EPA Says Higher Radiation Levels Pose 'No Harmful Health Effect' (bloomberg.com) 296
Readers share a report: 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. The EPA's determination sets a level ten times the drinking water standard for radiation recommended under President Barack Obama. 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 change was included as part of EPA "guidance" on messaging and communications in the event of a nuclear power plant meltdown or dirty bomb attack. The FAQ document, dated September 2017, is part of a broader planning document for nuclear emergencies, and does not carry the weight of federal standards or law.
Debated for a long time (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Debated for a long time (Score:5, Interesting)
Essentially, the debate is about keeping as broad a safety margin as possible.
If it were trivially-cheap to analyze water for the presence of lead--let's say it cost 1 penny per hundred billion gallons of treated water to remove and verify lead content down to the 1/1,000,000 ppb level (that means any given lake-sized volume of treated water has a high likelihood of having zero lead atoms in it period)--we would mandate that. Why wouldn't you?
What failures in measurement expose us to additional radiation? What procedures (e.g. radiology) do we go through that exposes us to additional radiation? For a population of hundreds of million, is this level of radiation prone to cause a hundred more incidences of cancer (trivial) on its own, before interacting with other factors?
One person in America dying every year might be a triviality. If it costs millions of dollars to prevent that, well, let's not do it: you'll save more lives investing that in charity and anti-poverty measures. If it costs pennies per year, then yes let's do that.
"Pennies" quickly becomes "dollars" and "millions of dollars" as you add zeroes onto the end of that one person. 1,000 persons per year? Maybe we want to invest several million dollars into this--especially since "dying" isn't binary when you get past bullets to the head. Even highway safety measures come down to death, dismemberment, or property damage.
It's a matter of risk--a highly-technical concept nobody seems to know all that much about.
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"It's a matter of risk--a highly-technical concept nobody seems to know all that much about."
Epidemiologists would probably laugh at the absurdity of this claim.
Radiation exposure is well understand and extrapolated, and has been for years. It's one of the reasons why many changes were made to the yearly chest x-ray to check for lung cancers and tb, limiting and lowering dental xrays, reducing exposure from CT scans, targeting treatments to limit exposure, and the like. They already had good studies and d
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Radiation exposure is well understand and extrapolated, and has been for years.
Yes, it is. And we've known that our safety limits have been ultra conservative for quite some time. Its not been a big issue because it hasn't necessarily caused any problematic compliance costs. However, it has caused confusion among the public that would naturally but wrongly assume that 100 times the safety limit must be a high risk danger when in most cases it isn't
The easy answer has always been to always do what you can to minimize exposure, so that's how we've characterized it, lower is better. B
Re:Debated for a long time (Score:5, Informative)
Radiation exposure is well understand and extrapolated, and has been for years.
The public risk perception of radiation is so far from reality, it could possibly make us do stupid things.
Your perception of the risk from radiation is so far from reality, you've simplified the model to the point of being useless.
That's been my experience of your posts, that all of the knowledge gathered since the 1950s just doesn't exist. You don't understand :
Then you:
There is a reason the NRC uses ALARA [nrc.gov], figuring out this stuff is complicated and the easiest thing to do so your brain doesn't explode from thinking about it is to keep the potential risk of exposure ultra conservative.
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BTW, KAOS, you are the one who refused to accept the studies done on Fukushima, where they have determined actual health impacts are much lower than predicted.
Yes, I remember them, however it was about Chernobyl [nih.gov], you were trying to disprove LNT and, in a classic Mr D moment, the data you provided disproved your own argument. I pointed that out and you didn't respond. The irony was hilarious that you say I didn't accept it when I embraced it. It's appropriate here because it shows how you continue to spread ignorance about LNT even when you provided the evidence that found a significant linear dose response for all leukemia two years ago.
That's shows a delibera
Re:Debated for a long time (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is nothing more than Pruitt continuing to use his newfound power at the EPA to cut costs for his corporate owners.
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There are many problems with trying to do this. As TFA demonstrates, most people don't understand the difference between radiation from x-rays and emitted by coal and nuclear plants, for example.
