Stayin' alive in the gene pool (3-part series)

[edireland]

Nov 12, 2013 16:03:15 GMT 9.5 Roger Clifton said:

I dont know how the dose was originally measured, it may have been "total ionization" of 200 mGy in which case the casualties may well have been stopping more neutrons than gammas. (EdIreland, is your "10000 rads" from neutrons or gammas? - link please)

The '10,000 rad' figure relates purely to Gamma emissions, neutrons are a relatively minor threat against protected military personnel for the simple reason that they are rather easy to shield against.
That is the real reason that the neutron bomb was cancelled, as well as it's predicted cost, because armoured vehicles (and other facilities) developed to resist the induced radioactivity mechanism that would be used to kill the crew.

Although the dose to an unprotected person that close to the burst is huge from a standard weapon, the neutrons are almost entirely produced instantaneously while the weapon is still a relatively compact ball of material and thus proper engineering of the bomb casing can reduced the dose to levels that are unimportant.

This is an exerpt from a rather interesting book on the topic, but the general idea that radiation from low yield weapons is far more deadly than blast effects runs throughout the military orientated literature.

[Robert Hargraves]

Geoff, The book Radiation: what it is, what you need to know, is excellent. So is Wade Allison's Radiation and Reason.

[Barry Brook]

The 3rd and final part of the series is now posted - link provided above in the OP.

[ron]

Geoff,

Thanks for your spirited review of some of the complex issues in carcinogenesis and the role of radiation. The "no safe dose" fear underlies much resistance to nuclear energy development. Without dispelling this fear, even the best promotion of nuclear power plant safety is often dismissed with the three word refrain: "but what if?"

Your reference to RERF's (Radiation Effects Research Foundation) //estimate of 11% increase in risk of solid cancer for the survivors of Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings// caught my attention. Wade Allison (in Radiation & Reason page 88 - 92) provides an analysis of data from 1950 to 2000, that I believe also came from RERF (via a paper by Dale Preston et al 2004 ). The data he presents (which differs from that provided at your link to RERF) support his statement that //the number of deaths from solid cancer that can be attributed to radiation from the bombing "is half of 1% of the survivors"//. ("Attributed" here refers to the difference between expected and actual.) The expected rate of death from solid cancers for Japanese without bomb exposure is 11.14% whereas the actual rate of those exposed (to the year 2000) was 11.69%. Or put another way this was ~ 5% of those who died from solid tumor cancers. I am not sure why there is a discrepancy between Allison's data and that in the linked RERF data. He also argues that the differences in death rates for those with exposure less than 100 mSv are too small to support the LNT model that RERF claims is present. Regardless of the discrepancy, it is interesting to look at the way the results have been worded. (Approximately as stated between // marks above.) RERF tends to be biased towards a more toxic view of radiation. (Job security?) Whereas Allison clearly leans in the opposite direction.

Regarding our rapidly advancing awareness of the complexity of carcinogenesis in general and radio-biology in particular, Sylvain Costes at Lawrence Berkeley Labs has provided new insights. In case you missed it, here is the reference: Neumaier, Teresa, ... SV Costes: “Evidence for formation of DNA repair centers and dose-response nonlinearity in human cells.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS Dec. 2011. www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/12/16/1117849108.abstract
His group is finding that the cellular repair response to radiation varies among individuals and can be enhanced with exercise and diet. (Don't remember if he addressed red meat. I will try to follow up.) He has started a company called exogenbio to promote a lab test to monitor DNA damage and repair capacities. exogenbio.com

Thanks again.

[phyrefly]

Exquisitely arrogant is the human's cyclopian vision, like a frog's eye view from the bottom of a well. Current Livermore Lab report shows human responsibility for precipitation patterns. These patterns will affect microorganisms, which have their own ideas about mutations. Here we link the Monsanto mafia to dark-grown South Dakota salmon, now being boycotted:



Glyphosate / Eels

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20643706

'....Antioxidant defenses were unresponsive to glyphosate....'



www. for 17 May 2013 High Cesium Levels Discovered in Tokyo River Eels: Local Governments Make Belated Study



TEPCO had to report a postponment of rod removal so that Ambassador Kennedy could find the time to get her dress on to meet the Emperor. Delirious and arrogant calendrical fairy tales on the part of the Nuclear mafia.

