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Seven Comments on Proposed Radiation "Standards"
for the Yucca Mountain Rad-Waste Repository:
October 26, 1995
TO:
NAS Report Comments
Radioactive Waste Management Branch (6602J)
Office of Radiation and Indoor Air
US Environmental Protection Agency
401 "M" Street, SW; Washington DC 20460, USA.
FROM:
John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Molecular & Cell Biology, U.C.
Berkeley.
Assoc. Director, Livermore National Laboratory, 1963-69.
Co-discoverer of uranium-233 and its fissionability.
Author of 4 books on health effects of ionizing
radiation.
Post Office Box 421993; San Francisco CA 94142, USA.
1. Predicting "Repository Behavior" for Thousands of Years
2. "The Rule of 1,000" in Predicting Health Effects from the
Repository: The Tragedy of Common-Size Mistakes
3. Alleged "Consensus" for Killing One out of Every 2,000 People
with Rad-Waste
4. Fallacy of the Safe Dose Invoked by the YMS Committee
5. An Inconvenient Axiom: If the Sum of Pollution Matters
Biologically, Then Each Contribution to the Sum Matters
6. Too Much Trust? Too Many Good Manners?
7. More Radiation Experiments on the Citizenry?
References
NOTE: Page numbers in these comments refer to "Technical Bases for
Yucca Mountain Standards," a 1995 report from the National
Research Council's Board on Radioactive Waste Management,
Committee on Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards ---
which I will call "YMS Committee" for brevity. The repository
means the proposed Yucca Mountain burial site for radioactive
waste (rad-waste). References are listed at the end.
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* - POINT 1. Predicting "Repository Behavior" for Thousands of
Years
* - The peak risk from ionizing radiation might occur
"hundreds of thousands of years or even farther into the future"
from Yucca Mountain, according to the YMS Committee (p.2).
* - The YMS Committee explicitly endorses the assumption of
the Envir. Protection Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and
the Dept. of Energy that "scientifically justifiable analyses of
repository behavior over many thousands of years in the future can
be made" (p.1). This claim depends on the capability to assess ---
correctly --- "the probabilities and consequences of modifications
by climate change, seismic activity, and volcanic eruptions at
Yucca Mountain" over the next million years (p.9).
* - Comments: I think sane people must doubt that anyone
today has such capabilities in the specificity required, even for
relatively short time spans. The record with unplanned
contamination, from already existing waste-storage efforts,
certainly does not support the breathtaking arrogance endorsed by
the YMS Committee.
==================================================================
* - POINT 2. "The Rule of 1,000" in Predicting Health Effects
from the Repository: The Tragedy of Common-Size Mistakes
* - The YMS Committee speaks of "adverse health effects
from releases from the repository" (p.4), and claims that it is
possible to predict the magnitude of adverse effects from Yucca
Mountain (pp.4-10).
* - Comments: Nasty "surprises" occur in all human efforts
--- from collapsing bridges, to an exploding space-shuttle, to
already leaking rad-waste sites, to the ruination of the Three
Mile Island nuclear plant. All have occurred despite expert
opinions to the contrary. Murphy's Law can not be repealed by any
committee.
* - Adverse health effects on humans from rad-waste storage
depend on many variables. For simplification, we will mention only
three. First is how much rad-waste escapes in reality. Second are
the actual transfer-factors in the environment in the pathways to
human exposures. And third are the adverse effects per unit of
radiation dose received by humans.
* - It is not unusual for expert estimates to be "off" by
one order of magnitude (ten-fold). So, before even considering
rad-waste burial which could become irreversible rather promptly,
responsible advisors and advisees would assume:
(a) that subsequent escape of radioactive poisons will turn out
ten times greater than predicted (very plausible, in light of
experience);
(b) that transfer-factors in the biosphere will turn out ten
times greater than predicted (very plausible in view of vast
uncertainties in the literature); and,
(c) that health-effects per unit dose will turn out ten times
greater than the so-called current consensus predicts (very
plausible --- see Part 3, below).
* - It is hardly far-fetched to consider that the adverse
health effects from Yucca Mountain (and from other sources of
potential nuclear pollution) could be 1,000 times greater than
predicted.
* - How could the YMS Committee, if objective, fail to
discuss such a possibility in its Executive Summary? Surely the
YMS Committee can not rule out 10-fold underestimates in ANY of
the three factors of our illustration. Therefore, the YMS
Committee has a duty to discuss the health consequences of such
underestimates.
