Revision 1
March 19, 1998
by Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc.,
Edited by J. Muckerheide

1.9
Conclusions

"Ph. H. Abelson (1994), the deputy editor of one of the world’s most respected scientific journals, recently came to the following conclusion; ‘The current mode of extrapolating high dose to low dose effects is erroneous for both chemicals and radiation. Safe levels of exposure exist. The public has been needlessly frightened and deceived, and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted. A hard-headed, rapid examination of phenomena occurring at low exposures should have a high priority.’

"The extrapolation from high level (and usually high dose-rate) to low level (and usually low dose-rate) effects leads to an increasing uneasiness because of some obviously questionable results, not only in the radiation protection community. For example, never in the history of environmental protection have serious attempts been made to regulate very small fractions of an agent’s natural occurrence. The currently accepted exemption levels for radioactive materials, which are currently finding their way from fairly ‘soft’ ICRP recommendations into rigid regional (CEC) and national regulations, amount to 10-20 mSv per year, which corresponds to 0.2-0.4% of the annual average natural exposure, or to a mountain hike or a long flight. Does it really make logical, economical, or ethical sense to spend substantial sums to avoid such minute dose increments, for instance in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities?

"In another Editorial in Science (1991), Ph. H. Abelson wrote: ‘The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to assert that radon is a major cause of lung cancer in this country (USA). EPA is fostering a radon programme that could entail huge financial and emotional costs while yielding negligible benefits to public health.’ As W.A. Mills, then President of the Health Physics Society, wrote recently to me privately (1993): ‘Fortunately, the general public is not buying EPA’s activist efforts and only the US Congress and those in the "radon business" keep the "hazard" alive’.

"1. If very small theoretical risks are multiplied with large numbers of people, very unrealistic and frightening numbers of potential casualties result with tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths described as ‘estimated’, ‘possible’ or ‘likely’. In fact, it becomes increasingly clear now, ten years later, that the final number of radiation related casualties of Chernobyl will be around one or two hundred, which is about 1-2% of the Bhopal, or 10-20% of the Estonia accidents. However, the psychological damage done by this type of public misinformation is tremendous, and even alcoholism, impotence, and laziness are attributed to radiation effects in the Chernobyl area.

"2. As pointed out by the NRPB, the largest group of occupationally exposed workers in the UK is the 50,000 or so whose workplaces are in radon prone areas. The authorities recommend a limit for radiation from radon on a level ten times higher than for radiation from nuclear installations. As one participant at the 1994 Portsmouth Regional IRPA Congress remarked, ‘When God created radon, he did not feel obliged to follow ICRP recommendations...’.

"There is a serious danger of a loss of credibility for radiation experts and their sets of recommendations, regulations and restrictions."

"Unfortunately, it is not only anti-nuclear activists in the media, etc. who are promoting excesses. Some vested interests in the radiation protection community are detrimental to a more relaxed and reasonable approach. There is a great temptation for some self proclaimed ‘concerned scientists’ to get public attention, interesting committee memberships, lecture invitations, etc., by, for example, claims of the discovery of still another ‘leukemia cluster’ or ‘Chernobyl birth defects increase’. Such claims give rise within the radiation protection community for even more sensitive, accurate, and, of course, more expensive instruments and monitoring systems to be developed, tested, calibrated and sold, institutes to be financed with costly research projects, expensive training courses and meetings to be organized, and so on. In Germany we have seen many such cases, and radiation experts from other countries report similar observations.

"As an example, Prof. Pierre Pellerin, up to recently director of the French National Radiation Protection Service. recently wrote to the author: (Pellerin 1995) ‘...classical lobby attitude among large sectors of the real or so called radiation protection experts, looking for more institutes, more jobs, more financial support, more comfortable meetings in pleasant places. The more the public fears radiation, the less politicians can refuse funds: the more authorities increase the severity of limits, the more the public believes that any level of radiations is hazardous... I deeply regret the waste of money, efforts and expertise, spent to prevent most unlikely effects of very low radiation Levels... It would be a real pity if our governments adopt, without any sound scientific basis, the even more restrictive limits proposed to the Council of Ministers in Brussels, the cost of which would be tremendous in coming years ... while so many human beings are suffering from real, not hypothetical, illnesses, underdevelopment, unemployment and starvation.’

"This process may be called the loss of innocence in radiation protection. It seems indeed important to prevent radiation protection from becoming just another luxury which only a few rich countries can afford, and which is based more on entrenched vested interests and politics than on hard scientific facts.

"Fear of radiation is rapidly becoming more dangerous than radiation itself and people may soon need more the protection from false prophets in the radiation protection community than from biologically irrelevant minute radiation doses. Let us make sure that not too many seriously concerned and experienced scientists will find it necessary to demand an ICRRP, an International Commission on more Reasonable Radiation Protection’."