Both the great Truths and the great Falsehoods of the twentieth century lie hidden in the arcane, widely inaccessible, and seemingly mundane domain of the radiation sciences

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Trial of the Cult of Nuclearists: SCAM NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR



What follows is the continuation, in serial form, of a central chapter from my book A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science.



SCAM NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR: Cloak biased judgment in the guise of objectivity when selecting the data used to assess radiation risk.


When developing models of radiation risk, the radiation protection agencies use criteria that at first sight appears unassailable. They take into account only studies that have been published in peer reviewed scientific journals, and which include accurate dose-response data. How could one possibly find fault with such seemingly impeccable methodology? The concealed hoax lies buried in the words “accurate dose-response data.” By only considering instances where accurate dose information has been gathered, important avenues of investigation are precluded from consideration. For instance, many types of epidemiological studies that can offer insight on the effect of radiation releases on populations are banned from consideration when establishing risk factors because these studies do not provide data on the dosages of the exposed population. The work of Gould and Goldman, cited earlier, provides a good example. Their observation of trends in increased mortality after the arrival of Chernobyl fallout or after the accidents at the Savannah River Plant or Three Mile Island is not the type of data accepted by the ICRP for assessing radiation risk. These studies are excluded because they do not identify particular radiation victims, the dosages received by these victims, and the illnesses caused by these dosages. The same applies to the ever-increasing evidence of cancer clusters in the proximity of nuclear installations. If statistically marginal increases in cancer incidence happen in the vicinity of a single nuclear facility, this may be just an anomaly. But if marginal increases are observed around a number of installations, which is the case, the cumulative evidence becomes stronger that a link exists between the risk of developing cancer and living near a nuclear facility. Once again, this type of evidence is not considered as a basis for risk assessment. Causality must be established between an identifiable dose and an identifiable cancer victim or the work is not considered sufficiently rigorous or “scientific.”


Part of the swindle of the corrupted Hiroshima data is that the dose assigned to each victim is promulgated as accurate. This is why the study is granted such importance. The problem is that, in fact, no one knows with sufficient precision the dose received by each member of the Life Span Study population. “Dose reconstruction” is based entirely on guesses and computer simulations of the geometry of the bomb, the efficiency of fission of the bomb’s uranium fuel, the percentage of radiation reaching the ground, the relative contribution to dosage of gamma and neutron radiation, the degree of attenuation of the radiation field by roofs and walls that offered some margin of protection to the victims, the location and physical orientation of each victim at the instant of detonation, and so forth. All the numerous assumptions that have gone into reconstructing “accurate” dosages really make the data from Japan of questionable value. Yet, it is heralded as the definitive study for establishing dose-response in the human organism.