* - What are they? "The Rule of 1,000" means that the
consequences of nuclear pollution could be fatal radiation-induced
cancer for at least HALF of an exposed population, if today's
experts turn out to be wrong just by factors of ten on a FEW key
assumptions.
* - Who says so? The 1990 BEIR-5 Committee of the National
Research Council, and Gofman 1990. See analysis in Point 3, below.
==================================================================
* - POINT 3. Alleged "Consensus" for Killing One out of Every
2,000 People with Rad-Waste
* - The Committee claims (p.4) that "a general consensus
exists among national and international bodies on a framework for
protecting the public health that provides a limit of 1
millisievert (100 millirems) per year effective dose for
continuous or frequent exposures from all anthropogenic sources of
ionizing radiation other than medical exposures. A general
consensus also appears to exist among national authorities in
various countries to accept and use the principle of apportioning
this total radiation dose limit ... typically allocating to
high-level waste disposal a range of 0.1 to 0.3 mSv (10 to 30
mrem) per year."
* - Comments: Let us consider 20 extra milli-rems per year
(0.02 rem, or 0.02 cSv). Is this public health protection? We will
compare the estimates of the 1990 BEIR-5 Committee of the National
Research Council with my own 1990 estimates for an annual extra
population dose of 0.02 rem per person every year.
* - BEIR-5 (p.172, Table 4-2, non-leukemia columns, middle
section for "lifetime exposure to 0.1 rem/year)": 495 extra fatal
radiation-induced cancers per 100,000 people if we assume equal
numbers of males and females. If BEIR-5 assumes a dose-rate
effectiveness factor (DREF) of two, its estimate falls to 248
extra fatal cancers per 100,000 exposed people, which is one out
of every 400 exposed people. The estimate at 0.02 extra rem per
year would be 5 times lower, or 1 out of every 2,000 exposed
people (leukemia excluded).
* - Killing at this rate is hardly "negligible" and would
certainly not be public health protection. It would be
premeditated random murder on a very large scale. Why is no one
warned by the YMS Committee's Executive Summary?
* - Gofman 1990 (Table 16-C) estimates 27 extra fatal
radiation-induced cancers per 10,000 persons of mixed ages, each
receiving one extra rem of whole-body dose at any dose-rate.
"Lifetime exposure" to an extra 0.1 rem/year for 70 years = 7
extra rems. Such extra exposure would cause (27 extra fatal
cancers x 7) per 10,000 persons, or 189 fatal radiation-induced
cancers per 10,000 persons. This is one out of every 53 people.
The estimate at 0.02 extra rem per year would be 5 times lower, or
1 out of every 265 exposed people. This would be premeditated
random murder on a truly massive scale.
* - It is amazing that the YMS Committee's report fails to
issue explicit warnings based on either the 1990 BEIR-5 or the
Gofman-1990 estimates of cancer consequences from the so-called
"consensus" limit on population exposure by high-level waste
storage. In the above quantifications, heritable effects would be
additional.
The "Woops-We're-Sorry" Estimate
* - And what if the so-called "consensus" involuntary extra
dose of 0.02 rem per year actually turns out to be an average of
20 rems (20 cSv) per year, due to operation of "the Rule of
1,000"? The BEIR-5 risk-estimate would rise to 1,000 fatal
radiation-induced cancers for every 2,000 exposed people, or
radiation-induced death for HALF the so-exposed population. The
Gofman-1990 risk-estimate would rise to a level meaning fatal
radiation-induced cancer for the ENTIRE so-exposed population.
* - It is up to the YMS Committee and the EPA to show
conclusively that this can not happen, before any irreversible
actions are taken at Yucca Mountain and other rad-waste burial
sites.
==================================================================
* - POINT 4. Fallacy of the Safe Dose Invoked by the YMS Committee
* - The YMS Committee claims that radiation standards for
Yucca Mountain "would protect public health ... provided that
policy makers and the public are prepared to accept that very low
radiation doses pose a negligibly small risk" (p.7).
* - Two paragraphs later, the Committee suggests that
perhaps there are "no effects" from "very small incremental doses
of radiation." For this suggestion, the YMS Committee cites the
BEIR-5 Report --- selectively. It is true that BEIR-5 (p.181) says
that "epidemiologic data cannot rigorously exclude the existence
of a threshold in the millisievert dose range." [100 milli-rems
per milli-sievert].
