Appendix Part 2

3) Immunosurveillance systems are able to eliminate clones of transformed cells, as is shown by tumor cell transplants. The effectiveness of immunosurveillance is also shown by the large increase in the incidence of several types of cancers among immunosuppressed subjects (a link seems to exist between a defect in NHEJ DNA repairs and immunodeficiency).

These phenomena suggest the lesser effectiveness of low doses, or even of a practical threshold which can be due to either a failure or a low level of damage to sufficiently activate DNA repair mechanisms or to an association between apoptosis + error-free repair + immunosurveillance, to determine a threshold (between 5 and 50 mSv?). The stimulation of the cell defense mechanisms could also cause hormesis by fighting against endogenous mutagenic factors, in particular against reactive oxygen species. Indeed a meta-analysis of experimental data shows that in 40% of animal experiments there is a decrease in the incidence of spontaneous cancers after low doses.

This observation has been overlooked so far because the phenomenon was difficult to explain.

These data show that the use of a linear no-threshold relationship is not justified for assessing by extrapolation the risk of low doses from observations made for doses from 0.2 to 5 Sv since this extrapolation relies on the concept of a constant carcinologic carcinogenic effect per unit dose, which is inconsistent with experimental and radiobiological data. This conclusion is in contradiction with those of an article and a draft report [43,118], which justify the use of LNT by several arguments.

1. for doses lower than 10 mGy, there is no interaction between the different physical events initiated along the electron tracks through the DNA or the cell;

2. the nature and the repair of lesions thus caused are not influenced by the dose and the dose rate;

3. cancer is the direct and random consequence of a DNA lesion in a cell apt to divide;

4. LNT model correctly fits the dose-effect relationship for the induction of solid tumors in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki cohort;

5. the carcinogenic effect of doses of about 10 mGy is proven by results obtained in humans in studies on irradiation in utero.

With respect to the first argument, it should be noted that the physico-chemical events are identical but their biological consequence may greatly vary because the cellular defense reactions differ depending on dose and dose rate. The second argument is contradicted by recent radiobiological studies considered in the present report. The third argument does not take into account recent finding showing the complexity of the carcinogenic process and overlooks experimental data. Regarding the fourth argument, it can be noted that besides LNT, other types of dose-effect relationships are also compatible with data concerning solid tumors in atom bomb survivors, and can satisfactorily fit epidemiological data that are incompatible with the LNT concept, notably the incidence of leukemia in these same A-bomb survivors.

Furthermore, taking into account the latest available data, the dose-effect relationship for solid tumors in Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivors is not linear but curvilinear between 0 and 2 Sv. Moreover, even if the dose-effect relationship were demonstrated to be linear for solid tumors between, for example, 50 mSv and 3 Sv, the biological significance of this linearity would be open to question. Experimental and clinical data have shown that the dose effect relationship varies widely with the type of tumor and with the age of the individuals - some being linear or quadratic, with or without a threshold. The composite character of a LNT relationship between dose and all solid tumors confirms the invalidity of its use for low doses.

Finally, with regard to irradiation in utero, whatever the value of the Oxford study, some inconsistencies should lead us to be cautious before concluding to a causal relationship from data showing simply an association.

Moreover, it is questionable to extrapolate from the fetus to the child and adult, since the developmental state, cellular interactions, and immunological control systems are very different.

In conclusion, this report doubts the validity of using LNT in the evaluation of the carcinogenic risk of low doses (< 100 mSv) and even more for very low doses (< 10 mSv). LNT can be a pragmatic tool for assessing the carcinogenic effect of doses higher than a dozen mSv within the framework of radioprotection. However, the use of LNT in the low dose or dose rate range is not consistent with the current radiobiological knowledge; LNT cannot be used without challenge for assessing by extrapolation the risks of associated with very low doses (<10 mSv), nor be used in benefit-risk assessments imposed on radiologists by the European directive 97-43. Biological mechanisms are different for doses lower than a few dozen mSv and for higher doses. The eventual risks in the dose range of radiological examinations (0.1 to 5 mSv, up to 20 mSv for some examinations) must be estimated taking into account radiobiological and experimental data. An empirical relationship which is valid for doses higher than 200 mSv may lead to an overestimation of risk associated with doses one hundredfold lower and this overestimation could discourage patients from undergoing useful examinations and introduce a bias in radioprotection measures against very low doses (<10 mSv).

Decision makers confronted with problems of radioactive waste or risk of contamination, should re-examine the methodology used for the evaluation of risks associated with these very low dose exposures delivered at a very low dose rate. This analysis of biological data confirms the inappropriateness of the collective dose concept to evaluate population irradiation risks.

