4 ms·

Absolutely not for 1960. For example, the plot of this 1954 movie is based on Jerry Lewis' character being expected to die for only driving over the old nuclear

by acqq 11y ago

Absolutely not for 1960. For example, the plot of this 1954 movie is based on Jerry Lewis' character being expected to die for only driving over the old nuclear test site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_It_Up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_It_Up

mikeash 11y ago
The dangers of acute radiation poisoning were certainly well known by then. Two Manhattan Project scientists died in 1945 and 1946 from radiation poisoning, and of course there were a lot of Japanese civilian deaths. The long-term danger of lower doses is a rather different thing, though, and that took a lot longer to be well understood. There are a lot of things which are dangerous in large doses but harmless or even beneficial in small doses, after all.
- qubex 11y ago
  Trivial point of logic: knowledge of the long-term risk of low-level exposure was arrived at by having this kind of low-level exposure and compounding it over the duration of those long-term periods...
- acqq 11y ago
  No. At least the first page of the 1964 paper that makes a review of the previous work mentions the work done since mid-forties (that means, since around 1945) at Hanford. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PdfExcerptURL&_imagekey=3-s2.0-B9781483228907500114-main.pdf&_piikey=B9781483228907500114&_cdi=305021&_orig=PublicationURL&_zone=rslt_list_item&_fmt=abst&_eid=3-s2.0-B9781483228907500114&_isbn=9781483228907&_user=12975512&md5=8bcbbf00791e23975ee7ebb0c07e48fb&ie=/excerpt.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PdfExcerptURL&_imag... About that work at Hanford: http://www.hanfordproject.com/atmospheric.html http://www.hanfordproject.com/atmospheric.html "Classified studies done at Hanford revealed how radioiodine traveled through the food chain, increasing in concentration as it moved upwards into higher consumer species. Clandestine studies conducted at Hanford revealed how high dosage levels of ingested iodine-131 in sheep showed "virtually complete destruction" of their thyroids and those of their offspring. [3] Hanford officials repeatedly assured the public that, "not one atom" has escaped the facility. At one press conference officials stated bluntly that the facility was "safe as mother's milk" even as they were well aware of the possibility of compromising the health of both workers and the general public through Hanford's plutonium production activities. [4]" And about Hanford as the facility: "For more than forty years, Hanford released radioactive contamination into the environment while producing plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War era. Although the majority of the releases were due to activities related to production, some were also planned and intentional."
  - mikeash 11y ago
    That paper appears to discuss how iodine is absorbed and transported within the body, but not the long-term effects of it. Similarly, your italicized Hanford quote mentions acute effects from high doses, not long-term effects from low doses. I certainly could be wrong, but you and the others replying to me do not seem to be doing a very good job distinguishing between short term, high-dose effects (which were pretty well known) and long term, low-dose effects (which seem to have taken a lot longer to figure out).
    - acqq 11y ago
      > not the long-term effects of it We know about the DNA since 1954, we know that the radiation particles destruct it as soon as they hit it. There's no any known mechanism under which the long-term effects can be anything but negative. The only ones who "benefited" are comics heroes like Spiderman. But do I have to point they don't exist? The only others who "benefit" are those who are doing the nuclear projects. And I'm not against nuclear in general. If that's the best we can do to provide the energy we want to use, we have to do it. But effectively inventing the health "benefits" is too much.
      - coddingtonbear 11y ago
        Although that's totally the common understanding, surprisingly there's rather a lot of evidence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis) at this point that it isn't actually true; it's just a little hard to say "a little radiation might be good for you" without people writing you off as some sort of crazy person at the outset, so it's not talked about very much. What you're describing -- and what most people who don't have a specialized education in the nuclear field commonly believe -- is something called the "linear no threshold" hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model) of radiation exposure, and although it's commonly used because it's definitely the safest and most conservative way of responding to radiation exposure, it's rather controversial and probably wrong. If you're curious and want to find out more, there's a lot of fascinating material about the subject available publicly, including some analyses of life expectancies in areas that have much-higher-than-normal background radiation (off the top of my head, Kerala, India is one such locality).
