Antinuclear

No safe dose of ionising radiation

Nuclear Power: Dead in the Water it Poisoned, CounterPunch,  by JOHN LAFORGE    NOVEMBER 5, 2015 ………Authoritative warnings by the agencies that regulate radiation exposure are worthy of a detailed listing because of the literal consensus that’s been reached i.e. There is no safe dose, and as Dr. Arjun Makhijani says, “Only zero exposure results in zero cancer risk.”[16]

* The National Council on Radiation Protection (NCPR) says, “…the Council assumes that, for radiation-protection purposes, the risk of stochastic [random] effects is proportional to dose without threshold…”[17] (Emphasis added) In other words, “… every increment of radiation exposure produces an incremental increase in the risk of cancer.”[18]

The EPA says, “…any exposure to radiation can be harmful (or can increase the risk of cancer). ….. In other words, it is assumed that no radiation exposure is completely risk free.”[19] Further, “Radiation is a carcinogen. It may also cause other adverse health effects, including genetic defects in the children of exposed parents or mental retardation in the children of mothers exposed during pregnancy.”[20]

* The Department of Energy says, “[T]he effects of low levels of radiation are … a very slight increase in cancer risk.”[21]

* The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, “This dose-response model suggests that any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.”[22]

 The National Academy of Sciences in BEIR-VII, its latest book-length report on the biological effects of ionizing radiation, says “… that low-dose radiation acts predominantly as a tumor-initiating agent,”[23] and that “… the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.” The committee further judges it unlikely that a threshold exists for the induction of cancers …”[24]

As science has come to understand the toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic properties of even the lowest radiation exposures, the officially permitted dose — not a safe level — has dramatically decreased.^[25] In the 1920s, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) set the permissible dose for radiation workers in medicine and industry at 75 rem per year. In 1936, the limit was reduced to 50 rem per year, then to 25 in 1948, to 15 in 1954, and to 5 in 1958[26] — where it remains to this day. (A rem is a measure of the biological damage of a given absorbed dose of radiation.)

Today, the permitted radiation exposure for the public has been reduced to one-20th of what’s permitted for nuclear workers, or 0.25 rem per year. However, the ICRP’s 1990 recommendation to again reduce worker exposures — this time by three-fifths — from 5 to 2 rem/year, has never been adopted by the United States, even after 24 years………http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/05/nuclear-power-dead-in-the-water-it-poisoned/

November 6, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized