From the “I thought sure Fukashima was going to kill me” department
Oxford Martin restatement finds that risks from radiation exposure are extensively studied and small relative to smoking, obesity and air pollution
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Human populations have always been exposed to ionizing radiation, and more so in modern life due to its use in medicine, industry and the armed forces. Whilst the risks to human health from medium and high-level radiation are relatively well-understood, the risks at lower levels are less clear. Mixed messages about the safety of low doses of radiation from different sources have created confusion for the public and for policy makers.
In a new study, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, a team of experts from the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford have compiled the evidence on health risks from low-level ionizing radiation, adding a new nuance to the debate. The restatement is intended to better inform policy decisions and show where crucial gaps in knowledge lie. It clarifies the scientific evidence available from a variety of sources, and ranks them as to how much they enjoy consensus support from the scientific community. The paper concludes that the overall risk to human health from low-level radiation exposure is small, particularly when compared with general risks from modern society, such as obesity, smoking and air pollution.
Professor Angela McLean, lead author and Co-Director at the Oxford Martin Programme on Collective Responsibility for Infectious Disease, said: ‘We know a great deal about the health risks from radiation thanks to exceptionally careful studies of groups of people exposed to different levels from nuclear bombs or accidents, medical exposure of patients, naturally occurring sources (such as radon), and workers in the nuclear industry and medicine. From these studies it is clear that moderate and high doses of radiation increase the risk of developing some types of cancer.’
The team illustrate the size of this increase in risk by using the following example. 100 individuals were each briefly exposed to 100 mSv (millisievert is the measure of radiation dose), then, on average over a lifetime, one of them would be expected to develop a radiation-induced cancer, whereas 42 of them would be expected to develop cancer from other causes. To put 100 mSv in context, the low dose from a CT scan of the whole spine is 10 mSv, while the average dose from natural background radiation in the UK is 2.3 mSv each year.
To build on the insights gained from this study, further research will be conducted to better understand the genetic healthcare implications of radiation exposure and the biological basis of the damage from radiation to DNA and cells.
Professor McLean said; ‘Despite the depth of our knowledge, there are still many unknowns. Even the best designed epidemiological study finds it hard to distinguish between no extra risk and a small additional risk at low levels of exposure and we have to make some important assumptions here, particularly for the purposes of radiation protection. For example, no human study has conclusively shown an increase in hereditary disease in the children of irradiated parents, but radiation protection calculations assume some risk is present because of evidence from large animal experiments.
‘There is also a great deal of work being undertaken to investigate the biological basis of the damage from radiation to DNA and cells, but it is still not clear precisely the steps by which a dose of radiation might lead to cancer, sometimes decades later’.
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NOTES TO EDITORS:
The full paper, “A restatement of the natural science evidence base concerning the health effects of low-level ionizing radiation” can be downloaded at http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/policy/restatements/.
I am an extreme datum ~3 REM O.W.B.E. in G. Matanoski NSWS 1991 and am personally confident of radiation hormesis. I am 69 y.o.with no notable health issues.
Coincidentally, Oxford Martin Restatement 5: A restatement of the natural science evidence base concerning the health effects of low-level ionizing radiation.
http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/view/2583. FREE Open Access full text download there.
The correct spelling is ‘Fukushima’.
The correct spelling uses Kanji. Everything else is an approximation.
Ionization by galactic radiation above 10 km is growing rapidly. This has a big impact on the chemical reactions in the ozone zone.
http://sol.spacenvironment.net/nairas/Dose_Rates.html
The current figures below show the NAIRAS prediction of the radiation exposure quantity related to biological risk – Effective dose rate (uSv/hr) – at several altitudes and flight paths. To put the exposure rates into perspective, one chest X-ray is about 100 uSv, and a CT scan is about 8,000 uSv.
The success of the scientific community in forcing acceptance of LNT, an abundantly disproved and meaningless fallacy, as institutionalised dogma for political ends, is probably what gave them confidence to do the same thing with CAGW.