- Spooky23 11y ago
  I'm sure there were strong suspicions. The practices of the era were... questionable in many moral, ethical and legal dimensions. (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet1/brief1/br1n.txt http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet1...) "From 1963 to 1965, at the Atomic Energy Commission National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho, radioactive iodine was purposely released on seven separate occasions. In one of these experiments, seven human subjects drank milk from cows which had grazed on iodine-contaminated land. This experiment was designed to measure the passage of iodine through the food chain into the thyroids of human subjects. In a second experiment, three human subjects were placed on the pasture during iodine release, and seven subjects were placed on the pasture in a third experiment. In addition, "several" individuals were contaminated during yet another experiment when vials of radioactive iodine accidentally broke. Cows grazed on contaminated land and their milk was counted in four of the experiments; in the remaining three, radiation measurements were made only int he pasture. (Category 10.001, Number 173)." "During the 1960s, at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 57 normal adults were fed microscopic spheres containing radioactive uranium and manganese. These experiments were designed to determine how fast such spheres would pass through the human body after ingestion. It was believed that particles of this size could be produced by the atmospheric reentry and burnup of rockets propelled by nuclear reactors, or of radioactive power supplies. (Category 1.003, Number 106)." "From 1961 to 1963, at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, 102 human subjects were fed real fallout from the Nevada Test Site; simulated fallout particles that contained strontium, barium, or cesium; or solutions of strontium and cesium. This experiment was designed to measure human absorption and retention of these radioactive substances. (Category 11.001, Number 186, Part A)."
- jdmichal 11y ago
  Radiation hormesis is still a debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
  - acqq 11y ago
    So who actually tries to make this a "debate"? The world effectively agrees (from your link): "Reports by the United States National Research Council and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) argue[16] that there is no evidence for hormesis in humans and in the case of the National Research Council, that hormesis is outright rejected as a possibility despite population and scientific evidence.[17] Therefore, estimating Linear no-threshold model (LNT) continues to be the model generally used by regulatory agencies for human radiation exposure." There's no even any logical proof that the radiation, that even in the lowest dosages destructs the DNA whenever it hits it, can make beneficial mutations instead of simply producing a cancer. That the "chemical agents" can be beneficial in low dosages isn't the issue as the radiation isn't a chemical agent but a DNA destruction agent. Note: "Radiation hormesis is the hypothesis that low doses of ionizing radiation (within the region of and just above natural background levels) are beneficial." No proof of that.
    - jdmichal 11y ago
      Really? That very quote says that they reject it "despite population and scientific evidence." And from further down in the article: "Until the [...] uncertainties on low-dose response are resolved, the Committee believes that an increase in the risk of tumour induction proportionate to the radiation dose is consistent with developing knowledge and that it remains, accordingly, the most scientifically defensible approximation of low-dose response. However, a strictly linear dose response should not be expected in all circumstances." There's a lot of confounding factors that make studying low-level radiation doses hard, including background radiation and the long timelines involved. I'm perfectly fine regulatory agencies working with an assumption of a LNT model until conclusive proof otherwise is provided. These agencies should be focused on safety and lean conservatively when in doubt. But attempting to call it not a debate is misleading at best.

