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Radiophobia

Roger B
In his review of  ‘Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future’ in ET Vitali Vitaliev refers several times to the effects of low level radiation exposure including a quote “Ignorance about low-dose exposure is, I have argued, partly deliberate.”
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/03/book-review-manual-for-survival-a-chernobyl-guide-to-the-future/


I would rephrase that as “Ignorance about low-dose exposure is the greatest barrier to the development of clean reliable nuclear power”

There is quite a lot known about low dose exposure, most suggests that it is harmless, some suggests that it is beneficial/necessary. Quite a lot of effort has been put into trying to find harmful effects, so far without evidence.


High doses of radiation are definitely dangerous. 10 Sieverts (Sv) in one dose is Fatal. 4 Sv in one dose will require urgent medical treatment with a 50% chance of survival. 100 milli Sieverts (mSv) in one dose will increase the chance of cancer. This information all comes from high doses delivered over a short space of time, mostly from the atom bombs or radiation accidents.

The effects of low doses delivered over time are much less certain. Legislation is based on the Linear No Threshold theory (LNT) and Collective Dose. LNT is based on the assumption that the human response to radiation is linear down to zero dose. The only point of agreement between the pro and anti nuclear lobbies is that LNT is wrong. The anti nuclear lobby believes that the effect increase with low dose as this is the only way they can explain things like the Windscale/Selafield cancer cluster. The pro nuclear group believe that there is a threshold below which there are no harmful effects. Collective Dose is then based on LNT making the assumption that if 10 000 people receive a dose of 1 mSv that is a total dose of 10 Sv and one of them will die as a result.


The greatest problem with defining the effect of low doses delivered over time is natural background radiation. We are receiving natural radiation all the time from cosmic rays, naturally occurring radioactive materials in the ground and naturally occurring radioactive materials in our bodies (mostly potassium 40 and carbon 14). The dose received from this natural radiation varies widely from place to place due to the composition of the rocks and the height. The higher you are the higher the dose from cosmic rays. The dose is still higher if you fly. Typical doses range from 3 – 6 mSv per year. London is around 2 mSv per year, parts of Cornwall receive nearly 8 mSv per year. There are other areas of the world where the levels are much higher 50 mSv per year or more.

https://radwatch.berkeley.edu/dosenet/levels


If LNT is valid you would expect to find measurable health differences between high and low dose areas, especially as the doses vary by a factor of 10 or more. A lot of studies have been carried out but haven’t found significant, or even any, health differences.

Various people including Helen Caldicot and Chris Busby have tried to ‘prove’ that low doses have a larger effect. George Monbiot (much more green and left than me) got a surprise when he tried to investigate. In simple terms they were making it up as they went along.

https://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/22/how-the-greens-were-misled/

https://www.monbiot.com/2011/04/04/evidence-meltdown/


So to sum up Radiophobia has caused a huge amount of suffering and  a significant number of deaths due to the unnecessary evacuations at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Yes there were areas that needed to be evacuated, but they were very much smaller that the areas that were evacuated. Trying unnecessarily to decontaminate the areas to background levels just prolongs the agony for the evacuees. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35761136


Best regards

Roger

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    The anti nuclear lobby believes that the effect increase with low dose as this is the only way they can explain things like the Windscale/Selafield cancer cluster.






    I have a set of encylopedia from the early 1920s. Under Cancer it says: "...The theory that the disease is due to a parasite has been the subject of much investigation.. This view was held to be supported by the existence of districts in which cancer is especially prevalent and still more by 'cancer houses' that is, houses in which it was noticed that a sucession of deaths from cancer had occured". The article goes on to discount the parasite/contagion theories by the way.


    Clearly cancer clusters existed long before nuclear power, high voltage power lines or mobile phones.


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    It would be interesting to know where those clusters occurred, and if there was a common link, say, to geology (Radon) or successive generations being employed in local industries that, with today's hindsight, could be hazardous to health. Or even household tobacco use - the link between smoking and lung cancer was only a suspicion in the 40's, and the first real corroboration only came to light in the 50's, with formal reports only appearing in the late 50's and early 60's.
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    Howard,


    While it is possible that 'cancer clusters' had a cause my suspicion when I first read the encyclopedia entry was that random events often don't look random, particularly when they aren't many. Think of the roll of a die, after six throws the numbers one to six 'should' each have appeared once and 'certainly' no number should appear twice in succession, after all that is what a biased die would do! Perhaps you recall the early days of the National Lottery when certain 'skilled' individuals won more than once, but that is the way 'random' works.


    I don't know any more than was stated in the original article, it does say 'cancer houses', which I presume means individual houses scattered around the country. If a particular industry caused cancer then I would have thought 'cancer villages' would have been discovered in the same way that lung damage would be found grouped in a mining village, i.e. most workers in an industry living together. Given the need for good ventilation for coal-fired heating/cooking I would have thought radon would be unlikely to be a problem in the 1920s, but that is just a guess on my part.
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    There were/are other illnesses that congregated in certain locations. There was for instance, a village in the 70's that was termed by one newspaper as 'the village of the dammed' due to its higher than average proportion of people with Crohn's desease. whether that was caused through genetic weakness or an industrial process such as lead mining or gold purifying, chemical washing or possibly due to a concerntration of Low radioactivity effects zaping and then overstimulating the body's immune system is perhaps open to consideration.


    Legh
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    While local factors will undoubtedly produce local clusters the existence of a local cluster isn't proof of the existence of a local factor.


    It is part of human nature to look for patterns even when none exist. In general that seems to be a sensible strategy, it is after all the basis of science as there can't be a science if an outcome can't be predicted by observing the inputs.
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    James Shaw:

    While local factors will undoubtedly produce local clusters the existence of a local cluster isn't proof of the existence of a local factor.


    It is part of human nature to look for patterns even when none exist. In general that seems to be a sensible strategy, it is after all the basis of science as there can't be a science if an outcome can't be predicted by observing the inputs.




    It is unlikely that we'll get the proof before we've made a few enlightened guesses followed up with more experiementation. IMO, It is not the basis of science to look for patterns that don't exsist; but it is the basis of science to to follow hunches, make enlightened guesses, and discount false trails or patterns or even believe in things that to many people appear irrational and stupid.


    Legh

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    Legh Richardson:

    There were/are other illnesses that congregated in certain locations. There was for instance, a village in the 70's that was termed by one newspaper as 'the village of the dammed' due to its higher than average proportion of people with Crohn's desease. whether that was caused through genetic weakness or an industrial process such as lead mining or gold purifying, chemical washing or possibly due to a concerntration of Low radioactivity effects zaping and then overstimulating the body's immune system is perhaps open to consideration.


    Legh




    The old fear that there was something in the drinking water has been mainly disappeared with big water mains bringing water in from miles away.


    Our local water works cleaned up river water from the less than savoury Severn using sand filters and was treated with aluminium sulfate to help cleanse it leading to all sorts of health scares. 


    Andy 

  • 0
    Around the time of the Windscale/Sellafield cancer cluster there were two other significant clusters. The first, in Woburn Massachusetts, was put down to contamination of the groundwater by organic solvents from the dyeing  industry that used to be in the area. The source of drinking water was changed. The second was in Fallon Nevada which was a large US airbase. No actual cause was found but like Windscale it just went away.


    Best regards


    Roger

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