[jagdish]

Residents of Monazite covered sea coast in Kerala, India, get a lot more radiation than elsewhere. The effects are regularly monitored by the Indian atomic energy commission. It is found that incidence of cancer and other criteria ascribed to radioactivity are similar to rest of India.
This area should be adopted as basis for determination of safe limit of radiation.

[Roger Clifton]

Jagdish, can you supply any numbers? They would be particulary valuable in the current discussion, as measures of the lifetime effects of increased chronic irradiation.

[jagdish]

www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/no-major-birth-defects-found-in-high-level-natural-radiation-areas-of-kerala/article3962027.ece
This newspaper article should meet your query

[Roger Clifton]

Jagdish -- your link takes us to a newspaper article about a stable population living on a surveyed area of ambient radiation dose up to 45 times normal. However it refers to unchanged congenital and birth defects, whereas we are interested in the correlation or not with cancers. Would you be able to provide us with a link to the paper or its abstract that the newspaper refered to in –

"An earlier study published in Health Physics in 2009 by scientists from the Regional Cancer Centre and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre showed no excess cancer risk from radiation exposure at the same high level natural radiation areas."

[jagdish]

I have also studied it on DAE website but am unable to locate it now.

[John ONeill]

Here's a report on it
www.hindu.com/seta/2009/01/01/stories/2009010150131600.htm

[Roger Clifton]

Jagdish had referred to a long-term study of cancers over areas of very high background radiation. Thank you, John Sullivan, for the link to the story. The newspaper article was well written and is worth a read.

Six districts, with 70,000 medical histories, were selected (apparently for their extreme high and low radiation levels, up to 70 mSv/a) for a correlation study. The researchers found that within a 95% confidence level, no correlation existed. That is, the scatter of cancer incidence was due to other causes.

The article allowed me to track down the abstract to the researchers' paper, the paper itself being behind a paywall. The regression line through the scatter is actually negative, although the scatter removes most of its significance.

Negative correlation has appeared several times now in medical radiation statistics. One study of the Hiroshima survivors showed a negative correlation that was ascribed to the fact that these people were visiting the doctor (for the study) more often than newcomers to the district. A study on nuclear workers also showed a negative correlation, ascribed to the "healthy worker effect". In each case, the statistics were not strong enough to assert a conclusion, however it has been fuel for those who believe that hormesis exceeds harm at low dose rates.

[pazsion]

damn, i was really hopeing someone had spent the time to actually tell us the facts... i began reading part 1 and concluded this whole thing may actually be geared towards down playing the effects of radiation...Should i actually waste my time reading this? You actually call greenpeace and others who know that no internal exposure of various man made substances, that happen to be radioactive, and produced by nuclear energy...none is good internally. but you twist it and say no radiation period anywhere...is these people perpective as you portray... This brings in to question everything this person writes... what else is misinterpreted or twisted? why is he doing this?

[David Walters]

I'm wondering how all these studies which deal almost exclusively with background radiation fair in the polemical world of nuclear energy/anti-nuclear energy debates. One of the things that antis always point to is that it's not all about background radiation but about particulate inhalation and ingestion of same. For example, polonium is an alpha emitter and thus once clothing or dead skin cells are enough usually to stop the penetration of the alphas. But if one ingests it, all bets are off. So we need to deal with *specific* isotopes like strontium-90, Cs (both) and so on that are really the issue in terms of convincing people.

The issue with atmospheric testing was the increase in Sr 90 from what I remember.

David

[QuarkingMad]

Dec 14, 2013 2:47:26 GMT 9.5 David Walters said:

I'm wondering how all these studies which deal almost exclusively with background radiation fair in the polemical world of nuclear energy/anti-nuclear energy debates. One of the things that antis always point to is that it's not all about background radiation but about particulate inhalation and ingestion of same. For example, polonium is an alpha emitter and thus once clothing or dead skin cells are enough usually to stop the penetration of the alphas. But if one ingests it, all bets are off. So we need to deal with *specific* isotopes like strontium-90, Cs (both) and so on that are really the issue in terms of convincing people.

The issue with atmospheric testing was the increase in Sr 90 from what I remember.

David

Argonne National Laboratory contaminant fact sheets for radionuclides:

www.gfxtechnology.com/ArgonneRadFacts.pdf

Risk levels are stated for inhalation and ingestion. All data sourced from scientific literature.

Enjoy.

