Low level radiation health effects data sources:
Data show non-linear, biphasic, effects of low dose radiation;
Radiation hormesis, and medical and health benefits

Selected documents by RSH members, and others

Technical Articles [Links to Technical Articles on the Internet]
WHAT’S SO AND WHAT’S NOT - On Radiation & Nuclear Power, by Theodore Rockwell, Sc.D., March 2003
Point Paper on Nuclear "Problems": 7 Myths vs. Facts, and 10 Contradictory beliefs that people have about radiation and nuclear power.  Myth: Man created radiation. It’s unnatural, little-understood, an unprecedented threat to the earth.

Excerpts from: SOME NON-SCIENTIFIC INFLUENCES ON RADIATION PROTECTION STANDARDS AND PRACTICE,
by Lauriston S. Taylor (selected by John R. Cameron) Physics & Society News, April 1998
"Today, we know about all we need to know to adequately protect ourselves from ionizing radiation. What is the problem and why is there one? [The problem] is not a scientific one. Rather, it is a philosophical problem.  Radiation effects are generally proportional to dose when delivered acutely in moderate amounts, say 100 rads and upwards, to the regions observed. For practical protection purposes, we postulate that for acute doses of radiation to any part of body, the effect is proportionate to the dose. The problem becomes critical in the low dose region say below 25 or 50 rads, delivered acutely, for which the latent period may be 3 to 5 decades. No one has been identifiably injured by radiation while working within the first numerical standards set first by the NCRP and then the ICRP in 1934. [Emphasis added. NCRP chose 0.1 r/day on 3/17/34; ICRP chose 0.2 r/day in July 1934. The latter is about a factor of 35 greater than the present recommendations.] Let us stop arguing about the people who are being injured by exposures to radiation at the levels far below those where any effects can be found. The fact is, the effects are not found despite over 40 years of trying to find them. The theories about people being injured have still not led to the demonstration of injury and, if considered as facts by some, must only be looked upon as figments of the imagination. [Emphasis added] We must find an acceptable means for stopping or counteracting the endless prattlings by a few individuals, with whatever motives they may have for keeping the public stirred up, confused and alienated from the very technologists who are in the best position to properly inform and educate them."

Who Will Speak for Truth? The Case of Nuclear Radiation, by Theodore Rockwell, D.Sc., 2002
"When I worked for Admiral Rickover during the Cold War years, we had one thing going for us that is hard to find today.  Although many people opposed us, including some in high places, still there were a few serious and important people to whom we could go for guidance, insight and help, confident that their personal and institutional loyalties and biases would not prevent them from speaking openly and honestly about problems we both wanted resolved.  Today, in the area I will discuss this evening, most people whose apparent objectives are the same as mine, often work to ignore or obscure or distort scientific facts that seem to endanger their more pressing goals.  So, statements that seem to me simple truths, or facts of nature, cannot be acknowledged as such by those whose reputations and incomes are dependent on fear and mystery being associated with those facts."

The Future of UNSCEAR,  by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., [ PDF 46KB ] SCIENCE, VOL 297 19 JULY, 2002
      The existence of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) is in danger. Dramatic decreases in funding have virtually paralyzed its activities: This year the Committee was unable to convene to continue its scientific work.

UNSCEAR on the Health Effects from Chornobyl, by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., Science, 293, Number 5530, 27 Jul 2001, pp. 605-606.
      "At the time of the accident, 134 employees of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant and emergency workers received short-term whole-body doses ranging from 800 to 16,000 milligrays of radiation, 28 of whom, died within the first 4 months of the accident, due to acute radiation sickness. The fate of the 106 survivors who received doses of 1300 to 5300 milligrays has been monitored up to the present. There have been 11 deaths among them between 1987 and 1998. Only in three cases (one of myeloid leukemia and two of meylodysplastic syndrome) could the death be probably related to radiation."

The Truth About Chernobyl Is Told, by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., 21st Century Science and Technology, Winter 2000-2001
"The recent report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) is in total disagreement with the opinions widely propagated by the international media, by the Greens, and by the governments of Belarus and Ukraine, that there have been tens of thousands of cancer deaths and epidemics of genetic disorders, allegedly caused by the Chernobyl accident. To the contrary, UNSCEAR states, even among the progeny of the survivors of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who received radiation doses hundreds of times higher than the radiation doses to the inhabitants of regions contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, no radiogenetic disturbances of health have been found."

It’s Time to Tell the Truth About the Health Benefits of Low-Dose Radiation, by James Muckerheide, 21st Century Science and Technology, Summer 2000
     "Low-dose radiation is documented to be beneficial for human health but, for political reasons, radiation is assumed to be harmful at any dose.   Radiation-protection scientists, and others, who cover up the data that contradict present policy should be investigated for misconduct.
    "Low-dose radiation has been shown to enhance biological responses for immune systems, enzymatic repair, physiological functions, and the removal of cellular damage, including prevention and removal of cancers and other diseases. Research on low-level radiation has also shown it to have no adverse effects. Yet, current radiation protection policy and practice fail to consider these valid data, instead relying on data that are poor, ambiguous, misrepresented, and manipulated.
    "With no regard for the cost to scientific truth, and to taxpayers, radiation policy is based on the linear no-threshold (LNT) concept, that holds that radiation at any levels above zero is deleterious. In the LNT view, the known damaging effects of high-dose radiation are linearly extrapolated down the dose scale. LNT contradicts the scientific evidence, which shows that there is a radiation threshold, below which there is no harm and, in fact, there is benefit for human health, a process known as hormesis, which is normal biological response to all stressors. In defiance of this evidence, radiation-protection policy relies on falsification of the actual science research and reporting. Such malfeasance warrants scientific misconduct investigations for the results promulgated by some radiation protection-funded scientists."

