RADIATION HORMESIS

One preventive measure that might have saved Mike is ionizing radiation. Mike lived his entire Me in the Illinois Valley near Cave Junction, Oregon. Natural background radioactivity in this area is quite low. EM&e had lived in a region of the United States with twice as much background radiation, his chances of contracting leukemia would have been reduced by about 50%.

Mike was also in the wrong occupation. Had he been a nuclear worker with a high radiation expose job, his chance of contmcting leukemia might have been reduced by as much as 90%. A high mdon home could have helped, too. Radon is especially effective in prevent- ing lung cancer and is probably of some value in preventing leukemia

"The Evidence for Radiation Hormesis" by T. D. Luckey in 21st Century Science and Technology, available from 2 1 st Century Science Associates, 60 Sycolin Road, Suite 203, Leesburg, VA 20 175, summarizes some of the growing research literature confirming the existence of radiation hormesis, the beneficial health effects of low-level ionizing radiation. Figures 1 to 3 and the Table are adapted from this article.

Nuclear News 39, No. 12, November 1996, pp 39-40, published by the American Nuclear Society, 555 N. Kensington Ave., La Grange Park, IL 60526 reports that four speakers at the 2 1st annual symposium of the Uranium Institute in London in September addressed this issue.

John Graham, immediate past president of the American Nuclear Society, spoke directly on behalf of radiation hormesis as opposed to the now discredited linear no-threshold hypothesis upon which nuclear regulatory policies are based. Morris Rosen, coordinator for environ- mental affairs of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Stan Frost, vice president for environment and safety at Catneco Corpora- tion spoke about the economic damage caused by current regulatory policies that set erroneously low acceptable radiation levels. Roger Clarke, chairman of the International Commission for Radiological Protection, still held to the no-threshold hypothesis, but his arguments were effectively rebutted by Graham.

As is evident in the figures and table, there are strong inverse correlations between radiation exposure and death from leukemia and lung cancer.

The higher the radiation level, the lower the cancer death rate (except,of course, at very high levels). References to the scientific literature for these figures and table are given in the Luckey article. He gives 35 research references to these and other similar results. The leukemia studies were carried out on nuclear workers in the United States and Britain.

The lung cancer work was carried out by Bernard Cohen using radon levels and cancer data from throughout the United States. There is so much of this data now that the existence of radiation hormesis is no longer in doubt. The only question is how long this new knowledge can be ignored by bureaucratic regulators and the popular press. When the public is finally told this truth about low level radia- tion, the entire edifice of fear surrounding atomic energy will collapse.

That collapse will also destroy the credibility of much of the pseudoenvironmental movement which, thinking that nuclear power had been successfully destroyed, has gone on to bigger and better myths such as global warming and ozone holes. From myths about nuclear waste disposal to unreasoning fear of nuclear power plants and food irradiation, the work of two generations of antitechnology propagandists is going to die as radiation hormesis re- search data is accepted. It could not happen to more deserving people.