[Roger Clifton]

David Walters said: "the issue with atmospheric testing was the increase in Sr 90 from what I remember"

Yes, I remember that too! But in those days we were trying to keep atom bombs unthinkable. I think we focused on Sr90 because it could be detected in babies' teeth. Human babies! Unthinkable! But we were glossing over the difference between "detectable" and "harmful" for the sake of the argument.

The aftermath of Chernobyl put our beliefs to the test. I, among many others, expected a bump in the occurrence of leukaemia, primarily due to Sr90, as strontium proxies for calcium. However, there was no such bump above the general background noise.

Instead, there was a very real bump (4000, as of 2002) of thyroid cancers, which have low background occurrence. Iodine 131 is particularly hot with a half life of eight days, and is a significant fraction of the fission products. So it is produced in harmful quantities in a spill of the size of Chernobyl. Nasty but non-fatal thyroid cancers resulted from its ingestion by children, because local authorities concealed the emission.  Authorities should declare that a spill has occurred and iodise the children immediately, as soon happened in East Germany and Poland, where no bump occurred.

As far as I know that was the only significant bump, and it was due to an acute dose, ingested. There has been no obvious surge in injuries that could be ascribed to chronic radiation, ingested or otherwise.

[Bas Gresnigt]

After Chernobyl, some districts in Germany (1000miles from Chernobyl) got radio-active rainfall (enhanced radiation level of only 0.5mSv/a an increase of ~30% compare to the background level) and other nearby similar districts not.

Only in the districts with radio-active contamination (mainly Cs-137; ~0.5mSv/a) the frequency of serious birth defects jumped upwards with ~25% (P: 0.0001)! The nearby similar districts without that contamination did not experience a change!
www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/ibb/homepage/hagen.scherb/CongenMalfStillb_0.pdf
Those birth defect concerned stillbirth, congenital malformation (heart deficiencies, etc), neural tube defects (Spina Bifida, etc), Down syndrome, etc.

Through informal contacts in Ukraine/Belarus (there are farmer communities which once came from Germany) the public is also much better informed about the real damage of Chernobyl. Austria has similar and banned all nuclear generated electricity; neither import nor transit is allowed.


Together with other studies (enhanced rates of clef lips, intelligence dips, etc) by German, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian researches, this contributed greatly to the 2000 agreement about the Energiewende in Germany.

Targets of the Energiewende:
1. Nuclear out (done in 2023);
2. Democratize energy (as big utilities have shown to be not trust worthy and act against the interest of the public installing NPP's);

3. More sustainability, hence more renewable (target 80% in 2050. Now in 2014 ~24%)
4. Affordable costs. Hence the migration over a 50year period (Denmark is faster. They have now ~35% generated by wind. Target 100% generated by renewable in 2040).
5. Less GHG (CO2)

[Tom Bond]

Bas Gresnigt

Check this link  www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/news/france-vs-germany-top-10-causes-of-death

The biggest cause of deaths in Germany are coronary heart disease and strokes.  Compared to France and adjusted for population Germany has 125,000 more deaths annually.

USEAR reports show that links to long term health issues caused by Chernobyl (except thyroid cancer) are statistically insignificant.

See the UNSEAR reports on Chernobyl at www.unscear.org/unscear/en/index.html

The biggest health risk was the irrational fear of radiation caused by misinformation.

If Germany is really interested in the health of their population and the reduction of GHG emissions, addressing the causes of coronary heart disease and strokes (likely to be eating red meat/preserved sausages and lack of exercise) together with the retention of their nuclear power capacity would be a much more productive and effective strategy. 

[Roger Clifton]

Bas Gresnigt linked us to a paper of 2003. This is a study of the correlation in space and time between government Cs137 measurements and the incidence of stillbirths and selected birth defects.

The study had been criticised on various grounds. One of them was that they did not acknowledge the contribution of (psychological) stress to the measurables. The fact that the Cs137 measurements had been made public to a fearful population was itself a significant source of stress varying in space and time, quite apart from any radiological effect.

A similar effect had been noticed during the Three Mile Island fuss. Correlations were being found between various ailments and the estimated fallout pattern downwind of the meltdown reactor. At the time, questions were raised as to whether the ailments were caused by fear, but of course we dismissed them as propaganda. Many months later, it was confirmed that no fallout radionuclides had escaped the reactor, so we should have looked in the mirror to find the source of their suffering. However I may have been alone among my friends in feeling ashamed of our backing the harassment.

