By Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI) We are writing to express our concerns with a January 30, 2014 article by Rita F. Redberg and Rebecca Smith-Bindman. The article is alarmingly titled, “We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer”, and is accompanied by a frightening cartoon that appears to be a doctor holding an X-ray film, and…
The health effects of low level radiation are a continuing topic of conversation here and in many other places around the web. The Establishment view is known as the Linear No Threshold (LNT) assumption. Using that model, which was first applied to radiation standards development in 1956, every dose is assumed to impart risk to…
Hermann Muller, the 1946 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology and Medicine, insisted that there was no threshold of risk from ionizing radiation. His opinion has had a long lasting influence on standards for radiation dose. He was wrong. History is complicated. Influential people often impose their will with long-lasting results. The stories can be difficult…
World Nuclear News published an article titled Consistency required for Fukushima return that mentions several topics worth increased discussion. It mentions the report recently completed by the IAEA that complimented Japan on its efforts to decontaminate areas that were affected by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station radioactive material releases. Then it went on to…
There is a new group that you need to know about – Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information. Unlike another well known group that uses the word “scientists” in its title, the member list for this group includes a majority of people who actually have credentials and perform real, peer-reviewed research in the field in which…
Ionizing radiation is a known, studied and understood phenomenon to which the Precautionary Principle no longer applies. It is time to shift the paradigm that governs radiation exposure limits to a sensible standard of “As High As Relatively Safe” (AHARS). Aside: I’m crediting Dr. Wade Allison with the etymology of the term – AHARS. I…
Dr. Edward J. Calabrese is a professor of toxicology in the department of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has published more than 750 scholarly papers and 10 books. Here is a blurb from his bio page at the university. Over the past 20 years Professor Calabrese has redirected his research…
I’ve had a burning question for many months – “Why was DOE’s Low Dose Radiation Research program defunded?” For a variety of reasons, I was unable to set aside the time required to find the documentation I needed to be able to intelligently pose that question to Atomic Insights readers, a population that includes several…
By A. David Rossin, PhD The June 2013 issue of Nuclear News (page 35) carried an article under the heading “Performance Indicators—WANO/INPO 2012 data show reduced radiation exposure.” A pair of companion graphics titled “Collective Radiation Exposure” are presented, one for boiling water reactors and a similar one for pressurized water reactors. What for? Collective…
During the 1970s, the antinuclear movement made a collective decision to use “the waste issue” as a weapon to help force the eventual shutdown of the industry. Though the strategy has not succeeded in forcing any plants in the US to shut down, it has prevented a number of plants from being built. Ralph Nader,…
By A. David Rossin Internationally recognized radiation engineer Ted Rockwell raised more than a few eyebrows when he maintained, in the aftermath of the Fukushima catastrophe in Japan, that the fear of radiation does more harm than the radiation itself. Responsible health experts know that outside the plant boundaries, radiation levels are detectable but low,…
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…