Chernobyl Revisited

Let us return to mankind's worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl. We have been told that the embryos and children in the downwind plume of extremely radioactive materials would be mutated. A recent report, which I was pleased to hear radio commentator Paul Harvey bring to the attention of his vast listening audience, found that the children of Chernobyl - eighteen years after the accident - were indeed showing effects, but not the type that were expected:

"The Chernobyl nuclear disaster has spawned a generation of 'mutant' super brainy children. Kids growing up in areas damaged by radiation from the plant have higher IQ and faster reaction times, say Russian doctors. They are also growing faster and have stronger immune systems. Radiation from the Ukrainian Chernobyl plant swept the globe and affected more than seven million people.

"Professor Vladimir Mikhalev from Bryansk State University has tracked the health of youngsters growing up in areas hit by the fallout since the 1986 accident. He compared their mental agility and health to those in unaffected areas and found they came out tops in tests." [As reported in the British newspaper The Sun, on May 26, 2005, as well as in the Russian newspaper Pravda, on May 24, 2005. The story was - not surprisingly - virtually ignored in the mainstream media.]

Obviously, this has nothing to do with mutations - only the predictable result of radiation hormesis.

Some Background for the Study

A 1978 report raise the question of low-dose ionizing radiation risk to nuclear workers at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shipyard. [Identified as "Najarian, 1978" in the Johns Hopkins Report Introduction, referring to brief study done by Dr. Thomas Najarian, a hematologist at the Boston Veterans Administration hospital.]

In 1980, a U.S. Department of Energy contract was granted to the Department of Epidemiology at The Johns Hopkins University to study "Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation in Shipyard Workers." [DOE Contract Number DE-AC02-79EV10095.]

It is apparent from the introduction that this was expected to be a confirmation of the earlier "limited study" and certainly had nothing to do with verification of the hormesis principle - which it ended up being. [The term "radiation hormesis" had not even been used yet, as Luckey's first book was still a year or two away when the contract was awarded.]

The study involved an initial pool of 700,000 workers - including 108,000 nuclear workers - at two private and six government shipyards. Most were weeded out because of missing or incomplete records. Then too, many of the non-nuclear workers did not work in a shipyard during the time when nuclear overhauls were done and were therefore not considered to be comparable to nuclear workers. Two other steps - a crosscheck of records and a questionnaire to the worker or next of kin - pared the list down to 72,356 qualified subjects. Workers were divided into three categories:

1. Those with duties not involving radiation, the Non-Nuclear Workers (NNW's - or in our case, the Nones). This group of 33,352 workers was used as the control.

2. Those who had cumulative exposure of less than 500 mrem. These were termed NW<0.5, which we will call the Lows, and totaled 10,462 workers.

3. Those with cumulative exposures greater than or equal to 500 mrem. They were referred to as NW>0.5, which we'll refer to as the Highs, numbering 28,542 workers.

Results of the study were tabulated to show mortality ratios of the above cohorts from various types of cancer and from all causes. By the way, althought the Johns Hopkins report to the Department of Energy was completed nearly fifteen years ago, the Energy Department has yet to acknowledge the results and issue its report on the study.

Something's Fishy in the Shipyard

The nuclear worker groups had a lower death rate from all causes, leukemia, and LHC than the non-nuclear workers. - Professor Emeritus Myron Pollycove, M.D., University of California at San Francisco, Medicine and Radiology

Suppose you're not convinced about the concept of radiation hormesis and want to do a statistical analysis to settle the matter in your own mind. What is your concept of a "convincing" study? How would you design an experiment so that you would have no doubt about the trustworthiness of the results? Some safeguards I'd like to see would be:

1. The study would have to be supported by deep pockets, because there would be a lot of expense in collecting and analyzing the mountains of data involved.

2. I would want those in charge of the actual research (as opposed to those who are paying for it) to be scientists from a reputable institution.

3. There must be a very large number of exposed persons and the same order of unexposed controls, with both chosen randomly from the same employment pool in order to make the study statistically meaningful and to avoid any possible "healthy worker effect."

4. The doses to the individuals would have to be as accurately known as possible, at least up to industrial or military standards.

5. The study would have to look at not only cancer but also total mortality, in order to test the hypothesis that radiation hormesis not only might reduce cancer, but also might lessen the effects of infectious diseases and other immune system breakdowns.

6. Finally, I would want the researchers to believe that they were attempting to measure a positive correlation between radiation and disease, without even suspecting that any hormesis effect was of interest.

The following investigation at Johns Hopkins meets all my criteria.

