Dr. Kiyohiko Sakamoto – Low Dose Radiation Used as Cancer Treatment

Dr. Kiyohiko Sakamoto was one of the presenters at the American Nuclear Society 2012 Annual Meeting President’s Special Session on Low Level Radiation and Its Implications For Fukushima Recovery. The session organizers thought that his work on using whole body and half body radiation treatments to cure cancer and prevent recurrence was important enough to…

Radioactive Tuna versus Chemical Aftermath

In the past few days, both ad-supported commercial media and the social media universe have been filled with stories about how scientists on the US West coast were able to find traces of radioactive cesium and could conclusively link that cesium to the material released from the Fukushima nuclear power plants. Just in case you…

Linus Pauling Letter to President Kennedy about nuclear weapons testing

Linus Pauling was one of the most famous scientists of his era. In the period immediately following WWII, he became active in efforts to ban the bomb and stop atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Like Hermann Muller, he had no compunction against using inaccurate information about the health effects of radiation to instill sufficient fear…

Chernobyl & Fukushima – neither one caused much of a public health issue

The World Nuclear Association has posted a useful, but not terribly dramatic, video comparing the carefully studied health impacts of Chernobyl versus Fukushima. The primary lesson gleaned from post-Chernobyl analysis is that drinking milk that is heavily contaminated with I-131 can lead to an increased rate of thyroid cancer. That lesson was learned and mitigations…

Least informed piece on Fukushima yet

In the weeks leading to the one year anniversary of the demise of the Fukushima Daiichi power station, there have been a number of articles from the usual suspects that seek use the word “Fukushima” as a hypnotic code word that is supposed to result in fear and trembling. Individuals like Karl Grossman, Helen Caldicott…

Does radiation really cause cancer? Conversation among professionals

One of the privileges of being a long time pronuclear activist on the Internet – an activity that I have been enjoying since “atomicrod” started posting in USENET discussion groups in the early 1990s – is that I often see communications between talented, highly qualified professionals that include information that is not well distributed in…

Empowering a more prosperous world – one atom for peace at a time

I spent New Years Day 2012 engaged in an activity that reminded me how much fun it can be to rapidly consume energy for what some may consider to be a frivolous purpose. I joined a group of successful, relaxed and energetic members of the Smith Mountain Lake Water Ski Club to participate in the…

Radiation Doses – As Low As UnReasonably Achievable (ALAURA)

A friend tweeted a link to a terrific satire titled Roentgen Shrugged that was published in the March 2011 issue of Health Physics News. The piece describes what might happen to modern medical care in the foreseeable future if the radiation protection guild keeps ratcheting down allowable radiation dose exposure levels to an ever more…