Some annoying cases in radiation protection

Ulf Bäverstam

Three areas worth discussion (there are more)

• Cancer incidence in Sweden after Chernobyl

• The EMF case

• Smokers and radon in dwellings

The Chernobyl cancer incidence case

Physical measurements:

Deposition on ground of depositing nuclides with halflives longer than say 24 hours.

Air concentration in cloud that has passed (filter measurements)

Measurements of ground penetration and shielding

The Chernobyl cancer incidence case

Commonly accepted: Epidemiological studies will not be able to detect the increase of cancer cases in Sweden after Chernobyl accident due to low power.

Alternative hypothesis: Risk figures, or measured deposition, or both, are severely underestimated, so there is a possibility to detect the increase.

The Chernobyl cancer incidence case

A recently published Swedish study claims to have detected the increase.

The study is discussed in international media during a few days. SSI (defender of the generally accepted view) finds the results odd in several respects, and authors agree.

The Chernobyl cancer incidence case

So, what is the problem? Among other thing:

That you can never prove anything to be completely harmless

That alarm reports will always awake the interest of mass media

That there are political parties that take advantage of this

That not all scientists use the highest ethical standards

The EMF case

The EMF case

We are all exposed by EMF in a wide frequency range

Thermal health effects are known to exist.

Non-thermal health effects are much debated – some groups claim that they have seen effects, other groups not.

Measurements can be made of intensity, frequency etc, but any good ”dose” concept does not exist.

A plausible interaction mechanism causing health effects is still lacking.

The EMF case

The strongest argument for the existence of health effects seem to be ”why should there not be any effects?”

The EMF case

Since at least 30 years different sources of EMF have been investigated in search of non thermal health effects. So far very little is found.

Today cellular telephones are the suspects. In Sweden there are today as many telephone subscriptioins as inhabitants. And there are verly loud (but fairly small) resistance groups acting with much help from mass media.

The EMF case

”The precautionary principle” used in the debate, and now claimed to be used by authorities involved, is a very diffuse and unclear principle.

What is the real problem?That we do not know, of course.

That some parties, based on very poor or no indication claims risks to exist. That competent authorities don’t have logically based stand points. That very poor scientific studies have been performed and published

The smoker and radon case

Smoking is without any doubts a very unhealthy habit. It is related to a number of diseases, one of the most severe being lung cancer.

In Sweden we have around 3000 new lung cancer cases every year, and a large fraction of these are connected to smoking

The smoker and radon case

Radon in dwellings have also been shown to be a health problem, but a much smaller risk than smoking.

The smoker and radon case

It has been shown in some large studies that a combination of smoking and radon will increase the risk figures.

In fact, according to recent studies radon is probably more than 10 times (perhaps even 20 times) more dangerous for smokers than for non-smokers.

The smoker and radon case

And the problem?

Costly measures to reduce radon (often with a poor long term efficiency) are recommended. Very little is said by authorities about the great radon risk reduction reached by stopping smoking. In fact, for non-smokers the radon risk is almost always not a problem

Common traits?

There are some …