United States

Sources of significant background radiation in the United States are (1) terrestrial sources, such as granite and certain other types of rocks; (2) radon and its progeny from the decay of thorium, uranium and other radionuclides; and (3) cosmic radiation - which doubles each 6,000 feet in altitude in the temperate latitudes. Several of the Rocky Mountain states, particularly Idaho, Colorado and New Mexico, have higher than normal levels of each of these categories, combined to make a significant difference between these states and others, especially the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

We'll take a look at the cancer rates in these areas (American Cancer Society 1998 data) and compare them with background sources. The Linear No-Threshold (LNT) theory would predict an increase in cancer; the hormesis model forecasts a decrease in cancer - and other diseases or conditions affected by immune competence - as the radiation levels increase in the hormetic range. You be the judge.

Jagger investigated the average background exposures and cancer death rates among the 5.84 million people living in Idaho, Colorado and New Mexico, compared with the same factors for the 10.83 million residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. His results are shown in Figure 25. While the study does not examine the large number of confounding factors that could possibly influence the data, it does illustrate a trend diametrically opposite to the LNT and is strongly indicative of hormesis. [Jagger, H. Natural background radiation and cancer death in Rocky Mountain states and Gulf Coast states. Health Physics, 75(4), 1998.]

Source for Figure 25: Background Radiation vs. Cancer Rate: Jagger, H. Natural background radiation and cancer death in Rocky Mountain states and Gulf Coast states. Health Physics, 75(4), 1998. Cancer data from the American Cancer Society, 1998.

If you are unaccustomed to reading graphical data, please note that Figures 25 and 26 show two different parameters - radiation dose and cancer rate - for two different geographical areas. The scale on the left side of the graph relates to the bar graphs, while the right-hand values pertain to the cancer deaths per 100,000 persons, as shown by the data points and connecting trend line. What is intended to be shown is the increase in cancer rate (as evidenced by the upward sloping line) compared with the decrease in background radiation indicated by the magnitude of the bar graphs.

A 1994 study by Cohen compares the average radon level and lung cancer rate in the Rocky Mountain states with that in the Gulf Coast states. Radon data come from state agencies, the EPA, and University of Pittsburgh researchers; cancer data are from the American Cancer Society. [Cohen, B. Dose-response relationship for radiation carcinogenesis in the low-dose region. Int. Arch. Occupational Environmental Health, 66, 1994.]

Source for Figure 26: Residential Radon vs. Lung Cancer Rate: Cohen, B. Dose-response relationship for radiation carcinogenesis in the low-dose region. Int. Arch. Occupational Environmental Health, 66, 1994.

Were the data, plotted in Figure 26, to show that lung cancer increased with increasing radon levels, one would have to concede as very likely that the higher residential radon levels were a cause of cancer. Since the evidence shows the exact opposite, one might expect our regulatory agencies to take note and consider revising their policies accordingly. Unfortunately, they apparently don't think they should be bothered with such trivial matters as evidence. "It is the radiation protector's task to protect people from radiation, regardless of whether the radiation has bionegative or biopositive effects."

Craig and Seideman studied the rate of leukemia and lymphocytic lymphoma versus altitude in the United States. [Craig, L. and Seidman, H. Leukemia and lymphoma mortality in relation to cosmic radiation. Blood, 17, 1961.] This, of course, should be a "no brainer" - everyone knows that leukemia is caused by radiation. Since there is about a 4,000 foot difference between the low data points and the high point - and thus a near doubling in cosmic radiation - we will no doubt find, in Figure 27, a doubling of radiation-sensitive cancers like leukemia, right?

Source for Figure 27: Leukemia and Lymphocytic Lymphoma vs. Altitude (U.S.): Craig, L, and Seidman, H. Leukemia and lymphoma mortality in relation to cosmic radiation. Blood, 17, 1961.

Oops. Something is obviously wrong here. I guess it's back to the old drawing board again for the LNTers. Really, this does go on and on. Allow me to mention a few of the more interesting cases - without the plots, since I suspect you're starting to tire of graphs and charts.

On to Ontario

In a 1983 study by J.D. Abbatt et al., the standard mortality ratios (SMRs) of 4,000 nuclear workers were compared with those of 21,000 unexposed "thermal" workers and to those of the general population of nearby Ontario, Canada. [Abbatt, J.D., et al. Epidemiological studies in three corporations covering the Canadian nuclear fuel cycle. From: Biological Effects of Low Level Radiation, International Atomic Energy Agency, STI/PUB 646, Vienna, 1983.]

Exposures for the nuclear cohort in this investigation, which covered twenty years of plant operation, averaged 7 cGy (7,000 mrad) or about twenty-three years of additional annual background radiation per worker.

Hold the phone. Just what is a "standard mortality ratio" (SMR)? And what does HWE mean? (It hasn't come up yet, but it's getting ready to.) Glad you asked.

First the SMR: If, in the United States, it is observed that 20,000 of the 1 million makes aged fifty-nine die per year, we can say that the rate of deaths for this group is 2% and that becomes the basis for comparison of other smaller groups of fifty-nine-year-old, left-handed Presbyterians, there are only ten deaths, giving us a death rate of 1%. To obtain the standard mortality ratio of the Presbyterian lefties we divide its 1% rate by the 2% rate for the total population, yielding the ratio 0.50.

