Huge Amounts of Radiation Won’t Harm You, Pruitt’s EPA Claims
Sent in by Richard Giles
BY MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Excerpt
Scott Pruitt, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), isn’t just going about destroying environmental safeguards; he has now issued a “guideline” document that states that excessive exposure to radiation is safe for human life. That means he’s not only allowing more pollution that can contribute to ill health and degradation of the environment, but he is also putting us at risk when it comes to radiation. According to Bloomberg,
In the event of a dirty bomb or a nuclear meltdown, emergency responders can safely tolerate radiation levels equivalent to thousands of chest X-rays, the Environmental Protection Agency said in new guidelines that ease off on established safety levels….
It could lead to the administration of President Donald Trump weakening radiation safety levels, watchdog groups critical of the move say.
“It”s really a huge amount of radiation they are saying is safe,” said Daniel Hirsch, the retired director of the University of California, Santa Cruz”s program on environmental and nuclear policy. “The position taken could readily unravel all radiation protection rules.”
The “guideline” doesn’t have the standing of a regulation or law, but it is reflective of the EPA’s thinking regarding radiation tolerance by humans and is, therefore, worrisome. Bloomberg notes,
“According to radiation safety experts, radiation exposures of 5-10 rem (5,000-10,000 mrem or 50-100 mSv) usually result in no harmful health effects, because radiation below these levels is a minor contributor to our overall cancer risk,” EPA said in the document. That level is equivalent to as many as 5,000 chest X-rays or seven to 14 chest CT scans, according to a comparison with Food and Drug Administration data.
A 2007 version of the same document — before the Trump administration revision — stated that no level of radiation is safe. It concluded: “The current body of scientific knowledge tells us this.”
The scientific consensus has not shifted since then. A Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) news release strongly criticizes the new “safe” EPA radiation exposure level:
[The] EPA does not specify which “radiation safety experts” it is now relying upon but it is notable that
- The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, and EPA itself, have long estimated that 10,000 millirems could be expected to induce excess cancers in every 86th person exposed;
- Those health effects are for a one-time exposure but EPA is rolling out a new approach that would allow daily public exposure at highly elevated levels every day for up to a year; and
- EPA”s longstanding scientific estimate is that 10,000 millirems would produce a risk at least 100 times higher than EPA”s acceptable risk range on radiation exposure to the public.
PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch is highly critical of the new EPA position:
SNIP
COMMENT: Now that Trump’s captured EPA considers ionizing radiation as “safe” watch for another pronouncement soon calling non-ionizing radiation as harmless also, particularly the nationwide deployment of 5G.
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