Center for Reactor Information

Radiation and Common Sense

Robert E. Boyar, Retired
Argonne National Laboratory
Prepared September 1997

Abstract

There are no data that support a linear inference of harm from nuclear radiation down to zero effect at zero dose. The data indicate that people would live longer and healthier lives if they received a little more radiation, not less.

The news and entertainment media have made politically correct the idea that radiation exposure is harmful at all levels. This is commonly known as the zero-threshold theory, which states that there are no effects at low doses that cannot be predicted from observations at high doses. Although the proposition seems intuitively reasonable, there are no data whatever to support a linear inference down to zero effects at zero dose.

The committees that set radiation standards know that there are no such data. The problem arises when information on the effects of low-dose radiation is misstated, intentionally or not, and the media report low-level effects as harmful.

I was interested to learn recently that a brochure from the “Famous Merry Widow Health Mine” in Basin, Montana, says this: “The health benefits of the Merry Widow Mine to sufferers of arthritis, migraine, eczema, asthma, hay fever, psoriasis, allergies, diabetes and other ailments was discovered in 1952. The benefits and relief are due to radon gas.” Most of us would dismiss this as unsupported hype, and we'd be right. However, pronouncements of zero threshold for harm from low levels of radioactive radon have even less scientific evidence to support them than does the hype from the Merry Widow Mine.

Scientists are becoming increasingly convinced that regulations based on the no-threshold theory are “protecting” the citizenry from something that not only is not harmful, but is actually beneficial to human health. This is called “radiation hormesis.” Examples of hormesis—good effects from low doses even when high doses are bad—abound when you look for them: alcoholic beverages, anaesthetic gases, antibiotics, barbiturates, caffeine, salicilates, and some toxic metals, to name a few. As Paracelsus put it in 1567, “The dose makes the poison.”

What sort of evidence for radiation hormesis is there? First of all, there is of course no doubt that high doses of radiation can be very harmful. In the neighborhood of Chernobyl, for instance, thyroid cancers have developed in people who were children at the time and who, during the first few weeks after the accident, consumed food that was contaminated with radioactive iodine, resulting in high radiation doses to the thyroid. (Fortunately, thyroid cancer can be successfully treated if detected early.)

Low-level radiation is another matter. We have before us the zero-threshold theory and the hormesis theory. Naturally we would like to have enough quick and clean information to prove to everybody which theory is right. But in investigating such effects, scientists have to deal with events that have extremely low probability, which means that enormous samples are needed to permit valid conclusions. Even though there is growing evidence to support hormesis, it will probably be years before the matter will be settled to everyone's satisfaction. We are, after all, dealing with people and their prejudices, and with investigations that must span decades.

Much important, ground-breaking work has been done by T. D. Luckey, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri, and by Bernard L. Cohen, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. Cohen has discovered that in 1,600 counties in the U.S. (containing 89% of the nation's population), the lung cancer rate in nonsmokers is inversely related to the actual radon levels: the more radon, the less lung cancer. This news is impressive, since it says that low doses of radiation are actually beneficial—-but good luck in looking for mention of it in the mass media.

The credibility of Cohen's work in the U.S. is reinforced by research in other countries. Investigators in China, Japan, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, and Great Britain have likewise found no positive correlation between lung cancer and indoor radon levels.

There has not been enough time since the Chernobyl accident to evaluate statistically all of its long-term effects. However, enough time has certainly passed since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Japanese studies reveal an actual net reduction in overall leukemia deaths of A-bomb survivors. As expected, the studies show an increase in cancers among those who survived high radiation doses. Furthermore, Nagasaki residents who got low doses when the bomb went off have tended to live even longer than unexposed Japanese citizens. If by now there were statistically significant evidence that exposed survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had more health problems and less longevity than comparable unexposed Japanese citizens, it would be common knowledge throughout the world.

The widely quoted estimates of hundreds of thousands of future cancers worldwide from Chernobyl fallout, based as they are entirely on the now-discredited no-threshold theory, are clearly unrealistic.

Why, in the face of the evidence, does the zero-threshold concept remain so politically correct? More to the point, consider who benefits. Are there people who make their living exploiting the zero-threshold theory? You bet.

Think of the government employees at the federal, state, and local levels who use zero threshold to concoct regulations for nuclear power plants, nuclear waste disposal, radon in homes, etc. Think of the government-sponsored researchers on disposal of nuclear waste, who search for ever more esoteric ways to protect people 50,000 years hence from a conceivable, trivial addition to the natural radiation background. One might call it “bureaucratic free enterprise.”

To expand their income and influence, these workers promote successfully the idea that there is a “problem,” and whether it's real or imagined is almost irrelevant. To solve it, of course, will require more tax funds and more government employees.

The imaginary problems never really get solved, and somehow more like them are continually discovered, requiring even more taxes and more government employees. Journalists who are already convinced that there is dangerous radiation from nuclear weapon tests and nuclear power plants readily embrace the claims of zero threshold.

Journalists think the good guys are the people who want to solve those problems, and so they help convince the general public that the worries are justified. Once the public is sold, it is easy to get politicians to raise taxes to support such a popular effort. The number of such bureaucratic free enterprises is limited only by the imagination of the individuals involved.

In the low-level radiation area, the zero-threshold theory still has many dedicated followers—showing that when a concept becomes politically correct and its proponents can get funds to further their own careers, changing the course of action is extremely difficult.

What about the morality of current policies? Certainly there are many real problems affecting public health and safety that require tax-generated resources. Is it moral to squander those resources in trying to solve problems that are only hypothetical, especially when our extremely expensive efforts to reduce what is called “low-level radiation” might be doing harm instead of good?

Not only are we trying to solve a non-existent problem, but these efforts—no matter how politically correct—divert us from concentrating on problems that do affect public health and longevity.

The hypothetical casualties from low-level radiation, based as they are on postulated, unmeasurable effects, are presented in a way to frighten rather than enlighten. Imagine the economic and human loss if radiation hysteria were to cause the American people to forgo the benefits of nuclear energy—clean, safe electric power with no greenhouse gases emitted, medical diagnostics and treatment, food preservation, and all the future uses of nuclear radiation.

The proponents of zero threshold claim their approach is “conservative”—that it is necessary because nobody wants anyone to get cancer. However, those people refuse to balance the possible benefits against the postulated harm (to do "risk-benefit analysis"). As a result, led astray by unsubstantiated physiological assumptions, we spend literally billions of dollars to save a small number of hypothetical cancer victims.

If instead we were to apply those tax dollars to real problems of public health and vehicle safety, we could save tens of thousands of very real lives. By diverting scarce resources to scare Americans about small additions to the low-level radiation that they already get from natural causes, we're doing them no favor. We need to question seriously the lack of morality of the choices made by our legislators and government regulators when they apply the zero-threshold theory. They sacrifice real lives in pursuit of tenuous, hypothetical goals.

Scientists know that our society pays a huge cost for bad science--"science" based on misinformation and conducted in an atmosphere of hysteria.

The data that are accumulating indicate that, in reality, people would lead longer and healthier lives if they received a little more radiation, not less. If the present irrational course is to be changed, the greatest hope probably lies in publicizing and extending the sort of work done by Cohen and the other researchers around the world.

If the national debt problem is as real as people say it is, how can we continue to squander billions of dollars on imaginary problems? Wouldn't it be great if everyone associated with legislation concerning radiation would light a candle rather than curse the darkness!

For additional information, please contact CFRI, an independent organization of retirees with extensive nuclear experience.