If we wanted to know the reason for this lesser mortality ratio, we'd call in an epidemiologist. This special type of statistician might note that most U.S. Presbyterians are Caucasians, who have a lower death rate at age fifty-nine than that of the population in general. Hence race would be considered a confounding factor that explains, in part or in total, the difference in the death statistics.

One of the most often used confounding factors in attempts to rebut the hormesis phenomenon is that of the healthy worker effect (HWE).

Any employer requiring reliable workers will want to know, at the time of employment negotiations, the health history of the prospective employee. [Politicians who pander to certain groups attempt to thwart such reasonable actions - as seen by several Federal laws making health questions illegal.]

Since the healthy applicants, who tend to have a history of less health-related absenteeism, are the first hired, it is logical to assume that the workforce will be healthier than a group of people including those who had applied but were not hired for health reasons. In studies relating to, for instance, tooth decay, we would generally tend to find that the employed contingent had sounder teeth than the total population, some of whom might have lifestyles that didn't include the use of a toothbrush. It would be appropriate in this case to attribute the better dental health to the fact that the individual in question was a "healthy worker."

There is a case, however, where LNT proponents use this confounder to confuse: It is when the employees are drawn from the same pool and work in the same or very similar work areas. Since there is no screening test for cancer, there is no way to predict whether the prospective employee will contract it. How, then, can an employee be hired on the basis that he will not contract cancer later? We shouldn't discount the HWE, but we shouldn't let others use it to discount the hormesis phenomenon when it is not applicable. Please pardon the interruption, and now back to our story.

The close agreement shown between the thermal worker SMR and that of the general population in Figure 17 would indicate a high degree of reliability for the overall study with a slight degree of "healthy worker effect" (HWE) noted for the non-nuclear cohort. Since there is no HWE in the comparison of nuclear and thermal workers - both being drawn from the same pool - the only difference in the cohorts is the additional radiation exposure of the nuclear workers. This, it would appear, strongly indicates a beneficial effect of low-level radiation exposure - which, of course, is our definition of radiation hormesis.

Source for Figure 17 Cancer Mortality of Nuclear Plant Workers: Abbatt, J.D., Hamilton, T.R., and Weeks, J.L. Epidemiological studies in three corporations covering the Canadian nuclear fuel cycle, in Biological Effects of Low Level Radiation, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 351, 1983.

Radio-Resistance in Mice Previously Exposed to Hormetic Levels

We are aware that inoculations strengthen the immune system by mildly stressing it and causing antibodies to arise that fight any further intrusion of a similar type of invader. In effect, vaccinations are examples of hormesis: Small doses of poison are stimulatory. The poison in this case is a virus, not an inorganic toxin. Hans Seyle (chapter 4) doesn't care what it is. As long as it stresses the host organism, it starts an alarm reaction that stimulates a defense mechanism.

If radiation hormesis is a valid concept, we might expect small doses of radiation to ward off the bio-negative effects of higher doses - obviously not through the creation of antibodies but by some currently unknown mechanism. Figure 11 illustrates just such a phenomenon.

In this 1990 experiment by M. Yonezawa et al. [Yonezawa, M., Takeda, A., and Misonoh, J. Acquired radioresistance after low-dose x-irradiation in mice. Journal of Radiation Research, 31, 256, 1990], mice were irradiated with a low dose of X-rays (50 cGy or 50,000 mrad) two weeks before a second potentially lethal dose of 740 cGy (740,000 mrad). The survival rates of the irradiated group were compared with the unexposed controls. There isn't much question as to which mouse group I'd want to line up with on "innoculation day."

Table 8 (in chapter 8 - or see below) shows the dose-response for humans is similar to that which Yonezawa finds for mice - at 700 mrem, we're both dead or close to it. Would humans have a similar radio-resistance response? We don't know and aren't likely to until the knee-jerk reaction to anything nuclear is abated by scrapping the LNT. If I were a nuclear worker - involved in changing fuel elements where high-level (but so far, nonfatal) accidents have occurred, or an astronaut potentially subjected to a cosmic radiation barrage, or perhaps a soldier with the potential for high-level exposure from a neutron bomb, I think I'd want someone to look into the radio-resistance phenomenon who wasn't committed to the LNT hypothesis and likely to state at the outset, "All radiation is harmful - and it's our job to keep you from having any."

