9906a5Muckerheide-ANS99

5. Organizing to Apply the Extensive Data That Contradict the LNT

"The extensive, relevant radiation health effects data not considered by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP), and BRER, must be identified and applied to a rigorous, impartial scientific review to confirm that the linear no-threshold hypothesis (LNT) is disproved. This reassessment of the regulatory basis was called for by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste.¹

^"The Radiation, Science, and Health group is organizing the relevant data from existing and new data sources² for the responsible science, public policy, and industry groups. They incorporate data from many independent, knowledgeable radiation scientists and public policy analysts who are working in the public interest, without radiation-protection funding conflicts of interest.

"Data that refute the LNT are organized by population. Human populations are Japanese atomic bomb survivors; occupational, medical, radium-burden, and weapons and facility release populations; and populations exposed to high-level natural radiation, including radon. Data are also being organized by health effect end point, as in the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) V report. Animal studies, cellular and molecular biology, and biological modeling data are included, as are BEIR V data that document the lack of health effects³ and data that are claimed to support the LNT that are generally insubstantial and unconfirmed or misrepresented. Examples are the IARC study of nuclear workers⁴ that misrepresents its own data to claim support for the LNT (Refs. 5, 6, and 7) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) megamouse studies that misrepresented their data^8,9 back to 1951.

"Suppressed studies are being identified, for example, studies using potassium from which the radioactive 40K was separated at ORNL that confirmed adverse effects from below background doses¹⁰; the $10-million, 10-yr Nuclear Shipyard Worker study, completed in 1987, documenting lower mortality in the radiation workers^11–13 (which is continuing but is still not reported after 12 yr); and others.

"Willis of the NRC stated at the joint Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards and ACNW subcommittee meeting on March 26, 1996, that (from the transcript):

'It’s clear to many of us that we are not seeing the predicted ill effects at low doses, as has been pointed out to you.

I personally came to this hormesis observation fairly late in the game. It wasn’t until 1958 that I was working with the laboratory [ORNL] situation where we were doing experiments with below background levels of radiation, taking the potassium-40 out and seeing what the effects would be on the cellular level when we saw that the cells looked good but they didn’t function. So we couldn’t publish the results, another ill effect of the paradigm about the linear hypothesis.¹⁰'"

"Many studies that could confirm the LNT contradict the LNT at low to moderate doses. Many such studies have been terminated, for example, the Center for Human Radiobiology at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) that was established to follow the radium-burden populations for their lifetimes^14,15; the 'high-dose' Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)/U.S. Department of Energy workers¹⁶; the AEC-ANL licensing study that documented inverse effects of background dose in the United States on cancer,¹⁷ equivalent to radon studies by Cohen; and others.

"Support for the LNT is characterized by knowledgeable biology and radiation scientists as 'disagreeing with modern oncology,' ¹⁸ 'an immoral use of our scientific heritage,' ¹⁹ 'the greatest scientific scandal of the twentieth century,' ²⁰ etc.

"Comprehensive data compilations by Luckey, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at the University of Missouri at Columbia School of Medicine, exceed 2000 references confirming beneficial effects,^21,22 and the wonderful book by Kondo, professor emeritus of molecular biology, Osaka University, carefully assesses existing data to show that ionizing radiation is beneficial. The book also provides confirmatory biological evidence on cancer initiation and progression.²³

"The idea that stochastic DNA damage can cause cancer has been refuted. Normal metabolism causes up to 10 million times more DNA damage than background radiation. Such radiation stimulates immune functions and physiological responses that prevent, repair, and remove DNA damage and damaged cells.^24,25 Recent results include successful cancer treatment,^26,27 reduced tumorigenesis in mice,²⁸ and longer lives in mice at 7 and 14 cSv0yr compared with controls.²⁹

"The LNT is used to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from the public to deal with radiation levels <0.1% of the variation in natural background radiation, which varies by a factor of 100 (Ref. 30), for negligible public health benefits (which is especially immoral in societies with significant unfunded real health needs). The indirect costs of lost public health benefits from radiation-related technologies are much greater."

"BEIR VI and the draft NCRPSC1-6 report continue the practice of failing to consider the substantial scientific data that contradict the LNT, and misrepresent data, to support the LNT. Salvaging essential nuclear technologies requires that persons who are not committed to support the LNT in the interest of radiation-protection funding must undertake the effort to identify and apply the data in formal governmental and legal proceedings. This is required to enable the implementation of the cost-effective nuclear technologies that are needed to provide for a world of 9 to 10 billion people in 40 to 50 yr, growing at a rate equal to the U.S. population every 3 yr, with rising expectations. This is essential to avoid world conflicts over energy, resources, and the environment, preferably before more billions of dollars are squandered by the LNT supporters, consigning us nuclear science and technology professionals to being funded to 'dig our own graves,' while leaving a legacy of a world in conflict and poverty to our grandchildren".