However, this study of 2003 was superseded by the much larger study conducted by the Chernobyl Forum and published in 2005. They included the data used in this study and covered a more comprehensive set of measurables. Figure 4 (below, click on it) of the report shows the prevalence of congenital malformations in Belarus rather higher, if at all, in the less contaminated oblasts. Fear and its consequences are a major theme in that report. Who caused that fear? – They could have held up the mirror to us all.

Attachments:

[Bas]

Tom,
Just read the link I posted. Fetuses do not have irrational fears yet.

May be their mothers had, but then the mothers in the similar nearby districts had the same fears because at the time it was not known whether a district got radio-active fallout or not. And the mothers in those nearby districts produced new born without any increase in Down syndrome, stillbirth, congenital malformations, neural tube defects.

While the mothers in districts that had rainfall at the wrong moment (known in hindsight) produced new born with increased frequency of birth defects, which increase was roughly linear related to the level of radio-active contamination in the district (it varied from ~0.1mSv/a to ~0.5mSv/a). p <0.001

[Bas]

Roger,
Can you show a link with critique? I do not know of any critique and I searched for it.
It is also difficult to have critique due to the unique circumstance that some districts got contaminated and other nearby similar districts not, which delivered a rock-solid study design.

Your stress argument is not valid as at the time it was not known that there were (such unique) differences in radio-active contamination between districts. And there was no increase in districts that got no contamination. Furthermore the frequency of birth defects increased linear with the level of radio-active contamination in the district. p<0.001!

The Chernobyl forum restricted itself to only Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. And within those countries only to direct linked casualties (so liquidators, evacuees and some nearby people only).
And in those countries at the time:
- there was no good research done
- authorities wanted only favorable outcomes (one professor in Belarus whose study delivered significance casualties ended in prison with the accusation that he acted state unfriendly).

So thanks to those restrictions that forum could conclude that they found no indications that there were heredity effects (no good research so no indications).
No data / study result from any country outside those three countries was considered!
That was not strange as the forum was directed by the IAEA (delivered also the chairman) and the WHO agreed in the 1959 agreement to follow the IAEA in radiation matters.

Note: The atomic powers, which paid >90% of the WHO budget at that time wanted to stop the WHO critique on their atmospheric bomb testing. And they succeeded. After that agreement the WHO only followed the IAEA regarding the danger of nuclear radiation. And the IAEA has the target to spread peaceful application of nuclear energy...

Why should we use nuclear (with such risks) for electricity generation, while other safer methods have shown to be available (wind, solar, hydro, (pumped)storage, waste, biomass, etc.
And those methods are also far more cheaper than nuclear (if one takes the huge subsidies of nuclear off, and also those for wind, solar).

[Roger Clifton]

Bas asked for a link to a critique on the correlation study. If I remember correctly, it was commentary in New Scientist, about 10 years ago, remembered because it spoke of the problem of picking out a bump on a declining background (of improving health). A few years after 1986 the incidence of stillbirth and birth defects was actually lower than it was before, visible in their Figures. Since caesium 137 was continuing at similar levels of irradiation, whereas the mothers were no longer being so frightened by the scaremongering, it would seem that any correlation is with stress and not with radiation.

However we don't need to quote somebody else when we can read the paper for ourselves. Any reader will be able to pick out that the authors had selected their measurables. Any medically inclined reader might advise us on how legitimately they had selected among the various types of birth defects to correlate. The authors may have been able to eliminate any leakage of induced abortions (which did peak) into their statistics of stillbirths, but it is not clear that they had done so.

Bas also says that the set of measurements was unique. However, recently, Jagdish connected us to an article and paper that studied birth defects and stillbirths across a much more severe range of irradiated districts in Kerala. That study found no correlation.

Bas went on to say that we should not use an energy source with "such risks" when we could use cheaper and safer sources of energy. Of the energy sources he quoted, only not-so-clean hydro could give an equally reliable supply, however hydro is fast running out of its main resource – river valleys. Neither for that matter is hydro particularly safe, with more fatalities (75) in one accident alone than occurred at Chernobyl.

[Bas]

Jan 7, 2014 20:14:43 GMT 9.5 Roger Clifton said:

Roger,
"few years after 1986 the incidence of stillbirth and birth defects was actually lower than it was before..."
Of course the whole trend was downwards also in the years before Chernobyl (improved care, etc), also in non-contaminated districts.

