F.A.R.E. : No SAFE Dosage of Radiation

Local News: No SAFE Dosage of Radiation

Published on Apr 22, 2011 - 01:04 PM
Footnote: Written by: F.A.R.E, Families Against Radioactive Exposure

From: F.A.R.E, Families Against Radioactive Exposure
 Port Hope Ontario, Canada
www.ph-fare.cainfo@ph-fare.ca
Subject: No Safe Dose of Radiation
The CNSC stated two years ago that no dose of radioactivity of less than "hundreds of milliSieverts" could be dangerous, but the truth is that doses many times less than that, down to thousands of times less than that, have been shown to increase the risk of cancer. FARE has repeatedly brought this to CNSC's attention, and attempted to explain that there is no safe dose of radiation; but for two years CNSC has denied the facts and misled the public. Again, at the recent Darlington hearings, regarding the possible additions of more nuclear power generators, the CNSC continued to convey the same information. The public needs to know that they have been misled by the CNSC.
The following is FARE’s response to this continuing line of misinformation and error.
“About two years ago, in April 2009, at a hearing in Ottawa to present their so-called "Synthesis Report" on radioactive risk in the Port Hope area, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) assured the public that our community in Port Hope was not at any risk from the activities of the nuclear industry in the past, present or future.
 FARE (Families Against Radiation Exposure) brought to the attention of CNSC and the public that the CNSC's report and its oral presentations at the hearing were replete with inaccuracies, omissions, misunderstandings and downright misinformation. Central amongst these was a statement by CNSC's designated spokesperson, Dr. Patsy Thompson, the CNSC’s Director-General of Environmental and Radiation Protection and Assessment, to the effect that there was no evidence in the scientific literature that low-level radiation was harmful.
 She stated that when the scientific literature refers to low doses of radiation, the doses they are referring to "are in the hundreds of millisieverts". (This citation is taken from the official transcript of the hearing; the emphasis is added by us).
FARE pointed out at that time that it has been known since the 1950s that a single X-ray given to a pregnant woman (a dose of about 10-30 milliSieverts in those days) can cause leukemia in the baby that was exposed as a fetus in the womb (Stewart et al., Lancet 268, 447 (1956); Stewart et al., Brit. Med. J. 1, 1495-1508 (1958)). Since then techniques have become much more sensitive, and many other data have confirmed the causation of leukemia and cancer at much lower doses than "hundreds of mSV". For example just this past month, on 8 March 2010, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published work by Dr Louise Pilote and co-workers from McGill University that showed increased risks from doses of 10 mSv or less from low-level radiation in cardiac imaging. Work from Germany has shown that leukemia occurs in increased frequency in children living in the vicinity of nuclear power plants, where radiation doses are much less that 1 mSv per year and are estimated to be as low as only thousandths of a mSv above the natural background radiation (for example Kaatssch et al., Int. J. Cancer 1220, 721-726 (2008)). Thus CNSC's estimate of "hundreds of mSv" may be hundreds of thousands or even a million fold incorrect. Science has known for nearly a century that there is no safe dose of radiation. Canada's "Nuclear Safety" Commission has failed to grasp this.
FARE has repeatedly pointed out that CNSC's statements are erroneous and misleading, and that CNSC is not staffed by medical scientific experts who understand the dangers of radiation to health. CNSC has repeatedly responded by re-stating their erroneous misinformation. As recently as at last week's Darlington hearings CNSC spokesperson Patsy Thompson repeated her now notorious statements about the safety of low level radiation, and in so doing totally ignored the above mentioned data and scientific references that had been presented at the hearings by FARE's spokesperson Holly Blefgen. Dr. Thompson is on record as stating that the fact that children living near nuclear plants develop leukemia at increased frequency, compared to those living elsewhere, is not proof that the nuclear radiation is the cause of the leukemia. This is analogous to stating that the fact that people who are exposed to asbestos get the debilitating lung disease asbestosis, and unexposed people do not get the disease, in no way proves that asbestos causes asbestosis. Such a statement might have been made by an asbestos-industry spokesperson in the past, and it would have elicited ridicule in the medical world. The comparable statement by the CNSC's "Director-General of Radiation Protection" makes clear that her CNSC position is as a spokesperson for the nuclear industry.

 In contrast, for anyone with appropriate medical expertise and insight who was speaking on behalf of the medical safety interests of the public, the data on leukemia in children living near nuclear plants would demand an unequivocal stance on the side of caution. That would be genuine Radiation Protection. The CNSC not only does not understand the medical science of radiation, it also misunderstands the term "Radiation Protection" - it apparently believes that it means "Protection of the Radiation Industry".
It is necessary for the public to understand that for two years the CNSC has indoctrinated the public into believing that there is no danger from radioactivity, and all this time it has been shamelessly misleading the public.