Episode 10 — Hormesis: How Radiation is Good for You — Unintended Consequences — Chapter 4, Part 2
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, MD PhD, DSc, former Chairman of the United Nationals Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCLEAR):
“What is really surprising, however, is that data collected by UNCLEAR and the Forum show 15% to 30% fewer cancer deaths among Chernobyl emergency workers and about 5% lower solid cancer incidences among the people on the Bryansk district (the most contaminated in Russia) in comparison with the general population. In most irradiated group of these people (mean dose of 40 mSv) the deficit of cancer incidence was 17%.”
Because of their daily exposure to low levels of radiation, which seems to stimulate the DNA repair system, nuclear power plant workers get one third fewer cancers than other workers. They also lose fewer workdays to accidents than office workers.
Knowing this, it is not surprising that, when steel containing cobalt-60 was used to build Taiwan apartments, which exposed 8,000 people to an additional 400 mSv of radiation during some twenty years, cancer incidence was sharply down, not up 30% as Linear No Threshold Theory would have predicted.Instead, the residents’ adaptive response to low- level radiation seems to have provided health benefits. The following chart reveals lower cancer rates for those who receive extra low-level radiation vs. those who only get background radiation.
The USA de-funded low dose radiation studies that would have disproved No Threshold Theory.
Dr. Doug Boreham, Norther Ontario School of Medicine — Radiation, space travel and hormesis
In 2015, a study of bacteria grown at a dose rate 1/400 of normal background radiation yielded a reduction in growth, but when the cells were returned to normal background radiation levels, growth rates recovered. The conclusion: Insufficient radiation can yield harmful results.
Life Needs (Some) Radiation — Deep in the Earth, a series of experiments is revealing how life suffers when it’s deprived of background levels of radiation.
Therefore, it seems reasonable that radiation limits should be the same regardless of the source of the radiation. Nevertheless, nuclear plants are held to a standard 100 times higher than coal plants, which actually emit more radiation than nuclear power plants. Per unit of electricity created, the fly ash emitted by a coal power plant exposes the environment to 100 times more radiation than a nuclear plant’s on-site-stored spent fuel — it’s so-called “waste”, 90% of which can be consumed in modern reactors. (Granite buildings irradiate their occupants more than nuclear power plants.)
In 2004, the Radiation Research Society published the Mortality Experience amongst U. S. Nuclear Workers after Chronic Low-Dose Exposure to Ionizing Radiation:
“Workers employed in fifteen utilities that generate nuclear power in the U. S. have been followed for up to 18 years between 1979 and 1997.
“Their cumulative dose from whole body radiation has been determined from records maintained by the facilities and by the Nuclear Regulatory Comm. and the Energy Department.
“Mortality in the cohort … has been analyzed with respect to individual radiation doses. The cohort displays a very substantial healthy worker effect, i.e. considerably lower cancer and non-cancer mortality than the general population.”
The largest circle (red) represents a radiotherapy tumour dose;
The green circle is a recoverable dose to normal tissue near the tumour;
The dark green circle is a dose with a 100% safety record.
The tiny black dot in the smallest circle represents the limit recommended by current regulations due to LTN.
In Radiation and Health, Hendrickson and Maillie wrote “…during radiation therapy for cancer, we’ve learned that chromosome damage to lymphocytes can be reduced by up to 50% if a small dose is given to the cells a few hours before the larger ‘cancer-killing’ dose is administered.”
Kerala
In the southwest Indian state of Kerala, children under five have the lowest mortality rate in the country, and life expectancy is 74 despite background radiation rates that can range as high as 30 times the global average.
What can we learn from Kerala?
For thousands of years, Keralites have lived with radiation three times the level that caused the evacuation at Fukushima, where the limit was, on July, 2016, just 20 mSv. In contrast, some sections of Kerala experience 70 mSv, with a few areas measuring 500 — and many Keralites also eat food that is five times as radioactive as food in the United States.
Despite these radiation levels, cancer incidence in Kerala is the same as the rate in greater India, which is about 1/2 that of Japan’s and less than a third of the rate in Australia. As the linked article says, “Cancer experts know a great deal about the drivers of these huge differences, and radiation isn’t on the list.”
In Kerala, scientists have been working with a genuinely low rate of radiation exposure that mirrors what would have been the case in Fukushima if the Japanese officials hadn’t panicked and needlessly evacuated so many thousands of people.
