Atomic Insights has posted a number of articles about the health effects of low dose radiation that question the continuing use of the linear no-threshold dose response assumption. Those posts often attract passionate defenders of the status quo and occasionally stray into nastiness at the very idea of questioning the validity of regulatory standards based on the “no safe dose” extension of the linear theory.
I’m aware that my posts about LNT get shared in other forums and that the discussions there can get even more nasty. In fact, I was recently called “the evil criminal Rod Adams” in a Facebook group whose main mission, ironically enough, is to question the effects of fossil fuel mining and hydrocarbon consumption. My alleged criminal offense, apparently, was writing about the hormetic effect of chronic exposure to low dose radiation at a rate low enough to allow biological repair mechanisms to not only work, but to be stimulated into better than normal activity.
I try to make it clear in my posts on the topic that I am acting as technically competent writer who has read other people’s work and formed an opinion based on that work; I have not conducted original research in this area.
Many of the people who resist any challenge to the LNT assumption proclaim that there is either no evidence of the positive effects or state that the evidence is insufficient for a variety of reasons.
Since it is important to get this right, you would think that there would be substantial interest and support for radiation biology research so that more evidence can be developed. You would be wrong.
You might be surprised to find out that the Department of Energy’s low dose radiation research program, started in earnest more than a decade ago, has been essentially defunded.
However, before that happened, there were some intriguing results being reported. In January, I received the following announcement:
Hello everyone,
I thought I should share this exciting news with you. As some of you may know, my group at the Berkeley Lab has been measuring the impact of DNA damage on human cells for many years (http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2011/12/20/low-dose-radiation/) and we have a good processing and bioinformatic pipeline to do high throughput quantification of DNA damage in individuals from blood cells.
We patented a lot of this process and we are now in beta-phase to deploy this kit to the public. We have taken care of all ethical regulations such as IRB, so anyone who wants to use our kit can simply sign a consent form when receiving the kit. We are currently doing a large online outreach to let people test the kit: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/exogen-bio-how-damaged-is-your-dna.
I believe this technology would be very helpful in dissipating fears from radiation. Indeed, what we observed so far is that damages from simple exercise such as running (oxidative stress) can be higher than damages from significant doses of ionizing radiation (10 mGy). Having this kit available to nuclear workers, radiologists or pilots, would allow these workers to get a readout of their biological dose before and after exposure. Do we see an accumulation of DNA breaks in these groups of people? Or are they in fact adapting to DNA damages, showing lower levels of damage?
If you are interested, the company is willing to create a cost effective package to monitor workers and make it available online during our campaign. So, feel free to contact me and forward this to anyone else who would be interested in launching a monitoring program with us!
All the best,
Sylvain
—-
Sylvain Costes, Ph.D.
CEO and co-founder
Exogen Biotechnology Inc.
Group Leader at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
I sent the below note to Dr. Costes to learn more about the effects of the elimination of the low dose radiation research program. The resort to crowd funding at indigogo was a little disturbing, considering the potential value of continuing the research. (By the way, the total low dose radiation research program funding, even at its peak was only about $28 million per year.)
Dr. Costes
This is exciting news.
I have some follow up questions. It is my understanding that your lab’s research was at least partially funded by the DOE’s low dose radiation research program.
How did the decision to close that program and remove its funding affect your continuing efforts? Did you reach a conclusion before the funding was eliminated or were there still productive and promising research paths remaining to be explored?
Dr. Costes responded almost immediately with the following:
Dear Rod,
The low dose program is continuing with much lower funds. We are still publishing on the topics and part of the technology we just launched at Exogen was born from this funding…
I could point you to our recent publications if you are interested.
My response on January 29, 2014, as shown below, apparently got buried in Dr. Costes’s inbox. Unfortunately, I can be a little overwhelmed myself at times, so I neglected to follow through.
Sylvain:
Please point me to your recent publications.
Can you explain how the much lower funds have affected the pace of your work? Are you concerned about repercussions?
Rod
Yesterday, I received the following, somewhat depressing response.
Hi Rod,
Sorry, I just realized that I never replied. Publications have gone down, mainly because we are too busy writing grants. Competition is unbelievable.
