The Danger of prolonged low level exposure may be more serious...comment?
According to this report the dangers of low level radiation are acute: "The Practical Implications for Human Health: "The practical implications for human health, of realistic versus mistaken risk-estimates in this field, can be illustrated by evaluation of the Chernobyl accident, but this accident is just "the tip of the iceberg. "Proposals are pending to exclude very low-dose exposure of entire populations from consideration in risk-estimates, and also to handle a large share of radioactive waste as if it were not radioactive -- in other words, to declare a threshold by using edict to over-rule evidence. "It is self-evident that if a mistaken notion about safe doses and dose-rates prevails in this field, human exposures to ionizing radiation will rise dramatically -- from occupational, environmental, and medical doses. Quite aside from heritable genetic consequences, which are not discussed in this book, such a mistake would be far from trivial. Over time, it could mean cancer inflicted on a hundred million or more humans. "Indeed, low-dose ionizing radiation may turn out to be the most important single carcinogen to which huge numbers of humans are actually exposed. No one can possibly be sure yet, in the absence of comparable data on all the other human carcinogens and on the magnitude of exposure to them." "Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure : AN INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS" 1990 Link: http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/RIC/index.html This book also address the issue of supralinearity (the idea that linearity of dose-risk estimate is inaccurate - i.e. lower doses may provide a higher risk proportional to higher exposures) I am glad that this has been acknowledged here on this site as one possibility. I highly recommend this publication for those who want to get a beter handle on the risks. It looks closely at the studies from Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as at the problems with reports on Chernobyl which claimed a much lower risk than what the evidence showed in terms of cancers and deaths. I hope your team will consider this research when discussing and analyzing and explaining the risks.
The Perkau effect and Hormesis and supralinearity
I have done some work with health physicists and epidemiologists at the Radiation and Public Health Project ( see www.radiation.org ) studying the issues we are discussing here in terms of the risks involved from low level exposure --- risks of harm (cancer, disease, miscarriages, birth defects, death, etc)
I just did a quick look at the issues of supralinearity (the Petkau effect) which says that smaller doses over longer periods may be more harmful than higher doses over shorter periods.
I know, I know, that wikipedia is not an academically pure source, but as a starting point in understanding the issues and definitions and to get some good quick references to primary sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petkau_effect
Petkau found that low doses utlimately were more effective at penetrating (piercing) cells over longer periods than higher doses (meaning a lower overall exposure had more damaging impact than higher doses over shorter periods meaninhg also that the overall harm of lower doses, if delivered over time, was more severe and a lesser total dose was required to cause harm.
Hormesis is pretty much not well documented the way the Petkau effect is and additionally the ECRR model and the other study by Dr. Gofman I cited in my other thread also utilizes the long term exposure models of risk and better models for assesing the long term exposures which result from low level exposures and the potential harm from these life-long exposures (as we will get from the radio-cesium and any strontium 90 we are exposed to)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
The wikipedia page on hormesis also explains the supralinear model and references the Petkau effect saying the low level long term exposures are more harmful than was predicted by the linear nothreshold model which the Berkeley team uses along with most authroities.
I believe that the supralinear model and the Petkau effect as well as the ECRR study are substantial evidence that the reassurances that the radioiodine and cesium exposures we are now getting in rain, milk, water and soon produce and meat and fish is safe is wrong and that it is FAR more damaging than the Berkely team believes or even understands.
Reiterating the idea that Hormesis is one theory that is just as valid as the supralinear model (Petkau) is not justified. PLease do not assert that the doses are safe or very low risk or "just like a cross country flight".
Give us the data and maybe you can use it to give us the answers we really need: find experts who can actually tell us WHAT these exposures mean in terms of actual risk or likley risk or possible risk. Tell us what the RANGE is (not YOU folks, necessarily, but ask around and get us some answers so we can understand what the amounts mean in terms of long term low level exposure.
The Fukushima Radio-Cesium will be in the environment for our ENTIRE LIFETIMES! So one time exposures in a glass of water or milk or breath of air really doesn't provide an accurate reading of the exposure.
What you probably can't tell us based on your parameters is how much radio-cesium we will be exposed to over our lifetime if the air has a certain amount in it right now (which will get in water, soil, dust, our bodies, lettuce, spinach, milk, etc)
Iodine we can use prophylioaxis for, but cesium exposure is forever (or at least for our entire life).