So, why did they? Partly from fear, but primarily because most radiation protection standards have been derived from LNT bias and studies of Japanese atomic bomb victims who received their dose in a very short time, and being bombed is very different from living for years with a slightly higher radiation level.
Kerala also confirms our modern knowledge of DNA repair- namely that radiation damage is not cumulative at background dose rates up to 30 times normal, and that 70 mSv over a lifetime does nothing. In fact, the concepts of an “annual dose” or a “cumulative dose” are misleading. Instead, evidence reveals that an annual exposure to 100 mSv is comparable to a dose of zero because it doesn’t exceed a person’s capacity for repair.
In the past, when experts discussed these issues they couldn’t consider delivery rates or DNA repair because the power and mechanisms of DNA repair were not known until long after Muller’s LNT theory became dogma. As a consequence, the suffering caused by this obsolete “science” has been immense. (UK radiation expert Malcolm Grimston has characterised the Fukushima evacuation as being “stark raving mad”).
When the Japanese government lifted the evacuation orders because the radiation level had dropped to 20 mSv, 80 % of the residents refused to return because of their fear of radiation despite the fact that the most highly irradiated areas near the plant received only 1/5 of the lowest dose linked to a detectable increase in cancer. (At Guarapari beach in Brazil, residents often bury themselves in sand that yields 340 mSv without ill effect.)
We should be concerned about genuinely dangerous isotopes, but we shouldn’t waste energy and money cleaning up minor radioactivity that doesn’t do anything — but that is what we are doing.
Despite our learning that our cells have amazing repair abilities, LNT advocates still create the radiophobia that caused the extreme evacuations at Fukushima and the flood of needless, fear-induced European abortions that followed Chernobyl. In my opinion, people who refuse to examine the evidence that negates this discredited illusion have abandoned their integrity.
October, 2020. New U.S. Department of Energy research indicates that at low doses, biological reactions are often unrelated to those that occur at high levels. The influential Linear-No-Threshold model, which predicted that acute exposure damage can be extrapolated linearly to low dose exposures — was flawed. In fact, small amounts can have an adaptive positive effect. In addition, it appears that cells communicate with each other and a dose to one affects the cells around it.
The LNT model for cancer induction is not supported by radiobiological data
LOW DOSE RADIATION — The History of the U.S. Department of Energy Research Program
As others have noted, not knowing the truth doesn’t make us ignorant, but not wanting to know the truth most certainly will.
Coming up next week, Episode 11 — Fear Kills, Radiation Doesn’t
Links and References
1. Next Episode — Episode 11 — Fear Kills, Radiation Doesn’t
2. Previous Episode — Episode 9 — Our Natural DNA Repair Capabilities
3. Launching the Unintended Consequences Series
4. Dr. George Erickson’s Website, Tundracub.com
5. The full pdf version of Unintended Consequences
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Jaworowski
7. https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2879
8. http://www.falloutradiation.com/files/HPANSpresentation.pdf
9. https://europepmc.org/article/pmc/pmc4975094
10. https://atomicinsights.com/low-dose-radiation-research-program-defunded-2011/
11. https://www.academia.edu/4637793/Adaptive_Response_to_Low_Dose_Radiation
12. https://www.ans.org/news/article-2875/national-academies-steers-lowdose-radiation-research-in-a-new-direction/
13. https://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Radiation_definitions.html
14. http://www.falloutradiation.com/files/HPANSpresentation.pdf
15. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/life-without-radiation/
16. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/15020740-analysis-mortality-experience-amongst-nuclear-power-industry-workers-after-chronic-low-dose-exposure-ionizing-radiation
17. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/radiation-and-health/nuclear-radiation-and-health-effects.aspx
18. https://www.amazon.com/Radiation-Health-Thormod-Henriksen-ebook/dp/B08LGH82MS
19. https://goo.gl/maps/6tC88EYMQNoPLyy9A
20. https://bravenewclimate.com/2015/01/24/what-can-we-learn-from-kerala/
21. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mediaguide/index.asp?PeopleID=254
22. https://wsupress.wsu.edu/product/low-dose-radiation/
23. https://www.britannica.com/event/Fukushima-accident
24. https://www.dedoimedo.com/physics/banana-radioactive.html
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