The Anti-Nuclear Camp

The anti-nuclear zealots will go to any lengths to preserve the myth that "no level of radiation exposure is safe." Their tactic is often to use ridiculous anecdotes ("fish so radioactive they glowed in the dark") to incite fear in the technically ignorant.

More than twenty years ago, I was present when the minions of Dr. Benjamin Spock were "debating" representatives of Arkansas Power and Light. [Arkansas Power and Light was then owner of Arkansas Nuclear One - a complex with two 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plants.] It was a rout. Spock's activists had no idea of the reactor contents or of any way to begin quantifying the potential dangers of the plant. But they knew how to frame the debate: It was all about greedy industrialists intentionally endangering children, the elderly, the handicapped, the fishermen on the river, even birds flying over. Indeed, no one was safe from attack by this ruthless, rapacious cartel of profit mongers. Each accusation by Spock's forces brought forth wild cheers and applause.

The utility representatives were reduced to looking at each other with mouths wide open and eyes rolling. They came prepared to talk about containment building integrity and cesium 137 - but not about their war on the community. When anyone from the nuclear camp dared to open his mouth, it was to a chorus of boos and heckling.

When the bloodbath was over, the anti-nukes marched out of the meeting as a cheering horde; the physicists and engineers were still sitting in shock when I left. Attempts to use a logical technical argument with this anti-nuclear group reminded me of trying to teach a pig to sing: It frustrates you and annoys the pig.

Overcoming Vested Interests

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status. - Dr. Laurence J. Peter

In light of the available evidence showing either the hormesis model or a threshold below which no harm occurs, it is difficult to understand why anyone would cling to the LNT hypothesis. This question was addressed at the 1999 Tucson Waste Management Conference in Stanley Logan's paper, "Radiation Exposure: Overcoming Vested Interests That Block Good Science." [While I have borrowed heavily from Dr. Logan, I have embellished his material with my comments. In essence, the facts are his; the opinions are mine.]

After outlining the evidence for a re-evaluation of the entire radiation protection mechanism, Dr. Logan defined the following groups that oppose or ignore evidence pointing away from the LNT and collective dose theories. [Stanley E. Logan is founder of the Sante Fe consulting engineering firm that bears his name. A former associate professor of nuclear engineering, Dr. Logan has 27 years experience in areas of hazardous waste management and probabilistic risk analysis.]

Leukemia in Male Employees of Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd.

A later study by M.A. Gribbin et al. examined leukemia mortality of 9,997 male employees of Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., with an average exposure of 4.9 cSv (4,900 mrem) compared to 5,504 unexposed co-workers. [Gribbin, M.A., Howe, G.R. and Weeks, J.L. A study of the mortality of AECL employees, V, The second analysis: Mortality during the period 1950 - 1985, Report No. AECL-10615, p48, Atomic Energy of Canada, 1992. Also quoted by Z. Jaworowski in "Stimulating effects of ionizing radiation: New issues for regulatory policy." Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, 22:2, 1994.]

Figure 18 presents the data in the form of standard mortality ratios for the various types of leukemia.

Source for Figure 18 Leukemia Mortality of AECL Employees: Gribbin, M.A., Howe, G.R. and Weeks, J.L. A study of the mortality of AECL employees, V, The second analysis: Mortality during the period 1950 - 1985, Report No. AECL-10615, p48, Atomic Energy of Canada, 1992.

Commenting on this study, Dr. Jaworoski states: "As shown in Table 6 [from which the graph data was taken], the mortality due to all leukemias in the exposed group was only 32% of that in the general Canadian population. The observed mortality among employees of AECL from all cancers and from all non-cancer diseases was also less than expected." [Zbigniew Jaworowski, professor emeritus at the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection (Poland) and a member of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).]

While this is a relatively small study, the consistently lower leukemia mortality rate - previously considered the established sign of excessive radiation exposure - seems to be a powerful argument for hormesis at work.

A Slippery Slope

When we read the statistics on deaths involving automobile accidents, we are given the actual count of deaths as compiled by various law enforcement agencies. But when the anti-nuclear zealots tell us about the number of people who died as a result of radiation from exposure to, say, radon, they don't have a single victim they can point to with any degree of certainty. Their "statistical deaths" come from an extrapolation based on the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) theory. Just as with our falling analogy, they correctly note that very high exposures, like falling from very tall buildings, increase the likelihood of death (by cancer, in the case of radiation). Their argument falls apart when they try to extend, or extrapolate, the high-dose exposure to much lower exposures.

For a moment let's jump to an example detailed in a later chapter. Studies of the Japanese indicated that exposure to the equivalent of 100 SXR units (20 rem, if you're ahead of me) in a short time would double the number of leukemia deaths in a population of one million people, from the expected fifty deaths to one-hundred. The LNT extrapolation would predict one-tenth the increase in deaths (in this case, five) if the population were exposed to one-tenth that additional exposure (in this case, 10 SXR units).

Could they point to any bodies? No, they only have their theoretical corpses based on the LNT extrapolation. But in this case, there is actual data that completely contradict the LNT theory's prediction. Not only did the death rate not increase; it actually decreased - by an astounding 40%! To summarize:
Fifty deaths expected in unexposed population
Fifty-five deaths predicted by LNT extrapolation
Only thirty deaths occurred, according to actual data

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Therein lies the crux of the hormesis/LNT controversy: Those who advocate the Linear No-Threshold theory base their belief on the extrapolation of high-level exposure responses down to low levels. But when low-level data are available, they almost always show a bio-positive - or stimulatory - response. It is this response, called hormesis, that we will be discussing in the next chapter.