EPA Says Higher Radiation Levels Pose ‘No Harmful Health Effect’

[FriendlyFire]

Enjoy and Drink the coolaid radioactive water
Oh well Republicans have to learn the hard way.

EPA Says Higher Radiation Levels Pose ‘No Harmful Health Effect’

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."

A 2007 version of the same document stated that no level of radiation is safe, concluding: "The current body of scientific knowledge tells us this."

“I knew that under Scott Pruitt EPA is in climate denial but now it appears to be in radiation denial, as well,” Ruch said. “This appears to be another case of the Pruitt EPA proclaiming conclusions exactly opposite the overwhelming weight of scientific research.”

Ruch said he was concerned the document signals that in the event of a "Fukushima-type" nuclear meltdown the EPA would allow public consumption of radiation-contaminated drinking water.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...adiation-levels-pose-no-harmful-health-effect

 

[Silurian]

Maybe Scott Pruitt should volunteer to test tthe safety of radiation-contaminated drinking water.

 

[Commodore]

Meh. People in Fallout seem to do alright with irradiated water.

 

[Ryika]

Enjoy and Drink the coolaid radioactive water

[...]

The EPA’s determination sets a level ten times the drinking water standard for radiation recommended under President Barack Obama.

So... from that comment and the part you marked in bold I conclude that you read this article and thought the EPA would increase its threshold for drinking water by x10. That's just hilariously dumb.

But it is supported by the article, which claims:

EPA says protective level is ten times that set under Obama

...however, that's literal fake news (or at least intentionally misleading). The recommended threshold for drinking water however has not changed at all. Recommended threshold for water is still 500 mrem. 5,000–10,000 mrem are just the numbers the EPA names as threshold for overall intake at which you will not have any immediate health effects.

From the Obama-era guidelines:

4.6.3.1 Other Standards
NRC regulations (i.e., 10 CFR Part 20.1301) have established a public radiation protection standard of 100 mrem per year effective dose. The ICRP recommends reference levels in the range of 2,000 to 10,000 mrem (20 to 100 mSv) for protection of human health in emergencies, and in the range of 100 to 2,000 mrem (1 to 20 mSv) for occupational exposure, exposure by caregivers, or residential radon exposure (ICRP 2007). Based on a risk reduction approach, EPA recommends that the drinking water PAGs be set at the lower (more stringent) end of the latter range to ensure protection of public health.

So yeah, that number for overall intake in emergency situations is also the same and the EPA just went with the lowest possible standard which is reasonable, and it's not something that they changed in the supplementary PAG. They just acknowledge that between 500 and 5000 lies basically "only" an increased risk of cancer. They did NOT say that therefor the lower standard should now be abolished, quite the opposite.

So everything you quoted is utterly meaningless, FriendlyFire. Sad - especially because there is some valid criticism in the article, you've just missed it because you were blinded by what you wanted to see. This part of the guidelines is what's questionable:

"How much radiation is safe? How much is considered low risk?

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."

(Note how it says "usually", but somehow that was changed to "EPA Says Higher Radiation Levels Pose ‘No Harmful Health Effect’" in the article?)

The controversial thing about this is how it is phrased, but as far as I can tell, the information given is correct, and the very idea that they're claiming any amount of radiation to be "safe" comes only from question in the headline that suggests that there may be a threshold where there is no risk at all, but neither the answer nor the rest of the guidelines make such a claim.

That "minor contributor" however seems very sketchy. The link in the article brings up the following information:

"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;"

So basically, if we take that at face value, then the chance of having negative effects from that sort of radiation exposure is 1 in 86. That is information that should be in there, and the "minor contributor to our overall cancer risk" is very sloppy phrasing that diminishes the danger and sounds more like 0.01% increase, not 1.16% (compared to no radiation at all of course) - which is still low, but high enough that you should take it into consideration and would probably be advised to leave the area if you can.

Overall, big fuzz over a minor problem.