Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Nuclear Cheerleaders Use Voodoo Science to Pretend Low Levels of Radiation Are Safe … Or Even Good For You

Nuclear Cheerleaders Use Voodoo Science to Pretend Low Levels of Radiation Are Safe … Or Even Good For You

Department of Energy Pretends that Low Levels of Radiation Are Safe

Dr. Peter Karamoskos – a nuclear radiologist and a public representative on the radiation health committee of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency – wrote in the Sydey Herald last year:
You have to hand it to the nuclear industry and its acolytes. In the middle of the second-worst nuclear power disaster in history at Fukushima, and with still no end in sight, you would think they would respond with contrition, humility and profuse mea culpas. Not on your life. The industry representatives and its acolytes came out swinging in full denial attire.
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But more insidious and objectionable is the creeping misinformation that the nuclear industry has fed into the public sphere over the years. There seems to be a never-ending cabal of paid industry scientific ”consultants” who are more than willing to state the fringe view that low doses of ionising radiation do not cause cancer and, indeed, that low doses are actually good for you and lessen the incidence of cancer.
It is not only the nuclear companies who are pushing this junk science.
The Department of Energy is responsible for the design, testing and production of all U.S. nuclear weapons.  DOE also promotes nuclear energy as one of its core functions.  As such, it might not be surprising that DOE has been covering up nuclear accidents for decades.
DOE is also trying to replace the widely-accepted model of the dangers of low dose radiation based on voodoo science. Specifically, DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley Labs recently used a mutant line of human cells in a petri dish which was able to repair damage from low doses of radiation, and extrapolated to the unsupported conclusion that everyone is immune to low doses of radiation:
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