It's the same old propaganda with many of the same old propagandists (of the doubt-monger sect).
"Radiation protection standards assume that any dose of radiation, no matter how small, involves a possible risk to human health. This deliberately conservative assumption is increasingly being questioned, and its application following the Fukushima accident caused much suffering and many deaths."
Check. No, the standards don't assume that. We observe DNA get damaged from radiation. We try to quantify that risk as best we can with human epidemiological data but we use other proxies where the data is absent. This data and the conclusions they led to did not cause any suffering or deaths.
"Benefits of lower doses have long been recognised, though radiation protection standards assume that any dose of radiation, no matter how small, involves a possible risk to human health. However, available scientific evidence does not indicate any cancer risk or immediate effects at doses below 100 mSv per year. At low levels of exposure, the body's natural repair mechanisms seem to be adequate to repair radiation damage to cells soon after it occurs."
Check. No, when we observe non-repairable DNA damage after doses as low as one particle, that indicates a cancer risk. The body's natural repair mechanisms are not perfect. More particles, more non-repaired damage. There are no benefits of lower doses other than when compared to higher doses. The benefit may be derived from something else, like power generation, medical information, etc. associated with a dose, but not from the dose itself.
"The main expert body on radiation effects is the UN Scientific Commission on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), set up in 1955 and reporting to the UN General Assembly. It involves scientists from over 20 countries and publishes its findings in major reports. The UNSCEAR 2006 report dealt broadly with the Effects of Ionizing Radiation. Another valuable report, titled Low-level Radiation and its Implications for Fukushima Recovery, was published in June 2012 by the American Nuclear Society."
Check on the ANS report. That report is pseudo-science and contradicts UNSCEAR. It's as valuable as the toilet paper I flushed earlier today. It was associated with the late Ted Rockwell (a psychic) and Eric Loewen (with the anti-science propaganda The Marshall Institute).
""In general, increases in the incidence of health effects in populations cannot be attributed reliably to chronic exposure to radiation at levels that are typical of the global average background levels of radiation." Furthermore, multiplying very low doses by large numbers of individuals does not give a meaningful result regarding health effects. UNSCEAR also addressed uncertainties in risk estimation relating to cancer."
Check from UNSCEAR. But funny how they failed to mention the next paragraph:
"The Scientific Committee notes that public health bodies need to allocate resources appropriately, and that this may involve making projections of numbers of health effects for comparative purposes. This method, though based upon reasonable but untestable assumptions, could be useful for such purposes provided that it were applied consistently, the uncertainties in the assessments were taken fully into account, and it were not inferred that the projected health effects were other than notional."
"In 1990, the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) found no evidence of any increase in cancer mortality among people living near to 62 major nuclear facilities. The NCI study was the broadest of its kind ever conducted and supported similar studies conducted elsewhere in the USA as well as in Canada and Europe."
Check. But funny how they failed to mention the German or French studies. All of these studies suffer from the ecological fallacy, but I'm just supporting honesty.
"A lot of research has been undertaken on the effects of low-level radiation. Many of the findings have failed to support the so-called linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis. This theory assumes that the demonstrated relationships between radiation dose and adverse effects at high levels of exposure also applies to low levels and provides the (deliberately conservative) basis of occupational health and other radiation protection standards.
Increasing evidence suggests that there may be a threshold below which no harmful effects of radiation occur. However, this is not yet accepted by national or international radiation protection bodies as sufficiently well-proven to be taken into official standards."
Check. WNA doesn't understand the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, referring to LNT as both. No, there is no increasing evidence suggesting a threshold. Increasing propaganda....yes.
"In addition, there is increasing evidence of beneficial effect from low-level radiation (up to about 10 mSv/yr). This 'radiation hormesis' may be due to an adaptive response by the body's cells, the same as that with other toxins at low doses. In the case of carcinogens such as ionizing radiation, the beneficial effect is seen both in lower incidence of cancer and in resistance to the effects of higher doses. However, until possible mechanisms are confirmed, uncertainty will remain. Further research is under way and the debate continues. Meanwhile standards for radiation exposure continue to be deliberately conservative."
Check. Bullshit.
"The LNT hypothesis cannot properly be used for predicting the consequences of an actual exposure to low levels of radiation and it has no proper role in low-dose risk assessment. For example, LNT suggests that, if the dose is halved from a high level where effects have been observed, there will be half the effect, and so on. This would be very misleading if applied to a large group of people exposed to trivial levels of radiation and could lead to inappropriate actions to avert the doses. At Fukushima following the March 2011 accident, it did in fact lead to about 1100 deaths, according to the Japan Reconstruction Agency."
Check. WNA doesn't understand the difference between LNT and collective dose. Let's recall what UNSCEAR said about collective dose above (essentially - if that's the best info you got, use it realizing the uncertainties are great). And let's recall what the WNA said about UNSCEAR, "The main expert body on radiation effects is the UN Scientific Commission on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR)...".