"...caesium 137 was continuing at similar levels of irradiation.."
Yes but major part of the Cs-137 is washed away by subsequent rainfall, etc.

"... whereas the mothers were no longer being so frightened by the scaremongering,.."
If that was the issue, than a jump upwards in birth defects would also have been shown in districts that got no contamination.
But the size of the increase in birth defects correlated linear with the level of contamination. So a contamination of 0.4mSv/a resulted in a two times higher increase in birth defects than a contamination 0.2mSv/a!
(highly statistical significant; p<0.001)

"... the authors had selected their measurables... may have been able to eliminate any leakage of induced abortions"
Abortion is no birth defect and not a serious issue (stillbirth concerns fetuses that would have lived; 8-9months old). The authors took all classes of birth defects that the population administrations registered; so only real serious ones.
E.g. the class of congenital malformations include deformities of the heart, skull, face, jawbone, neck, spinal column, hip joint, long bones of the legs, etc.

"...article and paper that studied birth defects and stillbirths across a much more severe range of irradiated districts in Kerala..."
That study has many weak points: the level of those birth defects in India is x times higher anyway, the irradiation level of concerned mothers is not known well, as the high background radiation concerns mainly the beach (monazite sand).
Furthermore there are many confounding factors such as far more air pollution for mothers living farther off the beach, living in lower background radiation environments.

Significant enhanced rates of DNA/gene abnormalities have been found in high radiation areas (av. level 6mSv/a) in Kerala and Ramsar, despite the low numbers of people living in high background radiation levels.
E.g. "Long-term immune and cytogenetic effects of high level natural radiation on Ramsar inhabitants"
Those are easier to study, as they require lower numbers of test persons.

"... only not-so-clean hydro could give an equally reliable supply..."
Since the share of wind+solar became substantial in Germany (period 2002-2013), customer supply reliability increased a factor 2.
Av. total customer outage time was 30min/year. Now it is 15min/year.
Thanks to the more distributed and better predictable generation (gird management sees a wind flaw and clouds pass through their 1000km area with wind speeds of e.g. 20km/h, so together with weather prediction they can predict production very accurate.
Note that nuclear countries have far less reliability. France, UK ~4times less (60min/a down), USA more worse.
 
"...safe..."
No real expert believes the IAEA/WHO numbers regarding Chernobyl. Real estimations are ~1million deaths, most of those still have to come (same latency period of 20-60years as with smoking, asbestos, air-pollution, arsenic, etc.).

Apparently even the UN realized that their Chernobyl numbers are ridiculous low (Ukraine government produced a strong critical report), so they allowed WHO (without IAEA censorship!) to make a conservative estimation regarding Fukushima's future cancer numbers, which delivered 6% extra chance for children in the high contaminated zones.
The report avoids stating death numbers but using their figures, the populations involved and 40% chance to die if one gets cancer, delivers several thousands future deaths.
The report still does not take into account birth defect consequences (more stillbirth, Down syndrome, etc) as shown after Chernobyl in Germany, etc.

Using real numbers and excluding workers in the sector as those took the risk (citizens/children did not), even electricity generated by lignite burned in the new low temperature process (circulating fluidized bed) which generate hardly any NOx, etc. (those generated are filtered off), is less dangerous.

In addition
The study refers to ~20 other West European studies that also showed harm by that low level Chernobyl radiation.
Medical studies showed that the same levels harm. So the womb of a pregnant woman is never X-rayed while that involves a dose of only 0.01mSv.
So the study results are not abnormal. The study design is unique. Also because that excludes many possible confounding factors such as fear.

[Bas]

The emotional well written "Stayin’ alive in the gene pool" contains many statements that clearly do not fit at all with present scientific knowledge regarding the effects of low level radiations.

It states many 'facts' that are incompatible with e.g. the results of the famous Life Span Studies (LSS) regarding the victims of the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. Just read the last LSS report no.14.

Almost all "facts" concern effects that happen shortly after irradiation.
But many studies (medical, LSS, etc) showed that the detrimental effects (cancer, heart attacks, etc) of low level radiation show after a latency period of 20-60years. Similar as with smoking, asbestos, air-pollution, etc.

