Cancer And Death by Radiation? Not From Fukushima

[FBaggins]

According to the report, drafted last year but only recently finalized by the U.N., “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants. The most important health effect is on mental and social well-being, related to the enormous impact of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, and the fear and stigma related to the perceived risk of exposure to ionizing radiation. Effects such as depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms have already been reported.”

In addition, the report states, “Increased rates of detection of [thyroid] nodules, cysts and cancers have been observed during the first round of screening; however, these are to be expected in view of the high detection efficiency [using modern high-efficiency ultrasonography]. Data from similar screening protocols in areas not affected by the accident imply that the apparent increased rates of detection among children in Fukushima Prefecture are unrelated to radiation exposure.”

...snip...

But if you want to continue feeling afraid, and want to make sure others keep being afraid, by all means ignore this report on Fukushima. But then you really can’t keep quoting previous UNSCEAR policy and application of LNT (the Linear No-Threshold dose hypothesis) to support more fear.

Note – LNT is a leftover Cold War ideology that states all radiation is bad, even the background radiation we are bathed in every day, even the 3,200 pCi of radiation in a bag of potato chips (yes, potato chips have the most radioactivity of any food, but they taste sooo good!).



http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/05/04/cancer-and-death-by-radiation-not-from-fukushima/

[caraher]

1. "leftover Cold War ideology?"

That's a pretty ridiculous description of LNT. It's one thing to make the case that it's wrong, and quite another to take what was born as a conservative estimate of risk in the absence of a better model and refer to it as "ideology."

Call it out-of-date if you like, but to the extent ideology played any role at all in its development, it was whatever ideologies drove the need to come up with *some* model of risk in order to move forward with a wide array of projects that would result in increased exposure of humans to ionizing radiation.

[FBaggins]

2. It fits the definition of the word.

to the extent ideology played any role at all in its development, it was whatever ideologies drove the need to come up with *some* model of risk in order to move forward with a wide array of projects that would result in increased exposure of humans to ionizing radiation.

Sorry... that doesn't fit the facts, since the result of the model was to dramatically decrease humanity's exposure to artificial ionizing radiation (in the form of certain nuclear testing).

[caraher]

3. Isn't nuclear weapons testing among those projects?

I certainly had developing new nuclear weapons in mind as an example of one.

In any event, claiming that the model had a certain result says nothing about the motivations for developing it. We developed models of radiation risk because new technologies ranging from nuclear weapons to power plants to uses of radiation and radioactive materials in medicine all constituted new exposure pathways, and it was clear that neither extreme ("radiation is harmless" vs. "we're all gonna die&quot could serve as the basis for sensible policy decisions.

Not having a model would have meant a hard time justifying risking particular exposures that could occur. Would it be possible to sell nuclear power if there were no way to estimate how much risk - or at least set an upper limit on the risk - plausible exposure levels posed?

I'm also not sure in what way LNT - which is a falsifiable scientific hypothesis - "fits the definition of ideology." Here's a typical definition of ideology: "a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy." In what way can the hypothesis that the biological damage caused by exposure to ionizing radiation is directly proportional to that exposure, with no lower threshold, an example of "a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy?"

[FBaggins]

4. I wouldn't say so. No.

You seem to believe that LNT was used as a tool to allow new programs that would not have existed without it... but there's no evidence for that. Certainly nuclear weapons testing began well before LNT and wasn't aided by it (since, as claimed above) the standard was pushed largely to curtail such activities... not facilitate them (and it had the desired impact in the case of open-air nuclear weapons testing)

Now... you could certainly argue that nuclear technology advances should have been preceeded by some form of regulatory standard based on valid risk estimates... and you would of course be right. And yes, it's appropriate for that standard to err on the side of the overly-conservative... but that doesn't change the point that the article makes re: LNT.

Put a different way, LNT wasn't created in order to facilitate nuclear research/development/adoption... it was created in order to make such advances more difficult, more expensive, and more time-consuming.

I'm also not sure in what way LNT - which is a falsifiable scientific hypothesis - "fits the definition of ideology." Here's a typical definition of ideology: "a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy." In what way can the hypothesis that the biological damage caused by exposure to ionizing radiation is directly proportional to that exposure, with no lower threshold, an example of "a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy?"

It seems pretty clear to me. Let's break that into the two main parts:

Surely we can agree that LNT formed the basis of political policy, right? So there's no question that it fits that half of the definition.

The other part seems equally clear to me. Do you see a real distinction between a scientific hypothesis and an idea or system of ideas?
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/howscienceworks_06