"This AHARS approach is supported by Allison (2011) and Cuttler (2012 & 2013) among others, and an AHARS level of 1000 mSv/yr is suggested. This would also mean that most or all of the displaced residents from near the Fukushima plant could return home, without any elevated cancer risk."
Check, check and if I add Luckey and Cohen (from the provided References and Sources), check and check.
You know you're an IDIOT when Bill O'Reilly knows more about science:
P.S. Yeah, the "you can't explain the tides" Bill O'Reilly:
Checkmate, WNA.
In my book, blaming the evacuation victims on anything else than disastrous unpreparedness is downright indecent.
ReplyDeleteWho are these clowns really? I see them cited a lot by LNT denialists among my correspondents
They are basically a consortium to promote the nuclear industry. From their website:
ReplyDelete"Current WNA Members are responsible for virtually all of world uranium mining, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication; all reactor vendors; major nuclear engineering, construction, and waste management companies; and nearly 90% of world nuclear generation. Other WNA members provide international services in nuclear transport, law, insurance, brokerage, industry analysis and finance."
There are many Creationists who blame the Nazi's actions on the theory of evolution (ie, that biological evolution supports killing "inferior people"). LNT Deniers (I need to come up with a snappier label) blame the theory of LNT, which itself is really the theory of carcinogenesis for genotoxic substances, on causing the evacuations and any repercussions.
And they'll also be sure to point out how low the doses are that the population got around Fukushima, without acknowledging the role the evacuations played in that.
And they'll also be sure to point out how low the doses are that the population got around Fukushima, without acknowledging the role the evacuations played in that.
ReplyDeleteActually according to Jacobsson and Ten Hoeve the evacuation saved around 20% of the estimated lives lost, that is 26 (3-220) lives. As it cost ~600 lives, that was a poor payoff. Now these same folks are of course reasoning with the clarity only hindsight affords, as at the time the decision was taken nobody knew how bad it was going to get, no thanks to TEPCO's legendary openness as to what was going on.
The real, big error was complete unpreparedness. Nobody knowing anything about long-term radiation effects would order people unfit to be moved to be evacuated -- and, knowing medical people a bit, I know that volunteers to stay with them would have been found.
I agree the real, big error was complete unpreparedness.
ReplyDelete> All of these studies suffer from the ecological fallacy
ReplyDeleteNot this one.
It does in the sense that it uses distance rather than dose. A good case control or cohort study looks at estimated dose received by the individual.
DeleteBut what do you do when you believe that the relevant dose to the individual is effectively zero? What precisely should they have measured/estimated, when theory didn't tell them?
DeleteI don't know why someone would undertake a study of radiation effects if the person believes the radiation dose is effectively zero. That doesn't make very good logical sense let alone financial sense.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct that any excess dose is effectively zero compared to other potential confounders.
So with these types of studies, you know AHEAD OF TIME what the potential outcomes are: 1) the study will show no excess and be accepted at face value, or 2) the study will show an excess but because the radiation dose is effectively zero, it wll be "unexplained" or "presumed due to an unidentified confounder", etc.
No serious person is going to say it's the radiation at effectively zero dose....so why do the study?
Hmm... but that way you'll never going to find any effect that theory didn't already predict... that cannot be good.
DeleteAbout potential confounders, what about trying this one on for size: nuclear plants are invariably built somewhat away from areas of dense habitation. Therefore, if you live within 5 km from one, it is highly likely that you live in the midst of a countryside environment, in a single story detached dwelling with its own garden.
Precisely how this increases exposure to causes of cancer, I don't know, but it would seem at least plausible that it happens.
Wrong. The theory predicts that at low radiation doses it will be highly unlikely to discern statistically an excess in cancer incidence knowing that cancer is multi-casual and that there are variations in those multi-causes. That's why when any studies show an excess, the authors are forced to doubt the cause is actually radiation.
ReplyDeleteYes, a denser population could lead to more second hand smoke, diesel exhaust, and other carcinogens which could be confounders. Another is simply radon. Sometimes radon will be higher (and sometimes lower) around a nuclear plant purely by chance. These studies don't typically account for radon.
Eh, no... what we see here looks like a negative correlation with population density.
DeleteYes, radon could be: it will likely collect more in the ground floors of single-story houses found in low population density areas.
I don't know what the population density is around the German plants and outlying areas. In the U.S. we have some nuclear plants which are in high population dense areas and some which are not.
DeleteDepending on which plant is being studied radon, second hand smoke, diesel exhaust, poverty (associated with lots of bad health behaviors like smoking, alcoholism, drug use), etc. can influence the result though they are not usually considered.
Depending on the relative strength of these variables and the population density around a given plant, one expects that some studies will show negative correlation and some positive correlation just because.
And that's what we see.
Another possibility is that maybe the nuclear plant uses some chemical which is a confounder. Maybe an algeacide or anti-corrosive in any system which is vented to the atmosphere.
ReplyDelete