International Recognition

In May 2005, the French Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine issued a unanimous report that cut the legs from under both the LNT theory and collective dose. [An English translation of the executive summary of this important report is given in its entirety in the appendix.]

Regarding the former:

"In conclusion, this report doubts the validity of using LNT in the evaluation of the carcinogenic risk of low doses (<100 mSv) and even more for very low doses (< 10 mSv). LNT can be a pragmatic tool for assessing the carcinogenic effect of doses higer than a dozen mSv within the framework of radioprotection. However, the use of LNT in the low dose or dose rate range is not consistent with the current radiobiological knowledge."

In regard to collective dose:

"Decision-makers confronted with problems of radioactive waste or risk of contamination should re-examine the methodology used for the evaluation of risks associated with these very low dose exposures delivered at a very low dose rate. This analysis of biological data confirms the inappropriateness of the collective dose concept to evaluate population irradiation risks."

In the United States, June 2005 marked formal establishment of a technical society for the study of hormesis, both from radiation and chemical hormetins. The International Hormesis Society, a spin-off of the less specifically directed Biological Effects of Low Level Exposures (BELLE) organization, is domiciled at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. You might want to visit its website at www.HormesisSociety.org. In 2006, it will take over and host the Fifth International Conference on Hormesis: Implications for Toxicology, Medicine and Risk Assessment.

Individual Action

So you're interested in seeing an honest re-evaluation of the effects of low-level radiation. What to do? Of course, buying and distributing huge quantities of this book would be my first choice, but there are others. If you are a member of a professional organization such as the Health Physics Society, write the president with copies to the other officers giving your opinion. There are organizations where the officers are very much behind the movement to bury the LNT theory but keep a low profile because of the "you've got to be kidding" response they tend to get on the subject. As knowledge of the subject becomes more widespread, more leaders are likely to become involved in the debate.

It may seem trite, but in this matter, writing your congressman and senators may have an effect. (Letters that don't start out "Why hasn't the government sent me my [fill in the benefit]..." get more attention because of their rarity.) As the debate heats up over the next months or years, an informative letter to your representative might even be appreciated.

Finally, this subject makes for a great letter to the editor. It is up to those of us who "know" to spread the word. With so much at stake, it is a timely and noble cause.

I leave you with my favorite quotation from one of the great physicists of the twentieth century, the late Nobel laureate Richard Feynman. He said it in 1965, long before the present controversy over the effects of low-level radiation, but certainly his words apply to today's battle with the false propositions of the LNT and collective dose:

"We look for a new law by the following process: first we guess at it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, the law is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is - if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong. That is all there is to that."

Risk Analysis and Others in the Nuclear Field

The LNT theory and the concept of collective dose make it relatively straightforward for assessors to determine the risk of exposure to radiation. There is only one problem with this currently accepted method: for the levels of radiation with which they are normally concerned, the results are meaningless - or worse.

As we have seen again and again, a wealth of hormesis data indicates not only that the current assessments of low-level dose-response are wrong in magnitude - but also in sign, with increasing amounts of radiation causing a decrease in harmful response. Would acknowledgement of this fact cause an upheaval in the risk business or what? Instead of "radiation = bad," they'd have to contend with "low radiation = good, but high radiation = bad" - and, moreover, have to determine when the "low and good" became "high and bad."

Risk analysts have about the same problems noted above for regulators - and for a very good reason: regulations are made from risk assessments.

Yes, You Can Be Too Careful

Hundreds of billions of dollars are to be spent 'remediating' U.S. sites even though there is no scientific basis for claiming any health or other benefit. - Theodore Rockwell

In 1988, and earthquake registering 7.9 on the Richter scale devastated Soviet Armenia, leaving more than 25,000 people dead. Four years earlier, in far more densely populated Mexico City, an 8.1 earthquake (with a 7.8 aftershock thirty-six hours later) killed 9,000 people.

Seven years after the Armenian quake, they were still trying to get electrical power to the cities for more than two hours per day; Mexican Power and Light restored power to its 3,200,000 customers in seventy-two hours.

While Mexico isn't exactly the most advanced country in our hemisphere, compared with the communist paradise of Armenia it is Beulahland. Its buildings were built to stronger, more earthquake-resistant standards; when people were trapped in collapsed buildings, there were tools to get them out, and power to run the tools. There were hospitals for the wounded, and sanitary conditions prevailed for the survivors. In short, Mexico had a superior infrastructure and was richer than Armenia. Its wealth saved the lives of thousands of people who would have otherwise died.

