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…
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…
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…
The leaders of Virginia Uranium need to talk with the leaders of the North Carolina Granite Corporation. VA Uranium is seeking to obtain permission to mine its granite formation while NC Granite is the current operator of a granite quarry that has been in continuous operation since 1889. If you will forgive the obvious pun,…
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…
By Engineer-Poet What’s this stuff called radiation? What’s it doing here? People make a big sensation, want us all to fear. With Japan so far away, why do they raise alarm? Is there cause for great emotion, can it cause you harm? “Radiation” as a noun means “what is radiated” Radio is radiation, be it…
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, 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…
An article posted on Wired.co.uk titled Japan’s new government to ‘consider’ more nuclear power indicates that the author is almost surprised to hear that the recently elected Japanese government is considering the construction of new nuclear power plants. While it may be understandable for the Japanese people to turn against nuclear power, there are several…
In the 21 months since three the fuel cores in three nuclear reactors melted at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, there has been a substantial investment made in learning lessons from the event. Nuclear trained people are members of a learning community, we generally try to make sure that we do not waste any…
On December 21, 2012, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) blog posted a letter from Chairman Macfarlane titled A Visit to Japan: Reflections from the Chairman. She has recently returned from a trip to Japan and a visit to the evacuated areas near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Here are her concluding thoughts: On…
Andrew Schorr, the founder and host of Patient Power, interviewed Dr. Anton Hagenbeek of the University Medical Center Utrecht Netherlands about the result of clinical trials of radioimmunotherapy (RIT) to combat follicular lymphoma. The treatment uses a monoclonal antibody that is covalently bound to Y-90, which is a beta emitter. The monoclonal antibody selectively binds…