LNT (the 'linear-no-threshold' hypothesis) Amounts to Nothing More than "Scientific Fraud,"  by The Science & Environmental Policy Project SEPP News, February 2000.
     A report on the American Nuclear Society Committee on Low-Level Radiation Health Effects Panel session on "Low-Level Radiation Health Effects" during the American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, November 14-18, 1999, in Long Beach, Calif.

LNT: A matter of "fraud?" by Rick Michal and Simon Ripon, Nuclear News, January 2000.
     "When an audience member questioned whether support of the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis, also known as LNTH, amounted to nothing more than 'scientific fraud,' an explosion of agreement came from some panelists at the 'Low-Level Radiation Health Effects' session during the ANS Winter Meeting, held November 14-18, 1999, in Long Beach, Calif."

Radiation Risk and Ethics, by Zbigniew Jaworowski, Prof., Sept. 1999, Physics Today.  
     "The established worldwide practice of protecting people from radiation costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year to implement and may well determine the world's future energy system. But is it right? The global average dose has increased by about 20% since the beginning of the 20th century—mainly as a result of the broader application of x-ray diagnostics in medicine. Other major sources of man-made radiation, such as nuclear power, nuclear weapons tests, and the Chernobyl accident, have contributed only a tiny proportion—less than 0.1%—to that increase."

INTERVIEW WITH DR. SADAO HATTORI: Using Low-dose Radiation for Cancer Suppression and Vitalization, with Marjorie Mazel Hecht, Summer 1997, 21st Century Science and Technology
    "In 1984, I came across an amazing paper on hormesis by Dr. T.D. Luckey in the December 1982 issue of the journal Health Physics. I sent a copy of Luckey's paper to Floyd Cutler and John Taylor, the president and vice president of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in December 1984, asking them how they could explain what Luckey reported. They then decided to evaluate Luckey's paper.
     "In August 1985, there was a conference in San Francisco, called the Oakland meeting – the first radiation hormesis international conference. After this conference, EPRI answered my letter, saying that Luckey's paper was interesting and scientifically accurate – but not the full story. EPRI decided to fund some research activities on this at the University of California at Los Angeles, UCLA, under Professor Mackinodan. EPRI asked him in 1986 to do some tests to confirm radiation hormesis.
     "Meanwhile, in Japan, we formed a group to study the hormesis papers cited by Luckey, checking the data with specialists. After a few years of study, we initiated our radiation research program in 1988. ... Many specialists were interested in this, and they asked me to do some research. Gradually, after being asked by many, many people, I was obliged to expand my activities, based on this interest. Our program expanded, so that now we work with 14 universities on medical research activities."

What's Wrong With Being Cautious?, by Theodore Rockwell, June 1997, Nuclear News.
     "The cost of trying to reduce harmless radiation exposures even more is exorbitant, and 'predicting' casualties from such exposures generates groundless fear and distorts public policy. It is time to bring radiation protection policy into line with the data.The repeated insistence that no amount of radiation is small enough to be harmless has created in the public a clinically phobic fear of even tiny amounts of radiation. Thousands of people die each year as a direct result of government policies requiring that insignificant amounts of radioactivity be avoided.
     "We must ask: Where are the victims? How long will we allow real people, with names and families, to die from the non-use of radiation where it is needed, in order to protect hypothetical people form casualties that never happen?"

The Health Effects of Low Level Radiation: Science, Data, and Corrective Action," by Jim Muckerheide, Sept. 1995, Nuclear News.
     "Actual scientific data on health effects from low-to-moderate doses of ionizing radiation contradict the presumed "linear, no-threshold" dose-response "model." There is a high public cost for zero health benefit to society, and the loss of nuclear science and technology contributions to humanity."

Radiation Protection Policies to Protect Public Health, by Jim Muckerheide, Mass. State Nuclear Engineer, ANS Annual Meeting, May 14, 1995.
     " 'Radium poisoning' was known in the 1920s. Dr. Robley Evans stated, in 1981, in the HPJ 1983: '...studies... continue to show no radiogenic tumors, or other effects, in hundreds of persons whose effective initial body burden was less than about 50 uCi Ra-226 and whose cumulative skeletal average dose is less than about 1000 rad'. These studies were de-funded and the program terminated, with >1,000 cases alive. This termination was an immediate and recognized threat to all Federal, and international, programs that would find, or at least report publically, that there were no health effects. Federal drinking water limits are 5 pCi/l Ra-226 (~5 pCi/day, ~2,000 pCi/yr), while radium studies data find zero health effects at exposures up to 250,000,000 pCi Ra-226 equivalent ingestion."

Radiation Hormesis After  85 Years, by Marshall Brucer, MD, July 1987, HPS Newsletter.
     "No substance is without toxic effects at improper dose. The Manhattan Project's  first experiment, raising mice in an atmosphere of uranium dust, showed exposed mice living longer. They set dose limits after proving that mice in radiation fields ten times the limits lived longer than controls. Health Physics and Genetics were supported lavishly by radiation hysteria. In 1981, T.D. Luckey revived a very obvious radiation hormesis. No experimental evidence of damage at low-dose existed; self-serving extrapolations from high-dose data dominated. In August 1985, a Conference on Radiation Hormesis recognized the reversal in concepts of radiation effects. Its Proceedings finally recognized that low dose radiation is not only good for you, it is essential to life."