EPA Says Higher Radiation Levels Pose 'No Harmful Health Effect' (bloomberg.com)

Readers share a report: In the event of a dirty bomb or a nuclear meltdown, emergency responders can safely tolerate radiation levels equivalent to thousands of chest X-rays, the Environmental Protection Agency said in new guidelines that ease off on established safety levels. The EPA's determination sets a level ten times the drinking water standard for radiation recommended under President Barack Obama. It could lead to the administration of President Donald Trump weakening radiation safety levels, watchdog groups critical of the move say. "It's really a huge amount of radiation they are saying is safe," said Daniel Hirsch, the retired director of the University of California, Santa Cruz's program on environmental and nuclear policy. "The position taken could readily unravel all radiation protection rules." The change was included as part of EPA "guidance" on messaging and communications in the event of a nuclear power plant meltdown or dirty bomb attack. The FAQ document, dated September 2017, is part of a broader planning document for nuclear emergencies, and does not carry the weight of federal standards or law.

Comments

Debated for a long time

[XXongo]

This has been debated for a long time. It's a question of whether the data from higher exposures can be correctly extrapolated to lower doses using the Linear No Threshold model.

Re:Debated for a long time

[bluefoxlucid]

Essentially, the debate is about keeping as broad a safety margin as possible.

If it were trivially-cheap to analyze water for the presence of lead--let's say it cost 1 penny per hundred billion gallons of treated water to remove and verify lead content down to the 1/1,000,000 ppb level (that means any given lake-sized volume of treated water has a high likelihood of having zero lead atoms in it period)--we would mandate that. Why wouldn't you?

What failures in measurement expose us to additional radiation? What procedures (e.g. radiology) do we go through that exposes us to additional radiation? For a population of hundreds of million, is this level of radiation prone to cause a hundred more incidences of cancer (trivial) on its own, before interacting with other factors?

One person in America dying every year might be a triviality. If it costs millions of dollars to prevent that, well, let's not do it: you'll save more lives investing that in charity and anti-poverty measures. If it costs pennies per year, then yes let's do that.

"Pennies" quickly becomes "dollars" and "millions of dollars" as you add zeroes onto the end of that one person. 1,000 persons per year? Maybe we want to invest several million dollars into this--especially since "dying" isn't binary when you get past bullets to the head. Even highway safety measures come down to death, dismemberment, or property damage.

It's a matter of risk--a highly-technical concept nobody seems to know all that much about.

Re:Debated for a long time

[AmiMoJo]

There are many problems with trying to do this. As TFA demonstrates, most people don't understand the difference between radiation from x-rays and emitted by coal and nuclear plants, for example.

Number of deaths are not the only factors either. Non-fatal healthcare costs, lost productivity... And the manner of death. It's different if it's one person who dies quickly and painlessly, or a long slow suffering over years. We had this debate with smog and drinking water.

In any case, this is just an attempt to boost industries that pollute a lot in a variety of ways, by cutting their costs.

Re:Debated for a long time

[Mr D from 63]

As for Fukushima safety, there are several pieces you can find (if you sort through the FUD articles) that talk about how it is safe to return, here's one of them. People don't even trust their doctors when it comes to radiation fear;

Some doctors told me that while the initial evacuation was necessary, the failure to plan a swift return as radiation levels fell had been disastrous. Apart from a few high-dose areas in the mountains, the psychological risks of staying away exceed the radiological risks of coming back. But the confusion has contributed to a serious loss of trust among the public for medical, as well as nuclear, authorities. “When we try to explain the situation,” says Nollet, “we are seen as complicit in nuclear power.”

http://e360.yale.edu/features/...

Re:Debated for a long time

[Mr D from 63]

Radiation exposure is well understand and extrapolated, and has been for years.

The public risk perception of radiation is so far from reality, it could possibly make us do stupid things.

Your perception of the risk from radiation is so far from reality, you've simplified the model to the point of being useless.

That's been my experience of your posts, that all of the knowledge gathered since the 1950s just doesn't exist. You don't understand :

• The difference between a radionuclide and the radiation it emits
• The difference between internal and external radiation exposure
• The difference between being exposed to radiation and having an emitter inside you exposing you 24x7
• What bioaccumulation is
• That detection in food and water is really hard
• That you can eat a radionuclide
• That you can drink a radionuclide
• That you can breathe in a radionuclide
• That some radionuclides appear like different types of micro-nutirents to a matabolism
• That it deposits in different parts of the body
• That it can be organically bound in the body and not excreted
• That organically bound exposure increases absorption of radiation
• That it can be chemically toxic
• That children are more susceptible than adults
• That an effect could be death
• That an effect could be cancer
• That an effect could be gene damage
• That an effect could be failed birth
• That an effect could be a birth defect
• That an effect could be transgenic disease that effect the next generation
• That an effect could be reduced brainweight of, and lower IQ in infants
• That there is still stuff we don't know

Then you:

• Ignore facts even when they are cited from reputable sources
• Don't seem to want to understand
• Continue to shill as if you have an agenda
• Claim everything is FUD
• Minimize the apparent harm
• Ignore data collected from unbiased sources
• Refuse to accept that some data *is* biased Nuclear PR
• Refuse to accept the impact of media blackout for Fukushima
• Refuse to accept the work of Ukrainian scientists studying Chernobyl

There is a reason the NRC uses ALARA, figuring out this stuff is complicated and the easiest thing to do so your brain doesn't explode from thinking about it is to keep the potential risk of exposure ultra conservative.

That's it, post a long list of stuff to mask the fact you have no actual data. Radiation risk data is readily available, why don't you ever bother to use it?

This is what you wanted

[rsilvergun]

If you voted for the party of less regulation. Yes, there's a lot of silly laws on the books, but the really silly ones are ignored by everyone. When it comes time to cut regulations these are the ones that get cut.

Trump...North Korea...Iran...

[Taskmage]

Maybe i'm just paranoid (most likely) but...does this look like preparing the public for a planned nuclear war?

Re:If Obama did it, I'm against it

[ClickOnThis]

Let's not bullshit here. This is about Trump's effort to get rid of every single thing Obama ever did.

This.

Trump is irked by anything that has Obama's name on it. It's like he gets up every morning and has to walk past a golden multi-storey edifice named "Obama Tower." His insecurity really does run that deep.

Re:Linear relation, with cutoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Radon is dangerous not just because of direct radiation but because it is a gas and can be inhaled and decay where normal skin protection from radiation is lost. Additionally, since you have inhaled, the decay byproducts (including lead) are in your lungs and the air. Radon exposure is vastly different than many "every day" radiation exposures. Further, radon testing should be completed because variations can be significant from dwelling to dwelling. You MAY NOT need a radon system, but if you haven't tested, you don't know if you do. Radon is the 2nd leading cause of lung cancer in the USA behind smoking.

People may be stupid when talking radiation but radon is "no joke" in certain situations.

Re:Easy enough solution

[The Grim Reefer]

Putting this in some perspective, it's something less than 20 CT scans

I really hate when CT scans are used as an example. The range of exposure is so wide and varies a lot depending on the type of scanner it is. A cardiac function CT scan on a 10 year old scanner could be 30 mSv or higher. Yet the same scan on a 2 year old scanner would be under 5 mSv. And with a newer sequence from the last 6 months could be as low as 1 mSv. An angiogram from a few years ago could be 16 mSv, but are well under 1 mSv on a modern scanner. There are many scans that are done these days that are at .2 mSv.

It also depends on what body part is being scanned. The exposure in the extremities are different than the head or thorax. The age of a patient is also a big factor. hitting an 85 year old with 10 mSv is a hell of a lot different than a 6 month old.