No safe dose of radiation?

[Arcana]

Something being thrown around in light of the fallout coming from Fukushima to the rest of the Northern hemisphere is the debate over if there is a such a thing as a "safe dose" of radiation or not. What do you guys think of this, especially in regards to the fallout appearing in rainwater, soil, and food even as far as Europe.

Also what about the low dose=high risk models in which even "low levels" can be hazardous if someone inhales a few atoms of Cs-137.

[upi402]

1. Safe = zero

But there is background all around of course. But zero extra is the safe amount. Tolerated dosage levels by others, I shoot for zero and take what comes above that. Japan just declared a level 7 disaster, on a scale of 1 to 7. It's up there with Chernobyl.

[laconicsax]

6. Your own skeleton proves you wrong.

You keep repeating that the only safe level of radiation is zero, yet the bones in your body contain carbon-14 and potassium-40, both which are radioactive. Yes, it's best to limit radiation exposure, but zero exposure is impossible. Radiation is a consequence of existence.

[upi402]

8. your inability to read the black parts persists

please make a note of it

[laconicsax]

13. Your insistence on hyperbole persists.

Zero radiation is impossible; a small level of radiation exposure is safe.

[provis99]

10. natural background radiation is bad, too.

though it is a consequence of existence.

[laconicsax]

14. Would you care to prove that the carbon-14 and potassium-40 radiation your body emits is unsafe?

Surely someone has done the research to prove that being carbon-based life is bad for your health, or at least showing that being surrounded by other carbon-based life is dangerous...Maybe an anti-environmental outfit paid for a study showing that forests emit dangerous levels carbon-14 radiation?

[provis99]

23. ok. Here's the proof. We're all dying.

Point, set, match.

[trotsky]

25. But are we all dying of radiation poisoning?

I think the ball was out.

[laconicsax]

29. LOL!

:spray:

I take it that if there was no background radiation, we'd all live forever? :rofl:

[notesdev]

2. Oy

You absorb radiation all the time. If there was no "safe" dose we wouldn't be here to discuss it.

[buddysmellgood]

3. How much plutonium and cesium do we ingest all the time?

[saorsa]

4. I start with my four basic current sources on this

I go to
Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Michio Kaku, and the Union of Concerned Scientists via their Facebook pages ( or google their webpages). Also, recent articles and radio interviews I have found on the controversy over the issue of dose and the history of how it is defined have led me to the Low Level Radiation Campaign Website:

http://www.llrc.org/index.html



Absolutely excellent topic, thanks!

[Warpy]

5. Zero is unrealistic since we're exposed to naturally occuring radiation

every single day.

Additional radiation is assessed by expected increases in cancer rates over a general population over time. Low levels like we're likely to get in the US from the Fukushima disaster will result in barely perceivable increases, but they'll be there if people go looking for them. However, the risk for any random individual is actually quite low.

[laconicsax]

7. We also generate radiation.

Radioactive isotopes make up part of our bodies.

[Arcana]

9. We're screwed anyway.

I live in Tucson, which thankfully has had hardly any rain lately. It rained a few days ago with only a few hours of rain and a week or so after March 11 for also about a few hours.

We are still living with the fallout from Chernobyl, The Simi Valley incident in the 50s,Three Mile Island, and various nuclear bomb tests. I also heard about some uranium mining accident somewhere in Arizona where radioactive mud was spilled around. Nuclear waste and even chemical weapons have been dumped into the ocean a few times before. And doesn't some fallout leak out of nuclear reactors anyway? and not to mention the uranium dust emitted by coal powerplants.

Uranium is a natural alpha particle emitter that can be found in very trace amounts in the food supply.

Still don't know what to think about this, I mean the "dose is the poison" thing seems to be a mantra from "official" sources.

[laconicsax]

16. "The dose makes the poison" is the basis of toxicology. n/t

[cayanne]

11. I use ionized radon gas

I breath radon gas for 10 days, 4-7 hrs a day every year in Montana at the Free Enterprise Radon Health Mine. It has really helped me and has kept me off dialysis which I should have started 3-4 years ago. I have met people who have going there for over 27 years and continue to go because it helps them. It doesn't cure me but it keeps me going without a transplant. My name is on one of the posts down in the mine along with the dates I went there. My husband goes there for prevention and Bronchitis.

