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Cancer Treatment and Research Communications journal homepage:
www.sciencedirect.com/journal/cancer-treatment-and-research-communications
Ionizing radiation and cancer: The failure of the risk model Christopher Busby Environmental Research SIA, Palejas, Kurmene, LV-5115, Latvia
This review presents evidence that the methodology that supports the current radiation risk model for cancer is insecure. As a consequence, the legal limits on internal exposures to certain common radionuclides are incorrect by several orders of magnitude. Because of this, hundreds of millions of people will have developed cancer due to internal exposures from atmospheric testing fallout, nuclear accidents, Depleted Uranium and releases from nuclear sites. There are fatal errors in both the mechanistic and epidemiological bases of the Linear No Threshold (LNT) Absorbed Dose model. The review discusses the history of the model and refers to published studies that clearly demonstrate these errors. It argues that the ways in which the models were constructed were arbitrary, capricious and unscientific.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468294222000557
3.4. Childhood leukemia near nuclear sites The issue of childhood leukemia near nuclear sites has a significant associated literature which began with the Sellafield reprocessing plant leukemias in 1982 and the subsequent government involvement [78]. Since then, childhood leukemia has been found to be raised near most of the nuclear sites studied [79]. The refusal of authorities to concede causation is generally uniform: the Dose is too low. However, the doses in the Chernobyl infant leukemia cohorts were comparable and there is no other explanation. The UK government funded committee COMARE assigned the task of examining the Sellafield cluster modelled internal exposures by diluting the alpha particle energy into a 9 kg “lymphatic system” and which resulted in a tiny dose of about 300microSieverts, about 1/8 Natural Background [80]. However, the exposures were to radioactive alpha emitting respirable micron and nanoparticles, like those in the Hiroshima Black Rain, but in this case resuspended from the intertidal coastal sediment. Childhood leukemia is believed to be a form of genetic or development effect. If so, then foetal death at some internal dose level will cut off the increase in leukemia with dose. Furthermore, examining rates in the 014 year-olds will lose any effect since these individuals were mostly in utero long before any exposure. Plotting rates by period of time of exposure rather than period of birth is not a safe way of examining the issue [17, 81]. There is direct evidence for increases in childhood leukemia in the 04 year age group following the high weapons fallout period of 195963 which the levels of Sr-90 increased in childrens’ bones. Fig. 4 shows levels of acute leukemia in the 04 year olds as published by the Danish Cancer Registry, the only registry with data that began in 1943
If internal exposures to DNA-seeking radionuclides and to particles carry a hazard enhancement, as the LSS low dose groups result suggest (Fig. 2), then it should be possible to see a cancer effect in those exposed to atmospheric test fallout in the period 195963 when the mean overall dose (driven mainly by Sr-90) was about 1mSv as calculated by the ICRP methodology [6,8,16,17,90]. Due to high rainfall, the population of Wales received about 23 times the Sr-90 dose calculated for England. The Standardised Incidence Ratio (SIR) for all cancer is available for both countries. From 1974 SIRs were similar and the trend was parallel. However, Wales SIR suddenly increased in 1978 relative to England. The England rates increased about 8 years later. The trend is shown in Fig. 6 [30, 31, 90]. These unusual effects were the subject of a 1994 letter in the British Medical Journal [31]. A regression of cancer SIR in Wales on Strontium-90 doses lagged by 20 years (fallout in 19591963) yields an error factor for internal contamination to fallout doses which is roughly 300-fold, in agreement with a similar analysis of other exposures to internal fission products and also to the LSS risks discussed above