It even misses with easy to check facts.
Such as regarding the perspective of nuclear when it states (from part 2):"...nuclear has firmed not only as the most environmentally friendly energy technology we have, but also as the only technology with a hope in hell of being rolled out fast enough to help prevent further destabilisation of the climate."

The real facts:
In 2012 the world installed ~115GW of renewable netto. Wind+solar ~80GW, growing with ~20%/year.
In 2012 the world installed ~1GW nuclear. Grow? In 2013 more NPP's were closed and little started).

Around 1980 nuclear produced ~17% of the world's electricity. In 2012 nuclear produced ~10%.
In 1980 wind+solar produced far less than 1%. In 2012 wind alone produced more than nuclear in China. Similar in many other countries (e.g. ~35% in Denmark). Especially solar is growing with ~30%/year now producing substantial shares in countries such Italy, Germany, etc.

The costs of nuclear have been rising during the last 30 years. Expectations of future??
The costs of solar have gone down with ~8%/year during the last 30years. All experts expect the price decrease to continue with at least the same rate for the coming 10-30years.


So how can a rational person state that the old declining nuclear technology with hardly any expansion in past years, is the only technology that can be rolled out fast enough??
While it is clear that wind+solar are expanding out at an >10times faster rate, which is growing with 20% year.
Even production of nuclear went down during the last years.

While building a new safer NPP takes at least 10year and
new solar/wind takes ~10months.

If it is decided now to build a new NPP then it will come operational in 2024.
At that time solar produces for  4cent/KWh, price going down further. In 2035 price level will be below 2cent/KWh.

[sod]

The estimated lowest dose range with a significant ERR for all solid
cancer was 0 to 0.20 Gy, and a formal dose-threshold analysis indicated
no
threshold; i.e., zero dose was the best estimate of the threshold.

Thanks for the link.

www.rerf.jp/library/archives_e/lsstitle.html

I doubt that most regulars here will like this....

[Bas]

Jan 13, 2014 2:07:47 GMT 9.5 sod said:

The estimated lowest dose range with a significant ERR for all solid
cancer was 0 to 0.20 Gy, and a formal dose-threshold analysis indicated
no
threshold; i.e., zero dose was the best estimate of the threshold.

Thanks for the link.

www.rerf.jp/library/archives_e/lsstitle.html

I doubt that most regulars here will like this....

Sod,
Enhanced cancer risks are also showed at much lower doses, primarily by medical studies.

E.g. this recent Australian study: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=mathews+ct+australia
That showed a 24% cancer rate increase at persons that got a CT-scan (average dose only 5mSv) being a child.
Furthermore that the increase is bigger the younger the child was when it got the CT-scan (35% if the child was younger than 5years. P<0.001)

Those medical study results are the reason the womb of a pregnant woman is not X-rayed while such X-ray concerns a dose of only 0.01mSv.

For Chernobyl very serious detrimental effects have been shown for Cs-137 caused enhanced radiation of less than 1mSv/year.
Check: www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/ibb/homepage/hagen.scherb/CongenMalfStillb_0.pdf
These effects were shown in Germany, 1000mile away!
They played an important role in Germany's decision to make "nuclear out" the first priority of the Energiewende.

[David B. Benson]

BEIR VII clearly states that no extrapolation to doses of less than 100 mSv is warranted. More recent data firmly establishes than, indeed, for adults lower doses are harmless and possibly hormetic. For starters, read Wade Allison's "Radiation and Reason" or at least the many fairly recent postings on his website.

[trag]

Jan 5, 2014 18:20:50 GMT 9.5 Roger Clifton said:

Bas Gresnigt linked us to a paper of 2003. This is a study of the correlation in space and time between government Cs137 measurements and the incidence of stillbirths and selected birth defects.

Tom, and others, you're wasting your time with Bas, though if you want to correct the record for any lurkers who read this thread, that is worthwhile.

All of the debunking you are doing, has been done for Bas, patiently, repeatedly ad nauseum, over at Atomic Insights, and before that at Depleted Cranium, and he just infests site after site spewing the same drivel.

He is impervious to external input.

Personally, I believe that he is a paid troll, because it is difficult to believe that he can afford to devote the amount of time that he does to spreading FUD without being paid.

If he was doing it as a learning exercise, that would be justifiable. But everything you have told him, he has been told before, several times, and the fact that his quoted studies are flawed, his claimed facts are wrong, his position has been repeatedly, repeatably, and thoroughly debunked in the scientific literature, makes no difference to him.