Number of deaths are not the only factors either. Non-fatal healthcare costs, lost productivity... And the manner of death. It's different if it's one person who dies quickly and painlessly, or a long slow suffering over years. We had this debate with smog and drinking water.
In any case, this is just an attempt to b
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In any case, this is just an attempt to boost industries that pollute a lot in a variety of ways, by cutting their costs.
This has nothing to do with the levels emitted by anything, it's a statement about the levels acceptable for FIRST RESPONDERS in EMERGENCY SITUATIONS.
In other words, IF there is a leak or accident, which because it is a leak or accident is already outside the regulated levels or it wouldn't be an issue, THEN what levels will we allow first responders to work in while they are dealing with the emergency.
Note that "cleanup" is not a first response. "Rescuing trapped people" is a first response. "Turning o
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Of course where the cost-risk-benefit calculations gets really political is where the people bearing the costs and taking the risks are different.
This makes an already difficult question incredibly difficult.
Take water. Even in areas where people get their water from a public entity, not everyone will agree on how much to pay for a given level of safety. In fact differences can be traced to objective bases; someone who is 75 isn't going to be interested in cancers that will arise in 30 years, unless he has
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The problem is that when you go in the other direction and have regulations that are too loose, it's really hard to calcu
Repo Man... (Score:4, Funny)
Ever been to Utah? Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was full to bursting. The next day - nothing. Swept away. But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end.
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Neither of those events are old enough to determine the long term exposure limits. Chernobyl's data also suffers from a haphazard collection efforts, the haphazard radiation exposure of the nearby population and the opaque nature of the government at the time. Both of which greatly reduce the usefulness of the data.
What happened in Japan is definitely not old enough for long term exposure studies, being less than 10 years ago. Also, there was extremely low exposure to anybody outside the plant boundary, w
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Fukushima is great example of why the actual amount of radiation is almost irrelevant. Confusion and no way of knowing how bad it might get mandates an evacuation. Lack of solid evidence and knowledge mandates difficult wide area decontamination.
You catch just say "it's fine, go back" because you don't know that for sure.
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You catch just say "it's fine, go back" because you don't know that for sure.
Yes, you can. And we do know for sure. What prevents us from doing that is the lack of rationality society has with dealing with radiation risk.
You can't be sure you wont' die in a car wreck tomorrow, that doesn't mean we can't make a determination to say its OK to get in a car. And knowing that the risks of living in the Fukushima exclusion zone is less than things like car travel or daily sun exposure, the only thing preventing us is ignorance and those that take advantage of that ignorance to spread r
Re:Debated for a long time (Score:4, Interesting)
Some doctors told me that while the initial evacuation was necessary, the failure to plan a swift return as radiation levels fell had been disastrous. Apart from a few high-dose areas in the mountains, the psychological risks of staying away exceed the radiological risks of coming back. But the confusion has contributed to a serious loss of trust among the public for medical, as well as nuclear, authorities. “When we try to explain the situation,” says Nollet, “we are seen as complicit in nuclear power.”
http://e360.yale.edu/features/... [yale.edu]
Nuclear Winter is A-OK... (Score:5, Informative)
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Ha! +5 mod points to the OP.
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The purpose of the President isn't
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Where does the Constitution allow an Air force? The navy having an air corps, yes.
Sadly the Air force is a perfect example of over stretch by the federal Government, it would have been so easy to pass an amendment allowing it but they never bothered and everyone thinks it's fine. As you sorta point out, even a standing army was considered a bad idea back in the 18th century, with the Constitution saying that it has to be funded regularly and mentioning militias in a couple of places IIRC. One of the main re
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Actually the federal government has hedged on al
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As I said, an amendment would have been easy to pass. Knowing new things would come up was one of the reasons for an amending formula and it should be used more.
Instead there is the crazy situation where the Supreme Court has got in to the habit of extending the Constitution or allowing Congress to. You listed a bunch of departments that have questionable Constitutionality, amendments would at least be clearer and allow debate on these departments. Good to remember that amendments can be amended too, illega
Easy enough solution (Score:5, Insightful)
We'll find out very quickly if they believe they did the right thing.