This is the one I go to for Fibromyalgia, Focal Glomerulosclerosis and Chromic Myofascial Pain. It really helps me and I have seen it work on a lot of people from the US, Canada and Japan.
http://www.radonmine.com/



http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20091123/MT_HEALTH03/911180344/Radon-Rx-Healing-powers-of-gas-lures-patients-to-Boulder-area-mine

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/07/16/010716fa_fact_singer

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=14839130

http://www.utne.com/1999-09-01/radioactive-remedy.aspx

[trotsky]

12. LMAO! That's how you make radiation safe!

Turn it into woo! May or may not help your health problems, but it WILL give a lot of people lung cancer. Yee-haw!

[laconicsax]

15. Maybe lung cancer cures the list of conditions listed on the website.

I'll bet that at the very least, if you have lung cancer, you won't be too worried about hay fever...or the dreaded conditions, "mobility," "sinus," and "circulation." :rofl:

http://www.radonmine.com/why.html

Apparently, it also cures cancer...

[Arcana]

17. Hmm, interesting.

Although I am skeptical, it's not too far fetched to consider that humans may have evolved with a bit of internal radiation.

Then again people have been living with lead for thousands of years.

[laconicsax]

18. All living things emit radiation.

In humans (and other animals) it's mostly from potassium-40 and carbon-14.

[flamingdem]

19. The issue is ingesting non-naturally occuring radiation - iodine and cesium, plutonium nt

[laconicsax]

20. As opposed to ingesting naturally occurring radiation?

It's what we do every time we eat.

The dose makes the poison.

[trotsky]

21. You don't really understand what radiation is, do you? n/t

[flamingdem]

22. I'd love to hear your defintion, I bet it is incorrect! Go ahead and learn me nt

[trotsky]

24. My definition is the scientific and accurate one.

It's available in thousands of places on the web. Start with Wikipedia for the basics. Understand the difference between the types of IONIZING radiation, because that's the particular form we're talking about. Understand the process by which alpha, beta, and gamma radiation are generated. Then - and this will be the big leap for you - understand that the radiation DOES NOT CARE whether it came from a "natural" or "unnatural" source.

I think it's good when we liberals know what the hell we're talking about, so that our positions and concerns will be taken seriously. YMMV I suppose.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[trotsky]

27. The "unsubstantiated claims" are basic scientific facts.

But of course if you understood radiation, you'd know that. I see no point in continuing this discussion when you have demonstrated you have no desire to actually inform yourself about these basic facts.

(BTW, if you want to talk about someone putting forth unsubstantiated claims and no links - even though I gave you one - you probably shouldn't follow up by posting unsubstantiated claims and a big cut-n-paste with NO LINK.) :rofl:

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

30. As Kelly Rupert put it...Fucking ENORMOUS chart...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=858649&mesg_id=858764

[uppityperson]

31. It depends on the type of radiation. Here is a good write up from a MD in Vancouver, BC

Taken off facebook post

I-131 is a fission breakdown product in nuclear reactors. It is trapped efficiently by your thyroid gland. It emits a gamma photon with an energy of 364 keV (kilo-electron Volts) and a beta particle (an electron) with a kinetic energy of 606 keV. The beta particle travels through the tissue in your thyroid gland and causes ionizations which can create free radicals which damage DNA. Each time a single atom of I-131 decays, it emits the electron and then the gamma photon. It decays to stable xenon, an inert gas which diffuses out of your body. Damaged DNA which doesn't get repaired increases your risk of cancer.

After Chernobyl, I-131 rained onto grass in northern Ukraine, southern Belarus, and western Russia. This grass was eaten by cows which concentrated the radiation. Children who drank the milk developed thyroid cancer at rates 10x higher than unexposed children. Source.

The highest level of I-131 measured in rainwater from SFU on the 20th of March was 12 Bq/L. This is, as Colgan says, 12 disintegrations per second, per litre of water. How much is that?

Not much. Actually, you need special, liquid nitrogen cooled, solid state detectors to detect levels of radioactivity that low.

Is it really that low? Let's look at the amount of radiation in foods right off the grocery store shelf from basically anywhere in the world, even places with no nuclear reactors:

Milk: 40 to 50 Bq/L
Powdered milk: 400 to 500 Bq/kg
Concentrated fruit juice: 600-800 Bq/L
Instant coffee: >1000 Bq/kg ( Source.)

