1. Thursday, May 17th 2012 American Nuclear Society, Northeastern Section
Analysis of Radiation Dose Effects and Emergency Response from Nuclear Power Accidents
Richard Wilson
Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics (Emeritus)
Harvard University
Thursday, May 17th 2012
American Nuclear Society,
Northeastern Section

2. Responses to Fukushima:
NRC correctly has two papers on making reactors safer, ANS is stressing these
BUT
nuclear power is dead for 50 years
UNLESS
ANS explains to the public that radiation is not the disaster they think
(I continually challenge APS also)
DO NOT BE LAZY
understand and speak out

3. Topical issue – Fukushima a year ago- Evacuate or not?
What do we know from previous incidents?
Those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it
Medical X rays
Radium Dial painters
Hiroshima-Nagasaki
Windscale (UK)
TMI
Chernobyl
Tokai (Japan)

4. Avoid Acute Radiation Sickness (ARS)
ARS can occur if dose in a week is > 200 Rems (2 Sv).
But chronic doses can accumulate over years
Chronic effects:
cancer
heart disease
genetic effects
No cancers specific to radiation
Radiation can cause an increase
in natural cancer rate
Perhaps 30% at 200 Rems (maybe much less)

5. Suggested immediate actions
Prior experience suggests:
Avoid effects of iodine (don’t drink local milk (even mother’s milk) for a month
Evacuate if needed to Avoid Acute Radiation Sickness
If no Acute Radiation Sickness a day or two delay in considering evacuation makes little difference
Let workers get higher doses than normal subject to acute radiation sickness

6. My Estimate of Dose at Site Boundary

10. My Dose at Site Boundary March 2012 calculation
Peak probably noble gases (little effect) followed by cesium. (134 and 137)
Take peak and multiply by width
Dose about 2 Rems (0.02 Sv) and falling
My CAT scan doses last year 2.4 Rems

11. Evaporation
Temperature
184°C
671°C
990°C
1750°C 11

12. Products of Fission
Gases (1) Noble Gases (Kryton,xenon) (2) Iodine goes to thyroid: leukemia, thyroid cancers (Do not drink milk for a month) Solids sublimate as temperature goes up (A) Cesium 134, 137. do not stay (B) Strontium, transuranics Only at higher temperature, not much even at Chernobyl Table not broken down by age (MY MISTAKE!)

13. What about Ibaraki? (on way to Tokyo)

14. It looks different with different scale. Dose Negligible

15. Adverse Effects of Evacuation
Stress can increase cancer rates 5% or more
Direct loss of life due to lack of facilities
NO ONE CONSIDERED THESE AT ALL

16. Subsequent study (IAEA, INPO, TEPCO, etc) confirms:
No one got Acute Radiation Exposure
(highest exposure in a worker 30 Rems)
If there are cancers the probability of causation (POC) will be less than 50% in all but a few cases.

17. These are the locations of measurement

19. BEIR report on effects of radiation
Not broken down by age

20. Deposition to NW of plant highest from Tuesday/Wednesday releases

22. Rems/man or manRems?
Traditionally health physicists assume a linear dose response and then it is clear that the societal effect is best expressed in Man Rems or Person Sievert
But here one needs the effect on an individual or the small group being affected then Rems per man is the proper description (emphasized by the late Rosalyn Yalow,
Nobel Laureate who died last week)

23. Comparison with other disasters

24. Chairman Gregory Jaczko testimony in US Congress March 17th 2011
Recently, the NRC made a recommendation that:
“Based on the available information that we have, that for a comparable situation in the United States, we would recommend an evacuation to a much larger radius than has currently been provided in Japan. As a result of this recommendation, the ambassador in Japan has issued a statement to American citizens that we believe it is appropriate to evacuate to a larger distance up to approximately 50 miles.” 24

25. What should a decision maker have done (my personal opinion)?
Order an immediate evacuation for many km ?
Make it easy for any VOLUNTARY evacuation
to avoid panic as happened after Katrina
Do simple steps to reduce exposure to fall out
including measurement
ORDER all out clean up for years
Facilitate individual towns and people in voluntary steps
Richard Wilson paper in DOSE_RESPONSE (2012):
“Evacuation Criteria After a Nuclear Accident:
A Personal Perspective” NO
YES
YES NO
YES

26. Threshold or linearity?
It is important that you understand the argument
BUT when dose is low it should not matter
But do not in public argue with your supporters who reject the threshold arguments 26

27. Alternate Dose-Response Models

28. Cancer Over Background
Excess Dose

29. Low dose linearity is a general argument
Probability of dying in a car accident in Harvard Square is roughly proportional to the number of cars!
If the medical outcomes is not distinguishable
From one occurring naturally then the argument applies
Most cancers
Inherent in the multistage theory of cancer
Lung effects caused by air pollution

