Majia here: I have been considering taking my family
to the southern hemisphere for summer vacation to escape the radiation.
However, I realize now that strategy is not going to be effective.
Why? As I
see it, the main problem in the US is not from our exposure to external gamma
radiation from Fukushima. Rather, the problem is the bio-accumulation of
radiation fallout in our food chain.
At the May 4 conference on Fukushima held in New
York City Dr. Junro FUSE, Internist and head of Kosugi Medical Clinic near
Tokyo, Japan (in Japanese with English interpretation) asserted:
“The European
Commission [Committee] on Radiation Risk has stated that they believe the risk
from internal exposure is between 200 and 600 times greater than the risk from
external exposure.” Footage of the NYC Press Conference May 4th 2012
Cinema Forum Fukushima http://cinemaforumfukushima.org/2012/05/06/archive-footage-of-the-nyc-press-conference-may-4th-2012/
(hat tip Enenews http://enenews.com/head-of-tokyo-area-medical-clinic-risk-from-internal-exposure-is-200-600-times-greater-than-risk-from-external-exposure-video)
MAJIA HERE: There are relatively few studies on the risks
from internal exposure, as compared to external exposure. In 2004, a committee
was set up to look at the available research on the subject.
Findings were published in a report:
Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal
Emitters (CERRIE) Report of the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal
Emitters (CERRIE) National Radiological Protection Board; Chilton, UK: 2004.
Available: http://www.cerrie.org/pdfs/cerrie_report_e-book.pdf
Page 29 Conclusions
To the extent that
ionising radiations from both internal emitters and external sources generate
similar physical and chemical interactions in living matter, there are no fundamental
differences between the two sources of radiation that suggest that their effects
cannot be combined for radiological protection purposes. However, short-range charged
particle emissions, both electron (eg low energy beta particles) and alpha particles,
are important contributors to internal but not external radiation exposures.
The potential heterogeneity of energy deposition in tissues resulting from
these internal emitters contrasts with the relatively uniform irradiation of
tissues from most external sources and defines the central difference between
these two sources of radiation exposure. The Committee agreed that a
methodology for combining radiation effects from both types of source should,
in principle, be achievable. However, the Committee was more divided on the
adequacy of methods used to take account of such heterogeneity, and these
matters have been a central issue addressed by the Committee….
The chemical properties
of an element determine its distribution and retention in body tissues and
cells and hence determine the extent to which it may be located in a way that
short-range emissions may have an accentuated effect (ie in terms of damage
caused to cellular targets for the induction of cancer and genetic effects).
Biokinetic and dosimetric models are used to determine this relationship
between the distribution of radionuclides and target cells. In some cases,
simple models suffice because the element and its radioisotopes are known to be
uniformly distributed in body tissues and the pattern of energy deposition is
similar to that resulting from external irradiation. In other cases, complex
models are required to account for heterogeneous energy distribution within tissues,
requiring knowledge of the location of the radionuclide at different times
after intake and the location of target cells. Data available for model
development are of variable quality – in some cases, particularly for some of
the more important radionuclides, good information is available, including
human data, but in other cases reliance is placed on sparse animal data. In
many cases, there is little information on variability between individuals and
within human populations. The Committee concluded that in general the
combination of biokinetic and dosimetric models gave rise to estimates of central
values with widely variable uncertainty ranges. The Committee was more divided on
the likely span of uncertainties for specific radionuclides and situations of
exposure, but there was agreement that in some cases uncertainties could extend
over at least an order of magnitude.
68 The location of
radionuclides within tissues is particularly important for alpha particles that
typically have a range of a few tens of μm (traversing a few cells). It is also
important for low energy electrons, such as the beta particle emissions from
tritium with a range of <10 μm, and Auger electrons. For these
radionuclides, sub-cellular location can be important, as location within the
cell nucleus can increase carcinogenic potential while within cytoplasm it can
decrease risk. On the basis of substantial experimental data, it is recognised
that these radiation types can cause greater damage per unit energy deposition,
because of the density of their ionisations in small tissue volumes, than sparsely
ionising radiations such as gamma rays and X-rays, and higher energy electrons.
