentleman” from Japan who was the largest voice in the development and wholehearted push towards nuclear power generation in Japan, and could be considered partly to blame for the events that have occurred at Fukushima, where a fully functioning nuclear generating station became a smoking caldron of nuclear fuel within a minute of the 9.0 strike-slip fault incident that was said to be “inconsequential” in geologic terms for seismic activity, the same type of fault that riddles the base of SONGS and Diablo Canyon in California. The geologists are learning their science by the day in the days after the catastrophes at Fukushima, as related in a recent Los Angeles Times story on the new learning curve of geologists still pulling reams of data from the ongoing swarm of Pacific Rim quakes of late.
Please pay attention to the cancer studies about to commence in a nuclear zone near you, think back to the cigarette cancer studies of the 1960′s, and the voices who championed tobacco for the Corporate Tobacco companies, and ask yourself where this lie of immense proportions will go.
I believe the public is not stupid.
I believe I have said my piece. -
I’m quite sure the status quo in this instance is LNT. How about I turn your argument around and suggest that maybe the fossil fuel companies are funding disinformation about radiation and are continuing to push the false narrative that any dose of radiation is bad for you? Likely they understand that nuclear power is the only true opponent that could offset fossil fuel. Has this thought ever crossed your mind?
By the way, Fukushima was not hurt by the earthquake, like every single other nuclear plant on Japan. However, unlike every other nuclear plant in Japan, it was ill-prepared for the oncoming tsunami. But just a friendly reminder, the tsunami/earthquake killed 20,000 Japanese. The nuclear meltdown at Fukushima has yet to kill a single person due to the radiation release (and all studies point to either a very small amount of potential casualities, ~130, or none at all if we stop using the incorrect LNT hypothesis). Most of the exclusion zone’s radiation levels are far below the background levels found in Denver, Colorado. Why are we allowing people to live in Denver but not allowing people to move back to their homes in the exclusion zone?
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Please read the business section of any newspaper – this weeks observation in the Financial Times of London is: Banks are running away from investments in the energy sector, energy is just too inexpensive and there is no profit in the marketing of energy to the grid any longer. No swings, no variables in the price to hedge bets on. This also is indicative of the situation in the nuclear industry. There is already one plant,Kewaunee, closing next year as energy prices are too low to rationalize keeping a fully paid and amortized nuclear generating station open for business. Vermont Yankee may be the next as it is under study for the same closure reasons (Reuters-October 22, 2012 – Dominion Resources). Nuclear power is not profitable and unsustainable, illogical in the immense dangers it harbors in the design, and why would anyone take the chance of keeping a nuclear plant open when it is not economically viable? Fossil fuels are going to be around for a long time but in much more limited use, if the gears of progress can get turned a bit more rapidly by a Congress of clueless rabble and funds are steered to rebuilding an ancient broken grid to accept solar and wind sustainable energy input. All this is blocked by a standard of “baseload” capacity in an outdated grid and being abandoned in Germany and the EU countries looking to the future and renewable sustainable sources. Fossil fuel is known to be on the way out, all investment is going towards solar and wind, check Buffet’s ante into the renewable market.
The real and only valid reason to sustain nuclear power generating stations, and the reason Japan was forced to re-open a few (and to elect Abe as the cheerleader for the industry even though he will cause considerable blowback by his saber rattling at China and South Korea over Dokdo Islands) is that weapons-grade plutonium is not a natural resource and is only found in the waste material of nuclear generating stations. If Japan were to cease building nuclear spare parts and ham for the United States of America and the EU and western countries who depend on Japan for the re-supply, the balance of nuclear weapons will be held by the region that can resupply the other countries with spare parts to run their dangerous-poisonous and insane weapons materials supply houses called nuclear generating stations. Can anyone imagine why a simple chore of boiling water to turn a turbine is done with the most dangerous material on Earth? That is one hell of a way to boil water, and it is not safe. What is the rational choice when one is offered the options of a safer planet with no nuclear proliferation of both the weapons grade plutonium garnered from the energy production geologic-time-bombs themselves, or staying the course on the most insane technological hubris of Earth’s long history? Mankind can’t even address the mess he has made today, much less the mess he creates each day and hands forward 500,000 years to what ever is present (if anything more than a moonscape) of immensely poisonous radioactive waste. Civilization is surmised to be as much as 400,000 years old at the farthest reach, that means that human beings were merely learning to dwell in larger numbers than 40, the size of the largest hunter-gatherer families, and the expectation is of the “great minds” of today that something, someone, some memory of the insanely destructive poison set into a nuclear waste repository is going to be attended to for 100,000 years longer than the most basic rudimentary glints of civilization were ever conceptualized is actually an argument for defending a weapons supply industry poised as a boon to energy is simply laughable. But I’m not laughing. Few are. Most are scared of arguments based on innuendo and baseless claims that prosper on websites and commentary published and commented on at length, as now. -
Very well spoken, wheeze. It may be true that much of the public isn’t stupid, but unfortunately too many can’t be bothered to tax their brains a bit, weigh the evidence, and do a bit of critical thinking for themselves… and unfortunately these people become suckers for industry con artists like some on this forum.