Re:Easy enough solution (Score:5, Funny)
Why wait? Since it's safe, surely they'll have no problem submitting to thousands of chest x-rays right now.
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Why wait? Since it's safe, surely they'll have no problem submitting to thousands of chest x-rays right now.
Well, at least their health insurance will cover 1,000 chest x-rays.
Re:Easy enough solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Putting this in some perspective, it's something less than 20 CT scans. While that seems high, it's well within the range of what some (sick) people get. Not a great idea, but a 'tolerable' level of radiation.
Remember, these are for first responder guidelines. Not chronic exposures. First responders are at some risk of various and sundry hazards. And often first response safety considerations means balancing various issues. Sure, you can dress up in a Class A Hazmat suit but if you keel over because of heat prostration or trip over the bit of rebar you didn't see you may end up with a bunch of x-rays anyway. Being an adrenaline junkie has it's dangers.
It would, however, be nice to see if there was some sort of substantive evidence for this.
Re:Easy enough solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Putting this in some perspective, it's something less than 20 CT scans
I really hate when CT scans are used as an example. The range of exposure is so wide and varies a lot depending on the type of scanner it is. A cardiac function CT scan on a 10 year old scanner could be 30 mSv or higher. Yet the same scan on a 2 year old scanner would be under 5 mSv. And with a newer sequence from the last 6 months could be as low as 1 mSv. An angiogram from a few years ago could be 16 mSv, but are well under 1 mSv on a modern scanner. There are many scans that are done these days that are at .2 mSv.
It also depends on what body part is being scanned. The exposure in the extremities are different than the head or thorax. The age of a patient is also a big factor. hitting an 85 year old with 10 mSv is a hell of a lot different than a 6 month old.
Re:Easy enough solution (Score:5, Insightful)
"Putting this in some perspective, it's something less than 20 CT scans. While that seems high, it's well within the range of what some (sick) people get. Not a great idea, but a 'tolerable' level of radiation."
In other words, it's tolerable for a sick person who might die if they don't get the scans, but it's not ok or 'tolerable' for a healthy person.
Re:Easy enough solution (Score:4, Insightful)
That's really the problem. We don't know if it's "tolerable" or not for a healthy person.
The assumption so far has been to err on the side of caution and assume any elevated radiation exposure is harmful. Unfortunately that turns science upside down by setting an unfalsifiable hypothesis as the null hypothesis. You cannot prove that radiation exposure is safe. You can expose 1000 people to the equivalent of 20 CT scans, and if their long-term cancer rate is the same as unexposed people, the nay-sayers can always argue "no you're wrong, it was just luck that none of them got cancer" or "those people weren't a random sample" or a myriad of other possible explanations why your data is wrong.
For science to work properly, the null hypothesis has to be falsifiable. The assumption has to be that increased radiation exposure is safe. And only when you find experimental evidence that a certain level of radiation exposure is dangerous, do you reject that hypothesis at that radiation level.
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And if you compare it to radiation therapy, it's downright less!!
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You're arguing that it's okay.
He's arguing that it is an acceptable risk in an emergency situation. That's quite different than just "okay", and it is quite dishonest to try to equate the two.
If I said that it is an acceptable risk for a firefighter to enter a burning building in search of trapped people, would you then try claiming I said it was okay for everyone to run into burning buildings? Yes, that's what you just did here, so I expect you would.
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He's arguing that it is an acceptable risk in an emergency situation. That's quite different than just "okay", and it is quite dishonest to try to equate the two.
Intellectual honesty is not something that the anti-nuke FUD mongers worry about. They happily take risks every day and must not even realize it, because if they took the same approach as they claim we should with radiation, they'd never get in a car unless they absolutely had to. They'd never expose themselves to sunlight unless they absolutely had to, etc. But rationality is loss when perception is off.
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He's arguing a far worse than that. He's literally arguing that the risk is more acceptable than the first responders being given radiation hazmat gear to protect them during the response because they might get too hot in it or trip because of reduced field of view.
