MIT Study: Prolonged Low-level Radiation Exposure Poses Little Risk

JSBiff sends this quote from MITnews: "A new study from MIT scientists suggests that the guidelines governments use to determine when to evacuate people following a nuclear accident may be too conservative. The study (abstract), led by Bevin Engelward and Jacquelyn Yanch and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, found that when mice were exposed to radiation doses about 400 times greater than background levels for five weeks, no DNA damage could be detected. Current U.S. regulations require that residents of any area that reaches radiation levels eight times higher than background should be evacuated. However, the financial and emotional cost of such relocation may not be worthwhile, the researchers say."

Comments

Re:As opposed to...

[YodasEvilTwin]

Funny, but "no detectable DNA damage" is not the same as "no DNA damage or other side effects". This study would need to be much longer term and need to look for more than obvious DNA damage for me to trust it, personally. It was only 5 weeks!

I'm fine with that, moron.

[SuperKendall]

There's nothing I detest more than some douche who has spent some time
at a university telling us all "we have nothing to fear".

Oddly, there's nothing I detest more than some idiot who is terribly afraid of something long after it's been proven to be safe.

I'd happily live in an area with 200x the level of background radiation (hey, my AT&T reception couldn't get any worse). The best benefit is that I can be sure compete morons like yourself will not be neighbors.

They said that about DDT.

Um, yeah...because DDT is safe. And millions have been killed from malaria that could have been saved without idiots like yourself "protecting" them.

Moron.