by acqq 11y ago

mikeash 11y ago

The dangers of acute radiation poisoning were certainly well known by then. Two Manhattan Project scientists died in 1945 and 1946 from radiation poisoning, and of course there were a lot of Japanese civilian deaths. The long-term danger of lower doses is a rather different thing, though, and that took a lot longer to be well understood. There are a lot of things which are dangerous in large doses but harmless or even beneficial in small doses, after all.

qubex 11y ago
Trivial point of logic: knowledge of the long-term risk of low-level exposure was arrived at by having this kind of low-level exposure and compounding it over the duration of those long-term periods...
acqq 11y ago
No. At least the first page of the 1964 paper that makes a review of the previous work mentions the work done since mid-forties (that means, since around 1945) at Hanford. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PdfExcerptURL&_imagekey=3-s2.0-B9781483228907500114-main.pdf&_piikey=B9781483228907500114&_cdi=305021&_orig=PublicationURL&_zone=rslt_list_item&_fmt=abst&_eid=3-s2.0-B9781483228907500114&_isbn=9781483228907&_user=12975512&md5=8bcbbf00791e23975ee7ebb0c07e48fb&ie=/excerpt.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PdfExcerptURL&_imag... About that work at Hanford: http://www.hanfordproject.com/atmospheric.html http://www.hanfordproject.com/atmospheric.html "Classified studies done at Hanford revealed how radioiodine traveled through the food chain, increasing in concentration as it moved upwards into higher consumer species. Clandestine studies conducted at Hanford revealed how high dosage levels of ingested iodine-131 in sheep showed "virtually complete destruction" of their thyroids and those of their offspring. [3] Hanford officials repeatedly assured the public that, "not one atom" has escaped the facility. At one press conference officials stated bluntly that the facility was "safe as mother's milk" even as they were well aware of the possibility of compromising the health of both workers and the general public through Hanford's plutonium production activities. [4]" And about Hanford as the facility: "For more than forty years, Hanford released radioactive contamination into the environment while producing plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War era. Although the majority of the releases were due to activities related to production, some were also planned and intentional."
- mikeash 11y ago
  That paper appears to discuss how iodine is absorbed and transported within the body, but not the long-term effects of it. Similarly, your italicized Hanford quote mentions acute effects from high doses, not long-term effects from low doses. I certainly could be wrong, but you and the others replying to me do not seem to be doing a very good job distinguishing between short term, high-dose effects (which were pretty well known) and long term, low-dose effects (which seem to have taken a lot longer to figure out).
  - acqq 11y ago
    > not the long-term effects of it We know about the DNA since 1954, we know that the radiation particles destruct it as soon as they hit it. There's no any known mechanism under which the long-term effects can be anything but negative. The only ones who "benefited" are comics heroes like Spiderman. But do I have to point they don't exist? The only others who "benefit" are those who are doing the nuclear projects. And I'm not against nuclear in general. If that's the best we can do to provide the energy we want to use, we have to do it. But effectively inventing the health "benefits" is too much.
    - coddingtonbear 11y ago
      Although that's totally the common understanding, surprisingly there's rather a lot of evidence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis) at this point that it isn't actually true; it's just a little hard to say "a little radiation might be good for you" without people writing you off as some sort of crazy person at the outset, so it's not talked about very much. What you're describing -- and what most people who don't have a specialized education in the nuclear field commonly believe -- is something called the "linear no threshold" hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model) of radiation exposure, and although it's commonly used because it's definitely the safest and most conservative way of responding to radiation exposure, it's rather controversial and probably wrong. If you're curious and want to find out more, there's a lot of fascinating material about the subject available publicly, including some analyses of life expectancies in areas that have much-higher-than-normal background radiation (off the top of my head, Kerala, India is one such locality).
Spooky23 11y ago
I'm sure there were strong suspicions. The practices of the era were... questionable in many moral, ethical and legal dimensions. (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet1/brief1/br1n.txt http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet1...) "From 1963 to 1965, at the Atomic Energy Commission National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho, radioactive iodine was purposely released on seven separate occasions. In one of these experiments, seven human subjects drank milk from cows which had grazed on iodine-contaminated land. This experiment was designed to measure the passage of iodine through the food chain into the thyroids of human subjects. In a second experiment, three human subjects were placed on the pasture during iodine release, and seven subjects were placed on the pasture in a third experiment. In addition, "several" individuals were contaminated during yet another experiment when vials of radioactive iodine accidentally broke. Cows grazed on contaminated land and their milk was counted in four of the experiments; in the remaining three, radiation measurements were made only int he pasture. (Category 10.001, Number 173)." "During the 1960s, at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 57 normal adults were fed microscopic spheres containing radioactive uranium and manganese. These experiments were designed to determine how fast such spheres would pass through the human body after ingestion. It was believed that particles of this size could be produced by the atmospheric reentry and burnup of rockets propelled by nuclear reactors, or of radioactive power supplies. (Category 1.003, Number 106)." "From 1961 to 1963, at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, 102 human subjects were fed real fallout from the Nevada Test Site; simulated fallout particles that contained strontium, barium, or cesium; or solutions of strontium and cesium. This experiment was designed to measure human absorption and retention of these radioactive substances. (Category 11.001, Number 186, Part A)."
jdmichal 11y ago
Radiation hormesis is still a debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
- acqq 11y ago
  So who actually tries to make this a "debate"? The world effectively agrees (from your link): "Reports by the United States National Research Council and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) argue[16] that there is no evidence for hormesis in humans and in the case of the National Research Council, that hormesis is outright rejected as a possibility despite population and scientific evidence.[17] Therefore, estimating Linear no-threshold model (LNT) continues to be the model generally used by regulatory agencies for human radiation exposure." There's no even any logical proof that the radiation, that even in the lowest dosages destructs the DNA whenever it hits it, can make beneficial mutations instead of simply producing a cancer. That the "chemical agents" can be beneficial in low dosages isn't the issue as the radiation isn't a chemical agent but a DNA destruction agent. Note: "Radiation hormesis is the hypothesis that low doses of ionizing radiation (within the region of and just above natural background levels) are beneficial." No proof of that.
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    Really? That very quote says that they reject it "despite population and scientific evidence." And from further down in the article: "Until the [...] uncertainties on low-dose response are resolved, the Committee believes that an increase in the risk of tumour induction proportionate to the radiation dose is consistent with developing knowledge and that it remains, accordingly, the most scientifically defensible approximation of low-dose response. However, a strictly linear dose response should not be expected in all circumstances." There's a lot of confounding factors that make studying low-level radiation doses hard, including background radiation and the long timelines involved. I'm perfectly fine regulatory agencies working with an assumption of a LNT model until conclusive proof otherwise is provided. These agencies should be focused on safety and lean conservatively when in doubt. But attempting to call it not a debate is misleading at best.