the true health effects of radiation - ecolo

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The True Health Effects of Radiation

Presented by Y. C. Luan on behalf of 14 authors from :

Nuclear Science and Technology Association NBC contamination prevention Society

and three Universities

Presented in Moscow/Russia (July 2004)

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Abstract . Health effects of radiation depend on the

circumstances and the dose-rate of radiation being received.

. Radiation can be classified into acute radiation and chronic exposure radiation.

. Health effects of acute and chronic exposure radiation are contradicting each other.

. Acute radiation is mostly harmful to people, but chronic radiation is always beneficial to people.

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Introduction-1

1. The health effects of radiation depend on the circumstances or dose rate of radiation being received.

2. Acute radiation is radiation received instantaneously: a high dose rate in a short period of time.

3. Chronic radiation is the radiation received continuously: a low dose rate during a long time.

4. Chronic radiation, although it is feared as much as acute radiation, is actually beneficial to people.

5. Chronic radiation was repetitively observed to be always beneficial to humans in the incident of Co-60 contaminated apartments in Taiwan.

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Introduction-2

6. Health effects of acute and chronic radiation are entirely different: 86,572 atomic bomb survivors in Japan had a 5.4% increase in cancer mortality in 40 years; but 10,000 irradiated residents in Taiwan had a 97% decrease in cancer mortality.

7. 31 Chernobyl firemen and workers received acute radiation from fission products and died; workers and public outside of plant were benefited when fission products diluted and decayed to chronic radiation.

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Introduction-3

8. The chronic radiation such as experienced in Taiwan, might be used in the prevention of cancers and hereditary diseases.

9. Traditional radiation protection should be revised for promoting the useful health effects of nuclear energy.

10. The fear of chronic radiation should be abolished, and the spending of billions dollars for radiation protection against chronic radiation should be saved.

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The health effects of acute radiation 1. Deterministic effects (short term effects) : acute radiation can

cause radiation sickness and death.2. Stochastic effects (delayed effects) : acute radiation can

increase cancer mortality as described in ICRP-60. 3. The LNT hypothesis is based on the theory that any level of

exposure to radiation is harmful, and that the effects of high doses of radiation can be extrapolated to low doses of radiation, based on LNT model.

4. The LNT model of ICRP is simple, logical, and conservative, making possible calculations for governing radiation protection.

5. But the LNT model is not appropriate for doses < 100 mSv.

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The health effects of chronic radiation

1. Radiation from natural background is chronic radiation. 2. Radiation received by workers, and occasionally by public

from the nuclear power plants, is also chronic radiation. 3. Chronic radiation with doses received in a short lapse of time

(a few weeks) lower than 100 mSv, is less harmful physiologically and pathologically than the same dose of acute radiation.

4. Dr. Sternglass and many other scientists have claimed since the 1960’s that chronic radiation accumulated over time have similar or even more harmful effects than acute radiation.

5. Chronic radiation is thus often feared by people.

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The controversy of radiation health effects-1

1. LNT model was mainly derived from the leukemia deaths at high doses of acute radiation: 905 leukemias observed among 86,572 Hiroshima survivors (1%) :

- with dose >1 Sv, leukemia mortality increased 5 times.- with dose >2 Sv, leukemia mortality increased 14 times;

cohort of 2,819 survivors (3.2% of total 86,572)- A cohort of 32,915 (44.5% of total 86,572 survivors)

having received a dose in 5 mSv-100 mSv range, had no excess, and even a decrease, in leukemia mortality.

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The controversy of radiation health effects-2

2. The Hiroshima survivors that received doses < 100 mSv, had no excess cancer deaths. This shows that the LNT model does not apply to low dose acute radiation < 100 mSv.

3. Preston et al, 2003 RERF report, had more data, but no new results obtained.

4. Dr Sohei Kondo, professor emeritus of Osaka University, asserted low acute radiation from atomic explosion could reduce the cancer mortality, and increase life span.

