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"Low Level
Radiation Health Effects: Compiling the Data"
Revision 1
March 19, 1998
by Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc.,
Edited by J. Muckerheide
1.2.6
Natural Radiation and Radioactivity
1.2.6.2
Natural Background: Populations
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Nobel Laureate, Professor Emeritus Dr.
Rosalyn Yalow, Senior Medical Researcher, Bronx VA Hospital and Simon Berson
Distinguished-Professor-at-Large, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, states (1994a) that: "U.S.
average radiation dose of 0.1 rem/yr (ie, 5 rem/50 yr), not including radon, varies up to
10-fold locally.
"The seven Colorado plateau states have doses about twice the US average.
(Frigerio 1976) Mean cancer death rates average 15% less than US rates (considering
complicating factors). This does not prove a protective effect of radiation exposure, but
the opposite result would cause some to unequivacaly declare radiation the cause..."
Dr. Yalow also states (1994b) that:
"In China, of 150,000 Han peasants living near each other to six generations,
about half receive about three times the radiation of the other half from radioactivity in
the soil. Investigations since 1972 for doses and health effects find no discernible
differences in the health of these populations (Wei 1990). Similar negative results are
found in higher background areas in Brazil and India."
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