It is too facile to site cross country flights and xrays when there is a persistent radiotoxin that we will be exposed to over and over again and not in one dose. This is what the study I cited in the other link: total lifetime exposure amounts based, in part, on the measurments you are getting now. How many human years dosing of radiocesium and to what extent? THEN we can calculate the risks in accordance with the ECRR models and/or the models you use. If youy split the difference between the two models we still are facing dire cancer causing exposures for the rest of our lives and many of us will get cancer or get sick as a result of Fukushima if these models are accurate.
why the experts I trust
No Comment folks. Not even a debunking of the ECRR?
just asking. i trust the ECRR standards but would appreciate your take on them.
The analysis I cited uses Chernobyl as a chronic low level event
and not just an acute high-dose event. In fact the author refers to the fact that the radio-cesium will remain in the environment causing damage and cancer for dozens of years and longer.
I appreciate your response an I understand the hormesis theory and have read up on it some, but find it totally unconvincing compared to the ECRR model for risk analysis and the study I cited here which also uses Hiroshima as a long term exposure (due to radio-cesium and strontium half lifes of 30 years).
I guess if you are not fasmiliar with these studies its unfair to expect an answer from you folks, but I do urge your team to look at them.
BUT - since you are reiterating the EPA and industry/government risk analyses saying basically, don't worry, be happy, wouldn't it be more academically or scientifcally sound to either avoid assertions there is little risk and/or actually seek out health physicists who are objective (surely there are some at or near Berkeley or in the University system)to give the public who visit this site a more accurate assessment.
The study I cite here is such a study and professional analysis which I would urge you to consider as well as the ECRR model of risk analysis.
Can't you locate some actual health physicists to assist you who can give us a better idea of what the long term risks are (ort are they all coopted by the government or by industry grants and benefits)?
For you to assert there is very little risk when you are not really qualified to do so (as you admit) undermines your credibility on the risk issues.
THAT SAID
Please do not interperet this as saying your credibility and commitment to the facts of the amounts you are measuring is doubted or not completelt admired and appreciated.
You guys are about the only team in the world I can find who are doing this for us and it WILL provide data that can save lives when all your data is analyzed and correlated with the data of the health physicists who will look at what these amounts will do to the rates of spontaneous abortions, infant mortality rates, birth defects detected, cancer, hypothyroid and metabolic disorders, all of which the experts I have cited in this forum predict are likley to result from low level exposures which the government and industy is telling us is perfectly safe or almost not risky at all.
Finding health physicists
Do you have any colleagues at the university who are health physicists that may be willing to participate in this discussion? That would be much easier than having us send out emails to faculty members that we have no link to. That being said, I haven't seen any studies where anything definitive can be said for low level exposure (~5 mSv) from something like this, so maybe the health physicists wouldn't have much to add. I think the most important aspect of this project is to keep everyone informed about ongoing dose rates from air/water/food/etc so we know when the risks are increasing.
Chris Busby of ECRR is one good source
but the study I cite here (in the OP) has some excellent info:
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/RIC/index.html
I hope the Berkeley team, especially the students, will take an objective look at it rather than just taking for granted that the standard risk factors (proven to be flawed in the ECRR studies) used by government and industry are gospel truth.
… The EPA report, issued
… The EPA report, issued Monday, is based upon laboratory analyses of filters and charcoal canisters on the monitors…
[A]ll reported some fallout, with Anaheim coming closest to Dutch Harbor [Alaska] in reported levels of radioactive iodine — 1.9 picocuries of radioactivity in each cubic meter of air in Anaheim to Dutch Harbor’s 2.8. …
Thats just lovely. My son and grandson live rt there. This is BS
Radon limits/4 pCi
According to the EPA (http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/consguid.html):
"Fix your home if your radon level is confirmed to be 4 picocuries per liter, pCi/L, or higher. Radon levels less than 4 pCi/L still pose a risk, and in many cases may be reduced."
and
"Any radon exposure has some risk of causing lung cancer. The lower the radon level in your home, the lower your family's risk of lung cancer . . . The U.S. Congress has set a long-term goal that indoor radon levels be no more than outdoor levels; about 0.4 pCi/L of radon is normally found in the outside air."
Can anyone here compare I-131 and radon exposure?