[ RadSafe ] Arguments with Dr. Busby

[Busby Chris]

Let me try to add some clarity. What I have seen is that you make some
claims about the effects of ionizing radiation exposure, and then you
propose several new theories to explain how exposure to ionizing
radiation might be drastically more hazardous that previously thought.






OK. Good. Ill try to make it short.

I started this in 1987 because of Sellafield. You may recall that a TV company discovered a 10-fold excess of child leukaemia at Sellafield, a fuel reprocessing site, in 1982. There was a government enquiry. The nuclear establishment scientists said the (on the basis of the Japanese data for cancer yield, (the ICRP model that the health physicists apply) the doses (about 500uSv) were too low so it couldn’t be radiation. Of course 500uSv is far lower than natural; background. 

But I thought, surely the Japanese data are about high dose acute external irradiation? Not low dose chronic internal irradiation. This is not a scientifically valid comparison, especially since the Japanese RERF/ABCC cohorts were all equally exposed to internal.

I decided to dig a bit, both epidemiologically and at the cell level.

I found basically (and to my astonishment) that “absorbed dose” the covariate in any epidemiological study was applied at the kilogram level. And please don’t refer me to ICRP66 as that has bogus coefficients.

I decided to look at the most easy epidemiological comparison: the population of Wales (high fallout from weapons testing, all measured) and England (low fallout exposures). I found that the Welsh population suddenly increased their cancer rate 20 years after the fallout to 30% higher than the England rate. The Sr-90 dose was 1mSv as calculated by ICRP (UNSCEAR) I published a book (Wings of Death 1995) and got a letter into the BMJ in 1994.

I looked at the literature and found that various people has found that X-ray fractionation within the cell cycle time of 10-12 hrs increased the risk. The Second event theory followed, but basically I don’t depend on that. Its just one idea. No one has done the experiments apart from the early split dose work so no one knows.

Since then I have done an awful lot of epidemiology and also theoretical stuff. The conclusions and those of my colleagues (who are not lightweights in this area) are on the www.euradom.org site, check the "Lesvos Declaration".

So basically, yes, there is epidemiological evidence, a lot of it. And it is denied by the radsafers and the authorities on the basis of the Japanese data essentially.  

OK, so to the high background radiation. This is only a valid comparison for cancer if the people concerned are equivalent. You know that cancer rates vary with populations. The Japanese emigrants in Hawaii take on the cancer rates of the Hawaiians. The immigrants to Sweden from Iraq take on the Sweden rates for various cancers. This is old stuff. People who are indigenous to high background radiation areas may have adjusted by killing off the radiation sensitive individuals. Who knows?  I have a book on it which I can send you, Wolves of Water.  In addition, I showed in Wings of Death in 1995 that these high background studies all show chromosome damage, all of them. Loutit in 1971, (head of the Medical Research Council UK) argued (in a paper) that radium effects on bone marrow would result in early deaths. So focussing on cancer is not a good thing.If you die of a heart attack early you dont die of cancer which is a old age thing.  Radiation kills by a kind of premature ageing: this is seen in the Chernobyl affected territories where in the Ukraine and Belarus for example they have lost 20 years of lifespan. 
Have a look at ECRR2010. You can download it from www.euradcom.org
Cheers
Chris




-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu on behalf of Anagnostopoulos, Harry (CONTR)
Sent: Mon 16/05/2011 18:23
To: radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Arguments with Dr. Busby
 
Dr. Busby;

 

Let me try to add some clarity. What I have seen is that you make some
claims about the effects of ionizing radiation exposure, and then you
propose several new theories to explain how exposure to ionizing
radiation might be drastically more hazardous that previously thought.