The understanding of these differences, termed relative biological
effectiveness (RBE), in terms of three-dimensional track structure, and
consequent interactions with DNA and other molecules, is a key goal of
microdosimetry. The Committee was generally in agreement that this field of
research is not yet far enough advanced for microdosimetric techniques to
present viable alternatives to current risk-related radiation dosimetry. However,
there was agreement that advances in microdosimetry were likely to provide insights
into the reliability of dose estimates and may ultimately provide complementary
approaches. The desirability of further research was emphasized
MAJIA HERE: Essentially, the committee found that
there were heterogeneities across internal and external exposure because of the
special risks posed by ingestion of alpha particles. The current risk model,
the ICRP method, fails to adequately account for this heterogeneity; however,
the committee concluded that the risk model has heuristic value (especially given the lack of alternatives) in
real-world radiological risk assessment.
Another review of the ICRP model comes to the same
conclusion.
Harrison,
J., & Day, P. (2008). Radiation doses and risks from internal emitters.
Journal of Radiological Protection, 28, 137-159.
Harrison and Day explain here the limitations of the
ICRP methodology for risk estimates, wr and effective dose:
“Risk estimates for
radiation-induced cancers are largely derived from studies of the effects of
external radiation, the principal source of information being long-term studies
of those who survived the immediate effects of were the atomic weapons’ explosions
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1945 (the so-called A-bomb survivors). Thus, the
risk of developing or dying from each observed type of cancer has been related
to the estimated external radiation dose received at the time of the explosion,
and for a short time thereafter from gamma radiation from environmentally
deposited radionuclides. Doses from inhaled or ingested radionuclides were not
assessed…. (p. 145)
“A central concern of CERRIE (2004) was
whether the risk factors derived from studies of the A-bomb survivors can be
applied generally. These risk factors, which applied to short, homogeneous,
high external doses of gamma radiation at a high dose rate, are applied in all
situations, including those at the opposite extreme in all respects: namely
heterogeneous, low dose exposure to charged particles at low dose rates over
protracted periods. Although CERRIE concluded that these risks factors were the
best available, the Committee expressed considerable reservations and
considered that the application of these factors constituted an important
source of uncertainty in dose and risk estimates.” (146)
MAJIA HERE: The backstory on CERRIE is interesting.
I found this
account in the European Committee on Radiation Risk’s 2010 Recommendations of the ECRR The Health Effects of Exposure to Low
Doses of Ionizing Radiation Regulators' Edition (http://www.euradcom.org/2011/ecrr2010.pdf):
“The Committee on
Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters CERRIE was set up by the UK Environment
Minister Michael Meacher in 2001 along just these lines. Its remit was to
discuss the evidence for the failure of the ICRP model for internal emitters
and present both evidence which supported and opposed such a belief. In the
event, this process failed when the Minister was removed in 2003 before the
final report was published and a new Environment Minister, Elliot Morley, was
appointed by Tony Blair. Morley shut down the Committee before it could carry
out the key research which had been agreed to decide the issue and legal
threats were used to prevent the oppositional report being included (see
endnote Morley 2010). The minority oppositional report (which was excluded by
the legal treats) was separately published in 2004 (CERRIE 2004b). (page 14 http://www.euradcom.org/2011/ecrr2010.pdf)
MAJIA HERE: The European Committee on Radiation Risk
(ECRR) expressed concerns about the decision of the ICRP committee to omit
CERRIE’s concerns about the uncertainty and heterogeneity of internal effects
from its 2007 report:
“But ICRP did nothing
to change any of the dose coefficients for isotopes that caused such exposures
or to apply such empirical and pragmatic procedures. and the embarrassing
paragraph above was quietly dropped from the final ICRP 2007 report.
This brief review of
the 2007 ICRP report demonstrates that there has essentially been no change in
the model from that which was published in 1990, and that new evidence and
arguments which scientifically falsify that model have been totally ignored.
The ICRP continues to support the same risk factors for exposures to ionizing
radiation and its model is still the basis for limits to releases to the
environment. The ICRP 2007 model does not discuss the evidence: it is selective
and partial and clearly does not conform to the philosophical requirements of
science outlined in this chapter. As the Lesvos Declaration in the appendix
demands, it must now be abandoned (page 16 http://www.euradcom.org/2011/ecrr2010.pdf)
MAJIA HERE: The ECRR report claims that the 2007
ICRP report fails to update its models of internal exposure appropriately and
therefore is no different from the 1990 ICRP report. The ECRR report claims its
model’s superiority in calculating epidemiological effects of internal
emitters. Here is an excerpt illustrating comparing ICRP estimates with ECRP
estimates:
“Table 10.5 UNSCEAR
1993 calculations of fallout average committed effective doses in person Sv to
world populations. Doses were calculated using ICRP models and would be much
larger using the ECRR model where internal doses carry various weightings….”