It is possible that “Sy computing September 14, 2017 at 10:56 am” has come upon the reason for a fact that puzzled Hans Eysenck, the great British (by adoption) psychologist. Sy said:
“On a more serious note, it seems that depends on the fertilizer used to grow the plant (whatever plant you choose to grow):” and proceeded to give info suggesting that the fertilizer is contaminated with polonium 210, this is deposited on the leaves and absorbed through the roots, and when the leaves are subsequently smoked some of the polonium is absorbed via the lungs.
Eysenck stated “It was well known that smoking cigars showed much lower correlations with lung cancer and other diseases that did smoking cigarettes, and it is also known, of course, that the tobacco which goes into cigars is cured in a different way to that which goes into cigarettes. Cigarette tobacco is flue-cured, whereas cigar tobacco is sun-cured. Interestingly enough, the tobacco in the countries where there seemed to be little cigarette-linked lung cancer was also sun-cured rather than flue-cured. Sun-cured tobacco might therefore be safer than flue-cured tobacco, but there is no direct empirical evidence for this.”
I assume that ‘flue-cured’ tobacco is only subjected to hot air and heat from the outer surfaces of the flues and is not subjected to the smoke from inside the flues – which would provide an obvious source of carcinogenic material on the tobacco. That said, there should be no obvious reason to suppose that the curing method affected the carcinogenic make up of the tobacco.
However, flue curing is more likely to be used when there is more money available for the construction of the curing facilities, and likely there is likely to be more money available for fertilizer. So where sun-curing is used, there would be little or no fertilizer used, and little or no contamination with Polonium 210. [A case of the correlation between A and B being the result of correlation of both A and B with C – C being not normally considered as a cause.]
I suppose it would be possible for a cigarette manufacturer to experiment with flue-cured crops which had not been fertilized with phosphate based fertilizers, and subsequently to ascertain whether or not there was any difference in the rate of carcinomas between tobacco from the non-fertilized fields and that from fertilized fields. [Those poor smoking mice!] But that is probably too much to hope for, and anyway the establishment has got it firmly fixed that ‘smoking causes lung cancer’, so it would take absolutely no notice of results. [We known what the theory says, don’t confuse us with facts.] As Eysenck said: “I had not reckoned with the hostility of the medical establishment to the introduction of new and disturbing ideas.”
That last sentence is taken from page 173 of “Rebel with a cause: The autobiography of Hans Eysenck”. The large quotation above in my third para is taken from page 174 of his book, published by W H Allen and Co Plc, 1990.
The is such a thing as zero actual risk. If your exposure is zero your risk is zero.
My risk of cancer from smoking is zero because I do not smoke. Unless you work at a nuke plant, your exposure to radiation to radiation from the plant is zero.
Ever notice fear mongers are never so afraid of radiation that actually bother to measure radiation.
I am afraid of fires and carbon monoxide. I have multiple detectors in our motor home and have installed them in our children’s house. I test them regularly.
The largest risk factor for cancer is living longer. So I can reduce my risk of cancer by dying in a fire.
We study risk so we can live longer. This why it is important understand actual risk.
For example last time I bought diesel fuel in Oregon, I was asked to turn of the frig in the motor home because it is an ignition source. In Oregon, an attendant must pump your gas but the customer can pump diesel.
So recently a motor home went of in flames at a gas station. This points out the risk of ignition sources at gas stations.
The other side of risk is benefit. The risk of eating is choking to death. Of course if you do not eat you will die. This will reduce your risk of dying of cancer.
The other part of risk is how big it is. The goal of risk reduction is to make risk insignificant. If the risk of dying is less than one in a million, we say the risk insignificant. This does not mean that one in a million will die, just that it is a small number compared other risks.
The risk from radiation is insignificant. Debating how insignificant is kind of silly.
Comparing the lung cancer incidence with home radon concentrations is fascinating. Looks to me like radon protects against lung cancer.