[ RadSafe ] Excess deaths

[Baratta, Edmond J]

I believe what you have stated below is what the EPA has done since its
inception in 1970.  This is what they are now doing with the Nuclear Waste
site in Nevada.  They are trying to project what will happen in 1,000 years
or longer.  Something may happened (at the site) some Eon when California
slides into the Pacific after an earthquake or whatever.

Edmond J. Baratta
Radiation Safety Officer
Tel. No. 781-729-5700, ext 728
FAX: 781-729-3593

The above are my opinions and not that of my Agency.   

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf
Of Dale Boyce
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 8:04 PM
To: Radsafe (E-mail)
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Excess deaths

Hi All,

There are no "excess deaths" everyone dies. Though I have in the past argued
that LNT should not be used to estimate deaths due to radiation exposure,
let me pose an argument from a different point of view.

Death due to stochastic effects has a vey long induction time, except
perhaps for leukemia and other low occurance rate cancers.  If someone is
exposed to 1 Gy or 100 rad, BEIR whatever projects about 4% excess cancers. 

However, pick the mean age of the population.  I could look it up, but let's
say it is 35. Then factor in a 30+ year cancer induction period. I know
leukemia is much faster, but the rate is also much lower. Then roughly 4% of
the people exposed to 1 Gy would contract radiogenic cancer at around age
65, and die some years later (assuming the model).

Now let's apply this to a population of 1 million people. You would see
(accepting BEIR for the moment) 40 thousand radiogenic cancers (a number
widely reported as expected deaths from Chernobyl). However. the 40,000 need
to be multiplied by the fraction of life lost to come up with a realistic
"excess death" rate.  So if 1 million were exposed at age 35 to 1 Gy and
lost about 10% of their life expectancy, then the lost life expectancy would
be about 4000 according to the LNT model.

Moreover, the exposed population was not exposed to this large of a dose.
So the "excess deaths" would be much, much lower.  

I am not trying to make this email a treatise on how to estimate "excess
deaths".  I am merely throwing out a framework for discussion on how to
realistically interpret BEIR and LNT without tossing it out completely.
(Though I might like to).

Dale
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