For your comparison, it would be like arguing firefighters shouldn't wear a heavy fire coats when going into a fire because they might overheat or trip because of the reduction in dexterity.
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He's literally arguing that the risk is more acceptable than the first responders being given radiation hazmat gear to protect them during the response
No, yet again, that's not what is being said. He said that you have to BALANCE THE RISKS vs. the benefits. There is a risk that a hazmat suit can cause the wearer to overheat -- a risk that anyone who has ever worn the old military MOPP suits is well aware of. You need to balance that risk against the radiation risks. He's not saying "don't wear hazmat suits even if there is radiation".
For your comparison, it would be like arguing firefighters shouldn't wear a heavy fire coats
You're the one who came up with the "don't wear" statement.
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Why wait? Since it's safe, surely they'll have no problem submitting to thousands of chest x-rays right now.
We don't need to do that, we have plenty of evidence already.
But the public has much to learn. Take for example the Mexican Cobalt 60 theft, where the thieves got exposures much much greater than the limits we are talking about. You remember, there were tons of articles about how they were doomed. ("dead men", "doomed", "will soon die", etc) But if you listened to me at the time, I said that was a tremendous over-reaction. The thieves were caught and release with no charges because they were kids and had
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The policy makers must be the 1st to respond to such a disaster.
Nuclear meltdowns don't happen very often, so I think it's feasible to require the head of the EPA to accompany any first responders as they make their initial foray into the site.
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Just put the appropriate amount of nuclear waste in their meeting room and tell them about it a month later. I highly doubt that their reactions would be that it's perfectly fine since it's within the range of the first responder limit and should pose no harmful health effect.
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What if the policy makers are playing golf that day, and can't respond until the optics are better?
This is what you wanted (Score:3, Interesting)
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> Yes, there's a lot of silly laws on the books
The real problem with "silly laws" is that, in the past at least, they weren't.
For instance, I know there was a law in the Roman Empire that made it illegal to use someone else's plough. You had to have your own. That lasted into the middle ages in England.
I have no idea why that law exists, but I suspect it's not just "someone wanted to pork". I don't know the reason, so it seems silly. Is it really? I doubt it.
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For instance, I know there was a law in the Roman Empire that made it illegal to use someone else's plough
But... then how did ploughshares work?
You can take my neighbour's plough out of my cold dead hands!
Linear relation, with cutoff (Score:5, Insightful)
If you voted for the party of less regulation. Yes, there's a lot of silly laws on the books, but the really silly ones are ignored by everyone. When it comes time to cut regulations these are the ones that get cut.
This discussion came up about airport X-ray machines years ago, and sparked a debate about exposure safety.
There appears to be a linear relation between amount of exposure and number of cancers(*), but only for rather excessive levels of radiation. The debate centers on whether there is a "cutoff", where any exposure less than some amount is negligible.
It's hard to get quantitative information about this because the exposure levels are small, and the results won't be known for decades. IIRC, my calculations at the time indicated that 10 or 20 new cases of cancer *might* be caused by 9 billion airline flights. (Those 10-20 new cancers is not nothing, I'm just pointing out that finding the correlation in all that noise is all but impossible. Attention paid to more likely health threats would be a better way to spend effort and resources**.)
The prevailing opinion is that the body deals with and repairs all sorts of damage in it's day-to-day operation, so that damage smaller than a set level will get swept up along with all the other repairs.
Strangely, there is actually no menace in this recent decision, and the "party of less regulation" is doing what appears to be the right thing.
(*) I once wrote an article about airport X-ray systems, which required a bunch of research.
(**) Interestingly, that was then and this is now. Since everyone has to register to take a plane flight, we now have about 15 years of data that could be mined here. Take a cohort of plane travellers and divide them into 2 groups: people who take many flights per year, versus people who take few flights per year, and compare their rates of cancer later in life, against a similar cohort taken from the general population.