There have been many attempts to determine a reasonable estimate for the value of a human life in the United States. One of these I can remember set the figure at $20 million, contending that for every $20 million taken out of the economy, the lowered standard of living for all would cause the premature death of one person. [This sounds a lot like collective dose to me; except that we can - on occasions like Armenia - count the dead.]

While I can't vouch for this particular figure, the Armenian-Mexican situation shows clearly that there is a relationship of this nature. And it may be logically inferred from this that government, by wasting or compelling others to waste money, has a detrimental effect on the well-being of its citizens. [In 1980, Congress commissioned the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, which was expected to show that the utilities were responsible for acid rain. It found, to the amazement of the scientists involved, that this was not true. But Congress, which had paid $500 million for the study, ignored it and mandated scores of billions of dollars in unnecessary "scrubbers" to remove an insignificant fraction of power-plant emissions. At $20 million per life, politicians killed hundreds with this single vote.]

Theodore Rockwell, in an article "What's wrong with being cautious?" [from Nuclear News, June 1997. A large part of this chapter is blatantly taken from this excellent article.] suggests five different kinds of harm that originate in the Linear No-Threshold hypothesis:

• Billions of dollars wasted
• Ridiculous regulations imposed that degrade the credibility of science and government
• Destructive fear generated
• Detrimental health effects created
• Environmental degradation accelerated. (This final item refers to the incredible amount of ash and sludge - equal to about 100 truckloads per day - produced by a coal-fired 1,000 megawatt power plant, compared with less than a Volkswagen full per year of actual high-level wastes from an equal-sized nuclear plant.)

Rockwell gives an example of a forklift driver who moved a small spent fuel cask from the fuel-storage pool to another location. As the cask had not been completely drained prior to being moved, some water was dribbled onto the blacktop along the way. But since storage pool water is defined as a hazardous contaminant - by the regulators, not plant employees who had earlier used the pool for unauthorized midnight swims - it was deemed necessary to dig up the entire path of the forklift, some two feet wide by one-half mile long. It doesn't stop here.

Because the paving contractor used thorium-rich slag from a local phosphate plant as aggregate in the new pavement, it was more radioactive than the material that had been dug up - which was marked with the ominous radiation symbol and hauled away for expensive, long-term burial. Fortunately, it was only taxpayers' money.

Dirty Bombs

We have been led to believe - on the basis of the LNT theory and collective dose - that terrorists could mount an effective attack by the use of "dirty bombs," i.e., bombs that spread radioactive materials by use of conventional explosives. At present, such bombs would be an effective weapon, since the fear of radiation, as in Goia and Three Mile Island, would doubtlessly cause panic and result in deaths from heart attacks, auto accidents and the like. But if we understand the actual effects of radiation, we can respect it without allowing it to overcome our rational thought. Let's look at the worst case.

Terrorists park a car bomb filled with strontium 90, which has a long half-life (twenty-nine years) and the propensity for replacing calcium in bones. At noon, with the maximum numbers of people walking down Wall Street on the way to lunch, the bomb is exploded, and strontium 90 is blasted into the air. Radioactive debris is scattered by the wind over an area of many blocks.

Let's look at this scenario as graduates of Hormesis U. First, where are the terrorists going to get a carload of strontium 90? It is a product of nuclear explosions and found in reactor "wastes." Like so many other "waste" radionuclides, it is a valuable commodity being used in medical and agricultural tracers as well as in RTGs (radio thermo-electric generators) for navigational beacons and weather stations. Medically, it is used for treatment of eye diseases and bone cancer. It is a valuable commodity and certainly not widely available in quantities like the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

The EPA's Radiation Information website [www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/strontium.htm] tells us that "swallowing Sr-90 with food or water is the primary pathway of intake."

The same source tells us that strontium 90 is a beta emitter. Graduates of Hormesis U. know that beta radiation can travel only a few feet through air and causes minor burns (beta burns) to exposed skin. Knowing this, what action would be required after a terrorist went to the trouble and expense to disburse this most dreaded of radioactive materials in the canyons of Manhattan? I would suggest a warning to the local inhabitants not to lick the pavement or buildings. After that, I would wait for a rain that would wash the dust down the sewers leading to the Atlantic Ocean, where there are already quadrillions of curies (septillions of becquerels) that will still be there long after the vestiges of strontium 90 have disappeared. A potential problem: the sewer rats might be affected bio-positively and take charge of the large metropolitan cities.

So much for dirty bombs.

What's Cookin' in Those Reactors

The use of thorium in CANDU type reactors would give earthlings sufficient energy to provide for the next seven ice ages. - Edward Teller [From "CANDU Is Really Remarkable," Power Projections, May, 1980.]