Table 8 – Acute Radiation Syndrome
Subclinical Range 0 – 100 rads		Therapeutic Range 100 – 500 rads			Lethal Range 500+ rads
		100 – 200	200 – 300	300 – 500	500 – 2000	2000+
Appropriate Action	None	Clinical surveillance	Therapy effective	Therapy promising	Therapy palliative (comfort patient only)
Incidence of Vomiting	None	100 rads: 5% 200 rads: 50%	75%	75%	100%	100%
Delay Time	n/a	3 hours	2 hours	1 hour	3 min.	3 min.
Main Organs Affected	None	Blood Forming Tissue			Gastro-intestinal Tract	Central Nervous System
Characteristic Signs	None	White Blood Cell Decrease	Fatigue, infection, erythema, sterilization, loss of hair above 300 rads, hemorrhage		Diarrhea, fever, electrolyte imbalance, bleeding	Convulsion, coma, loss of muscle control, lethargy, tremors
Critical Period	n/a	n/a	4 – 6 weeks		5 – 14 days	1 – 48 hours
Post-exposure Therapy	Assure of Safety	Blood analysis; assure of safety	Blood transfusion; anti-biotics	Possible bone marrow transplant	Maintain electrolyte balance	Sedatives
Outlook	Excellent	Excellent	Good	Guarded	Hopeless	Hopeless
Convalescent Period	None	Several weeks	1 – 2 months	Long	n/a	n/a
Death Rate	None	None	0% - 40%	40% - 100%	90% - 100%	100%
Death Within	n/a	n/a	2 – 4 weeks		2 weeks	2 days
Cause of Death	n/a	n/a	Hemorrhage, infection		Dehydration	Respiratory failure; heart attack

Battling the Bureaucracy

I'd suggest that the only way to change country A's regulators would be for the citizens of A to understand the evidence and know the evidence proves the regulators are wrong; that their regulations are costing lives, not saving them; that the tax money of the citizens is being wasted on nonsensical programs to reduce radiation levels that are already insignificant; and that people and industries are being denied the benefits of nuclear technology because bureaucrats feel a responsibility to "enforce official policy" rather than question, observe and reason.

So, I submit, it is up to us to look at the evidence - of which the following is just a small fraction - and then, with reason and eloquence, persuade our political leaders to lead. Failing that, we should work to throw the blackguards out, and help elect those who will listen to reason - and not to the anti-technologists who would return us to the days of manure, a boring subsistence, and back-breaking labor.

In Luckey's Radiation Hormesis, the source of much of the evidence to be offered in the upcoming chapters, the subject matter was arranged in terms of parameters that were being observed, e.g., fertility, growth rate, immunity, mortality, cancer risk, life span. Subjects of the studies ranged from bacteria to fish eggs, to mice, to beagles, to humans - with each interspersed within the observed parameters. The information presented is technical, quite detailed, and frankly - because I tend to faint when reading italicized Latin words of more than two syllables - can be a bit difficult to understand. But that's what we engineers were put on Earth for: to attempt conversion of scientists' ideas into something normal people can fathom.

For this reason I've concentrated on, and am limiting the data to, studies on mice and men. Mice, because the experiments are with statistically significant numbers of specimens bred to minimize genetic differences - and men (women, too) because of a hunch that readers will be interested in that particular species. Additional details on these and related subjects can be found on the Radiation, Science and Health website at http://cnts.wip.edu/rsh.

Upcoming chapters have the following content:

• Chapter 14: Data from mice experiments concerning responses, such as longevity and various cancer mortalities, to a wide range of exposures
• Chapter 15: Observations and data from A-bomb survivors
• Chapter 16: Radiation effects on workers in nuclear power plants and nuclear-weapons facilities
• Chapter 17: Effects of different levels of background radiation on residents in different geographical areas
• Chapter 18: Some hormetic effects seen in medical treatment statistics
• Chapter 19: A huge study of nuclear-shipyard workers by Johns Hopkins University
• Chapter 20: An even bigger study by Bernard Cohen of the effects of residential radon in the United States. You may have been a participant in the study, as it covered 90% of U.S. residents in more than 1,700 counties.

Hopefully, one or more of these topics will be helpful in your evaluation of the experimental basis of hormesis - or, as United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) puts it - "the adaptive response to radiation in cells and organisms."

Rummaging Through the Stacks

Where the radiation level is greater, cancer risk is invariably less. [Nambi and Soman. Further observations on environmental radiation and cancer in India, Health Physics, submitted in 1990, unpublished.]

Presenting the evidence of radiation hormesis has been the most daunting problem faced in writing this book; there is just too much of it. Luckey had more than 2,000 citations in his two books, and he estimates that this was about half of the data available in 1990. [Hormesis with Ionizing Radiation, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1980; and Radiation Hormesis, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1991.]

In the fifteen years since then, other researchers have become involved, and their research compounds the problem of "too much" evidence. Until of late there had been only a very few experiments designed to address the radiation hormesis hypothesis, and most of these involved non-vertebrates. [Even more rare are subambient (i.e., less than normal background) radiation experiments, which should show a degradation of biologic function when the target microbes are shielded from cosmic and other background sources. Two such experiments are described in Radiation Hormesis, pp. 211-23.]

