Nuclear and radiation phobia

neglected by public health for 70 years

Wade Allison, Emeritus Professor of Physics and Fellow of Keble College, Oxford

21 June 2018

Contact wade.allison@physics.ox.ac.uk Books from www.ypdbooks.com/ or Amazon

Websites www.radiationandreason.com and www.nuclear4life.com

Radioactivity and its radiation is safer than fire

Huge range of radiation doses that are beneficial or harmless

LOW DOSE 0.2 mGy per month, chronic very variable background. Natural internal source, also rocks, space

MODERATE DOSE 10 mGy, acute or repeated infrequently. CT/PET/SPECT diagnostic scan

HIGH DOSE 20,000+ mGy per month, given in daily fractions to healthy tissue during the radiotherapy of a tumour

MARIE CURIE pioneered the science and the medicine.

Welcomed and trusted by the public for 100 years – but how may we explain the benefits of radiation elsewhere in society

Public health errors and consequences There is no popular understanding of the simple dangers from radiation,

eg it is not contagious like disease and does not “catch” like fire

In the 1950s all were told that radiation caused many cancer deaths after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact 99% of deaths were from blast and fire, not radiation (published data)

The nuclear arms race alarmed everybody. In response, the ICRP safety standard was changed (without evidence) from 70 mGy per month (1934) to 0.1 mGy per month (today) to appease public opinion

Exciting fiction and media stories were built on fear of radiation.

After Chernobyl many thousand deaths from radiation were expected, but the published count is 43.

The same happened at Fukushima with zero deaths from radiation.

In both accidents fear caused consequential death, mental illness, family break up and economic damage, locally and internationally.

Why is radiation so safe?

It is strange given that radiation is so powerful.....

But life has been immersed in ionising radiation for 3,500 million years – more intensely in the past

Without evolved protection against low and moderate doses life would not have survived

Multiple layers of overlapping protection work by repairing DNA, scrapping damaged cells, quenching broken molecules, policing by a diligent immune system – many of the same mechanisms also protect against rogue oxygen molecules.

All life needs protection, with/without central nervous system. Protection is devolved to cells and groups of cells – we are left unaware of how well we are protected.

At high doses the protection fails, and so there is a threshold

The effect of a radiation dose is not linearThe dead response assumed by LNT (Linear No-Threshold) and ALARA safety

regulations gives the red line. Real tissue is alive and responds to protect itself – the blue line shows

a non-zero response only above a threshold.

Public reassurance needed in 21st Century Nuclear power is the only energy source that has no effect on

nature, is carbon-free and is available anywhere and at any time

The only reason nuclear is expensive, unfamiliar and unwelcome is the unnecessary fearful safety regulations, LNT/ALARA.

Energy density per kg Good? Bad?

“Renewables”Power of water, wind, solar and

biofuels etc100-1000 Old fashioned

and accepted

1) Huge power plants deface

nature2) Unreliable

source

Combustion Coal, oil, gas, wood, candles 24 million

Our favourite choice until

recently

Emissions into atmosphere with climate change

Nuclear Fission 4 million million

1) Compact safe steady output. 2) No effect on

nature

But unfamiliar and feared!!

Follow Florence Nightingale – illustrate!She succeeded in showing society what it had previously ignored.

She collected the data, analysed them, drew coloured diagrams for all to understand, published them herself and demanded change

A simple diagram illustrating the safety of radiation – and the conclusion

Graphics to illustraterelative risks

Large risks

and those a thousand times smaller

and those a

million times smaller, that need not cause

individual concern.

To the public: it is better to appreciate natural protection than simply to follow

regulations blindly

effective natural protection experts on parade in impressive suits shaped over billions of years that frighten more than protect

Nuclear waste causes no deathsonly unnecessary public concern..

It is easily and safely managed, unlike human biological waste that causes

millions of deaths per year

Because nuclear fuel carries so much energy, very little is needed and a correspondingly tiny

amount of waste is produced.

A comparison of wastes per person per day:

Wanted: public education and personal responsibility

Children learn early they are responsible for their own dangerous human waste. Effective

All Japanese learn at school about earthquakes and tsunamis. They practice what to do if it happens. In March 2011 they acted quickly and all but 5% escaped in the short time before the tsunami arrived. Effective

Everywhere children and adults learn about fire and engage in fire practice. Effectve

On nuclear matters people are told nothing, except that safety is assured, an ineffective and authoritarian policy. When an accident like Fukushima happens, there is no knowledge,no plan – only distrust, panic, social and economic breakdown.

A similar lack of nuclear education obtains in all countries.

Sunbathing is a bigger health threat

Solar radiation 1000 watts per sq m (of which small % is UV) - warm and beneficial - but causes 9000 skin cancer deaths per year (US).

Nuclear radiation at 100 mGy per month = 1/25,000,000 watts per kg - far too weak to be felt. - causes no detectable cancers but is 1000 X the public ALARA limit.

Sensible public health advice about sunbathing safety.Helpful guidance on a pharmacist's plastic carrier bag

(without a web of overlapping international committees)

What needs to be done now? Talk to young people – it will be their world and they learn most

readily

Promote reassuring public information about radiation and nuclear

Encourage broader education with less use of thinking delegated to experts

Urge that the ALARA/LNT Regulations be changed

Reduce Healthcare costs and optimise scans for diagnosis

Alert politicians. Write simple articles and get them published in the media

Write books that tell the whole story and encourage people to read them

Build nuclear power stations, all/any kind, but design new ones too

Work with others around the world and spread trust in science

We need to talk more with medical staff, school teachers,

community leaders, the press, and the public

But how did we get into this mess? After 1945 political and military imperatives were allowed to Trump

science

Radiological Safety was set up in the 1950s, the McCarthy Era, when truth was often classified 'secret' and the subject of espionage

The Nuclear Arms Race with the Soviet Union frightened everybody on both sides. The extreme regulations were meant to appease them

To bolster their status the regulations were recommended by the United Nations and became the business of too many bodies

Members of these international committees were not broad enough scientists to establish them on a wide science-based remit

In each country a safety industry became established, securing jobs for many who became reluctant to rock the boat. “Job'sworth”!

Until the 21st C it seemed that fossil fuel was a viable option and there seemed no need to fight the mistaken view of the nuclear option