* - As an interesting omission, the YMS Committee fails to
cite BEIR-5 (p.4) making another statement: "The new data do not
contradict the hypothesis, at least with respect to cancer
induction and hereditary genetic effects, that the frequency of
such effects increases with low-level radiation as a linear,
nonthreshold function of the dose."
* - Comments: The YMS Committee is propagating the
speculation that there is a safe threshold dose or dose-rate of
ionizing radiation below which there are no adverse health
effects. That speculation has been disproven in Gofman 1990 with a
combination of mainstream human epidemiology and nuclear
track-analysis --- not by epidemiologic data alone.
* - The same analysis (Gofman 1990) also disproves the
speculation that low doses of extra radiation might be good for
human health, which is the so-called "hormetic hypothesis." The
"hormetic hypothesis" was recently propagated by a source with
four EPA experts prominently displayed on its advisory committee
(see Belle Newsletter 1994).
* - As an integral part of this statement, I attach a
4-page abbreviated summary of my disproof of any safe dose or
dose-rate for ionizing radiation. The summary is entitled: What Is
Factually Wrong with This Belief: "Harm from Low-Dose Radiation Is
Just Hypothetical --- Not Proven."
* - We are unaware of any refutation of our 1990 analysis.
On the contrary, the 1993 UNSCEAR Report (especially pages
627-636, p.681, p.696 Table 17) quite explicitly validates the
method which we used. The 1994 Belle Newsletter does not even
attempt to refute our analysis.
Position of Britain's National Radiation Protection Board
* - It is also of interest that on October 16, 1995, the
London Times carried a story by its science editor (Nigel Hawkes)
headlined Radiation Level "Is Never Safe." It refers to a new
report (not yet in my hands) supporting the view that there is no
harmless level of radiation. The new report is by Britain's
National Radiation Protection Board (see NRPB 1995). The newspaper
quotes Dr. John Stather, assistant director of NRPB, as follows:
* - "Low radiation doses --- even extremely low doses ---
have an associated risk which increases with increase in dose. The
risks may be considered unimportant when compared with other risks
of living, but they are not zero."
Position of the Natl. Research Council on Orwellian Science
* - No realist would deny that efforts continue to
exonerate low-dose ionizing radiation from doing any harm. This
goal can be easily achieved by two practices already in operation.
* - The first practice is conduct of radiation health
research without equal funding for parallel research by
independent "watchdog" scientists. The present system is so
riddled by conflict of interest that there will soon be almost no
data worthy of trust, until an independent "watchdog" system
becomes the established "norm" in radiation research, worldwide.
* - The second practice is perpetual, retroactive
alteration of the input to such studies as the A-Bomb Survivor
Study. This assault against the fundamental rules of science
invites the entry of bias into the results, yet is has been
endorsed by the National Research Council's BEIR-5 Committee and
now by the National Research Council's YMS Committee (at page 4).
* - How can any arm of the National Academy of Sciences
endorse such Orwellian practices? How can the Academy tolerate
such behavior?
==================================================================
* - POINT 5. An Inconvenient Axiom: If the Sum of Pollution
Matters Biologically,
Then Each Contribution to the Sum Matters
* - The YMS Committee treats nuclear pollution from Yucca
Mountain as if the burden which it imposes on public health should
be evaluated in isolation (p.3).
* - Comments: The practice of evaluating risks from
separate sources of nuclear pollution without regard to the global
totality of such sources is reckless and unethical.
* - Why? If the totality of irreversible nuclear pollution
matters biologically --- and the absence of any threshold means
that it definitely does matter --- then the separate contributions
which compose the totality can never be "negligible." Moreover, if
the evidence showing no threshold were still unavailable, decent
policy-makers worldwide would have a duty to insist, emphatically
and publicly, upon the ASSUMPTION of no threshold (see Point 7).
* - The YMS Committee needs to emphasize to its readers a
fact which governments try to hide: Even a very low level of risk
per individual has immense, real, and tragic consequences in the
AGGREGATE, when that low level of risk is "permitted" for billions
of people via "standards" for worldwide nuclear pollution. See
Point 3.
* - It is worth noting that, in the USA alone, there are an
estimated 45,000 sites which are polluted or potentially polluted
by radioactive poisons --- according to a report commissioned by
the Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 (see EPA 1992).
Worldwide, there is radioactive pollution from above-ground bomb
tests. There is also the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl
accident in Europe and the former USSR. The fact that humans have
already created large amounts of nuclear pollution, adds to the
moral argument for allowing NO MORE.
==================================================================
* - POINT 6. Too Much Trust? Too Many Good Manners?