The data available - which are the backbone of the argument I'm putting forth [While I have absolutely no reason to distrust the recent test reports that attest to the hormesis phenomenon, there is something very satisfying about examining data taken without any conceivable bias toward "the reverse effect." If there were any bias it was to ignore that which didn't fit the curve.] - are generally one of the following types:

• Animal tests designed to find adverse effects of high levels of ionizing radiation but which happened to take measurements in the low-dose area in the course of the experiment; [According to Luckey, much of the low-dose data - which showed negative correlation of the dose-response relationship - was either ignored, omitted or simply deemed too unimportant to report.]
• Japanese bombing survivors who were within a known distance of A-bomb detonations and whose exposures could be calculated; [There is considerable controversy about exposures, particularly in Hiroshima, with many researchers believing the data analysis understates the radiation dosage. One problem is related to some data still not being available to investigators - even after more than fifty years!]
• Statistical evidence on workers in nuclear power plants and weapons manufacturing facilities; and
• Populations that live in various areas with background radiation up to eighty times the U.S. average.

It would be wonderful if there were carefully controlled experimental data on humans for all diseases over the complete radiation dosage range. To optimize the hormesis effect, it would be marvelous to have double-blind studies over long periods of time, with carefully controlled exposures and rates. But we don't have these things.

A Very Short History of Radiation Hormesis

The extremely tall people on Niue Island (averaging height 6'6") receive 10 times more radiation from the soil than the world average. [Eugaster, Subradiation experiments concerning the concept of the natural radiation background, Aerospace Medicine, 35, 524, 1964.]

Why, you might logically ask, was the hormesis phenomenon not discovered until some eighty years after Roentgen, Becquerel, and the Curies made their contributions to radiation science? Why was there not an earlier Professor Luckey? [Professor Luckey is credited with coining the term "Radiation Hormesis" from his 1981 book Hormesis with Ionizing Radiation.]

Actually there was of sorts, and he, oddly enough, was also a professor at the University of Missouri. In 1896, Professor W. Shrader inoculated guinea pigs with the diphtheria bacillus. [Shrader, W. Experiments with X-rays upon germs. Electrical Engineering, 22, 170, 1896.]

The group exposed to X-rays prior to inoculation survived; the unexposed cohort died within twenty-four hours. Shrader, in the same series of experiments, was apparently the first person to discover that "Roentgen Rays" could be used to kill germs.

During the early twentieth century, radiation was used for a variety of experimental therapies, but the doses were generally far above hormetic levels and may well have caused more harm than good. Patent medicines such as "Radithor" (more on this in chapter 24) were popular, with single doses having nearly a million times the daily radium intake allowed by current government regulators. Hundreds of thousands of vials of elixirs were consumed without any widespread harm occurring and with a sizable number of "miracle cures" being reported. Few controls, however, were employed to scientifically assess the actual worth of the treatments leaving one to believe that most of these "cures" may have been either the product of advertising hype or a placebo effect.

Medical research wasn't the big draw for world-class physicists. We might remember that in the early days of radiation experimentation important discoveries were being made almost daily, while health considerations - except, possibly, for the annoying, minor and superficial skin "beta burns" - were considered to be of no consequence. The doses of radiation these unprotected experimenters received are estimated to exceed by thousands of times the maximums under which today's nuclear industry workers are allowed to continue on the job.

Madame Curie, discoverer of both polonium and radium, offers a good example of the "non-standards" of the day. [In 1516, a silver lode was discovered in St. Joachim's Dale (Joachimsthal), which was - naturally - confiscated by the government of Count von Schlick. Coins minted from this mine were known as Joachimsthalers, which (for obvious reasons) came to be known as thalers - in English, dollars. It was from this mine that the Curies obtained pitchblende - an ore rich in uranium and its daughters, radium and polonium.]

It is anecdotal that whenever Marie Sklodowska [in case you were curious why she named her first discovery for Poland] Curie walked into a room, electroscopes immediately discharged. [Gold is so malleable that it can be pressed into leaves less than 1/10,000 of an inch thick. If you hang two pieces of leaf in an air-filled jar, with provision to charge both - you have an electroscope. Charging the leaves with the same polarity causes them to "push apart" and, because they are so light, the electrostatic "pushing" force exceeds the gravitational force that would cause them to "droop" into a vertical position. Such devices were used to assay the content of uranium ores - not from the non-penetrating alpha radiation of the uranium, but from the accumulated daughters of which the gamma ray emitting radium was a significant component. Air, when ionized, is a conductor that discharged the electroscope at a rate proportional to the amount of ionizing radiation present.]

