
Chernobyl Hints Radiation May Be Less Dangerous than Thought - 0x07c0
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/chernobyl-hints-radiation-may-be-less-dangerous-than-thought-a-1088744.html
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FiatLuxDave
One thing I did not see mentioned in the article, and which seems to never
make it into most articles about the risks (or hypothetical benefits) of
radiation exposure, is the massive amount of information we have about the
effects of radiation from radiation oncology. Six times as many people as were
exposed at Hiroshima are irradiated on purpose in the USA alone every year.
And the radiation is actually measured and planned. So Hiroshima is so far
from our largest or best data set it is funny. I don't have numbers, but I'm
willing to bet that more patients have had radiation treatment for non-
cancerous diseases than exist in the Hiroshima cohort.

Epidemiology isn't one of my specialties, but radon and radiation measurement
actually are. I'm skeptical about the radon baths, simply because that is NOT
a low level of radon, in the sense of a statistically uncertain long-term
hazard level. A typical radon bath is in the thousands of pCi/L, which is
about a thousand times higher than the level at which mitigation would be
required for health reasons for a dwelling. However, the amount of time spent
there is low. So, it is like having a non-smoker smoke a thousand cigarettes
all at once, instead of over the course of a year. Might that kick-start
something in their body? Certainly, but it does not fall under the normal
hormesis rubric. And alpha particle damage tends to be high and localized.

Paracelsus said the dose makes the poison, which is true. But in addition,
time makes the dose. I have no problem drinking 100 liters of water over a few
months, but that would be a fatal dose in an hour. More attention needs to be
paid to the time component of radiation dosing and threshold effects.

~~~
nradov
Radiation oncology treatments usually focus a high dose on a single small area
during a series of short time periods. So I think it would be difficult to
draw any conclusions from that about the likely effects of low-dose whole body
exposure over longer periods.

~~~
Wile_E_Quixote
Radiation therapy treatments are almost always fractionated, meaning the total
dose prescribed by the radiation oncologist is spread fairly evenly across
multiple days, typically 25-38 treatments for most disease sites. And since
patients are rarely treated on the weekend, it usually takes 1 to 2 months for
a patient to complete treatment. I don't know that I would consider 1 to 2
months a short time. There are some exceptions, such as gamma knife for brain
cancer, in which the entire prescribed dose is delivered all in one session.

Also, radiation therapy is often used to treat not-so-small areas (volumes).
For example, mesothelioma cases often require irradiation of the entire
thoracic cavity. And if that isn't a big enough target for you, well, total
body irradiation is actually a pretty common modality for certain, less
localized, cancers originating in the blood and bone marrow. Both external
beam irradiation (for mesothelioma) and total body irradiation treatments are
always fractionated, generally delivering no more than 2 Gy to a patient in a
single day, to give healthy tissue time to recover between fractions. Having
said all that, you are right that this is still quite unlike the conditions
presented in the article. Perhaps you would prefer studies analyzing the
increased exposure of long-haul international airline flight crews.

------
cpncrunch
This is a pretty terrible article on many levels:

\- It says "Chernobyl hints", but there is no information about Chernobyl. The
article itself says "We simply do not know" how many people died of cancer due
to Chernobyl.

\- The Radon spa study is very poor. We already know that going to any type of
spa is going to improve your immune system, mainly due to the psychological
effects. There was no control group in the experiment, so we have no idea if
the radon had any effect.

\- We already know that low-level radon exposure increases lung cancer risk.

------
bmh_ca
See my answer here:
[http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/2490/1792](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/2490/1792)

tl;dr: "There is empirical evidence that suggests that low to medium amounts
of absorbed gamma radiation boosts immunity and resilience to ailments such as
heart disease, though it may (or may not) increase rates of cancer. It has
been suggested and that the reduction in the probability of death from other
diseases offsets the increased probability of death from cancer."

~~~
morning_star
Risking cancer to diminish heart disease? lol no thanks. I'd rather eat
vegetables and take a walk once in a while.

~~~
dsmithatx
Don't walk in sunlight or you'll get exposed to low doses of radiation that
"could" cause cancer. Also be cautious about where you buy those vegetables.
There is a good chance they could contain things that also "could" cause
cancer.

~~~
e40
Unless you are getting sunburns, this is not true. In fact, sunlight on skin
promotes vitamin D production, which is known to help fight cancer.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
The presence of a sunburn is orthogonal to the fact that you do, in fact,
become exposed to radiation in sunlight. That is unequivocally true and
trivially proven, whether you receive a sunburn or not.

I don't think the person you are replying to meant that sunlight exposure
unconditionally causes cancer, and was simply addressing radiation scare and
putting it in context.

~~~
e40
All the downvotes notwithstanding, there is a direct correlation between the
number of severe burns you've had and your chances of getting skin cancer[0],
unless you have a genetic predisposition to skin cancer.

A moderate amount of sunlight on skin, without burning, is actually healthy
for you, unless you 1) have various illnesses (lupus, for one), or 2) are
genetically predisposed to skin cancer.

