Re: Washington Post article on Radiatio

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Group,

Since this is the 7th request so far, and the article isn't very long, I'm
attaching it below. I apologise in advance to those who don't want it, or have 
www access, but I note also that even some of those of us with access are
converting this to ascii for mailing - so here it is. 

>    Jim:
> 
> I was unable to access the article on the web Please forward a copy to me.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> mike russell
>   russelmj@songs.sce.com

[Note that the text here was for distribution to a group of RSH supporters.]

Group,

FYI. The Washington Post has picked up the LLR issue. I presume this is from
Ted Rockwell's great article in The Scientist, along with the NCRP meeting
etc. 

Unfortunately, with the lack of a clear source/statement on the RSH group, we
get painted as "a pro-nuclear group" rather than a group of "independent
individual scientists and public policy experts" :-)  But of course, we have
acted because of the damage the LNT has done on the use of radiation and
nuclear technologies, and the horrendous economic and public health and safety 
costs being foisted on the public. 

I'd appreciate any comments/contributions that could/should be made in
response to Puskin and others. (Can you send this article with your own note
to: a. your representatives, b. your managers, c. your professional
associates, and d. anyone else who cares about the public costs and future of
the US and world economies, and encourage them to be aware of the substance of 
this "debate" and support the effort to make the effort to examine the data
that explicitly and blatantly contradicts the LNT. 

Also, please provide any comments/recommendations on specific followup actions 
that the RSH group should direct to anyone else in the public policy community 
to take advantage of this awareness. 

My view:  Since this is just a little premature from having completed our
substantial group Position Statement and the distribution of the Data
Document, there will be the typical "defensive action" by the defenders in the 
debate (NAS, NCRP, etc). Their initial reaction will tend to again have them
reinforce their position and therefore make it more difficult to make change.
We need to produce and deliver that Position Statement ASAP, so that the
cognizance of the defenders to the intent of the group and the documentation
and wide distribution of the evidence is well known among the scientific and
public policy leadership. The more knowledgeable will then "temper" their
remarks along the lines of "undertaking new assessments" because they will
explicitly know that the issue is both substantial and will not just go away
this time - the way they've brazen it out in the past. 

I note again that we are engaged in an effort that is quite unlike fighting
the "bureaucracy" on this issue. That is an exercise in "shoveling back the
tide". We are engaged in "blowing up the moon". 

I again ask that each of you contact any and all persons who can/should be
cognizant of this effort and make them understand it, and join it, to the
extent possible. 

Thanks.

Regards, Jim 
=====================

Atomic Split: Data Recharge Debate on Low-Level Radiation Risk

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, April 14 1997; Page A03
The Washington Post

The statistics seem clear and compelling, and completely at odds with common
sense: In Japan, site of the world's only nuclear attacks, radiation victims
are outliving their peers.

It's one of the stranger twists in 50 years of scientific monitoring of atom
bomb survivors. As expected, the people closest to ground zero have died in
high numbers of cancers that began in a white-hot flash of nuclear radiation.
But as one moves farther from the blast site, the death rate plunges until it
actually dips below the baseline.

And so, oddly, people with limited radiation exposure appear to live longer
than neighbors who had none at all.

The discrepancy has several possible explanations, but none of them have
quelled the growing debate over what the data seem to suggest: Could low-level
radiation -- regulated in this country and elsewhere as a powerful carcinogen
-- be less dangerous than commonly believed?

The question, which has divided scientists and academicians for years, has
flared again because of a number of provocative new studies that seem to
refute prevailing views about low-level radiation -- the relatively low-grade
sort found in some kinds of medical waste or in the natural radon gas found in
many homes.

"It's like a religious dispute," said Steven Galson, the Energy Department's
chief medical officer. "It's very, very intense."

The issue has broad implications, not just for nuclear workers but for
ordinary consumers and taxpayers. If the government relaxed radiation exposure
standards, by even a small degree, it could result in enormous savings for
utilities, hospitals and other businesses that use radioactive materials.
Taxpayers could save billions of dollars if cleanup standards were eased for
the dozens of lightly contaminated sites around the country.

There's no sign that such a change is imminent. Some long-term epidemiological
studies continue to suggest risks from even the most minute quantities of
radiation. But others are challenging the conventional wisdom in ways that are
becoming harder to ignore. Here are a few of the recent findings:

Tens of thousands of Navy shipyard workers were exposed to radiation in the
1960s and 1970s. Yet, in carefully controlled epidemiological studies by Johns
Hopkins University, the radiated workers appear to have suffered no ill
effects. In fact, they have fewer cancers than non-exposed workers.