It is almost certain that she had an enormous lung burden of radium - the element she was extracting from uranium ore - which took quite a bit of patience, since there are only about 0.003 grams of radium per ton of ore. Madam Curie died almost certainly from the effects of long-term and extremely high doses of radiation. Yet, at age sixty-six, she still exceeded by ten years the life expectancy of her day.

Later in the century, the subject of hormesis would have doubtlessly been trifling compared to other matters. From August 1939 - when a letter from Albert Einstein was delivered to Franklin Roosevelt recommending the development of an atomic bomb - until the end of World War II, the focus of virtually the entire nulcear physics community became the Manhattan project. (This venture, equivalent in size to the total automotive industry at that time, is described in fascinating detail in The Making of the Atomic Bomb [Richard Rhodes, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1986].)

Certainly the scientists were aware of potential dangers from radiation - especially the highly penetrating neutrons from "atomic piles" - but these risks were minimal, compared with the reality of thousands of deaths from the war every day. Concerns about low-level radiation - either harmful or beneficial - weren't even on the radar scope.

Interestingly, the only health physics experiment I've ever come across that occurred during the Manhattan project was indicative of radiation hormesis:

"In 1943, a group of [radiation scientists] on the Manhattan District Project were worried about the unknown toxicity of uranium. They grew a colony of rats in an atmosphere laden with sufficient uranium dust to kill them fast (the Manhattan Project didn't have time for fancy radiobiologists). As a control, a similar colony breathed clean air. After several months, nothing happened, but eventually the rats lived out their natural lifespans, with one surprise: the first health physics experiment demonstrated that rats who breathed uranium dust lived longer and were happier (i.e., had a better reproductive history) than normal rats. Not a tumor in the bunch." [From a letter by Marshall Brucer, M.D. to Time magazine (from the files of Petr Beckmann).]

During this period there are reports of relatively minor medical experimentation to determine the effect of ionizing radiation on the healing of wounds. The exposure levels, however, were high (1 Gy or 100 rem) - suggesting its use as a bactericide. The availability of antibiotics in 1942, and the post-Hiroshima bombing concerns over high-level dangers, caused a loss of interest in research of this nature by the end of World War II.

After the war, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki became laboratories for research on the effects of radiation on humans. But the focal point was on the high-dose subjects - in particular on their excess cancers and the possible mutational effects on children. When low-dose victims showed beneficial health effects, the data were ignored as being anomalies (a fancy scientific words for "it doesn't fit in with what we're expecting").

Luckey addresses this subject:

"Statistical analysis of observed data was missing in many reports of experiments involving low doses of ionizing radiation. Most of the reports simply indicated that an unexpected phenomenon had been observed, but the researchers failed to pursue it systematically... Any unexpected result was rejected by the 95% rule: One experiment in each twenty was accepted as a variant. Closer inspection showed this was a consistent result; it usually occurred in the group exposed to the least radiation, the only one in the hormetic range. Hormetic data were ignored because they did not fit the models of the zero thesis." [Radiation Hormesis, p. 45.]

When someone really writes a history of radiation hormesis, the first "official" recognition of the phenomenon will go to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) in a 1994 report "Adaptive Responses to Radiation in Cells and Organisms":

"Manifestations of the adaptation described in mammals after exposure to low doses of radiation include accelerated growth rate in the young, increase in reproductive ability, extended life-span, stimulatory effects on the immune system, and a lower than expected incidence of spontaneous tumors."

You might want to read that again.

Before Going on to Radiation ...

Let's look at some common examples of where we see hormesis in humans.

• Vitamins and trace minerals clearly show the difference a dose makes. Arsenic and selenium were considered (and are) deadly poisons; but they have been found to be necessary nutrients.
• Some sunlight is necessary for production of vitamin D in the body, but too much leads to localized cancers, and in extreme cases, death.
• Some noises (such as waves) can be soothing and healthful, while long exposure to loud noises can cause mental confusion and loss of hearing function.
• Most athletes are well aware of "no pain, no gain"; too much pain, however, equals ruptured muscles, torn ligaments, and broken bones.
• Lack of stress in one's life (e.g., a deadline to complete a project) tends to make an individual lethargic, while too much stress can cause permanent physical and mental harm.

We'll be going on shortly to the specifics of radiation hormesis, but first, classes on the basics of ionizing radiation are getting underway in the next chapter.

Lois, Call Clark!

All of this makes one continue to wonder: where are the journalists and the investigative reporters? They may not have taken biology and physics in college, but are they unable to grasp the ramifications of changing the way radiation is viewed by major scientific organizations? Or do they think that their "environmentalist" buddies will get upset if they are involved in jerking a major plank out of the platform of those who want us to fear and distrust all technology? (What would the anti-nukes do if they couldn't scare Maude and Harry with stories of radioactive clouds and plutonium mega-deaths?)