5. Both ANS and HPS had statements stating that 50 mSv/y or 100 mSv/life should not be taken in consideration to evaluate the individual radiation risk.

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A radiological incident in Taiwan revealed chronic radiation is always beneficial to humans-1

1. Epidemiological studies of people in the higher natural background radiation areas in Kerala (India), Yangjing (China) and Mountain States in USA, had lower cancer deaths. And higher doses received by nuclear workers in many countries result in lower cancer deaths. These results are still not accepted until today by the regulatory communities as human data proving that chronic radiation is beneficial to people.

2. The Co-60 contaminated apartments incident, which occurred 20 years ago in Taiwan, did not show harmful effects to people, but only showed it was beneficial to them.

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3. A Co-60 source was mixed in metal scrap, melted and drawn into steel bars which were used in the construction of 1700 apartments for about 10,000 residents in 1982-84. The first apartment was discovered in 1992, its residents were irradiated at least for 9 years, the other ones up to 20 years. The annual dose in the first year 1983 was from about 50 mSv/y, high up to 600 mSv/y. The total averaged dose was starting at 0.4 Sv, and high up to 6 Sv.

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4. The total doses cumulated in 20 years were higher than the average doses received by the atomic bomb survivors in Japan, and the Russian recovery workers in Chernobyl accident. If LNT model is appropriate for chronic radiation, the excessive doses could induce at least 35 excess leukemia and 35 solid cancer deaths in 20 years. Actually no such deaths were observed. On the contrary, the spontaneous cancer deaths of the residents should have been about 232 in 20 years based on the vital statistics in Taiwan, but only 7 were observed (3% of the 232 that could be expected), as shown in the following curve plotted by Luan et al since 1983.

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0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 2000 2001 2002year

Mortality of public

Mortality of irradiatedresidents

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5. It was also observed that radiation could reduce hereditary malfunctions of the descendants of the residents: 46 based on LNT and 21 on congenital, but in reality reduced to 3 (6.5% of the general public).

6. No harmful health effects chronic radiation were observed in cytogenetic analysis.

7. As the doses received from the natural background and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy are seldom bigger than the doses received in the Co-60 incident, it means that chronic radiation is usually always beneficial to humans.

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8. The beneficial health effects of radiation observed in the Taiwan incident was coincidental to the theory of Dr. T.D. Luckey and his complete Dose-Response Curve: 100 mSv/y is optimum to human health, and 10 Sv/y is still in the hormetic range if received in a continuous manner.

9. The fact that chronic radiation is always beneficial to humans was discovered by a group of independent and knowledgeable scientists their reports were published in many international conferences and journals.

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Most radiation is chronic radiation and beneficial to humans

1. In nuclear power plants, and related facilities, usually equipped with safety design and shielding, nuclear workers and public can receive only chronic radiation.

2. The doses of chronic radiation received by nuclear workers and the public would be never higher than 50 mSv/y, therefore it is always beneficial to them.

3. Populations living in the high natural background radiation areas always have lower cancer mortality.

4. Beneficial effects of chronic radiation should be accepted by scientists, communities and regulation authorities.

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Out of control radioactive source is still risky

1. The health effects of chronic radiation from Co-60 incident in Taiwan were repetitively observed beneficial to humans, but incidents during which Co-60, Cs-137 or other isotope sources come out of control can nevertheless be harmful by causing acute radiation, and they even could kill people.

2. There were quite a few people killed in out of control incidents in Mexico, China, Brazil, and in Thailand.

3. A big out of control incident of Co-60 occurred in Mexico 1984, but no people were killed and the contaminated steel bars shipped to USA were shortly identified and recovered.

4. The out of control incident in Taiwan was a unique case to show the true health effects of radiation.

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The health effects of radiation from the Chernobyl accident-1

1. The Chernobyl accident was the source of both acute radiation and chronic radiation,

2. The Chernobyl accident was described to be a catastrophe, and it frightened people everywhere in the world; but it was also a good opportunity to observe the health effects of both chronic and acute radiation.