* - The concept of irreversible rad-waste burial represents
an assault against current and future generations. Virtually no
one believes it will all stay contained and out of the biosphere.
* - Indeed, when the U.S. Government seeks advice from the
National Research Council on setting "standards" (so-called
permissible limits) for future radiation exposure from Yucca
Mountain and other rad-waste burial sites, the government is
conceding that some of the poison will probably get into the
biosphere. In response, the YMS Committee concedes that rad-waste
burial at Yucca Mountain is possible only if people are convinced
that "very low radiation doses pose a negligibly small risk"
(p.7).
* - How can any level of premeditated random murder be
presented by policy-makers as "negligible"? Is this really
happening in the USA? Can anyone in the National Research Council
or the Environmental Protection Agency possibly endorse a right to
inflict radiation-induced cancers and inherited afflictions on
current and future generations? These are criminal acts.
* - Perhaps we have come to this disgraceful situation
because of too much trust (and even too much politeness) toward
the National Academy and the Environmental Protection Agency and
the rest of so-called public health protectors. It is time for the
citizens to say: "But the Emperor is wearing no clothes!"
* - Gordon E. Durnil, in his 1995 book entitled The Making
of a Conservative Environmentalist, sees the moral issue clearly:
"Conservatives believe in individual rights. But is not the
insidious invasion of our bodies by harmful unsolicited chemicals
the most flagrant violation of our individual rights? We
conservatives bemoan the decline in values that has besieged our
society. Why then should we not abhor the lack of morality
involved in discharging untested chemicals into the air, ground
and water to alter and harm, to whatever degree, human life and
wildlife?"
==================================================================
* - POINT 7. More Radiation Experiments on the Citizenry?
* - I hope that the Environmental Protection Agency will
come to its senses, reject radiation "standards" for Yucca
Mountain, and start opposing the whole terrible plan to bury
wastes in ways which will become irreversible. At the very least,
we must keep the radioactive poisons we have produced where humans
can keep repacking them and really contain them for the time
required for their decay. We owe that effort to all our
descendants, regardless of expense.
* - And this duty belongs also to those who insist that
perhaps a safe dose or dose-rate of ionizing radiation will be
found. They have no moral right to endorse actions which expose
humans to extra radiation unless they can validly replace our
proof, that no such dose or dose-rate exists, by a conclusive
proof that it does exist.
* - People can not justify exposing other people to extra
ionizing radiation via nuclear pollution by speculating, contrary
to the evidence, that MAYBE a safe dose exists. The people who
advocate such a position are accomplices to premeditated massive
experimentation on their fellow humans --- even into future
generations. Experimentation on other humans without their
individual consent is a crime identified by the Nuremberg
Tribunals.
* - Silent "neutrality" on the issue amounts to complicity
with such experimentation. Dante Alighieri, a 14th century poet,
wrote something which belongs on every wall in the National
Academy of Sciences and in the many institutes where its members
work: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in
time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."
# # # # #
==================================================================
References
BEIR-5 Report, 1990.
Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing
Radiation (BEIR), Health Effects of Exposure to Low
Levels of Ionizing Radiation. 421 pages. ISBN
0-309-03995-9. National Academy Press, Washington, "DC,
USA. 1990.
Belle Newsletter 1994.
Belle Newsletter, Vol.3, No.1, July 1994. This is "a
publication of the NE Regional Environmental Public
Health Center, University of Mass. School of Public
Health, Amherst, MA." The July 1994 issue opens with a
list of Advisory Committee Members and a 7-page "article
on "radiation hormesis," written by the vice-president
of the Central Research Institute of Japan's Electric
Power Industry.
EPA 1992.
Environmental Protection Agency, a survey of sites
contaminated or potentially contaminated by radioactive
poisons. Prepared for the EPA by L.T. Skoblar of the Roy
R. Weston consulting firm in "Edison, New Jersey, and by
J.J. Mauro of the F.Sam "Cohen firm in McLean, Virginia.
See the New York "Times, April 9, 1992.
Durnil 1995.
Gordon E. Durnil, The Making of a Conservative
Environmentalist. Indiana University Press. 1995.
Gofman 1990.
John W. Gofman, Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low-Dose
Exposure: An Independent Analysis. 480 pages. ISBN
0-932682-89-8. Committee for Nuclear Responsibility,
San Francisco, CA, USA. 1990.
NRPB 1995.