My point here is that radioactivity is everywhere, including extremely common foods, at levels up to 100x higher than detected at SFU. Please don't throw away all your Nabob. It really is ok.

But, you might say, that is naturally occuring radiation, not I-131. You're right. Let's look at I-131.

If your doctor sends you to a nuclear medicine department to have your thyroid function tested, we use I-131 to test that. The dose we give you is approximately 111,000 Bq of I-131 to see how much your thyroid takes up, 10,000 times the amount detected in rainwater at SFU. In 50 years of performing this test, there is zero difference in cancer rates between tested and untested populations.

If you come to us with a hyperactive thyroid, we also treat that with I-131, in the amount 370,000,000 Bq. This is 35,000,000 times the amount in the rainwater. Again, you guessed it, zero difference in cancer rates, even in the 10% of people who need a 2nd treatment.

If you come with thyroid cancer, we treat you with about 5,000,000,000 Bq of I-131. Yes, 5 billion. With a "B."

Even at this amount, there is no convincing evidence of increased cancers of other kinds, only the slightest non-significant trends toward possibly increased risk. Actually, some individuals get a recurrence of their thyroid cancer, and we may treat them with total doses of 22 billion Bq of I-131. At this point, still, the long term evidence is not clear. There may be a very tiny risk of a subsequent cancer 5 to 20 years later, and even this risk is so small that it triggers arguments between those who think there is increased risk and those who think not.

So, everybody, please relax. Put the iodine tablets down, and back away slowly. All you're doing is making hucksters wealthy.

[rhett o rick]

32. Radiation has the potential of killing human cells. Humans can afford to lose cells.

However, the cell damage caused by radiation can cause cancer. The term "low dose" is being used with different meanings. Low doses of gamma radiation will damage human cells. Whether or not that damage will cause cancer is a crap shoot. "You just have to ask yourself one question...Do I feel lucky?". It depends somewhat on which cells get damaged. Gamma has the capability to penetrate thru the human body, therefore may damage cells in major organs. Alpha and Beta radiation wont penetrate human skin, so as long as the source of radiation is external, it doesnt pose a problem. However, if the source of alpha and beta are in the air as radioactive dust and get inhaled or ingested, and the source gets in your body, there is no skin to protect your organs from exposure.

Of course radiation can be used for some good, but still can cause cell damage that may become cancerous. You must weigh the risks vs. the benefits. The fact that we get doses of radiation every day doesnt mean it's safe.

[laconicsax]

33. Is the radioactive decay of carbon-14 and potassium-40 atoms inside the body unsafe?

IIRC, it's about .4 mSv/year of exposure, 100% internally.

[rhett o rick]

34. "Unsafe" is subjective. All radiation has the potential of damaging cells.

Getting cells damaged happens all the time in the human body with no consequences. For some reason some damage causes cancer. Any exposure to gamma radiation increases your risk. Internal exposure to beta and alpha increases your risk. I dont know what the specific by-products of the decay of carbon-14 and potassium-40 are. Basically, as I see it as a layman, the more exposure the greater the risk. No dose is risk free. For medical exposure the risk must be weighed against the possible benefits.

I offer the above free of charge and guarantee it worth every penny.

[laconicsax]

35. Here's some info you might find interesting.

Both ¹⁴C and ⁴⁰K undergoes β-decay amounting to about .4 mSv/year of continuous internal exposure. Both isotopes are naturally occurring and we essentially replace what we lose through decay through breathing and eating. There's no way to avoid it.

Considering how all life on Earth radioactive in this manner, and is continually exposed to other natural sources of radiation, it stands to reason that all modern species should have evolved to tolerate this low-level of radiation exposure.

After all, a species whose radiation tolerance is less than the average amount of naturally occurring background radiation isn't likely to survive for too many generations.

Why is this important? Because while radiation exposure should be minimized, worrying about minuscule doses that barely (if at all) increase the average annual radiation exposure is time better spent.

People need to understand that radiation isn't some boogeyman that's going to kill everyone. It's just a part of life and, as with most other things, the dose makes the poison meaning that what may be harmful at one concentration may be benign at another.

[rhett o rick]

36. Rationalization is the key to happiness. I assume you are happy. How can I fault that.

Good luck to you.