3. The meltdown of highly radioactive fission products released high doses of radioactivity abruptly into the reactor hall. As a result, 31 firemen and workers received high doses of acute radiation in a short time, similar to the acute radiation received by Hiroshima bomb victims.

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The health effects of radiation from the Chernobyl accident-2

4. The radiation received in Chernobyl accident continued over a longer period of time than Hiroshima and consisted of not only gamma, but also beta and alpha. The dose rate was about 1 Gy/hr on April 26, 1986, high enough to kill people.

5. When fission products dispersed and deposited on large areas of ground, highly diluted in space and decayed over time to one tenth every seven-fold time lapses, it would decrease to about 1%, 10 mGy/hr, only 49 hours later .

6. So that, within a few days after the accident, the initially dangerous (on site) acute radiation from fission products became chronic radiation, and beneficial to the public (off site) and even to recovery workers (on site).

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The chronic radiation from the accident is harmless-1

1. 200,000 Russian workers were engaged in the decontamination process and received an average dose of about 100 mSv, followed-up by the International Chernobyl Project (ICP) under the supervision of the IAEA and WHO.

2. The ICP predicted 150 leukemia deaths in the ten years after the accident, based on LNT model. But none of such results were observed and reported in the decade after Chernobyl, at the conference co-sponsored by the EC, IAEA and WHO, held in Vienna in 1996 7

3. There were also no such results described in UNSCEAR 2000 annual report to the General Assembly.

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The chronic radiation from the accident is harmless-2

4. These reports meant that emergency workers and the evacuated public suffer no excess solid cancer deaths, though they had received quite increased amounts of radiation.

5. A severe nuclear accident like Chernobyl could only harm only few workers in the reactor hall. It could not harm workers and the public outside the power plant.

6. Both reports indicated highly increased numbers of thyroid cancer incidences observed among the children, but no proper control cohort for exact comparison of thyroid cancer deaths of the children under the ages of 18.

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Most radiation from accident is chronic radiation and beneficial to people-1

1. Russian specialists from the National Science and Medical Academy followed the health results of the workers with their own “RNMDR system”, and the summary report sent to IAEA as a letter to the IAEA BULLETIN editor ( IAEA BULLETIN 42/4/2000). They found that cancer deaths among the emergency workers were statistically lower than the control group of the general public: 48 leukose cases verified among the 180.000 emergency workers in 14 years (1986-2000).

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2. Assuming Russian workers in working age had the same spontaneous leukemia mortality of the Japanese of the same age (the cancer of total population is usually found similar for males in the ages of 20-50), the spontaneous leukemia deaths of the workers should have been about 118 (180,000/86,572x162 x14/40 =118). Only 48 were observed.

3. And assuming they had a similar cancer mortality as the population in Taiwan: 200 persons/100,000 person-years (ages in 34-64), and leukemia in about 2.6% of all cancers, The Russian workers number of leukemia should be at least 131 (200/100,000 x 180,000 x 0.026 x 14 = 131). But only 48 were observed.

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4. Even if all 48 cases of leukoses meant leukemia death, it would still be lower than expected for Russian workers.

5. The lower cancer death rate described in the Russian paper was attributed to the “healthy worker effect” and “better medical care.”

6. What do “healthy worker effect” and “better medical care” mean ? If these could be clarified as not dominant, or the cancer deaths of the workers were statistically significant, it could be concluded that the chronic radiation from Chernobyl accident is beneficial to the emergency workers, and to public in the fallout areas in the world.

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Follow-up study of Chernobyl workers revealed chronic radiation also beneficial-1

1. 65,905 emergency workers with external doses averaged in 100 mSv were followed by the Russian Academy of Medical Science and reported in 2001 HPJ.

2. The report indicated that the death rate of Chernobyl workers was 0.6-0.9, lower than the general public death rate of 0.82.

