Imagine a World Without LNT - Learning to Deal Rationally with Radiation
- Founding Officer, MPR Associates, Inc., 3403 Woolsey Drive, Chevy Chase, MD 20815 (United States)
For some, the idea of a world without LNT (Linear No-Threshold hypothesis) is too horrible to contemplate. Most of the research money on radiation is driven by the quest to discover health effects where none have been observed. Most of the scenarios for consequences of reactor accidents and for failure of waste disposal sites deal with small numbers of individual radioactive atoms struggling through miles of desert soil to contaminate the drinking water of an innocent child thousands of years in the future. And most of the multibillion-dollar 'remediation' work on sites and facilities goes to reduce 'excess' radiation levels already less than the natural radiation we all received every day. Without LNT, these lucrative activities might stop. In this situation, we must look carefully at what we mean by 'a world without LNT'. What do we want to get, and what must we be sure to retain? And how can we make the transition so that the new rules are understood and agreed to by those who must live by them? Otherwise, we will be forever be ensnarled in Talmudic arguments over minutiae. First, let us narrow our target to the essentials: protecting personnel and the environment. There will forever be research into the exact nature and consequences of the interaction of radiation with living organisms. But we do not have to wait for the research results to provide adequate protection standards. For radiation protection, we do not need to argue about the exact shape of the radiation response curve. Nor do we quarrel with the effects of radiation levels high enough to produce observed health effects; current standards clearly protect us. Nor do we need to define, just now, the precise point at which a threshold for detrimental health effects appears. It will be quite enough to agree that radiation doses below which no harmful effects have been observed, perhaps five or ten rem (50 to 100 millisievert) per year, should not ordinarily be exceeded by workers. We know that some people have actually lived for generations in locations where the natural radiation background is of this order, and they show no deleterious effects. And thousands of others have received medical exposures greater than this, again without harm. Here we have to mention hormesis, the beneficial effects of small doses of agents that are toxic at high levels. Radiation, like other such agents, creates this effect by stimulating the body's defenses. This is the principal behind vaccination and the need for trace elements for nutrition. Researchers like Don Luckey and Otto Raabe have shown that small doses of radiation are indeed beneficial: longevity increased, cancer and other mortality lowered, fecundity and other health indicators improved. Slightly larger doses show a numerically greater effect, up to an optimum point. Doses above the optimum point show less improvement, until we reach the zero effect point, where there is no hermetic effect, and the health indices are equal to the unirradiated controls. Still greater doses then begin to show deleterious effects. Soup to the zero effect point, receiving more radiation is beneficial. Below that point (where we all live), we are suffering from a radiation deficiency, and the application of ALARA (reducing the radiation 'as low as reasonably achievable') is actually detrimental to our health. Specifying a precise threshold level is not our first priority. But we could agree right now to stop trying to control radiation exposures that are not only below the natural radiation background, but are below even the variations in background one encounters in ordinary living. This is where current policy presents the clearest affront to both common sense and science. Yet it is where most of the money and our precious scientific talent are being spent. It may be useful as pure science, but it is barely relevant to radiation protection. Stopping such activities surely does not complicate anything. The other egregious practice is the use of 'collective dose', the notion that deaths can be 'predicted' in an irradiated population where no individual has received a harmful dose. This idea never had any basis in reality and should be discontinued.
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society - ANS, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 23142316
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Global'99: International Conference on Future Nuclear Systems - Nuclear Technology - Bridging the Millennia, Las Vegas, NV (United States), 29 Aug - 3 Sep 1999; Other Information: Country of input: France; available from American Nuclear Society - ANS, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (US)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
TU-C-18A-01: Models of Risk From Low-Dose Radiation Exposures: What Does the Evidence Say?
An assessment of potential health impacts on Utrok Atoll from exposure to cesium-137 (137Cs) and plutonium
Related Subjects
61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY
ALARA
BIOLOGICAL ADAPTATION
HUMAN POPULATIONS
IRRADIATION
MORTALITY
NATURAL RADIOACTIVITY
NEOPLASMS
RADIATION DOSE UNITS
RADIATION DOSES
RADIATION PROTECTION
REACTOR ACCIDENTS
REMEDIAL ACTION
SAFETY STANDARDS
TRACE AMOUNTS