Y.T.
01-12-2007, 05:33 PM
It seems to me that the dangers of radiation (and coincidentally.. dirty bombs) has been greatly exaggerated.. In Iran, there is a city called Ramsar, whose inhabitants get 10+ times the EPA allowed dose to radiation workers, yet don't have a higher cancer risk.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=11769138&dopt=Abstract
Might even be beneficial ...
In Taiwan (in the early 1980s), 180 apartment buildings were built with recycled steel that was accidentally contaminated with Colbalt-60. The buildings’ occupants, 4,000 people, lived in them for more than 10 years before their radioactive state was discovered. The amount of radiation they received ranged up to more than 1,500 mrem per year. (Colbalt-60 has a half-life of 5.3 years.) The cancer mortality, over a 20-year period, in the radiated occupants was 97 percent less (3.5 deaths per 100,000 person years) than that of the general population of Taiwan (116 deaths per 100,000 person years). Even the incidence of congenital heart malformations in the children they bore was reduced. This carefully done study shows, as its authors put it, that "chronic radiation [far above EPA limits] is an effective prophylaxis against cancer."
TFA
(A long article .. on radiation hormesis)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller12.html
Another article, by a polish radiation scientist.
Linear no-threshold theory is contradicted by the phenomenon of hormesis, that is, the stimulating and protective effects of small radiation doses. The first report on hormetic effects in algae appeared 100 years ago (Atkinson, 1898). One of the most recent hormetic effects can be seen in the lower-than-normal incidence of leukemia (Figure 2) and the greater longevity among atomic bomb survivors (Kondo, 1993).
http://www.radscihealth.org/RSH/Docs/Jaworowski/Zbigniew_Jaworowski_Warsaw_1998.htm
Original article on the Taiwan cobalt-60 incident http://www.jpands.org/vol9no1/chen.pdf
Maybe when this all gets generally known... people are going to petition the government to have nuclear power plants nearby (in my country.. they bribe them with lower taxes and state benefits), or spent fuel dumps.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=11769138&dopt=Abstract
Might even be beneficial ...
In Taiwan (in the early 1980s), 180 apartment buildings were built with recycled steel that was accidentally contaminated with Colbalt-60. The buildings’ occupants, 4,000 people, lived in them for more than 10 years before their radioactive state was discovered. The amount of radiation they received ranged up to more than 1,500 mrem per year. (Colbalt-60 has a half-life of 5.3 years.) The cancer mortality, over a 20-year period, in the radiated occupants was 97 percent less (3.5 deaths per 100,000 person years) than that of the general population of Taiwan (116 deaths per 100,000 person years). Even the incidence of congenital heart malformations in the children they bore was reduced. This carefully done study shows, as its authors put it, that "chronic radiation [far above EPA limits] is an effective prophylaxis against cancer."
TFA
(A long article .. on radiation hormesis)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller12.html
Another article, by a polish radiation scientist.
Linear no-threshold theory is contradicted by the phenomenon of hormesis, that is, the stimulating and protective effects of small radiation doses. The first report on hormetic effects in algae appeared 100 years ago (Atkinson, 1898). One of the most recent hormetic effects can be seen in the lower-than-normal incidence of leukemia (Figure 2) and the greater longevity among atomic bomb survivors (Kondo, 1993).
http://www.radscihealth.org/RSH/Docs/Jaworowski/Zbigniew_Jaworowski_Warsaw_1998.htm
Original article on the Taiwan cobalt-60 incident http://www.jpands.org/vol9no1/chen.pdf
Maybe when this all gets generally known... people are going to petition the government to have nuclear power plants nearby (in my country.. they bribe them with lower taxes and state benefits), or spent fuel dumps.