3. The cancer mortality of the workers in 1998 was 110 persons /100,000 person-years, and the total cancer deaths were 515 observed in 8 years (1991-1998).

4. There was no comparison with Russian public reported. Assuming the workers had same cancer deaths as the Japanese, the cancer deaths should be about 1102 (65,905 / 86,572 x 7244 x 8 / 40 = 1102)

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Follow-up study of Chernobyl workers revealed chronic radiation might be also beneficial-2

5. Assuming the workers ( in ages of about 36-66) have the same spontaneous cancer mortality as the general Taiwan population, i.e. 200 persons/100,000 person-year, the cancer deaths of the workers should have been about 1054 ( 200 /100,000 x 65,905 x8 =1054)

6. 515 cancer deaths among 4995 total deaths in 8 years, was only 10%, seemed too low, compared with most countries of about 25 %. It should be over 1000.

7. Peter Fong predicated in his paper to the Chernobyl conference after one decade in 1996: 3,000,000 cancer deaths might be prevented (not officially disclosed).

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Follow-up study of Chernobyl workers revealed chronic radiation might be also beneficial-3

8. The study by the Russian Medical Academy indicated also the lower mortality might be attributed to the ”Healthy worker effects” and the “incomplete data collection”. If these uncertainty factors could be clarified as not dominant, the health effects of chronic radiation from accidents should be globally recognized.

9. A nuclear accident might be only harmful to the workers inside the reactor hall, but beneficial to the workers and public outside the reactor. The public should therefore not fear nuclear accidents.

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Conclusion and remarks-1

1. Chronic radiation differs from acute radiation and was always beneficial to humans in the Taiwan observations.

2. The cancer mortality induced to humans by acute radiation is hard to discern from the spontaneous cancers, which are often in big number and have long latent period; but people have a high cancer death rate, so as the chronic radiation could strongly protect from it, it could be easily identified in an epidemiological study.

3. The incident of the Co-60 contamination has incidentally indicated that chronic radiation could effectively prevent against cancers, somewhat like a vaccine.

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4. There was no evidence indicating that hereditary defects could be caused by acute radiation; but chronic exposure to radiation could prevent the defects.

5. The beneficial health effects of chronic radiation observed in Taiwan was limited to the low LET gamma radiation to whole body exposure. High LET radiation from radioactive material or internal contamination of Alpha and Beta also have beneficial effects observed in animal tests.

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6. Atomic bomb explosion in Japan produced also big quantity of radioactive substances (fission products), but evaporated immediately to the stratosphere, and became global fallout, then gradually deposited on the ground in the world, which is also known as chronic radiation, and beneficial to people.

7. Dr Peter Fong ever studied the fallout from the US atmosphere nuclear tests which did not increase but prevent millions of cancer deaths of Americans.

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8. Chronic radiation exposure to the workers and the public from nuclear power plants is similar to the radiation exposure to the residents in the Co-60 contamination in Taiwan, only in smaller doses, so that it is surely also beneficial to them.

9. People receive the natural background radiation every day, and people in higher natural background areas often receive higher doses than the nuclear workers, so that natural radiation is essential to human beings.

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10. The public in the vicinity of nuclear power plants, should not fear radiation, but welcome it, even in case of accident.

11. Governmental radiation protection measures should not be strictly conducted based on LNT model, and nuclear energy should be considered as the safest energy.

12. A nuclear accident could occasionally occur, only its acute radiation could harm a few workers, and they could be avoided with some reasonable procedure.

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13. Cancer deaths and hereditary defects are disastrous and miserable sicknesses, it is now known that it could be prevented by chronic radiation in proper doses.

14. Numerous animal tests in many countries indicate that dose rates > 1mSv/hr were beneficial to the animals. And authors in our study have purposely tested the health of mice with dose rates >1 mSv/hr which showed also healthy results to mice.

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15. The incident of Co-60 contamination in Taiwan showed that many residents living in 1 mSv/hr apartments in 1983 are still healthy.

