Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014
To the National Academy of Sciences: Attn: Kevin Crowley, Ourania (Rania) Kosti, Ph.D.Senior Program Officer Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board National Academy of Sciences 2101 Constitution Ave NW Washington, DC 20037 SUBJECT: Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation This message is a cover letter for transmitting our Letter to you. It was previously furnished to the NAS and appears on our web-page which is noted below. It calls for more ANS scientific sessions, presentations, and discussions of the current regulations pertaining to low-level exposure to ionizing radiation and their underlying bases. The Letter is attached, along with a table identifying the home state or country of more than 550 people who have personally signed onto it through the web-site in support of it. Our group wishes to add this message and the background of our letter to the record as the NAS moves toward the development of a BEIR VIII. After NRC indicated in 2011 that NAS was likely to do another study about cancers in the vicinities of nuclear power plants, a number of senior ANS members and retired ANS presidents organized a group (referred to below as “the group”) to exchange emails on information about plans for the study. We increased our attention to studying the history and the bases for regulatory positions on exposure to low doses and low levels of radiation. At that time a number of peer-reviewed papers were appearing every few months in highly respected journals that put into question the basis for using the Linear NonThreshold (LNT) model for predictions of health effects and particularly cancers from accumulated low-level radiation exposures It is generally stated that continued application of the LNT at low doses is supported by the findings of a National Academy Sciences report: “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation.” (BEIR-VII- 1990) The nuclear industry made a commitment decades ago to minimize unnecessary radiation exposures to personnel. It was well-known in the professional radiation community that operational radiation exposure regulations are based on the LNT and so are nuclear plant emergency action plans and safety analyses. Expanded use of the LNT ultimately led to the now widely used ALARA programs in research, medicine and all kinds of nuclear facility operations. The LNT was applied to licensing, emergency planning, and the handling and disposal of radioactive wastes of all kinds.
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