Sometimes bad things happen to good people for no apparent reason. This is particularly true when it come to illness. Sometimes people get sick and sometimes people die without ever knowing why or how they became ill. This can be difficult to accept because we believe we deserve answers and we want to find the cause of our suffering. We want to have someone or some thing to blame for our illness – that’s human nature.
Over the years anti-nuclear activists have taken advantage of this aspect of human nature to spread fear about nuclear energy. I was listening to a radio show the other day and a gentleman called in to the show who was apparently the victim of this kind of misinformation.
[you’ll have to listen to the clip to hear what he said]
This gentleman firmly believes that radiation from a nuclear plant caused his father’s death, and somehow influenced the health of his entire school class. He also claimed there are thousands of other people similarly affected. We all have friends and family members who have developed illnesses for no apparent reason, so it is easy to empathize with this gentleman.
I really do feel for him and his family, but the facts tell the opposite story: working in a nuclear plant is safer than just about any other profession, safer even than working in a retail store. Today, there are over 60,000 people working for nuclear utilities around the USA, and many thousands more at national laboratories and in related industries, plus hundreds of thousands who have worked there in the past. To suggest there is some grand conspiracy to cover up an epidemic of health effects is not only unrealistic, it is pure fantasy. There is no evidence to suggest that occupational radiation exposure at commercial nuclear plants has caused any ill health affects to workers or to the public.
In fact, many progressive scientists are beginning to consider the possibility that that low levels of radiation may have beneficial health effects because radiation may stimulate cellular repair mechanisms that protect against disease. This is called the “hormesis theory”. Here are some links to information about the hormesis theory. By the way, the hormesis theory does not only apply to radiation, it is a widely acknowledged affect that is the basis for homeopathic medicine.
Radiation Hormesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
Introduction to Radiation Hormesis http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/inthorm.html
#1 by Henry - October 26th, 2009 at 10:38
Hormesis theory has nothing to do with homeopathy.
Hormesis theory is science.
Homeopathy is woo-woo. It is in the same category as witchcraft, unicorns and fairies.
#2 by DocForesight - October 28th, 2009 at 14:38
John,
Thanks for this, and your other, excellent and informative posts. On the topic of homeopathic medicine, which I am in favor of, along with nutritional support and supplementation (only makes sense, since the body needs food to restore or maintain healthy functioning – and medicines are not food), we have a skeptic who takes the gloves off over at DepletedCranium.com.
Dr. Buzzo appears to consider homeopathy as along the lines of reading tea leaves and chanting incantations to scare away evil spirits. Hmm.
He is otherwise an intelligent person, but I think he’s off base on homeopathy and the physiology involved. If you feel inclined, give it a look.
#3 by John - November 1st, 2009 at 09:59
I plead bias here because I grew up around homeopathic medicine. My grandfather, Bernard Baute, was a country doctor from Lebanon, Kentucky and studied medicine at the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia (formerly called the Homeopathic College of Pennsylvania, and now MCP Hahnemann University). The school was named in honor of Samuel Hahnemann, a pioneer of homeopathic medicine.
My grandfather was a family practice physician and a surgeon, and he believed homeopathy had its place when combined with traditional modern medicine. For many years he was the only physician in the county and made house calls with his horse and buggy. He delivered virtually all of the residents of Cook County, Kentucky who are today over the age of about 50 today.
He once told my mother that it was a step backwards when he began making house calls in his car because he could sleep in his buggy while the horse took him home.
#4 by Timray - November 1st, 2009 at 22:55
i worked for Bechtel on several nuclear generating stations and am quite familiar with all aspects of it….i would live next door to any of them. the anti-nuclear activists are some of the most ill informed humans i have ever met. i helped Greenpeace make repairs to their ship the Rainbow Warrior and knew many of them….illiterati, castarati, decerebrati and machanati are a few of the terms i invented having closely known them to describe them….and they are all that. my concern was whales and seals….basically, idiots
#5 by David Lewis - June 1st, 2010 at 17:33
BEIR VII considered the hormesis theory.
Under a heading “Why Has the Committee Not Accepted the View That Low Doses Are Substantially Less Harmful Than Estimated by the Linear No-Threshold Model?”, they stated that “some materials provided to the committee suggest that the LNT model exaggerates the health effects of low levels of ionizing radiation. They say that the risks are lower than predicted by the LNT, that they are nonexistent, or that low doses of radiation may even be beneficial”.
The BEIR VII committee then stated “The committee also does not accept this hypothesis”. The BEIR committee were given the task of assessing all available information, and they said they reviewed it all. “When the complete body of research on this question is considered, a consensus view emerges. This view says that the health risks of ionizing radiation, although small at low doses, are a function of dose.”
The French Academy of Medicine study often mentioned as disputing the BEIR VII study cites evidence for hormesis, noting that the data “has been overlooked so far because the phenomenon was difficult to explain”, but the French only went so far as to say: “this report raises doubts on the validity of using LNT for evaluating the carcinogenic risk of low doses (<100 mSv), and even more for very low doses (,10 mSv)", warning that using LNT "may lead to an overestimation of risks… and this overestimation could discourage patients from undergoing useful examinations and introduce a bias in radioprotection measures against very low doses (<10 mSv).
They did not come out and say they believed that hormesis is in fact what is taking place.
The wikipedia article your link goes to says this: "Radiation hormesis has not been accepted by either the United States National Research Council, or the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. In addition, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) wrote in its most recent report: Until the [...] uncertainties on low-dose response are resolved, the Committee believes that an increase in the risk of tumour induction proportionate to the radiation dose is consistent with developing knowledge and that it remains, accordingly, the most scientifically defensible approximation of low-dose response. However, a strictly linear dose response should not be expected in all circumstances."
So I don't see why it is necessary to say that "progressive" scientists are saying that they believe hormesis occurs at low doses.
A better defense for the nuclear industry against people who say the radiation from that nuclear reactor over there caused my father's death is to tell them about radiation, i.e. how much exposure their father got if he smoked, if he ate one banana, if he ever lived in Denver, or took a plane flight, etc.
Otherwise, "antis" are given permission, in a way, to reject what these very authoritative committees say, because the "antis" can see that the nuclear advocates do not respect what the committees say. BEIR VII is crystal clear that the evidence does not support the "anti" line that radiation at low doses is even more dangerous than the LNT model suggests. It simply isn't necessary, and it will continue to backfire, to bring into question the best scientific institutions that we have, because we don't like what the lawmakers have done with the information the best science has come up with.
Widespread disrespect for science is what leads "antis" to discount anything anyone says that goes counter to their beliefs that nuclear power is so dangerous it must be outlawed.