THE NEW

ASSAULT ON

RADIATION

PROTECTION

If there is one clear maxim of the nuclear age, it is this: radiation kills.

 

This is the guiding principle of all nuclear activities, from the operation of atomic power plants to the latest in nuclear medicine technologies.

 

This is the reason atomic reactor cores are placed within containment buildings several feet thick, just as it is the reason dentists and doctors step in the other room when they take x-rays.

 

Because, if radiation kills-and it does--precautions must be taken.

 

 

The major debate of the atomic age, really, is whether the pre-cautions are good enough, whether they protect the public and the environment, whether it is even possible to establish adequate precautions for nu-clear technologies. In our view, for most such technologies, it is not possible.

Truth be told, this is an area of fundamental disagreement among those who oppose nuclear power and much nu-clear technology, and those who support these endeavors. But the underlying assumption, that radiation kills, has not been disputed.

This principle has been ensconced in the scientific literature, has been the subject of six BEIR (biological effects of ionizing radiation) committees--composed of radiation scien-tists around the world-has been analyzed by scientists ex-amining Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, examining the effects of Chernobyl, of above-ground bomb testing, of x-rays and back-ground radiation, and every possible source. And despite many disagreements over the details, over the exact numbers, over this and that, this basic principle has stood firm.

Moreover, and perhaps even more importantly, a second principle-a governing principle, if you will-also has been established as scientific fact: there is no safe dose of ionizing radiation.

In other words, there is no dose one can receive at which it can be proven it will not kill you.

All of us are exposed to background radiation-from the sun, from bricks, from life (and more recently, from ac-tions like bomb tests and Cher-nobyl)-and, according to this basic principle, some of us contract cancer and die from this exposure. It is inevitable; this death is part of life.

Given this basic reality, the overriding principle of radiation protection is to prevent any unnecessary and avoidable exposures to radiation, because any exposure-no matter how small-may kill. It probably won't, but it may. And every additional exposure, of any size, increases the risk.

That is what is known as the linear no-threshold theory of radiation exposure. Any amount can kill you, there is no bottom "safe" level. The more radiation you receive, the more likely you are to be affected by it. But you still need to be pro-tected from even the lowest possible doses. Let's face it: if sunlight and bricks can kill some people every year, the prudent course is to ensure the lowest possible additional ra-diation exposure to the public.

At this point, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recognizes the linear no-threshold theory (although it also incorporates a risk benefit analysis). Its regulations do not always adopt this theory; in fact, they often conveniently disregard it. Nuclear power plants, fuel cycle facilities, waste dumps-none could operate if that theory were the prevailing factor. But, officially, that's the theory, and it informs the regulations, if it doesn't always guide them. The same is true, for the most part, in every nuclear country in the world.

It should be added that this theory was not thought up overnight; it's based on years of painstaking work and clear sci-entific evidence.

THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY FIGHTS BACK

 

As we begin the 21st century, the nuclear power industry and its allies are engaged in an all-out assault on radiation protection standards and, indeed, on the basic principles of radiation protection that have guided regulations over the past three decades or so.

And they are doing this with little scientific justification, but with virtually unlimited resources. Their goal seems to be to wear down their detractors and implement a new vi-sion of radiation regulation: one that argues that low-doses of radiation may not be so bad for you and that there may ac-tually be a threshold below which there is no danger from radiation.

Their goal, however, is not that of the earlier radiation scientists. It is not to protect the public health and safety. Rather, their arguments are based, entirely, on economics. On how much it costs to protect the public from radiation. On how much these costs affect the nuclear industry, and its waste sites, or, in their more charita-ble moments, how much it costs hospitals and medical professionals to protect against unnecessary radiation exposure. And if it could just be ar-gued that those costs aren't necessary for public health reasons, then think of all the money that could be saved (of course, any such "saved" money would just revert to the nuclear industry in any case).

These new, "radiation advocates" we'll call them, in-clude many members of the Health Physics Society, federal regulators, utility officials and DOE weapons lab scientists. They argue that very low doses of radiation (to them, that means about 10 rems/year-or twice the annual allowable exposure rate for nuclear industry workers in the U.S.) pose so little harm that their risk is not worth protecting against.

These radiation advocates have succeeded in causing the formation of yet another BEIR committee, and stacked it with their supporters. This committee is widely believed to be prepared to endorse the no-tion that there is a "safe" level of radiation-or at least a mar-ginal risk level--and that spending money to protect against exposures below that level is unnecessary.

