Energy Probe

Re: Information on DOE’s decision not to publish the 1991 Final Report of the Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study (NSWS)

It is commonly stated that “any radiation dose, no matter how small, can cause cancer.” The basis for that statement is the linearno threshold theory (LNT)–which might more appropriately be called “linear-no threshold hypothesis”—of radiation carcinogenesis. According to LNT, if a 1 Gy (100 rad) dose gives a cancer risk R, the risk from a dose of 0.01 Gy (1 rad) is R/100, the risk from 0.00001 Gy (1 millirad) is R/100,000, and so on. Thus the cancer risk is not zero regardless of how small the dose. However, over the past several years, many radiation health scientists have come to regard risk estimates in the low-dose region based on LNT as exaggerated or completely negligible.

Metabolic and energetic efficiency, and hence fitness of organisms to survive, should be maximal in their habitats. This tenet of evolutionary biology invalidates the linear-nothreshold (LNT) model for the risk consequences of environmental agents. Hormesis in response to selection for maximum metabolic and energetic efficiency, or minimum metabolic imbalance, to adapt to a stressed world dominated by oxidative stress should therefore be universal. Radiation hormetic zones extending substantially beyond common background levels, can be explained by metabolic interactions among multiple abiotic stresses. Demographic and experimental data are mainly in accord with this expectation. Therefore, non-linearity becomes the primary model for assessing risks from low-dose ionizing radiation. This is the evolutionary imperative upon which risk assessment for radiation should be based.

The International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP) adopted the linear nonthreshold model of radiation risk to simplify the administration of radiation protection. (ICRP 1977) At that time there were already several good epidemiological studies that contradicted the assumption. It had been known since 1973 (Frigerio, et. al.) that the 7 western U.S. states with the highest background radiation have cancer death rates 15% lower than the average for the 48 contiguous states (P<10-5). 

"..between the BEIR 5 Report of 1990 and last year, new and exciting biological research has been published demonstrating that cell in tissues respond very differently to radiation than isolated cells in culture and that cellural responses to low doses of radiation are very different from responses to high doses of radiation."

Information from the unpublished 1991 Final Report of the Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study (NSWS). The NSWS is the world’s largest and most thorough study of health effects of low-dose- rate ionising radiation to nuclear workers.

The 100-year study of British radiologists is perhaps the most important article about the health effects of radiation on humans ever published. The continuity of follow-up in the study is the longest for any study of exposure to chronic radiation.