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Radon is dangerous not just because of direct radiation but because it is a gas and can be inhaled and decay where normal skin protection from radiation is lost. Additionally, since you have inhaled, the decay byproducts (including lead) are in your lungs and the air. Radon exposure is vastly different than many "every day" radiation exposures. Further, radon testing should be completed because variations can be significant from dwelling to dwelling. You MAY NOT need a radon system, but if you haven't te
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Well considering this is Trump's EPA doing it,
The summary says "it COULD lead to Trump's administration..." (emphasis mine), not "is IS leading to...". This whole thing is a scare piece political hatchet attempt by Trump haters, making up their own fantasy world of what Trump "could" do and then forging full steam ahead as if he was doing it just to kill them personally.
The suggested guidelines for what first responders could be exposed to were increased. That's not removing exposure levels for the general population, and it's not changing what indust
Let's all keep one thing in mind. (Score:5, Insightful)
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You speak the truth. unfortunately...
The agency is still there and doing SOMETHING (Score:2)
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You're still paying for the EPA, and they are still spending money on important things [washingtonpost.com] which I'm sure must be in the interests of the country. We know those things are important, because they're so sensitive.
The morons look like they are trying to recreate a mem from episodes of Get Smart [wouldyoubelieve.com]. When you are professional shill like Pruitt and you are appointed as a hatchet man you better not let your conversations be made public or the shit will hit the fan real quick. The actions and dealings of public servants in institutions like the EPA, the TSA, NASA, the CDC and the like should not be secrets they should be public record by law! We are moving towards a dictatorship and this is one of the first major steps in th
Re:Let's all keep one thing in mind. (Score:5, Insightful)
By "out of control", you mean put citizen's welfare ahead of commercial interests. Yes I agree, it was totally out of control, and it's high time that people got bigger doses of poison and radiation because JOBS!
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Life will always have risk. The key is to find an acceptable level of risk which doesn't compromise your ability to accomplish things whose benefit exceeds the drawbacks of the risk. If you try to eliminate all risk, you also eliminate all ability to accomplish anything. Vaccines are a perfect example. There's a very tiny chance you will get sick from a vaccine; the
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keeping you from dumping it the wrong place
I dump mine outside of the environment.
Trump...North Korea...Iran... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe i'm just paranoid (most likely) but...does this look like preparing the public for a planned nuclear war?
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Nah, just the South Koreans. Not to worry.
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Maybe i'm just paranoid (most likely) but...does this look like preparing the public for a planned nuclear war?
More likely Sec Energy Perry's attempt to get subsidies for nuke and coal plants. But I also wonder about the WIPP [latimes.com] The WIPP is a DOE project. Maybe Perry wants to change the standards to make underground storage less dangerous. [csmonitor.com]
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Hmmm. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hmmm. (Score:4, Insightful)
It may also be the sort of thing you put out to keep people from being unreasonably afraid.
I work at an accelerator lab where we have dangerous radiation levels when the accelerator is on, but quite low levels when it is off. I was talking with some emergency response guys and they said "I'm not walking past all those radiation signs". These are the same guys who will walk into burning refineries to save people. The problem is that they had not been given accurate information on the relative risks of radiation and other risks.
10rem is not "safe" in that the general public should not be exposed to that level of radiation. It is also not so dangerous that people should take higher risks to avoid being exposed to that level of radiation.
The issue is giving people accurate information so that they can balance risks.
If Obama did it, I'm against it (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's not bullshit here. This is about Trump's effort to get rid of every single thing Obama ever did.
Trump is your racist, senile uncle. With nuclear codes.
Re:If Obama did it, I'm against it (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's not bullshit here. This is about Trump's effort to get rid of every single thing Obama ever did.
This.
Trump is irked by anything that has Obama's name on it. It's like he gets up every morning and has to walk past a golden multi-storey edifice named "Obama Tower." His insecurity really does run that deep.
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How does it feel to be wrong so much? [whitehouse.gov]
If Obama didn't want "his legacy" undone he should have worked with congress instead of acting like a king with a pen and phone.