30. British Journal of Cancer Vol. VIII, March 1954, No
British Journal of Cancer Vol. VIII, March 1954, No. 1 Sir Richard Doll & Peter Armitage (repeated 50 years later)
Cancer caused by a series of steps:

31. THIS MAKES ACTION ATTRACTIVE
Does it matter if Nuclear Power is dead?
Problem is importance for terrorism:
(1) Take 1000 Ci medical source
(2) Add a few pounds TNT
(3) Explode in Wall Street
EFFECT:
(A) Less than 10 people die (situation in Brazil)
20 square miles out of action
THIS MAKES ACTION ATTRACTIVE
FOR A TERRORIST

32. Even more important
What do you do if someone explodes a nuclear bomb in Boston Harbor?
Run away as fast as you can?
Take shelter for 24 hours till radioactivity does and listen to which way the wind is blowing?
Then if you are in the plume run fast,
but which way? Away from explosion?
Sideways away from plume? NO
YES NO
YES

33. Thank you for listening

35. Effects of Low Doses Probability of Causation and implications for Public Policy

36. The Future of Nuclear Power may depend upon a Rational Approach to Risks of Radiation Exposure and their regulation. What are they? Do we compensate those exposed? If not what?

37. LINEARITY AT LOW DOSES IS USUAL!!
Walking blindfold across
Harvard Square is safe:
(Risk (R) = 0)
IF THERE ARE NO CARS!
The risk (R) increases roughly in proportion
to the number of cars.

38. Acute Effects Characteristics
One dose or dose accumulated in a short time KILLS
1/10 the dose repeated 10 times DOES NOT KILL

39. CHRONIC EFFECTS including CANCER
Characteristics
A dose just sub-acute
can give effects if repeated.
Usually not all people affected -
dose response is flatter

40. Typically an accumulated Chronic Dose = Acute LD50
gives CANCER to 10% of the population.
E.g. LD50 for radiation is about 350 Rems.
At 350 Rems about 10% of exposed get cancer.
(more or less depending on rate of exposure)

41. Early Optimism Based on Poisons
There is a threshold below which nothing happens
__________
J.G. Crowther 1924
Probability of Ionizing a Cell
Linear with Dose

42. Repair Mechanisms BUT WE DON’T KNOW Does the Mechanism Reject/Repair:
ALL DAMAGED CELLS UP TO XXXX?
(implying a threshold)
OR % of CELLS
INDEPENDENT OF DOSE
WE DON’T KNOW

43. CRITICAL ISSUES FOR LINEARITY
The POLLUTANT acts
in the same way as
whatever else influences the CANCER RATE
CANCERS caused by the POLLUTANT
are INDISTINGUISHABLE from other cancers

45. Probability of Causation Come let us Cast Lots to find out who is to blame for this ordeal. Jonah 1:7

46. Probability of Causation equals Risk from Substance divided by Risk from all Causes

47. Risk from all causes can be approximated as the Prevalence in a similar Population. If the cancer is rare, POC can be high even if the risk is low.

48. E.g POC for berylliosis is unity for beryllium as a cause POC for asbestos exposure as a cause of mesothelioma among males is 80% and 20% among females

49. Administrative Uses of the POC concept: Aluminum workers in Quebec (compensate if POC > 50%) Radiation Workers in UK (compensate if POC >20%)

50. Compensation for Radiation Exposures Veteran “Downwinders” (if upper 99th percentile of POC > 50%; effectively POC >5%) UK Workers (if POC >20%) Old AEC employees (if upper 99th percentile of POC > 50%; effectively POC >5%)

51. Medical Causation General Causation: the Postulated Cause is Known to Cause the Disease under some conditions (POC>0) Specific Causation, exposure and other circumstances make POC large enough (>50%)

52. What do the Courts say? US Supreme Court Daubert Joiner Kumho Tire

53. General Causation needs a Risk Ratio that is significant, statistically and otherwise Usually RR>2 (POC >50%)

54. Rule to avoid frivolous lawsuits: The postulated cause must be “more likely than not” POC>50% But Rutherford instruction If total asbestos exposure is a proven cause, it can be assigned to individual suppliers even if POC < 50%.

55. RISK of respiratory ailments due to LIFETIME EXPOSURE to AIR POLLUTION is 3 to 5% average in the USA! POC varies from 30% to 80%

56. If I develop leukemia: The POC from my Medical Exposures would be over 50% Can I sue using the Rutherford case? Minister of Health, UK US State Department Harvard University Commonwealth of Massachussets ONR DOE (AEC)

57. Assignment of a Cause does not mean that Compensation is payable. E. g
Assignment of a Cause does not mean that Compensation is payable. E.g. Chemotherapy agents are often carcinogenic and increase risk of future cancers even as they cure.

58. Go back to the beginning: Does it make sense
Go back to the beginning: Does it make sense? Can we study those cohorts where NIH calculate POC near 50%? Risk Ratio of 2? Those x-rayed just post world war II?