Whatever the reason, a major discovery - that is inspiring a worldwide movement - has been totally ignored by the popular media. How important is the story? Myron Pollycove, M.D., Visiting Medical Fellow on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, calls hormesis "the issue of the decade." As you will see, the evidence is incontrovertible. It is no challenged. It is ignored for whatever reason: ignorance, ideology, or indolence.

We have touched on what the taxpayers might save if the government policymakers were to understand that low-level radiation is harmless; but there are positive effects that those who have studied hormesis believe are even more compelling.

The potential benefits to health and vitality are phenomenal. As we shall see, a random dosage of radiation reduced cancer mortality by forty percent in 15,000 nuclear workers, compared with their fellow workers who were not exposed. While cancer is the disease commonly associated with radiation - and consequently there are more data in this area of study - there was also a reduction of 26% in deaths from all causes in 28,542 exposed nuclear shipyard workers when weighed against co-workers with only normal background exposures. The latter investigation, which we will look at in some detail in chapter 19, indicates that there is a beneficial effect to the entire immune system, which, if properly understood and maximized, could lead to the reduction of infectious diseases and possibly prevention of immune-system dysfunctions.

Since the 1950s, uses of nuclear technology outside of medicine and industrial instrumentation have been stifled because of the fear of radiation. (Smoke detectors are about the only consumer good that have escaped demonization by anti-nuclear activists because, in my opinion, they realized they could get annihilated by risk statistics on this one.) [I recently found that Ralph Nader proved me wrong on this. He actually came out against smoke detectors because of the tiny speck of americium that has saved thousands of "real lives."]

What about community or even residential power plants taking advantage of the technology advances that have occurred over the past forty years? What about nuclear vehicles that would be fueled at the factory for twenty years?

The science for many nuclear miracles is either already available or within reach of technological development. But the pervasive fear of low levels of radiation keeps these advances from being used for the benefit of humanity.

For more than thirty years, the "energy crisis" has been a convenient excuse for those who want more government control over energy resources, but the "crisis" is phony as a three-dollar bill. There is, and has been, readily available energy which is denied us solely because of the manufactured fear of low-level radiation.

This resource is not the promise of fusion, which seems to get further away every year, but the available-with-today's-technology breeder reactors that turn "wastes" into incredibly valuable fuel. Where, pray tell, do the advocates of environmentally pristine electric-powered vehicles think they are going to get the electricity to run those cute little things? A recent newspaper article warns that it would take at least a dozen full-scale (1,000 megawatt) power plants to replace the energy from gasoline and diesel engines in the transportation industry for the city of Los Angeles alone.

Available fuel from power plant "wastes" (which still have more than 95% of their original energy in a readily available form) and thousands of tons of "depleted" uranium currently choking our enrichment facilities could power the United States for many decades using available breeder reactor technology. Other uranium resources could fuel our country for centuries. But, as Edward Teller points out, the "breeding" of thorium - a source as common as dirt (actually it is dirt) - into a usable fuel (Uranium 233) could easily provide energy for 100,000 years.

[Each square mile of the earth's surface averages 2.5 tons of thorium in the first food of depth.]

* * *

Radiation hormesis - just as in the case of nuclear power - will be opposed by radical "environmentalist" leaders who oppose all technological progress and the transfer of its benefits to the multitudes, whom they consider to be unwelcome intrusions on the "Green" concept of nature. But both hormesis therapy and nuclear energy will ultimately become commonplace in our world, because they are based on scientific truths that the doomsayers and propagandists can mask only for so long. The question is: "How much unnecessary human misery will occur before truth and reason prevail?"

So let's take a look at how we developed this fear of radiation.

Maybe What We Know Ain't So?

The trouble with people is not that they don't know, but that they know so much that ain't so. - Josh Billings 1818-85

If you've been living on planet Earth anytime during the past fifty years, you are well aware of the dangers of radiation. We have learned that whenever we are exposed to X-rays, for example, there are certain precautions that must be taken. For dental X-rays, we'll need to have that lead-lined apron over us to make sure our reproductive organs are shielded from ionizing radiation. And, of course, the hygienist or technician must duck behind a lead partition because of the cumulative effect of any radiation that might bounce around the room. Not abiding by these rules will cause our cancer risk to increase substantially and may cause mutations in any children born after exposure of parental glands. All radiation is dangerous, and its danger is cumulative.

The thesis of this book contradicts such "common knowledge." While it is unquestionable that very high levels of radiation can cause death, illness and the increased risk of cancer, there is unimpeachable evidence that low levels of radiation are not harmful to human life at all. In fact, we require additional exposure to ionizing radiation in order to achieve our optimal health and vitality.

