The Royal Society of Edinburgh Radiation and Reason: Straight and Open Thinking about Choosing Nuclear Professor

Wade Allison Emeritus Fellow, Keble College, Oxford 5 September 2011 Report by Peter Barr Nuclear Enlightenment? Although radiation in a massive dose may kill us, its use in medicine shows that humans can tolerate much higher levels than official safety regulations suggest. Professor Wade Allison explained how we have exaggerated the dangers of radiation and suggested that the challenge today is to educate, invest and legislate for a new prosperity that includes nuclear technology.
Professor Allison began by quoting Adam Smith, who said that science was the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition, and suggested that popular attitudes to nuclear energy and radiation also need such treatment. Rising CO2 levels suggest that fossil fuels are a dangerous energy source, he said, but nuclear power is arguably the best option available, along with contributions from renewables. Nuclear produces a million times more energy and less waste than fossil fuels. The fuel required for nuclear is plentiful in many different regions of the world and its use has no effect on the climate. Generation does not depend on the weather and is possible 24/7. The technology is safe (only 50 deaths in 50 years, following the Chernobyl accident), is available and known (unlike carbon capture and storage), and has little impact in terms of its footprint (unlike wind farms). The only downside seems to be people's fear about its impact on health. This fear of radiation has arisen from: 1. 2. 3. 4. perceptions of a nuclear holocaust, a concern emphasised in the Cold War; the fact that radiation is invisible; safety regulations which warn of dangers; the idea that only boffins can understand it.

Professor Allison explained that, although we are not aware of it, the cells in our body can sense radiation and take evasive action to repair the damage. Fear of radiation is tied up with our modern obsession with safety and risk. The only certainty in life is that we will all die. Putting different risks in perspective, one in three people die of heart disease, one in seven die of cancer, one in 67 will commit suicide. Taking this further, lightning (1:30,000) is more likely to kill you than the chances of dying when the bombs hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1:40,000) or death caused by radiation at Chernobyl (1:150 million). What is the effect of radiation on life? he then asked. In fact how dangerous is it? This is the only important question and the answer should determine, at a national level, all considerations of safety, risk assessment, waste disposal and therefore public acceptance. Internationally, it should determine reactions to nuclear terrorism, rogue states, dirty bombs and nuclear blackmail.

To understand the dangers posed to health, we need data that we trust and one area where many of us have experience of radiation is in clinical medicine for example PET and CT scans. To make sense of such data we need to understand how radiation exposure is measured as a single dose or as a dose rate (exposure per day). Risks are not always in proportion, Allison explained 100 paracetamol tablets can be fatal if taken all at once, but our bodies can easily cope with two tablets every eight hours for a month. And it's the same with radiation our bodies can cope to a certain extent, especially when we are younger and our immune systems stronger. A PET scan exposes us to a single dose of about 10 millisieverts (mSv) and the radiation is gone from our bodies in approximately two hours, due to decay and excretion. Allison even showed a Japanese advertisement for PET/CT screening, which would expose you to a dose of 15mSv. After the recent accident at Fukushima, the authorities banned meat giving a dose of 0.008mSv per kilogram eaten, but Allison pointed out that you would have to eat two tonnes of dangerous meat over four months to incur the same dose as the advertised screening scan. After Chernobyl, he said, health authorities admitted that the widespread destruction of meat was unnecessary, expensive, and caused great hardship an over-reaction now repeated in Japan. Radiation can be fatal in doses so large that the cells in the body stop reproducing (Acute Radiation Syndrome). Most of those workers at Chernobyl who were exposed to doses above 4,000mSv died (27 out of 42), but no-one died due to exposure of less than 2,000mSv (out of 140). But many people in this room have had much higher doses than that if they have had a course of radiotherapy, Allison added. To destroy a tumour, we receive a dose of about 2,000mSv, every day for 56 weeks, with surrounding organs receiving a reduced exposure of about 1,000mSv. This adds up to more than 20,000mSv per month five times the fatal level at Chernobyl but it is relatively safe because our bodies can repair almost all of the daily damage within a few hours. But no repairs are perfect and in later years, as the immune system becomes less effective, cancers may appear. Their rate is low and radiation-induced cancer is not distinguishable from other cancers, except statistically. So to learn about them we need lifetime studies of large populations subjected to quite high doses. Thanks to the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have such data carefully monitored over 50 years. In 1945, the population of Hiroshima was 429,000, of whom about 30 per cent died soon after the bombs exploded, with 66 per cent surviving until 1950. Around 32,000 survivors (7.5 per cent) died of cancer over the next 50 years. Comparing these figures with those for other comparable Japanese populations, the extra cancer deaths caused by radiation amounted to 1,865 (0.5 per cent). The individual doses have been measured for a third of the survivors (see Q&A), and the data show that a single dose of 2,000mSv doubles the normal cancer rate, while 100mSv carries no measurable extra risk. As Allison concluded, if the risk is not measurable, even in such an awful, large-scale, lifelong experiment, it should be seen as too small to worry about. In the area surrounding Fukushima, the authorities defined evacuation zones on the basis of a maximum dose rate of 20mSv per year a thousand times lower than the dose to healthy tissue accepted in one month during a course of radiotherapy. Doctors in Japan have confirmed the increased suicide rate and other symptoms of extreme stress caused by the evacuation. This socio-economic surgery, with its psychological and economic consequences, has a more serious effect than any side effect of radiotherapy. And a UN report on Chernobyl, published early this year, confirms that evacuation and fear caused more damage than radiation there, too. (In 1986, medical records confirm that there were nearly 2,000 induced abortions in Greece alone, based on fears of radiation from Chernobyl.) The lessons were not learned, said Allison. The errors were repeated. Spreading fear about radiation acts like a medieval curse in having a nocebo effect (the opposite of the placebo effect) if you tell people they've been exposed to a health threat, there's a good chance they'll become ill because of the psychological damage this causes. Allison then questioned the safety regulations currently set for radiation, suggesting that the level of any actual danger is higher by about 1,000 times. To reassure a public worried about radiation, the levels have been set as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA). He suggested that safety