(page 116)
Cancer risk total
29,000,000 [UNSCEAR 1993 Table 11] (page
116)
“Table 10.6 (from
UNSCEAR 1993) shows committed effective doses to northern temperate latitudes
(40-50 deg. N) from each of the main isotopes involved. For comparison the
table also shows the total doses calculated using the proposed model of ECRR,
which recognises excess risk from internal emitters. Use of the ECRR adjustment
for internal risk using the ratios of external to internal isotopes given in
Table 10.6 would increase the cancer yield from the 1990 ICRP value given above
to more than 60,000,000 persons. The greater part of this yield would be in the
50 years following the exposure, and these cancer increases predicted are, of
course, only too visible” (page 117 http://www.euradcom.org/2011/ecrr2010.pdf)
MAJIA HERE: In this excerpt Chris Busby explains the
basic difference beween the ICRP and ECRR models:
“The radiation risk
model of the European Committee on Radiation Risk is described in ECRR2010. It
differs from the model currently employed by radiation protection agencies
which are based on the recommendations of the International Commission on
Radiological Protection ICRP. The latter (ICRP) model deals with radiation
exposure from all sources in the same way, as if it were external to the body,
and generally averages the dose to the body as if it were uniform across
tissues more massive than 1 kilogram. The ICRP model then takes this dose and
multiplies it by a risk factor for cancer linearly based on the cancer yield at high acute doses
of the Japanese survivor populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who have been
studied since 1952. This method cannot apply to internal doses from radioactive
substances, called radionuclides, which have been inhaled or ingested in food
or water”
(Busby The health
outcome of the Fukushima catastrophe Initial analysis from risk model of the
European Committee on Radiation Risk ECRR http://www.scribd.com/doc/52015430/fukuhealthrept)
MAJIA HERE: Here is one Example of Why the ICRP and
EPA Models for Radiation Risk Understate Risks Significantly
EPA: Cancer Risk
Coefficients for Environmental Exposure to Radionuclides
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/federal/402-r-99-001.pdf
"For both internal
and external exposure, a risk coefficient for a given radionuclide is based on
the assumption that this is the only radionuclide present in the environmental
medium. That is, doses due to decay chain members produced in the environment
prior to the intake of, or external exposure to, the radionuclides are not
considered” (p. 3)
MAJIA HERE: Now let us look at some other evidence
of the effects of internal radiation:
Paul Langley sites an interesting research study on the ”The Metabolism of the Fission Products, Hamilton 1942 on. http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/the-metabolism-of-the-fission-products-hamilton-1942-on/
Langley writes: The individual and regular reports
made by Hamilton to the Manhattan Project from 1942 are listed at the DOE
Opennet online archive. The following is a post war paper dealing with what was
learnt.
The Metabolism of the Fission Products and the
Heaviest Elements
Jos. G. Hamilton, M.D. + Author Affiliations Division of Medical Physics (Berkeley), Divisions
of Medicine and Radiology (San Francisco) University of California
This document is based on work
performed under Contract No. W-7405-eng-48-A for the Manhattan Project and the
Atomic Energy Commission.
It is a brief version of material to be published
in the Plutonium Project Record of the Manhattan Project Technical Series.
Presented at the Thirty-second Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of
North America, Chicago, Ill., Dec. 1–6, 1946.
Excerpt
Introduction and Methods During
the early phases of the development of the Plutonium Project, it became
apparent that one of the most serious problems to be encountered was the
protection of personnel working in this field against the immense quantities of
radiation and radioactive materials produced by the chain-reacting pile. The
most important hazard that arises from the release of nuclear energy are
radiations produced directly from fission and subsequently emitted by the
resultant fission products and plutonium. The fission products can produce
injury either as an external source of radiation or, if they
gain entry into the body, by acting as an internal radioactive poison, quite
analogous to radium poisoning. This latter consideration is a major concern,
since the amounts required within the body to produce injurious effects are
minute compared to the quantities necessary to induce damage by external beta
and gamma irradiation.