Evidence in the preceding chapters strongly indicates that hormetic stimulation from low levels of radiation has great potential for improving human health and vitality. For this to come about, we must be freed from the fears promoted by the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) theory and the principles of "collective dose."

Freedom from these unreasoned fears would also promote the growth of other nuclear technology, the most important of these probably being power generation. Availability of energy can be seen to coincide with both standard of living and health. The environmental primitivists would have us live in a pristine wilderness - precisely where we see the absolute worst of the human condition. (And no McDonald's.)

Many of us would be interested in achieving greater independence from the utility companies (often government monopolies) and the government itself. We see all manner of solar toys and wind generators in Mother Earth News, which promise energy independence. Sure, as long as you have a staff of electrical and mechanical engineers, plus thousands of acres to mount the collectors or turbines, and a maintenance crew of dozens to keep things running. But as we shall see, nuclear energy has the promise to free those of us who would opt out of the government/utility networks. And while I take aim at some utilities that have become slovenly where licensure requirements have virtually eliminated competition, these same utilities would be in the best position to be the providers of community or residential power sources, having both generation and customer knowledge.

Time Out for a Measurement

Why, in a book about hormesis are we branching off into areas of Linear No-Threshold theory and collective dose? Because the LNT and collective dose theories are both matters that directly affect public policy. Rules and laws are made on the basis of these outmoded theories, and such restrictions stand in the way of any growth of marketplace interest in hormesis either as a therapy or as an immune-system stimulant. Advocates of hormesis - and you will see they are both numerous and impressive - consider burial of the LNT the first step toward public consideration and investigation of the hormesis phenomenon. Others, however, see this as the death knell of their domains. Let's see a few examples of the consequences from our present public policy.

Collective Dose

You are not going to believe a concept that has guided our radiation-protection formulators for the past forty or fifty years. But, as my hero Dave Barry would say, "I am not making this up." It's called collective dose, and it works like this: If 100 aspirins are a fatal dose for an individual, then when 100 people take one aspirin each, they have had a "collective dose" of 100 aspirins - therefore one of them is going to die. This is the reason you see all these dead people scattered all over the landscape... aspirin COD (Collective Over Dose).

It is this exact concept that has governed regulators in developing the "collective dose" policy that, in tandem with the LNT theory, has contributed to the regulatory madness of the EPA and NRC.

Since I suspect you still must think I'm putting you on about "collective dose," allow me to refer to page 10 in this very large, impressive volume on my desk - The Health Physics and Radiological Health Handbook (Revised Edition) [Shielen, Bernard, ed., Scinta, Inc., Silver Spring, MD 1992.] It shows the "Global Collective Dose" of carbon-14 released by the nuclear power industry to be 18,000 "person-Sieverts" - a collective dose measurement unit. What does that mean? It tells us that of the 6 billion people on earth exposed to these airborne emissions, 4.5 of them will die from the effects of carbon-14 emitted from nuclear power plants. How have we learned about these tragic deaths? Well, we know (from collective dose theory) that 4,000 person-Sieverts causes one excess death. So somewhere, some four and a half people on our terrestrial ball are going to die from this carbon-14 released from more than 440 power reactors.

Gee, could that be what did my grandmother in?

The average exposure here is less than 0.00003 SXR - an infinitesimally small amount, equivalent to a few minutes of normal background radiation. Yet, we are told that we should have faith in this unproven and unprovable theory - and to spend millions of our tax (or utility bill) dollars to save these 4.5 unfortunates who would otherwise be keeling over from this blast of searing radiation.

Falling for the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Theory

Sadly, and ironically, the change in our attitudes toward radiation is due to an assumption - an assumption originally made to protect us from excessive exposure, but which has turned into the real "nuclear monster." We will examine it in detail later, but for now it might be best explained with an analogy to falling.

If we have found that falling 100 feet to a concrete floor is fatal in 100% of the cases and falling from fifty feet is fatal in 50% of them, we might logically expect the risk from falling twenty-five feet would result in a 25% death rate. But let's go on. At one foot, according to this "linear relationship between falling and death," we would expect one percent of the victims to die. At one inch, about 0.1%.

Yeah? Do you really think that out of 10,000 people who fall an inch, ten of them will die? If this linear relationship were the case, we would have thousands of people die every day from "falling" off their bathroom scales. Manhattan would have innumerable bodies in the street every day from people "falling" off the curbs.

Everyone sees how ridiculous this "linear relationship" is in an activity like falling that we know about, yet we have been convinced to believe that this relationship is true for our response to ionizing radiation - a subject that very few of us understand. In later chapters we will look at the units that define radiation and how these compare to the "Linear No-Threshold" (LNT) theory of radiation at low doses. But first let's examine another scientific abomination: collective dose.