After decades of assertions, on a highly theoretical basis, that doses of ionizing radiation substantially less than that required to cause detectable changes in tissue would have serious long-term health effects, the tide of scientific opinion has begun to turn. Thanks in part to remarkable evidence, such as the study of 110 000 Chernobyl “liquidators” (who have not shown the expected higher rates of cancer), or tens of thousands of nuclear shipyard workers in the USA (who have experienced better health than their unexposed co-workers), it is becoming apparent that the “stochastic effects” simply do not exist — or, at least, result in no observable harm on a population basis, which is pretty much as good.
In other words, the basis of the whole “there is no safe dose” idea, which drives the “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” exposure standards, is objectively meaningless.
Not surprising, but good to hear for certain. Damn shame few if any who could affect positive policy changes will read or understand this. I hope to live long enough to see a day where new reactors are celebrated rather than vilified through ignorance :\
One of the many unfortunate results of the “no safe dose”, “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” concept is the legal ban in the USA on “trivial” uses of radiation and radioactive material, whether it be for radioluminescent beads on the end of lamp pull-chains, or in the arts. And that’s a damned shame, because I don’t count the effects available from uranium-glazed ceramics (which have nothing to do with radioactivity) as trivial ; imagine what artists with more freedom could do.
Every sort of possibly toxic substance or process or situation has a dose and effect curve. Everything I can think of in this category has a lower level below which there is statistically no ill effect. It is common sense. Ex - Ultraviolet radiation effect on skin, alcohol consumption, water consumption, any drug . . . The hazardous effect curve is not linear to zero, it is more of an exponential and at some baseline noise level until some threshold is reached on the x-axis.
One would have to assume that there is a lower level of ionizing radiation below which there is no effect and this is indeed the case.
So one would think ; and yet the assumption on which the regulatory standards is based is the opposite. Hence the doctrine of “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” ; hence also the chants of “No Safe Dose”, et cetera, from the antinuclearites, who claim that the very small emissions of radioactive material from nuclear power plants (generally less than 10% of what the regulators permit) are the worst form of environmental pollution, & are destroying their communities & ultimately the biosphere.
The doctrine is well established. Hermann Mueller, in his speech accepting the 1946 Nobel Prize for his work on the biological effects of radiation, said in so many words that there was no threshold below which effects did not appear, even though all his work was with quite high exposures, & he had by that time seen experimental work suggesting that the dose-response curve flattened at lower dose rates. The “Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation” panel, convened in 1956 to provide expert opinion to the US Government on matters such as exposure standards for nuclear-industry workers, & the possible consequences of nuclear warfare, put out a widely-circulated “Report to the Public” asserting in so many words that small exposures to many people were just as dangerous as the same total exposure to a few, because of “latent mutations” which might show up only after generations. Of course this is ridiculous in light of what we now know about the resting level of DNA strand breaks & the body’s compensatory repair mechanisms, but it didn’t really make a lot of sense at the time — not to mention being poorly supported by the available evidence.
“The dose makes the poison”, says Galen, & if the regulatory regime for radiation reflected that, development of atomic energy would be much advanced. Unfortunately, there have been forces fighting that development from day one, & this unscientific idea of radiation effects provides a big stick to beat with.