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You have it backwards. Obama did try to work with Congress. It was Republican-controlled Congress who wouldn't work with him. They vowed to make him a one-term President, no matter what it took. They burned up countless days on the legislative calendar, trying dozens and dozens of times to repeal Obamacare. They shut the government down over a pointless spending-limit dispute that cost the country billions of dollars.
As for Obama being a "king with a pen" --- try again. The number of executive orders he sig
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Obama did try to work with Congress. It was Republican-controlled Congress who wouldn't work with him.
It doesn't matter. The president does not write laws and if congress wants a quacking president then they do not have to work with him. That is the point of separate bodies of government. Clinton in the 90's was able to compromise with a GOP congress, why coudln't Obama? Stop making excuses because congress is independent.
he number of executive orders he signed
The number doesn't matter. It's what they did that matters.
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Here is a picture of President Clinton:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
And here is a picture of President Obama:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
If you look very closely, you will see the reason why the GOP congress would work with President Clinton but not President Obama. Take your time. It'll jump out at you.
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lol, sure thing. everything is racist according to me. [youtube.com]
When does Obama own his own failings? Are you being a benevolent racist by not holding Obama accountable for his actions and excuse everything he has done to be the fault of someone else?
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Honestly, I don't care. If the Congress decides that a president will quack then we a have a lame duck president. That is called working as intended.
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You mean a 15 year old, racist, senile uncle...accuracy matters.
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For your sake I hope you're a teenage troll.
He's one of what is thankfully still a minority of people who keep getting older but never grow up.
Re:If Obama did it, I'm against it (Score:4, Funny)
A minority yes, but he's still President.
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A minority yes, but he's still President.
I rest my case.
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Good, it needs the rest.
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Obviously, PopeRatzo is SlaveToTheGrinds sockpuppet.
Why else would he 'go middle school' in response to being called a mental child?
Re: If Obama did it, I'm against it (Score:2)
Hyperbole (Score:5, Informative)
The discussion is about a few statements buried deep inside the pamphlet, "Protective Action Questions & Answers for Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies", which is not a "guideline" or any kind of regulation setting radiation standards: https://www.epa.gov/sites/prod... [epa.gov]
The statement is on page 18, in the section "55. What are millirem (mrem) and millisieverts (mSv)?"
"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."
.. followed by repeating the same statement in the same words on the next page, in section 57. Will people who have been exposed to the radiation get cancer?
"There is clear evidence that high doses of radiation can raise your risk of cancer. Although cancer has been associated with high doses of radiation received over short periods of time, the cancers usually do not appear for many years, even decades.
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.
And then repeating it in exactly the same words in the next page over again: 60. Are people at risk for radiation poisoning or sickness?
Radiation sickness is an illness from short-term exposure to a large amount of radiation. In the United States, dose is measured in units called millirem (mrem). The international unit is the millisievert (mSv). 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.
Safety recommendations are designed to keep your dose as low as possible.
It takes a large dose of radiation—more than 75 rem (75,000 mrem or 750 mSv)—in a short amount of time (usually minutes to hours) to cause immediate health effects, such as acute radiation sickness.
But these are not guidelines, and not even proposed guidelines. The numbers seem to be consistent with health effects stated in other sources, e.g., http://www.radiationanswers.or... [radiationanswers.org] or http://www.radiationanswers.or... [radiationanswers.org] :
* 10 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect immediate observable health effects, although your chances of getting cancer might be very slightly increased.
* 100 rem received in a short time can cause observable health effects from which your body will likely recover, and 100 rem received in a short time or over many years will increase your chances of getting cancer.
Re:Hyperbole (Score:5, Funny)
But these are not guidelines, and not even proposed guidelines. The numbers seem to be consistent with health effects stated in other sources, e.g., http://www.radiationanswers.or... [radiationanswers.org] or http://www.radiationanswers.or... [radiationanswers.org] :
Dang it, there you go being all rational and stuff. We're trying to be outraged here!
So...... (Score:3)
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This behavior is why people remain anonymous. If all you can do is call someone out by name and creep their profile, you add nothing to the conversation or culture. Slashdot is an insular playground for old nerds.