John Stather + Roger Cox, Risk of Radiation-Induced
Cancer at Low Doses and Low Dose-Rates for Radiation
Protection Purposes. 78 pages. ISBN 0-85951-386-6.
Vol.6, Number 1, in the series "Documents of the
NRPB." National Radiation Protection Board, Chilton,
Didcot, England. 1995.
UNSCEAR 1993.
United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), Sources and Effects of
Ionizing Radiation: UNSCEAR 1993 Report to the General
Assembly, with Scientific Annexes. 922 pages. No index.
ISBN 92-1-142200-0. 1993.
* - We encourage people (especially at DOE and its labs and
subsidiaries) to reprint and distribute these proposals widely. No
permission is required.
* - John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., is chairman of the Committee
for Nuclear Responsibility, and Egan O'Connor is editor.
Dr. Gofman is professor emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at
the University of California, Berkeley, and author of four books
on the health consequences of exposure to ionizing radiation ---
1981, 85, 90, 94 (in preparation). In earlier years, JWG proved
the fissionability of uranium-233 (in 1942) and developed chemical
techniques to deliver the first milligram-quantities of plutonium
for the Manhattan Project (in 1943); did pioneer research on heart
disease and lipoproteins (1947-1963); established (in 1963) the
Biomedical Research Division of the Livermore National Lab, where
he examined the health effects of radiation and studied
chromosomal origins of cancer. Support for his research was taken
away in 1972, in reprisal for his emphatic and persistent public
statements about the health hazards of radiation.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never
will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out
the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them
..."
--Frederick Douglass, former slave (USA) and educator, 1817-1895.
"Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to
believe."
-- Euripedes, Greek dramatist, 5th century B.C.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
nothing."
-- Edmund Burke, English statesman, 1729-1797.
"It makes all the difference in the world whether we put truth in the
first place, or in the second place."
-- John Morley, English statesman, 1838-1923.
"A lie which is half a truth is the wickedest lie of all."
-- Alfred Tennyson, English poet, 1850-1892.
"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't
cross a chasm in two small jumps."
-- David Lloyd George, British statesman, 1863-1945.
"It is no use saying `we are doing our best.' You have got to succeed
in doing what is necessary."
-- Winston Churchill, British statesman, 1874-1965.
"The truth must always be known by ONE before it can be known by the
majority."
-- Attributed to Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian dramatist, 1828-1906.
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood ... Make
big plans; aim high and hope and work."
-- Daniel Hudson Burnham (architect).
"To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men."
-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the USA, 1809-1865.
"We owe almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed, but to
those who have differed."
-- Charles Caleb Colton.
RECENT TV VIDEO-TAPES
Related to Some Topics in CNR's "Proposals" Essay:
* - CNN's "Earth Matters," a 30-minute broadcast on Feb. 27,
1994. Covers harrassment and intimidation of specific
whistleblowers over nuclear power-plant safety. About $35 per
copy. Cable News Network, Library Tape Sales, Post Office Box
105366, Atlanta GA 30348. Tel: 404-827-1335 *1. Fax: 404-827-1840.
* - "CNN Presents," a one-hour broadcast on March 13, 1994
about some past causes of DOE's credibility problems and about
Hazel O'Leary's goals for the future. About $50 per copy. For
acquisition, see above.
* - "Story of Linda Mitchell, Whistleblower at the Palos
Verdes Nuclear Power Plant." A segment of about 12 minutes,
broadcast March 6, 1994, on the TV program "Working Woman."
Available for purchase from the National Whistleblower Center (see
Part 3A, above), which represented her claim before the US Dept.
of Labor.
* - San Mateo (California) Public TV, 26-minute interview
with Prof. John W. Gofman, broadcast in February 1994. Covers the
menace to human health caused by a fear-induced slave-mentality
among radiation researchers. CNR has copies, made by a
copy-service from a VCR "master." $9 including tax and shipping.
* - ABC's "The Cover-Up at Ground Zero," a one-hour broadcast
on Feb. 2, 1994 (first program in Peter Jennings' "Turning Point"
series). Documents how the government deceived "downwinders" in
Utah with respect to fallout from above-ground bomb testing.
Includes the daughter-in-law of the former director of the Los
Alamos National Lab. She was downwind and pregnant during that
time. While the government was assuring the public that there was
no danger from the fallout, her father-in-law told her that SHE
ought to go somewhere else because it was a serious situation.
Also documents how our Dept. of "Justice" is dealing with dying
plaintiffs who worked at the Nevada Test Site.
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