To put this in some perspective, let's look at some numbers. The Nuclear Regula-tory Commission-which no one ever has accused of being an anti-nuclear body-officially subscribes to the linear no-threshold theory. According to risk tables in its 1990 Below Regulatory Concern policy, public exposures of just 100 millirems/year above back-ground radiation (this is about the same amount most of us receive from background ra-diation), are equivalent to a 1 in 286 lifetime chance of fatal can-cer. In other words, 1 in 286 of us, receiving 100 millirems/year (the legally-allowable amount, by the way) above background, over the course of our projected 70-year lifespan, will die just from this radiation exposure.

That's the official policy, and it's also been adopted by the Environmental Protec-tion Agency, and virtually every other official body in the U.S. government and most of the world.

But the radiation advocates are out to change all that. Their argument essentially goes like this: since a certain amount of people die from cancer any-way--a far larger amount than 1 in 286-it is impossible to state with assurance that any single person died from radiation ex-posure. That person may well have died from unrelated causes. In fact, they believe, there is a threshold below which radiation exposure causes little to no damage. The debate in this crowd is what that threshold might be.

Many in the "radiation advocates" community are going far beyond this concept, however. They are arguing that only very large doses of radia-tion are harmful. Many argue that exposures of less than 10,000 millirems/year (10 rems/year) are probably so low not worth protecting against. Some, such as a DOE contractor who sent an e-mail to me, argue that even 50 rems/year is relatively harmless.

Well, tell that to a pregnant mother, whose child in utero is far more susceptible to radiation than adults, according to powerful and groundbreaking evidence produced by Dr. Alice Stewart some 30 years ago.

Some of these advocates actually believe in "hormesis," the idea that a little bit of radiation exposure can be good for you. It's a Reagan-esque "feel good" deliberate disregarding of the realities.

 

ECONOMICS VS PUBLIC HEALTH

 

The argument between the ra-diation advocates and other scientists is not about public health, it is about economics. The nuclear industry realizes that its impending dismantlement-the decommissioning of reactors and fuel cycle facilities, the treatment and disposal of radioactive waste, even the routine emissions of older reactors-would be terribly expensive under existing radiation laws. That's why the industry has been pressing for years for a policy that would treat materials with very low levels of radioactivity as not radioactive at all (see BRC sidebar).

Moreover, the industry sees a potential goldmine in the huge decommissioning funds-hundreds of millions of dollars accumulated from ratepayers at each atomic reactor-if the industry can keep decommissioning costs low.
So the industry, with the backing of the radiation advocates (and, unfortunately, of some misinformed medical professionals) has begun an all-out assault on radiation protection standards.

At stake is literally the legacy of the atomic age. And that translates into tens of billions of dollars-and perhaps tens of thousands of lives.

This assault on radiation protection is taking many different forms, but they all have the same end: to protect the atomic industry's profits at the expense of protecting the public's health.

But why now? It's because the world's nuclear industry is teetering. When large nuclear reactors are being sold for pennies on the dollar, profit margins become thin. Like other industrial businesses in the dot.com world, the nuclear industry must learn to operate in a penny-pinching mode. The best way to save money in a hazardous industry is to find new ways to argue that the hazard just doesn't exist. And the nuclear industry is prepared to spend a lot of money now to change regulations to indicate that radiation isn't so harmful, in order to save even more money later.

When one understands the issue this way, as a totality, then everything comes into focus. It all makes sense, albeit a perverted, unethical type of sense.

In this special issue of the Nuclear Monitor, we take a look at, in Dr. Judith Johnsrud's words (whose indefatigable work inspired this issue), "the new assault on radiation protection." You'll find articles on the problems of nuclear indus-try decommissioning and the driving role this is playing on radiation reevaluation, on the effort to set up a new BEIR committee to validate new, un-conscionable radiation stan-dards, on radioactive materials "recycling. There is also an arti-cle on how the government is attempting to change standards to allow the licensing of Yucca Mountain, as well as a number of sidebars outlining the history of this effort and the major players involved.

When all is said and done, the atomic industry has ample resources and a lot of scientists and politicians be-holden to those resources. Unless we all act-now-they may well get away with it this time. And that would be a tragedy not only for ourselves, but for every generation to follow us.-Michael Mariotte, February 2000.