16. This paper tentatively suggests <1 mSv/hr as the acceptable dose rate limit of chronic radiation. If a person lives all year in such radioactive environment, he might receive many Sv in one year, which is still in the beneficial range of Luckey’s dose-effect curve, though it might not be the optimum dose rate to health.

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18. Many studies indicated beneficial health effects of chronic radiation could be useful in cancer therapies, enhancement of immune system, activation of gene p53, against diabetes, AIDS, for pain relief, etc. Such studies are valuable to human beings, should be further studied.

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Recommendation-1

1. The findings in the Co-60 incident could be regarded as more important than the findings obtained in the atomic bomb explosion in Japan, but they need more studies by the international scientists and communities, especially on the mechanism of the beneficial effects, and communicate the entire world of the results to the medical and nuclear energy applications.

2. From the experiences obtained from the incident of Co-60 contamination, and the beneficial effects observed in the Chernobyl accident, the conventional radiation protection should be revised for elevating application of nuclear energy.

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Recommendation-2

3. This paper tentatively recommended the 1mSv/hr and 1 Sv/y as the acceptable hourly and annual dose rate limit for the nuclear energy workers and the public. The 50 mSv as the optimum annual doses to people,

4. The emergency plans for the nuclear reactor accidents and for out of control of radioactive sources of course should be also revised.

5. As cancers and hereditary defects are miserable sicknesses, the medical scientists and communities should design appropriate radiation irradiators, and use the optimized doses in preventing these miserable sicknesses

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Profile of the authors (I)

W.L. Chen Ph. D.

Director, Department of Medical Radiation Technology, National Yang-ming University; Head, Radiation Protection Department of AEC, and former Head, Health Physics Division of INER

Y.C. Luan Senior Scientist and Manager of Radiation Protection, NUSTA; consultant to NBC Society, and former Manager, Radioactive Waste Management Plant and Manager, Cobalt-60 Irradiation Plant of INER, AEC

M.C. Shieh Ph. D.

General Secretary, NUSTA; Professor of National Chung-Kung University, and former Manager, Uranium Conversion Project of INER, AEC

S.T. Chen MS

Senior Scientist and Head, Nuclear Reactor Engineering, NUSTA, and former Director, Nuclear Engineering Division of INER, AEC

H.T. Kung MS

Senior Scientist and Nuclear Material Manager, NUSTA, and former Manager, Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Plant of INER, AEC

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Profile of the authors (II)

K.L. Soong Ph. D.

Senior Scientist, NUSTA, and former Senior Scientist and Leading Scientist, Geology and Mineralogy Research Project of INER, AEC

Y. C. Yeh Ph. D.

Secretary General, Chinese Nuclear Society; Senior Scientist, NUSTA, and former Director, Analysis Center of INER, AEC

T.S. Chou Ph. D.

Head, Radiation Research Group, NBC Society; Professor of Feng Chia University, and former Head, Chemical Engineering Division of INER, AEC

S. H. Mong MS

Head, Protection Research Group, NBC Society; former NBC consultant to Saudi Arabia, and Commandant, Army NBC School, Taiwan

J.T. Wu M.D.

Biology Consultant, NBC Protection Society, Taiwan; Professor of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Utah, USA, and Medical Director, Special Chemistry and Reagent Development Laboratory at ARUP

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Profile of the authors (III)

C.P. SunPh. D.

Board member of NBC Protection Society, and Associated Professor of Social Risk Analysis, National Chiao-Tung University.

W.P. Deng Ph. D.

Associated Professor, Biological Material Institute, Taipei Medical University. And former Associated Professor, Graduate Institute of Biological Material, Harvard University, USA.

F.M. Wu Ph. D.

Professor of Pathology and Director of Animal Testing Center, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei

M.L. Shen Ph. D

Professor, Biometry Division, Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, Taipei

the true health effects of radiation - ecolo

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