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Bill
The renowned Lady Gaga says that it's safe, so it must be safe! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8594765/Tearful-Lady-Gaga-san-tells-world-Japan-is-safe.html
There is so much antinuclear rhetoric in the media and in the education
system that safety has to be "oversold" or there will be no nuclear
energy.
Of course there a potential for large releases. The safe
plant design and the safe operator procedures/actions at
Fukushima did prevent large releases in spite of the weaknesses
that were revealed by the rather extreme conditions of the external hazard
(Lady Luck? Mother Nature is a real bitch).
Every time a becquerel of radioactivity is released from a nuclear plant
the world (fueled by the media) just goes bonkers. People in Vancouver
start popping iodine pills. I looked through the 2010 book by
Charles L Sanders, 'Radiation Hormesis and the Linear-No-Threshold
Assumption." There is no solid evidence to support the notion that
radioiodine causes cancer, yet the nuclear safety
regulations are based on limiting radioiodine dose.
Section 12.3, Thyroid Cancer, first sentence: A U.S. National Council on
Radiation Protection report on thyroid cancer said, "available human data on low
dose I-131 exposures have not shown I-131 to be carcinogenic in the human
thyroid" [22]. Then I look at the radioiodine treatment of patients
with hyperthyroidism, who receive an average of 300 MBq of radioiodine.
The mean total body dose is 54 mGy (5.4 rad), and the conclusion is: "The
decrease in overall cancer incidence and mortality in those treated for
hyperthyroidism is reassuring."
Now I read the Preface:
Outrageous, unsubstantiated statements are made
concerning the hazards of ionizing radiation, in spite of a vast published,
peer-reviewed literature on molecular, cellular, animal, and epidemiological
studies indicating not harm but benefit from low-dose ionizing radiation. Claims
that as many as a million children across Europe and Asia may have died in the
womb as a result of radioactive fallout from Chernobyl or claims that the health
impacts of low levels of internal radiation are underestimated by between 100
and 1,000 times are common among antinuclear arguments. Such statements are
fueled by proponents of the linear nonthreshold (LNT) assumption, which assumes
that any dose of radiation, no matter how insignificant, results in increased
mortality from cancer and other diseases.
The most dishonest, manipulative research I have
ever seen in my nearly 50 years of participation in radiobiological research has
been published by radiation epidemiologists who are proponents of the LNT
assumption. Their hundreds of publications and involvement in national and
international radiation protection agencies have put them in a position of power
and control within research establishments. They have continued the
deception in spite of the overwhelming published, scientific data that clearly
demonstrates how wrong the LNT assumption is. ...
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