It is my purpose in this book to convince you that:

• Low levels of ionizing radiation (that which we call "nuclear" or "atomic" radiation) are not harmful to human beings - or any other living creatures for that matter;
• With rare exceptions, we live in an environment where most of us could achieve improved health and vitality by increasing our exposure to radiation;
• While cancer is one of the three hazards of radiation (the other two being radiation sickness and death from huge doses), exposure to low levels of radiation would actually reduce occurrences of cancer; and
• Society is being denied a virtually unlimited source of clean energy with unimaginable benefits because of this irrational fear of radiation.

Certainly these statements may sound like the ravings of a mad man. I fully understand that and realize that it is up to me to provide adequate evidence to support my claims - which is mostly what this book is about. But first I'd like to lay a little groundwork, starting with a question that must be bothering you. "If low levels of radiation are not harmful and appear to be beneficial, why aren't scientists publishing papers about this and attempting to correct the public's misconceptions about radiation effects?"

That's an easy one. They are. And they too are amazed that what some see as "the story of the decade" is being totally ignored by the general media. Even those of us who diligently try to keep up with the news by reading a variety of news sources are unlikely to come across the subject (unless we are regular readers of Health Physics or The Journal of Radiation Research).

This book cites well over a hundred scientists - almost all with doctorates in their fields of specialty - that have published reams of data in more than fifty peer-reviewed scientific journals and scores of government documents. They are trying desperately to communicate their experimental results and the implications thereof to the public.

Many of them have not figured out that this is a Green Issue and that the reporters and editors are not about to go against their Green friends who reflexively demonize anything considered to be "pro-nuclear." But they're learning. If low levels of radiation are realized to be benign, then there goes the argument against nuclear power - and that may well tumble the house of cards that is the Green-Primitivists' argument against an industrialized society.

While there are, as mentioned, hundreds of scientists who are pushing for a truthful assessment of the effects of low levels of radiation, it was not always so. The one figure whose research in this area has been pivotal is Professor T.D. Luckey, now-retired chairman of the Biochemistry Department at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. His 1980 book Hormesis with Ionizing Radiation cited more than a thousand experiments indicating that small amounts of radiation promoted growth and prolonged life in non-mammalian subjects. I can recall hearing of the book in 1981 and expecting a firestorm of interest in the beneficial uses of radiation. Not a word.

Dr. Luckey's second book, Radiation Hormesis, is the seminal work on the subject of beneficial effects of radiation on humans and other mammals. By this time other researchers had concluded there was at least a threshold of radiation exposure below which there were no adverse effects. But Luckey would not back down from his hypothesis: that most of us require additional ionizing radiation for optimal health and well being. The evidence, as you will see, makes a compelling argument. But still not a word in the general media. It is from Luckey's second book that much of the material herein has been "harvested."

[Hormesis with Ionizing Radiation, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 1980 (out of print); Radiation Hormesis, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 1991. Available from CRC Press, 2000 NW Corporate Blvd., Boca Raton, FL 33431, for $195 plus shipping.]

* * *

This book is about radiation hormesis - a phenomenon virtually unknown outside of certain scientific circles, but the understanding of which offers the potential for significant health benefits and a pathway to rational treatment of radiation dangers. By reopening access to the wonders of nuclear technology, it promotes a more abundant life for mankind. Since the radiation hormesis hypothesis was put forth, it has caused a major upheaval in the scientific community about the effects of low-level radiation. At the same time, there has been an almost complete news blackout for the rest of us. I hope this book will help lift that veil.

The plan here is to provide you with information that helps cut through the confusing units of radiation intensity, its doses, the types of radiation, and other information that should allow you to make sense of the evidence. Then most of the book is in the form of evidence from experiments that were intended as studies of high-level effects, but in which the low-level data were also recorded. There are also several important investigations (with huge numbers of participants) where it was anticipated that the subjects would experience more cancer with an increase in radiation exposure, only to find that the exact opposite occurred.

At the outset you should know that there is nothing I can claim as original in the following pages. I am but an engineer reporting the results of scientists who have done the experiments or epidemiologists who have complied and analyzed data related to the effects of low levels of exposure. Being free to "pick and choose," I've selected the studies I thought were most interesting and indicative of hormesis. However, I did not exclude any because they showed opposite results. While I am certainly aware that there are many with opinions to the contrary, those who opine that low-level radiation is a danger have no data and must rely on extrapolations - and indeed, it is these very extrapolations that are the problem.

To Work, Dear Reader

You also have a job: It is to be totally skeptical of everything you read here. Doubt every sentence until I have presented sufficient evidence to back it up. There is an unbelievably large body of evidence about the effects of low doses of radiation on health, and some ninety-eight percent of it supports the hormesis model. I consider it quite an adventure to expose you to just a fraction of it.

Carefully and critically examine the evidence that is put forth here, and when you do, I believe that you will agree that the case I am making is indeed supported by the facts. And no longer will you allow the wool to be pulled over your eyes or those of your family, friends, and associates.

Let's begin by looking at how our attitudes toward radiation have changed during the past few decades.