[0] [http://www.webmd.com/melanoma-skin-
cancer/news/20140530/5-or...](http://www.webmd.com/melanoma-skin-
cancer/news/20140530/5-or-more-bad-sunburns-while-young-tied-to-higher-
melanoma-risk)

------
clumsysmurf
This article from 10/2015 in AAAS is also interesting:

"Humans are worse than radiation for Chernobyl animals, study finds"

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/humans-are-worse-
radi...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/humans-are-worse-radiation-
chernobyl-animals-study-finds)

------
reasonattlm
You might look up radiation hormesis. It is very well documented in animal
studies. Damage causes cellular repair mechanisms to undertake more work, and
if the damage is little and brief, then there is a net gain in quality
control. Less dysfunction, longer healthspan, longer life.

It operates in humans because all other mechanisms of hormesis operate in
humans. All very well documented.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477686/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477686/)

"Three aspects of hormesis with low doses of ionizing radiation are presented:
the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good is acceptance by France, Japan, and
China of the thousands of studies showing stimulation and/or benefit, with no
harm, from low dose irradiation. This includes thousands of people who live in
good health with high background radiation. The bad is the nonacceptance of
radiation hormesis by the U. S. and most other governments; their linear no
threshold (LNT) concept promulgates fear of all radiation and produces laws
which have no basis in mammalian physiology. The LNT concept leads to poor
health, unreasonable medicine and oppressed industries. The ugly is decades of
deception by medical and radiation committees which refuse to consider valid
evidence of radiation hormesis in cancer, other diseases, and health. Specific
examples are provided for the good, the bad, and the ugly in radiation
hormesis."

------
gozur88
We've known for a long time the LNT model doesn't reflect reality. It's still
used because we don't have anything better, it's simple, and people like to
put numbers on things even if the numbers are known to be wrong.

------
sdoering
I was just asking how well researched an article like this is, if the get the
name of the town wrong. It might be an autocorrect typo, but "Bad Steven" is,
was and will be "Bad Steben" (some 20 or so miles from my hometown).

I know, that I just attack a small detail here and that this is not a valid
way to argue against something, but I have difficulties trusting some
journalist who gets these basics wrong.

~~~
lorenzhs
might have been autocorrect, I think newer versions of Mac OS have that as
well (though it can be disabled, of course). Not sure about other systems.

------
jdmichal
A previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11060101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11060101)

------
mohawk
Recent large-scale research suggests dose-risk relationship holds at small
doses for leukemia:

[http://www.nature.com/news/researchers-pin-down-risks-of-
low...](http://www.nature.com/news/researchers-pin-down-risks-of-low-dose-
radiation-1.17876)

------
louithethrid
Missleading titel - Alternative suggestions:

DNA Repair facilitys more effective then previously assumed. DNA filled with
more trash that wont be missed. DNA-DamageDice-Game proves no existing
instinct for statistics

My grandfather (he is 91 now) was heavily into radon-research, i still
remember measuring those watersamples and hearing the lab-equipment count the
plibs when that gas fell apart in the sensoric chamber.

He presumed it to be healthy, but the number of times you roll the DNA-
Destructive Dice is still limited, before you come up with a Full House
(cancer).

So gamble nature if you must (for example because some asthma makes your lungs
half-unuseable), but be aware of the statistics.

------
ommunist
Thyroid cancer is strongly connected with Iodine-131 contamination, which is
basically off in a week or so (decay half-life of about eight days). But if
you were exposed, the risk is significant. That we learned from Chernobyl very
well. But there is no hint about that in the article.

------
VonGuard
Here's some living proof:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kg4vVYKc90](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kg4vVYKc90)

This lady is bitten by a radioactive ant, live on camera.... near Chernobyl.

~~~
jessaustin
Wasn't this the origin story of Antagone?

------
dsmithatx
Humans evolved in sunlight receiving constant low doses of radiation. It seems
logical to me that something in which is part of, the environment a species
evolved to, would tend to have positive effects.

~~~
knodi123
> It seems logical to me that something in which is part of, the environment a
> species evolved to, would tend to have positive effects.

Not to me. Now, "tend not to have a negative effect on reproduction", sure.

But there's no reason evolution should make it _beneficial_ , nor even neutral
to those past breeding years.

For instance, if radiation caused humans to die younger than otherwise due to
cancer, but still to live long enough to crank out a litter of babies and
raise them to adulthood.... then evolution probably wouldn't care. Hell,
evolution would love the way it gets rid of the chaff and frees up resources
for the breeders.

~~~
Tossrock
Well, the grandmother hypothesis actually suggests that among humans, living
healthily into old age to help rear one's grandchildren has evolutionary
benefits, even if one stops reproducing.

------
perilunar
Again? googling site:ycombinator.com "radiation hormesis" gives 15 stories
where this has been discussed.

------
smt88
tl;dr No.

> _Darmstadt biologist Fournier believes the question is misguided. "Something
> that strengthens the cells doesn't necessarily help a person," she says. "If
> it mutates, this cell can later be the source of cancer."_

~~~
Gibbon1
I remember some Russians that worked at Chernobyl commenting that the
radiation exposure had other negative health effects besides cancer.

------
Wile_E_Quixote
Making the claim "Radioactivity is good for them." without any additional
qualification seems irresponsible. One might similarly claim that eating fried
chicken and bacon everyday is "good" for someone because it makes them feel
happy. Of course, this ignores the fact that doing so dramatically increases
their risk of heart disease. Overall, this article seems to be written for the
layman, where all forms of radiation are created equal (untrue). The research
that the article describes may very well show that sustained low exposure to
alpha particle radiation reduces symptoms of arthritis. It should stop there
though rather than make judgement as to whether or not it is good or bad.

