During a recent conversation with a successful career employee of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the topic of radiation protection limits came up. He reminded me that the NRC’s role in radiation protection is limited to enforcing the standards that are set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In light of President-elect Trump’s statements about…
Computed tomography (CT) scans may be able do more than just take high resolution pictures inside human bodies. They might provide a useful treatment modality for certain neurodegenerative diseases. A recently published case report suggests that the adaptive response of a human immune system stimulated by a short series of standard, painless, simple to administer…
Biological Theory has published the equivalent of a “bunker buster” salvo in a decades-long war of words between scientists. On one side are people who believe that there is no safe dose of radiation. They assert that radiation protection regulations should continue using a linear, no threshold model. The other side includes those who say…
In my continuing efforts to produce a narrative about the way that the public was taught to be afraid of ionizing radiation, no matter how low the dose, I came across an interesting write up in the Rockefeller Foundation Annual Report for 1958. Here is some important temporal context. The Foundation Board of Trustees asked…
Many people have a strong fear of contracting “the big-C.” Though I share that concern based on my personal observation of too many loved ones who lost their battle with cancer, my personal nightmare disease is Alzheimer’s. It’s difficult as someone who thoroughly enjoys challenging mental activity to imagine the experience of slowly losing my…
Here’s an example of how Internet tools pose a challenge for nefarious government officials who want to make inconvenient information from programs initiated by predecessors “go away.” Low Dose Radiation Research Program Accomplishments Several months ago, I wrote some articles describing how the Department of Energy’s Low Dose Radiation Research program was systematically defunded and…
By Bill Sacks This is in response to Rosie Romero’s article in the January 27 issue of the GV News (p. B8), What you need to know about radon. It is wrong, just plain wrong. In the low concentrations encountered in homes, radon is not a cause of lung cancer, let alone “the second leading…
The Virginia Chapter of the American Nuclear Society will be holding its monthly meeting on January 21 at the Dominion Innsbrook Technology Center in Glenn Allen, VA. That meeting will be the annual joint meeting with the local chapter of the Health Physics Society. Schedule: Social Hour – 5:30 p.m. Dinner – 6:00 p.m. Presentation…
As a former federal agency bureaucrat, I should have thought of this long ago. When agencies disagree over matters with significant budgetary impact, one way to arbitrate the dispute is to involve the people in Congress who are responsible for funding the agencies and the programs affected by their differing points of view. One possible…
Three members of Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI)–Jeffry A. Siegel, Charles W. Pennington and Bill Sacks –successfully submitted a letter to the Reader’s Forum section of Physics Today titled Low-dose radiation exposure should not be feared. The letter has a powerful conclusion. Many people, though they admit the absence of evidence, nevertheless believe that…
Earlier today, I found a link in one of my news feeds to a December 14, 2015 MarketPlace story titled A Natural Gas Leak With Seemingly No End. It describes an event near a community called Porter Ranch in Los Angeles county, California that has been in progress since October 23, 2015. Here is the…
The below is an improved version of a comment that I posted on the NRC blog titled Examining the Reasons for Ending the Cancer Risk Study. It was composed in response to accusations from a person named Gary Morgan who stated that I had attacked Greg Jaczko, misunderstood the biological nature of radiation, and promoted…