MORE STUDIES
A single dose of 3.8 millicuries (140 MBq, 4.1 μg of
caesium-137) per kilogram was lethal in a study of dogs within three weeks
Redman, H. C.; McClellan, R. O.; Jones, R. K.; Boecker, B.
B.; Chiffelle, T. L.; Pickrell, J. A.; Rypka, E. W. (1972). "Toxicity of
137-CsCl in the Beagle. Early Biological Effects". Radiation
Research 50 (3): 629–648. doi:10.2307/3573559. JSTOR 3573559. PMID
5030090.
DNA damage to nuclear
test vets prompts call for study of children http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=7B5D3A49-96BF-57FE-A849-E369E6196A27
Possible associations
between exposure to plutonium and mortality have been examined in studies of
workers at the U.S. plutonium production and/or processing facilities (Hanford,
Los Alamos, Rocky Flats), as well as facilities in Russia (e.g., Mayak) and the
United Kingdom (e.g., Sellafield). The Mayak studies provide relatively strong
evidence for an association between cancer mortality (bone, liver, lung) and
exposure to plutonium…. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/tp143.pdf
Prof. Yuri Bandazhevsky
found that children contaminated with cesium-137 producing 50 disintegrations
per second (becquerels) per kilogram of body weight suffered irreversible heart
damage . (Starrr, S. 2012 Health Threat
From Cesium 1-137. Japan Times Feb 16. Available: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/rc20120216a1.html
AN INFORMED OPINION:
Caldicott, H. (2011, Apr 11). http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation%20http://www.idealist.ws/contaminationna.php
Helen Caldicott reports: “Internal radiation, on the
other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by
inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as
iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea
and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains
(for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or
soil, grass, cow's meat and milk, then humans). [2]
After they enter the body,
these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as
the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small
volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and
over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer.
Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for
generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and
genetic diseases over time.
“The grave effects of internal emitters are of the
most profound concern at Fukushima. It is inaccurate and misleading to use the
term "acceptable levels of external radiation" in assessing internal
radiation exposures…”
Yep, the 80,000 pound gorilla that they try to hide under bed. Internal is bad.
ReplyDeleteOne of the myriad lies of nuke. Pretending that mSv can say it all, without directly addressing internal or external.
The ECRR is not the established radiation protection authority.
ReplyDeleteTheir methods point to finding a way to justify their conjecture of "no safe level of radiation", when that statement has not been proven.
Even Low-Level Radioactivity Is Damaging, Scientists Conclude. Science Daily. November 13, 2012 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121113134224.htm
ReplyDelete[Excerpted] The organisms studied included plants and animals, but had a large preponderance of human subjects. Each study examined one or more possible effects of radiation, such as DNA damage measured in the lab, prevalence of a disease such as Down's Syndrome, or the sex ratio produced in offspring. For each effect, a statistical algorithm was used to generate a single value, the effect size, which could be compared across all the studies.
The scientists reported significant negative effects in a range of categories, including immunology, physiology, mutation and disease occurrence. The frequency of negative effects was beyond that of random chance.
"There's been a sentiment in the community that because we don't see obvious effects in some of these places, or that what we see tends to be small and localized, that maybe there aren't any negative effects from low levels of radiation," said Mousseau. "But when you do the meta-analysis, you do see significant negative effects."
"It also provides evidence that there is no threshold below which there are no effects of radiation," he added. "A theory that has been batted around a lot over the last couple of decades is the idea that is there a threshold of exposure below which there are no negative consequences. These data provide fairly strong evidence that there is no threshold -- radiation effects are measurable as far down as you can go, given the statistical power you have at hand."
Mousseau hopes their results, which are consistent with the "linear-no-threshold" model for radiation effects, will better inform the debate about exposure risks. "
I am currently an Environmental Attorney but interested in internal emitters (hot particles) because of my own experience. I worked in a nuclear power plant 25 years ago and was contaminated by a hot particle internally. in 1999 i was diagnosed with a large cancerous tumor at the point of exposure. It originated in my colon but had attached to the small intestine. My doctors are convinced the particle was the cause and hare noted that in my medical record,, but i do not believe cause and effect can be established. at least not to the level required to meet the "Daubert standard" for the admission of scientific evidence in American courts. Always interested in any insight
ReplyDeleteHi Brian
DeleteEmail me at majiandsn@yahoo.com for more discussion.