levels should, rather, be set as high as relatively safe (AHARS). Using the data from radiotherapy (with a conservative factor of 200) and the Hiroshima data too, Allison recommends setting the level at 100mSv per month or 5,000mSv over a lifetime. At Fukushima, he added, no-one has died as a result of radiation and no-one will. In the 20th Century, Allison concluded,we were wrong to think of radiation as very dangerous. We should now take up the challenge to educate, invest and legislate for a new prosperity that includes nuclear technology. Q&A: Q: How were radiation doses measured after Hiroshima? A: Three methods: 1: proximity to where the bomb detonated, 2: concentration of electrons in bones & teeth, 3: biomedical methods. Q: Can tolerance of radiation be improved by regular exposure to very small doses, in the same way that exercise can make the body fitter? A: It's too early to say if radiation is good for you, but this is worth investigating further. Q: Are you concerned about the increased use of nuclear power in countries where safety standards may be less strict? And what about proliferation? A: We need education some countries may not be ready for nuclear power for several decades. As their education improves, they should be helped. When it comes to proliferation, that depends on a heady mix of power politics and misunderstood science. Q: Are people in granite homes protected from cancer because this exposes them to low doses of radon? A: Radon is not dangerous, but there is no evidence, that I am aware of, to suggest that it may be able to reduce cancer risks. Q: What is your 30-second soundbite to summarise your views on radiation? A: I dont think I can in 30 seconds, but I have tried in my book to express it in language accessible to the non-scientist. Q: Is the problem not the unholy combination of people and technologies? Get rid of the people and the politicians, and the problems will end? A: Assuming that we should stick with people, even some politicians, education is what is needed. Q: Is nuclear energy sustainable? A: We have plentiful supplies of uranium and have not yet prospected in earnest. Alternatives such as thorium could also be used and 50100 years from now, we will probably have nuclear fusion. Q: I find some of your comments disturbing. What about the incidence of childhood cancers, etc., after Chernobyl? A: The UN reports suggest that it is hard to establish the facts about cancer at Chernobyl, partly because of the fear factor and the nocebo effect. There was the well-documented case of thyroid cancer leading to 15 deaths. Otherwise, the doses at Hiroshima and from radiotherapy are much higher and suggest no extra risk. Q: Were the problems at Chernobyl not exacerbated by poor handling of the incident by the authorities? And when it comes to education, are you underestimating the problem e.g. the institutional barriers and the links between the military and other vested interests? A: Yes and yes. There are vested interests including people protecting their jobs and the safety industry. To change the regulations will be a big battle. Safety has been over-egged.
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