Funding has been cut and seems to continue going down for radiation biology. I think repercussions will be terrible and we are on the verge of losing many young scientists in this field. Quite unfortunate.Recent publications:
http://biocomp.lbl.gov/publications.htmlAll the best,
Sylvain
If you recognize the importance of replacing the LNT assumption as the basis of radiation regulations, please write a letter to your representative and your senator informing them about the importance of federally-funded research in this important area. Regulations that acknowledge that there are safe doses of radiation have the potential to save taxpayers many billions of dollars in site clean up, to save many billions more in nuclear waste repository costs, and to enable hundreds of billions in new business in radiation-related technologies in energy and life saving medical treatments.
Even if you think that there is nothing wrong with the LNT, please support the basic research needed to move that model from being just an assumption and a conservative basis for regulation to being something that can be proven — or disproven — by accurate data.
Since nuclear energy and other radiation-related technology have been under severe attack from competitive technologies for the past 50 years, I am suspicious of the motivations that led to decision to defund the program. A $28 million program is essentially decimal dust within the $30 billion or so that the DOE spends every year, much of which goes to cleaning up former weapons sites to radiation contamination levels set at fractions of normal background under the “no safe dose” assumption.
That clean-up spending is income for some politically well-connected corporations and states. As Ted Rockwell said, “That money does not disappear into a rat-hole. It winds up in rats’ pocket.”
Fascinating post.
I would be very much interested in more information about the oxidative stress due to running as compared to the stress from absorption of ionizing radiation. My question for the doctor would be:
“How many miles of running delivers as much stress as absorbing 10 mGy of radiation, and are these two types of stress equal as risk factors for developing cancer?”
Radiation biology has the potential to teach us about the nature of radiation. Education frees us from fears of unknown and unseen forces. China is moving ahead of us on a number of fronts in the application of nuclear fission to clean domestic energy. It is too bad that we are immobilized by fear. Check this report on progress in China on thorium reactors.http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100026863/china-going-for-broke-on-thorium-nuclear-power-and-good-luck-to-them/.
Dr. Costes presented at my dose response meeting (same one that Dr. Ron Mitchel presented at and which was posted on this site). Super nice guy doing very good research. He told me of the career dangers of talking about hormesis within certain groups of professionals. He said how liberating it was to be in a group of guys receptive to hear about his work.
@Cory Stansbury
We should do everything we can to resist living in a world where people who are conducting scientific research or discussing scientific topics get shouted down and are made to be fearful of speaking up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rW-EwP-DNE
Starting at 12:40.
Paraphrasing: “Former president of the HPS wants all board members supportive of a hormetic model to stand for re-election.”
We are already there. There are a number of incontrovertible facts (mostly but not all in the social sciences) which are utterly taboo. Researchers face dismissal for uttering anything in plain language. Research continues to be done in these areas, but it can only be written about in highly technical terms which are opaque to journalists and activists (sorry for the redundancy there).
True leadership would require all research money to be funnelled into irritable bowel syndrome and wind mills. Seriously.
Indeed, from a true and inspiring story on vision from Senator Reid.
‘Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid once urged Defense Secretary Robert Gates to spend taxpayer money on researching irritable bowel syndrome.
Gates revealed the strange request in his new memoir, “Duty,” writing that Reid made the plea while the military was fully engaged in two ongoing wars.
“With all the major issues we had to deal with, my personal contacts with Senate Majority Leader Reid were often in response to his calls about Air Force objections to construction of a windmill farm in Nevada because of the impact on their radars,” Gates wrote.
“He also once contacted me to urge that Defense invest in research on irritable bowel syndrome,” Gates continued.
“With two ongoing wars and all our budget and other issues, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
Read more here : http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/16/gates-book-harry-reid-asked-pentagon-to-research-irritable-bowel-syndrome/#ixzz2wWYJ0pux
Here is the link :
http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/16/gates-book-harry-reid-asked-pentagon-to-research-irritable-bowel-syndrome/
Lamar Smith is the top guy on the House Science Committee. He was a cool guy when I talked to him a long ways back in DC. The guy realizes that he is there to help you, some of the other pols are crazy arrogant. He would be the guy to talk to.
