On
Monday, November 17, the US House of
Representatives passed H.R. 5544, the Low Dose Radiation Research Act,
which called for the National Academies to “conduct a study assessing the
current status and development of a long-term strategy for low dose radiation
research.”
Coincidentally
that was the same day that the National
Academy of Sciences hosted a publicly accessible, all day meeting to
determine if there had been enough new developments in radiation health effects
research to justify the formation of a new BEIR (Biological Effects of Ionizing
Radiation) committee. If formed, that would be BEIR VIII, the latest in a
series of committees performing a survey of available research on the health
effects of atomic (now ionizing) radiation.
I
had the pleasure of attending the meeting, which was held in the ornate NAS
building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. There were about 20
presenters talking about various aspects of the scientific and political
considerations associated with the decision to form BEIR VIII. Several of the
presenters had performed experimental research under the currently moribund
Department of Energy’s Low Dose radiation research program.
That
intriguing program was using modern genetics techniques to learn a great deal
about the dynamic nature of DNA in organisms and about the ways that living
tissues isolate and repair recurring damage that comes as a result of metabolic
processes, heat, chemicals and ionizing radiation. It was defunded gradually
beginning in 2009 and completely by 2011, with the money making its way to
solar and wind energy research as the Office of Science shifted its priorities
under a flat top line budget.
The
agenda allocated a considerable amount of time for public comments. There were
a couple of members of the audience interested in the science falsifying the
“no safe dose” model who took advantage of the opportunities to speak, but so
did a number of professional antinuclear activists from Maryland, Ohio, New
York and Tennessee.
Need Better Results This
Time
An
epic struggle with important health, safety, cost and energy abundance
implications is shaping up with regard to the way that the officially
sanctioned science and regulatory bodies treat the risks and benefits
associated with using ionizing radiation at low doses and dose rates for
medical uses, industrial uses and power production.
We
must make sure that this battle for science, hearts and minds is not as
asymmetrical as the one fought in the period between 1954-1964. One skirmish in
the battle worth winning will be to encourage the passage of the Low Dose
Radiation Research Act and the annual appropriations that will enable it to
function long into the future.
Here
is a brief version of that lengthy prior engagement, where there were huge
winners and losers. Losers included truth, general prosperity, peace and the
environment. Partial winners included people engaged in the global hydrocarbon
economy in finance, exploration, extraction, refinement, transportation, tools,
machines and retail distribution. There were also big financial winners in
pharmaceuticals, medical devices, oncology, and agriculture.
Rockefeller Funded Survey
During
a 1954 Rockefeller Foundation Board of Trustees meeting, several of the
trustees asked the President of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) if his
esteemed organization would be willing to review what was known about the
biological effects of atomic radiation.
The
board did not have to pick up the phone or send a letter to make that request.
Detlev Bronk, who was the serving president of the NAS, was already at the
table as a full member of the Rockefeller Foundation Board of Trustees. The
board agreed that, based on their interpretations of recent media coverage, the
public was confused and not properly informed about the risks of radiation
exposure and the potential benefits of the Atomic Age.
The
tasking given to the NAS was to form a credible committee that would study the
science and issue a report “in a form accessible to seriously concerned
citizens.”1
Aside:
For historical context, that Foundation board meeting took place within months
after President Eisenhower made his “Atoms for Peace” speech in December 1953.
That speech to the United Nations announced a shift in focus of the Atomic Age
from weapons development to more productive applications like electrical power generation
and ship propulsion.
At
the time the request to the NAS was made, the Rockefeller Foundation had been
funding radiation biology-related research for at least 30 years, including the
Drosophila mutation experiments that Hermann Muller conducted during the 1920s
at the University of Texas. Foundation board members and supported scientists
had been following developments in atomic science since the earliest
discoveries of radiation and the dense energy stored inside atomic nuclei.
In
March 1948, the Tripartite Conferences on radiation protection, a group that
included experienced radiation researchers and practitioners from the US,
Canada and the UK, had determined that the permissible doses for humans should
be reduced from 1 mGy/day (in SI units) to 0.5 mGy/day or 3 mGy/week.
That
reduction was not made because of any noted negative health effects, but to
provide an additional safety factor.
In
between these two extremes there is a level of exposure, — in the neighborhood
of 0.1 r/day — which all experience to date show to be safe, but the time of
observation of large numbers of people exposed at this rate under controlled
conditions, is too short to permit a categorical assertion to this effect.2
End Aside.
Biological Effects of Atomic
Radiation
The
first NAS Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation committee began its work in
April 1955. There were six subcommittees, each of which authored a section of
the committee’s report. The report was identified as a preliminary version that
was to be followed with a more technically detailed report scheduled to appear
within the next couple of years, if desired by responsible government agencies.
Unlike
the documents supporting the permissible dose limits that came out of the
Tripartite Commission mentioned in the aside above, the NAS BEAR 1 committee
report, especially the section from the Genetics Committee, was professionally
promoted and received extensive media coverage and public attention.
The
NAS held a press conference announcing the release of the report and answering
questions in Washington, DC on June 12. Among other media attention, that press
conference resulted in no less than six related articles in the June 13, 1956
edition of the New York Times. Several additional articles were published
during the following weeks. The selection of pieces included a lengthy article
that started at the top of the right hand column of the paper and continued
with another 20-25 column inches on page 17. Read
full article here
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