Thousands of soldiers took part in nuclear weapons tests in the early years of
the Cold War. But in a pair of recent analyses, researchers found no sign of
unusual illnesses or higher death rates among these "atomic veterans."

A University of Pittsburgh researcher tracked cancer rates in American
counties with the highest levels of radon, the naturally radioactive gas. His
finding: Lung cancers are lower in the areas where exposure is the highest.

Each case has been met with criticism over possible flaws that may have skewed
the results. One problem is that epidemiological studies, which track human
illness and deaths over time, can be relatively crude instruments for
measuring health effects. "It's like hitting an ant with a hammer," said the
Energy Department's Galson.

To help resolve the dispute, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences
gathered in Washington recently to launch a months-long project to decide
whether the latest evidence on low-level radiation and health should be
formally reviewed. A similar review is underway at the National Council on
Radiation Protection and Measurements, the congressionally chartered board
that helps advise the government on radiation safety.

It's too early to predict the outcome, but already prominent scientific groups
are taking sides. Last year, the Health Physics Society, a professional
association of scientists who study the health effects of radiation, surprised
many observers when it effectively rejected the government's existing
guidelines as too conservative.

Others take a more cautious view. Some, like the Environmental Protection
Agency's Jerry Puskin, have observed that many of the most vocal advocates for
change have their own reasons for wanting to see nuclear-based technologies
succeed. "If you already have an agenda, you tend to grab on to these things,"
Puskin said.

At the core of the debate is a simple but powerful theorem, born amid the
uncertainty and anxiety of the atomic era. It states that all radiation is
harmful -- and the more radiation, the greater the harm. Known among
scientists as the "linear no-threshold" model, it holds that there is no truly
"safe" level of exposure because even a single radioactive particle could
cause damage to cells that could lead to cancer.

This model guided U.S. regulators in setting exposure limits for radiation in
the 1950s, and it continues to do so today. The government's exposure limit
for most Americans is 0.1 rems a year, a level lower than the average person's
exposure from natural radiation sources (The average American receives 300
millirems of radiation from natural sources each year.)

Radiation is simply energy in movement and can take the form of high-speed
particles or electromagnetic waves. The weaker, or "nonionizing," forms of
radiation include visible light and radio and television waves. Considerably
more powerful is "ionizing" radiation, so named because it packs enough energy
to strip electrons from atoms.

At high levels, ionizing radiation can do serious damage to the genetic
material within cells. Damage can also occur at small doses, but it is
"indistinguishable, at the cellular level, from the damage routinely
experienced from metabolism," argues Theodore Rockwell, of Radiation, Science
and Health Inc., a pro-nuclear group.

In the March edition of the journal The Scientist, Rockwell notes that living
cells have adapted over billions of years to natural radiation that is present
in virtually every rock, and which bombards Earth daily from space. He
dismisses as "silly" government standards that attempt to control radiation at
levels smaller than a typical tourist encounters by walking through naturally
radioactive granite halls in the U.S. Capitol.

"Even sleeping with another person or moving to a hill or up 10 floors of a
building increases one's radiation dose beyond the permissible minimum," he
wrote.

At the very least, Rockwell and others who share his views hope the debate
will result in a better public understanding about radiation. In the United
States, in contrast to other Western countries, fear of radiation has led to
public rejection of nuclear power as an energy source. It also fuels public
suspicion about such potentially beneficial technologies as food irradiation,
which can kill deadly pathogens and reduce the waste of food through spoilage,
they say.

"In the United States we have taken the position that radiation is so
dangerous we don't want anything to do with it," said David P. Hickman of the
federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "There's a real question of
whether we may be hurting our future."

MEASURING RADIATION'S EFFECTS

People are exposed to radiation in many ways, and about five-sixths of the
exposure comes from natural sources.

Activity                                         Millirems

Typical yearly exposure, all sources             360.00

Yearly exposure from natural sources             300.00

Full set of dental X-rays                         40.00

Chest X-ray                                        8.00

Flying round-trip from D.C. to Los Angeles         5.00

Watching TV for one hour                           0.15

Living outside nuclear power plant for a year      0.10

Compared with other health risks, radiation poses little risk for most
Americans, reducing life expectancy about 18 days.


Health risk                                 Expected life lost

Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day            6 years

Being 15 percent overweight                   2 years

Moderate alcohol consumption                  1 year

Working in agriculture                        320 days

Working in construction                       227 days

Working in nuclear plant (1,000 mrem/yr)       51 days

Typical annual radiation dose (360 mrem/yr)    18 days

SOURCE: Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company