1. POMEROY, Letter to Chairman Jackson, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (July 10, 1996).

2. Low-Level Radiation Health Effects: Compiling the Data, J. MUCKERHEIDE, Ed., Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc., Needham, Massachusetts (1998).

3. “Health Effects of Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation,” Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations (BEIR), National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, Washington, D.C. (1990).

4. E. CARDIS et al., “Effects of Low Doses and Low Dose Rates of External Ionizing Radiation: Cancer Mortality Among Nuclear Industry Workers in Three Countries,” Radiat. Res., 145, 647 (1995).

5. J. MUCKERHEIDE, “The Health Effects of Low Level Radiation Science, Data, and Corrective Actions,” Nucl. News, 38, 11 (Sep. 1995).

6. M. POLLYCOVE, “Positive Health Effects of Low Level Radiation in Human Populations,” Biological Effects of Low-Level Exposures: Dose-Response Relationships, CALABRESE, Ed., Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, Florida (1994).

7. M. E. SCHILLACHI, “Radiation and Risk—A Look at the Data,” Trans. Am. Nucl.Soc., 75, 410 (1996).

8. M. L. MENDELSOHN, Final Report of the Ethics Committee Investigation (Nov. 21, 1996).

9. P. SELBY, Oak Ridge National Lab., Personal Communication (1998).

10. C. A. WILLIS, Transcript, ACRS0ACNW Joint Subcommittee Meeting No. 1 (Mar. 26, 1996).

11. G. M. MATANOSKI, “Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation in Shipyard Workers,” Final report, DE-AC02-79, EV10095, U.S. Department of Energy (June 1991).

12. J. CAMERON, “The Good News About Low Level Radiation Exposure: Health Effects of Low Level Radiation in Shipyard Workers,” Health Phys. Soc. Newsletter, 20, 9 (1992).

13. J. CAMERON, “What Does the Nuclear Shipyard Worker Tell Us,” Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc., 71, 36 (1994).

14. R. G. THOMAS, “The US Radium Luminisers: A Case for a Policy of ‘Below Regulatory Concern,’ ” J. Radiol. Prot., 14, 2, 141 (1994).

15. R. E. ROWLAND, “Bone Sarcoma in Humans Induced by Radium: A Threshold Response?” Proc. 27th Annual Mtg. European Society for Radiation Biology, Radioprotection Colloques, 32, 1, 331 (1997).

16. S. FRY, “Followup Study of Workers Exposed to.50 mSv0yr Radiation,” Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc., 72, 8 (1995).

17. N. A. FRIGERIO, K. F. ECKERMAN, R. S. STOWE, “Carcinogenic Hazard from Low-Level, Low-Rate Radiation,” ANL0ES-26, Part I, Argonne National Lab. (1973).

18. G.WALINDER, “Has Radiation Protection Become a Health Hazard?” Karnkraftsakerhet & Utbildning AB ~The Swedish Nuclear Training and Safety Center!, Nykoping, Sweden (1995).

19. L. S. TAYLOR, “Some Nonscientific Influences on Radiation Protection Standards and Practice,” Proc. 5th Int. Congress International Radiation Protection Association, Vol. 1, p. 307, The Israel Health Physics Society (1980).

20. G. WALINDER, Personal Communication (1996).

21. T. D. LUCKEY, Hormesis with Ionizing Radiation, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida (1980).

22. T. D. LUCKEY, Radiation Hormesis, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida ~1991!. 23. S. KONDO, Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation, Kinki University Press, Osaka, and Medical Physics Publishing Company, Madison, Wisconsin (1993).

24. S. Z. LIU, “Cellular and Molecular Basis of the Stimulatory Effect of Low Dose Radiation on Immunity,” High Levels of Natural Radiation 1996: Radiation Dose and Health Effects, p. 341, L. WEI, T. SUGAHARA, Z. TAO, Eds., Elsevier, Beijing (1997).

25. M. POLLYCOVE, L. FEINENDEGEN, “Quantification of Human Total and Mis/Unrepaired DNA Alterations: Intrinsic and Radiation Induced” (to be published).

26. S. HATTORI, “State of Research and Perspectives on Radiation Hormesis in Japan,” Int. J. Occup.Med. Toxicol., 3, 203 (1994).

27. K. SAKAMOTO, M. MYOJIN, “Fundamental and Clinical Studies on Tumor Control by Total Body Irradiation,” Trans. Am. Nucl.Soc., 75, 404 (1996).

28. E. I. AZZAM, S. M. DE TOLEDO, G. P. RAAPHORST, R. E. J. MITCHEL, “Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation Decreases the Frequency of Neoplastic Transformation to a Level Below the Spontaneous Rate in C3H 10T102 Cells,” Radiat. Res., 146, 369 (1996).

29. A. CARATERO et al., “Effect of a Continuous Gamma Irradiation at a Very Low Dose on the Life Span of Mice,” Gerontology, 44, 272 (1998).

30. “Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation,” Annex E: Mechanisms of Radiation Oncogenesis, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation Report to the General Assembly, United Nations, New York (1993).