He is the guy who is currently trying to force the EPA’s office or air and radiation (where the fake CIA officer Beale was in charge of) to have scientific justification for its regulations. He is also trying to make the EPA release its reasoning behind regulations to the public. He is one of the people in Congress who actually wants to get things done.
Considering the fact that the argument that radiation levels several times below background hurt you has no scientific basis whatsoever but considerably adds to the cost of nuclear power because of said nonsensical regulations, he would be open to scientific study.
He is in charge of the division of scientific research too as overall head of the committee, one word from him to the DOE could reverse this. Go ahead and call him, staff members take note of stuff like that. If anyone is in DC, try to get some face time.
Washington, DC Office
2409 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
phone: 202-225-4236
fax: 202-225-8628
hours: M-F 9-5:30pm
Fortunately I live in his district, so I will be emailing him. It is set up to only respond to his constituents though. Understandable after the health care craze.
Here is the email I just sent, I will post if he replies.
As someone who has in interest in the radiation field I was somewhat shocked to see the steady decrease in funding at the Department of Energy for radiation biology. This is especially in light of the fact that many of the regulations for radiation are so conservative to the point that they have little relationship to real risks.
The current regulatory regulatory bureaucracy use of the linear no threshold hypothesis for radiation can be partially justified by the lack of scientific knowledge in the field, especially at low doses. Unfortunately due to political factors these regulations have increased costs and hindered businesses/innovation. The understanding of radiation is the most important challenges facing NASA as far as a manned Mars mission. Research reactors like where I used to work are an integral part of oil/gas, refining and medical/cancer industries.
Every day I would walk by scientific studies with advanced microscopes on radiation effects that contradicted the so called scientific basis for many of the regulations that burden the nuclear and radioisotope industries. Until any of these regulations can be changed there has to be both political will to listen to the scientists instead of Greenpeace and well researched justification for the replacement.
I thought that in your position on the House Science Committee you would restore funding so that this research could be continued. While it is well known that radiation can cause DNA strand breaks, oxidative stress from things like running can do the same. UC Berkeley set up a kit to measure the relative effects on the human body to determine more realistic comparisons. They actually have to use crowd-sourced funding from indiegogo to keep their research going.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/exogen-bio-how-damaged-is-your-dna
I would like to hear your thoughts on this subject and share them with some of my engineering associates on a couple blogs, like atomic insights.
http://atomicinsights.com/radiation-biology-funding-disappearing/
My email is tautedaniel@yahoo.com.
Thank you for your time, I think you are doing good work from what I have been reading in the newspapers. While there are many nice people at the EPA, the regulatory system leaves much to be desired.
Daniel Taute
http://lamarsmith.house.gov/issues/science-technology
Rod, Your email address didn’t work so I using this comment space to respond about my reprint rights.
Rod, thanks for your interest in my essays. Atomic Incites played no small part in the development of the position which I present.
The Agora editor takes the position that as author, I own the reprint rights.
Agora would appreciate being cited as the source. The reference to Part I,
Agora – Luther College in Conversation, Fall 2011, 24 (1), 24-29.
Part II reference, Agora – Luther College in Conversation, Spring 2012, 24(2),20-26.
@John Tjostem
Thank you.
By the way, I think you might have had a Freudian slip in your comment. This site provides “Insights,” though occasionally the conversation here “Incites” some to engage in passionate debate. 🙂
I noticed that slip. I wasn’t planning a riot, but sometimes when LNT is being pushed I might want to create one.
Lets all embrace communism. Its all thats left.
ROD – possible new blog topic.
You need to take a closer look at exactly how the EPA is doing things today. Funny that one of the commenters here mentions the “phony CIA officer at EPA.” Seems he does not have a degree, was in a very senior level salary wise and was working on very important regulations regarding killing coal through EPA regulations. Kind of like all of the changers they mad in the IRS rules “under the radar” and “off calendar” so that reporting, and sunshine requirements were not invoked (which the NRC is also good at.) He probably had a hand in the recent EPA changes to the radiation requirements also, don’t know, just guessing.