You do realize that BitZtream's own anonymity is what allows him to be what I call a "serial abuser" on Slashdot, don't you?
Let's review how BitZtream typically operates, ultimately revealing his own hypocrisy, shall we?
This isn't that surprising (Score:2)
As such, I'm not sure this itself is a bad thing - emergency responders almost certainly can handle elevated levels over normal with minimal
The EPA... (Score:3)
Isn't that the same organization that in 2005 was found to have suppressed a study it commissioned by Harvard University which contradicted its position on mercury controls, which were later exposed as not following the Clean Air Act?
And, in 2007, California sued for its refusal to allow it and 16 other states to raise fuel economy standards for new cars.
And, in 2008, the Union of Concerned Scientists said that more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work.
Not saying the EPA is corrupt, but their word isn't gospel either.
You lefties are pro science, right? (Score:3, Informative)
You lefties are pro science, right? [wikipedia.org]
From the PDF:
What does a physics lab have to say on the topic?
http://sbhepnt.physics.sunysb.edu/~rijssenbeek/RadiationSafety.html [sunysb.edu]
tl; dr version:
ZOMG! The EPA is saying there is no reason to panic over radiation doses less than half the dose that causes effects in your body that medical science is able to detect!
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You're talking about short term radiation poisoning right? What about long term effects?
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Not measureable. There are lots of places that, due to their geology, have higher than average background radiation levels. They don't have higher cancer rates.
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From the article you linked: "Reports by the United States National Research Council and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) argue[15] that there is no evidence for hormesis in humans and in the case of the National Research Council hormesis is outright rejected as a possibility.[16]"
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Linear extrapolation is not science. It does not match the evidence. Go read the article on hormesis that I linked up.
Doesn't matter who repeats it, or how many times. It is not real. It was adopted as a legal fiction out of convenience, and since then it has inflicted trillions of dollars in counterproductive costs on us.
Why no data from Chernobyl or Fukushima (Score:2)
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Yeah (Score:2)
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I don't believe half of what my government tells me.
Which half?
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We're all going to die! (Score:2)
Trump will start the nukes!
Yeah (Score:2)
Political Bullshit! (Score:2)
Re:NO RADON INSPECTION REQUIRED ? (Score:4, Informative)
Chronic vs. acute exposure. A couple of hundred millirems per week may not be as bad as a few milirems from an alpha particle for dozens of years for kids playing in the basement.
Re:NO RADON INSPECTION REQUIRED ? (Score:5, Funny)
A couple of hundred millirems per week may not be as bad as a few milirems from an alpha particle for dozens of years for kids playing in the basement.
Wait a second, just how long did you keep your kids in the basement? If you keep someone in there for dozens of years then they definitely aren't kids any more... And you're a bad person
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Perhaps they are his neighbours kids? ...
And he somehow simply forgot
Re:NO RADON INSPECTION REQUIRED ? (Score:5, Funny)
If you keep someone in there for dozens of years
Keep him there? We can't get him to leave.
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Most, if not all, mandatory radon inspections are only mandatory because the lender wants it. There are, as far as I know, no laws requiring radon inspection. The lender wants the inspections because even the appearance of a problem can drastically lower the property value.
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Pensive [newyorker.com] stare.
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Look, reactor fallout and dirty bombs are not quite the same.
The main thing is this: incidental exposure in an area with rain is only that from direct contact and ingestion, either via air (masks) or water/food.
You can flush your system with drinkable water, on a residential level, from the water stored in your hot water heater and in your toilet reservoirs, as well as anything in your fridge or freezer.
It's only from crops grown or water collected after the incident that you have a risk. Shower if exposed, change clothes exposed. Don't eat local products grown after the time of exposure.
As Hanford starts to leach higher levels into the water table that feeds the lower Columbia basin it only stands to reason that the water source for that agricultural area needs to be deemed safe as it spikes. By increasing the level of water born exposure tolerated it slows down the cleanup required to keep the water at a lower level of contamination. Next on the chopping block is the cleanup super fund and costs of monitoring and reimbursing workers that are not able to work due to reaching exposure limit