LNT Archives - Atomic Insights

Petition – Stop wasteful practice of using LNT as basis for illogical regulations

Rod Adams · April 23, 2013 · 41 Comments

Though I am pretty skeptical about the value of the Whitehouse.gov petition system, I have been convinced that it might sometimes be a vehicle for starting an important conversation.

Recently, someone started a petition asking the Obama Administration to stop using the Linear, No-Threshold Dose response assumption as the basis for EPA regulations that set limits on low level radiation doses.

The silliness and wastefulness of our current regulatory regime using that basis is best demonstrated by the requirement to prove that no one would be exposed to more than 15 mrem (0.15 mSv)/year during the next 10,000 years as a result of long term storage of used nuclear fuel at a permanent repository. That dose is just 1/20th of the average background exposure for an American, even if you ignore the additional 300 mrem (3 mSv)/year that is added to the average as a result of medical treatments.

Please take a few minutes out of your day to go and sign the petition. Again, here is the URL Stop using linear no-threshold (LNT) model in EPA regulations. Recognize that there is a hormetic or threshold response at low doses (I have reworded the title; I think the existing one is not an accurate reflection of the petition itself.)

Hat tip to Andrea Jennetta, the publisher of Fuel Cycle Week and I Dig U Mining for convincing me that we need to squeak loudly about this issue. (I’m using the word “squeak” in the sense of “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.)

Evidence shows humans can tolerate FAR higher radiation doses than governments allow

Rod Adams · April 14, 2013 · 26 Comments

Dr. Jerry Cuttler has been concentrating his research on the health effects of low dose radiation for more than 15 years. The events at Fukushima and the human tragedy of the poor decision making both during and after the release of modest quantities of radioactive material have reinforced the importance of his work. Dr. Cuttler [...]

Dr. Edward Calabrese explains hormetic dose response model to Cato Institute

Rod Adams · March 28, 2013 · 40 Comments

On March 21, 2013, Ed Calabrese, professor of toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, gave a talk to Cato Institute titled A Looming Scientific Revolution in Environmental Regulation. During the talk he provided a brief history of dose response models, the evolution of regulations based on those models and then summarized his decades worth of [...]

Study of Port Hope radium and uranium processing workers shows longer lives

Rod Adams · March 15, 2013 · 44 Comments

The results of a study titled Mortality (1950–1999) and cancer incidence (1969–1999) of workers in the Port Hope cohort study exposed to a unique combination of radium, uranium and γ-ray doses have recently been published on BJM Open, which describes itself as follows: “An open access, online-only general medical journal dedicated to publishing research from [...]

Radiation Superstition

Guest Author · March 13, 2013 · 59 Comments

By Robert Hargraves Nearly a million people each year die of breathing particulates from burning coal; the climate temperature may increase 2°C this century; more than a billion people have no electricity. Yet within our reach is a solution to these global crises of increasing air pollution deaths, climate change, and the growing populations of [...]

Rockwell’s perspective on the history of nuclear power regulation

Rod Adams · January 28, 2013 · 5 Comments

Ted Rockwell has been an active participant in the development of nuclear energy production in the United States since the very earliest days of the technology. He started his nuclear career as an engineering troubleshooter in 1943 at the site that is now Oak Ridge National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project. He was one of [...]

Atomic Show #195 – Health effects of low level radiation

Rod Adams · January 14, 2013 · 36 Comments

On Sunday, January 13, 2013, I had a conversation with Dr. Jerry Cuttler and Dr. A. David Rossin. Each of these distinguished gentlemen has a long history of working with ionizing radiation and studying its biological effects on human beings. Dr. Jerry Cuttler earned his PhD in 1964. He has performed radiation research, designed radiation [...]

Understanding history of risk assessment models for chemicals and radiation

Rod Adams · January 9, 2013 · 38 Comments

Edward Calabrese has published a fascinating and terribly important paper in the University of Chicago Law Review titled US Risk Assessment Policy: A History of Deceptionthat needs to be widely distributed and discussed. Here is the quoted introduction: Strategies to limit the general public’s exposure to toxic substances—via national standards such as community-based drinking water [...]

Dr. Wade Allison – A revolution in radiation protection

Rod Adams · January 5, 2013 · 10 Comments

Dr. Wade Allison, author of Radiation and Reason, recently shared a short paper titled A revolution in radiation protection that would lead to safer and cheaper nuclear power. He described it as “reference light”, explaining that his intended audience for this work is not the journal-reading academic community but the kind of people who want [...]

Out of 110,645 Chernobyl clean up workers, 19 might have contracted radiation related leukemia

Rod Adams · November 9, 2012 · 14 Comments

On November 8, 2012, Environmental Health Perspectives, a monthly journal supported by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, published a report titled Radiation and the Risk of Chronic Lymphocytic and Other Leukemias among Chornobyl Cleanup Workers. The report details the final results of a [...]

Health effects of radiation – items that caught my attention

Rod Adams · October 2, 2012 · 18 Comments

A friend shared a link to a prize winning essay titled The path to reconstruction in Fukushima as seen through fieldwork in Eastern Japan. It was written by Jun Takada, Doctor of Science Professor, Sapporo Medical University. Here is a sample quote: Following the nuclear accident in Fukushima that occurred as a result of the [...]

Science Controversies and Print Edition Limitations – Jacobson versus radiation biology specialists

Rod Adams · July 25, 2012 · 9 Comments

Last week, Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, stepped way outside of his area of expertise by publishing a paper titled Worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident that claimed to quantify the number of cancers that may be caused by the radioactive material released [...]