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Can you quote any recent statement to back the words about “no earthquake damage”? The crock produced by TEPCO for the initial weeks of scrambling to comprehend the catastrophe was debunked by all the studies and the view now even from Japan is that the nuclear plant was not “destroyed” by a tsunami, but the plant was effectively rubble inside the reactor by the time the tsunami arrived. This has been proven and testimony by TEPCO workers on duty has nailed that argument shut. As for the remarkably simple ploy of “turning the argument around”, the fossil fuel industry is as destructive to our planet’s survival as the radiation that is teetering at spent fuel pool #4 at Fukushima is capable of in killing off a large proportion of life in the northern hemisphere if it is caused to explode by a collapse of the cooling pool. The “argument” is inane and has no business being offered.
Please comment with references, there is no argument to suggestions of inane context. -
———” The last of Japan’s 54 reactors (Tomari-3) went offline for maintenance on May 5, 2012.,[19] leaving Japan completely without nuclear-produced electrical power for the first time since 1970. Despite protests, on 1 July 2012 unit 3 of the Ōi Nuclear Power Plant was restarted.[20] As of September 2012, Ōi units 3 and 4 are Japan’s only operating nuclear power plants, although the city and prefecture of Osaka have requested they be shut down”———–
Only 2 reactors out of 54 currently operating nearly two years out from the disaster with none of the large scale black outs predicted by the industry.
Nuclear power, with all of its potential risk and expense, is not needed anyway.
Nuclear power in Japan is effectively dead in the water. Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark and other countries are either shut down now or will be by 2020.
Siemens AG—-the world’s largest builder of nuclear power plants and maintanence equipment is shutting down its nuclear power division to concentrate on renewable energy sources.
France, the most heavily nuclear dependent country has set a goal of replacing 25% of nuclear power capacity with renewable energy by 2020.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan
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James, have you been to the stricken areas around Fukushima, or even Japan, in the last year and nine months? Have you spoken to anyone who remains in or near Fukushima because they don’t have the resources to get out? Rather, because the Japanese government is too busy spending tax-payers’ money in a campaign to spread hundreds of tons of radioactive debris, resulting from the 311 disaster, ALL over the nation. They are presently paying 14 municipalities to burn this radioactive debris in incinerators previously used for regular waste. These incinerators are not filtered for radioactive isotopes. Radioactivity is then spewed into the environment, rained down on the people, into their streams, on their crops. The resultant ash, extremely concentrated and VERY radioactive, is then dumped into the ocean. This has been going on since Fall of 2011 with no regard to how it will affect the food supply. In fact, this is happening as far away from the stricken areas as Kitakyushu City, 1500km south of Fukushima, on the southern island of Kyushu.
I wonder who is feeding you your information. Please come clean for all in this forum. Have you been to Japan recently?
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If, James, you could begin to connect the dots, you would understand why tuna which has migrated from Japanese waters and measured to have the highest levels of radioactive Cesium ever, was fished off of the coast of San Diego in May of 2012.
In addition, local kelp from these same waters in San Diego, was found to be radioactive.
We know that internal contamination is where the most cellular damage is done. While the EPA and other regulatory agencies scoff at these discoveries, announcing “no immediate threat to the public”, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. We have a clear picture of how radioactive contamination accumulates in the environment.
I sincerely hope that you are able to stand by your claims in five years’ time.