Linear No Threshold (LNT), the radiation harm model which is the foundation for our radiation protection regulation is nonsense. It denies our undisputed ability to repair radiation damage. As a result it over-predicts harm in low dose rate situations, such as a nuclear power plant release by many orders of magnitude. But LNT survives. One reason is anti-LNT forces have not coalesced behind a single alternative. Another is that the most commonly suggested alternative, Linear With Threshold (LWT), has much the same problems as LNT.
I am struggling to see why (with all of the smart people in the world) a credible metric is not more easily addressed.
Not sure I really understand all of the details, but one "top of the head" thought is "can't we normalize" dosage to a baseline acceptable level? I am thinking (say): (Measured dose rate) per (dose rate that can be repaired within a standard period). If this value is 1.0 or less, there is little risk. If over 1.0, or 5.0?, or 10?, then there are grounds for concern (and an insurance payout).
This idea is too simple for someone not to have considered it already and rejected it for some reason, but ???
[Or is this equivalent to Threshold on Dose or Threshold on Dose Rate, and I am just not seeing it correctly?]
And isn't what you want to model basically a (fill the bucket at one rate) and (empty it at another rate), and see how high and how fast the bucket fills (or empties)? Possibly with separate spigots for repair rate, shielding effectiveness, weather dispersals impacts, etc. ???
I ask this on the philosophy that the only dumb question is the one you didn't ask. :-)
It isn't just radiation regulation which has this problems. You will find similar confusions with both alcohol and meat. Alcohol warnings often stress that there is no safe dose (as far as cancer is concerned) ... particularly for pregnant women. Meat warnings typically include a non-sensical threshold. Because almost all cancers start as a single point of damage, the logical inference is that a single gram (nano-gram, whatever tiny portion you prefer) was responsible. Therefor the only sensible way to describe this is "no safe dose". Once we hear this, it plays with our minds. We can't easily conceive of such tiny units of causality. In the case of meat, the sharp uptick in the dose response curve is at a few hundred grams per week ... hence the warning. But it is the politics of meat and alcohol that determines that "no safe dose" predominates in alcohol circles while threshold thinking dominates in meat warnings. All of these issues are bedevilled by the same problems that you discuss Jack. Almost nobody knows how to think sensibly about these things.
Data beats theory in all of these debates, and to me, the clearest data is Cohen's enormous study of lung cancer from radon in counties all over the USA. The cancer rate is clearly declining up to radon levels of 250 Bq/m3 (more than double the levels found in most buildings). The hormetic effect is small, not enough for me to add radon to my house, but it is easy to explain. Getting a little sun each day will prevent sunburns on the rare occasion when you get too much.
I got into a long debate with some anti-nukers, and they would never accept this simple conclusion, nor could they give me any references supporting their arguments, just outrage that Citizendium would publish this data, and speculation that their must be something wrong with the data. One of the debaters went so far as to dig up maps on smoking in various parts of the USA, and claimed that there was a strong negative correlation between these high-smoking areas and low radon. I pointed out that the cancer study had smoking as a controlled variable, but he didn't understand that.
Citizendium seeks to publish the most effective arguments on each side, be they rational or emotional, but none of these anti's wanted their names associated with their arguments, so I have created a "Read it on the Internet" section with links to the original discussions in a public forum. Let me know if you can improve on our summary. I think it deserves one of your slam-dunk rebuttals. Or maybe Robert Hargraves would like to step in. His lecture slides are where I found the links to this data.
I am struggling to see why (with all of the smart people in the world) a credible metric is not more easily addressed.
Not sure I really understand all of the details, but one "top of the head" thought is "can't we normalize" dosage to a baseline acceptable level? I am thinking (say): (Measured dose rate) per (dose rate that can be repaired within a standard period). If this value is 1.0 or less, there is little risk. If over 1.0, or 5.0?, or 10?, then there are grounds for concern (and an insurance payout).
This idea is too simple for someone not to have considered it already and rejected it for some reason, but ???
[Or is this equivalent to Threshold on Dose or Threshold on Dose Rate, and I am just not seeing it correctly?]
And isn't what you want to model basically a (fill the bucket at one rate) and (empty it at another rate), and see how high and how fast the bucket fills (or empties)? Possibly with separate spigots for repair rate, shielding effectiveness, weather dispersals impacts, etc. ???
I ask this on the philosophy that the only dumb question is the one you didn't ask. :-)
It isn't just radiation regulation which has this problems. You will find similar confusions with both alcohol and meat. Alcohol warnings often stress that there is no safe dose (as far as cancer is concerned) ... particularly for pregnant women. Meat warnings typically include a non-sensical threshold. Because almost all cancers start as a single point of damage, the logical inference is that a single gram (nano-gram, whatever tiny portion you prefer) was responsible. Therefor the only sensible way to describe this is "no safe dose". Once we hear this, it plays with our minds. We can't easily conceive of such tiny units of causality. In the case of meat, the sharp uptick in the dose response curve is at a few hundred grams per week ... hence the warning. But it is the politics of meat and alcohol that determines that "no safe dose" predominates in alcohol circles while threshold thinking dominates in meat warnings. All of these issues are bedevilled by the same problems that you discuss Jack. Almost nobody knows how to think sensibly about these things.
Data beats theory in all of these debates, and to me, the clearest data is Cohen's enormous study of lung cancer from radon in counties all over the USA. The cancer rate is clearly declining up to radon levels of 250 Bq/m3 (more than double the levels found in most buildings). The hormetic effect is small, not enough for me to add radon to my house, but it is easy to explain. Getting a little sun each day will prevent sunburns on the rare occasion when you get too much.
I got into a long debate with some anti-nukers, and they would never accept this simple conclusion, nor could they give me any references supporting their arguments, just outrage that Citizendium would publish this data, and speculation that their must be something wrong with the data. One of the debaters went so far as to dig up maps on smoking in various parts of the USA, and claimed that there was a strong negative correlation between these high-smoking areas and low radon. I pointed out that the cancer study had smoking as a controlled variable, but he didn't understand that.
Citizendium seeks to publish the most effective arguments on each side, be they rational or emotional, but none of these anti's wanted their names associated with their arguments, so I have created a "Read it on the Internet" section with links to the original discussions in a public forum. Let me know if you can improve on our summary. I think it deserves one of your slam-dunk rebuttals. Or maybe Robert Hargraves would like to step in. His lecture slides are where I found the links to this data.
https://citizendium.org/wiki/Fear_of_radiation/Debate_Guide#LNT_and_radon,_Controversy_over_Figure_4