‘Science Communicator’ Zion Lights tries to explain ionising radiation … and fails

Lights' substack article on the health effects of ionising radiation is not only laughably inaccurate, it is also dangerous.

Zion Lights calls herself a ‘Science Communicator’. She has a Masters degree in Science Communication but evidently skipped the lecture about how effective Science Communication requires an understanding of the underlying science. Her embarrassing article about the health effects of ionising radiation, discussed below, is a case in point. Truly and indubitably, jiggery-pokery of the highest order and the lowest repute.

A quick final point before we get to the article: Science Communicator Lights thinks she is a scientist because she has a degree in science communication. She isn't.

Nuclear medicine

Discussing nuclear medicine, Science Communicator Lights states: “Medical sources are the most significant human-made source of radiation, through diagnostic X-rays.” She evidently doesn’t know what nuclear medicine is (the use of radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis, therapy or palliation) … so shouldn’t be writing about it … and shouldn’t be calling herself a ‘Science Communicator’.

Worse still, Science Communicator Lights seems to think that the beneficial uses of ionising radiation in medicine prove that low-dose radiation exposure is beneficial in general ‒ “a little radiation is good”, she states. Hopelessly and dangerously confused.

Fukushima

Science Communicator Lights states: “Radiation levels of 0.06 millisieverts a day were recorded in Fukushima city, 65km northwest of the plant, which was about 60 times higher than normal, but this amount of exposure is not harmful to human health. Sadly, due to fear of radiation, hundreds of people did die after the meltdown when they panicked during the evacuation process.”

It’s hard to believe that anyone ‒ let alone a self-styled ‘Science Communicator’ ‒ could pack so much misinformation into a few sentences. Fukushima city was well beyond the evacuation zone. Radiation doses in the vicinity of the Fukushima nuclear plant were far higher than 0.06 mSv per day. The internationally-accepted limit for public doses from anthropogenic sources is 1 mSv/yr, well below the 22 mSv/yr level at Fukushima city. Most of the 160,000 evacuees were required to evacuate. The evacuation was a deadly shambles because of the lack of emergency preparedness by TEPCO and the government. The widespread panic was a rational response to the meltdowns, fires and explosions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Science Communicator Lights blames residents for panicking … which is a grotesque, deeply offensive sleight for which she will never apologise.

Low-level radiation exposure

Lights repeatedly claims that low-level ionising radiation exposure is harmless and suggests that doses below 100 mSv are harmless. She states that radiation levels of 0.06 millisieverts a day (22 mSv/yr) are “not harmful to human health” and that very small doses from eating bananas or brazil nuts “don’t harm anyone”. (For more on bananas, see ‘The Banana Equivalent Dose of catastrophic nuclear accidents’.) Speaking about naturally-occurring radiation from the earth or cosmic radiation, Lights states: “None of this radiation exposure harms people in any of these places.” She states that doses from 0.08‒0.18 mSv “do not pose harm to human health”.

What evidence does Science Communicator Lights provide in support of her view that low-level ionising radiation exposure is harmless? None. The central premise of her article is that low-level ionising radiation exposure is harmless and she provides ZERO evidence in support of that opinion! (For a useful summary of the relevant science, see Dr Ian Fairlie, ‘A 100 mSv threshold for radiation effects?’.)

So Science Communicator Lights believes that low-level ionising radiation exposure is harmless. But what do actual scientists have to say about the matter?

Actually, before we get to the scientists, you might want to replicate this experiment. See if you can come up with a more accurate summary than Science Communicator Lights with a simple web-search, and see if you can do so in 60 seconds or less. This is what I came up with (and it is indeed more accurate than Science Communicator Lights). From the US EPA: “Exposure to low levels of radiation encountered in the environment does not cause immediate health effects, but is a minor contributor to our overall cancer risk. … Risks that are low for an individual could still result in unacceptable numbers of additional cancers in a large population over time. For example, in a population of one million people, an average one-percent increase in lifetime cancer risk for individuals could result in 10,000 additional cancers. The EPA sets regulatory limits and recommends emergency response guidelines well below 100 millisieverts (10 rem) to protect the U.S. population, including sensitive groups such as children, from increased cancer risks from accumulated radiation dose over a lifetime.”

What do scientists say?

A 2010 report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation states that “the current balance of available evidence tends to favour a non-threshold response for the mutational component of radiation-associated cancer induction at low doses and low dose rates.” In other words, there is no dose below which there is no risk of radiation-induced cancer.

See here for similar statements from the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation of the US National Academy of Sciences, the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency, peer-reviewed scientific journals, and others.

A recent testing of anti-science gibberish from the nuclear lobby involved their efforts to get the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to weaken radiation protection standards. The NRC sought wide-ranging scientific advice and said in its 2021 report:

“Convincing evidence has not yet demonstrated the existence of a threshold below which there would be no stochastic effects from exposure to low radiation doses. As such, the NRC’s view is that the LNT [linear no-threshold] model continues to provide a sound basis for a conservative radiation protection regulatory framework that protects both the public and occupational workers.”

The NRC further notes that “authoritative scientific advisory bodies” such as the National Academy of Sciences, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, International Commission on Radiological Protection and the International Atomic Energy Agency “support the continued use of the LNT model.”

The 2021 NRC report further states:

“In addition to the findings of the national and international authoritative scientific advisory bodies, three Federal agencies provided comments on the petitions and supported the continued use of the LNT model as the basis for the NRC’s radiation protection program. The three agencies are the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services; and the Radiation Protection Division, Office of Air and Radiation, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Furthermore, the NRC’s Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes (ACMUI) recommends that the NRC continue to rely upon the LNT model.”

Conclusion

We should get our information about the health effects of ionising radiation from scientists, not from a self-styled ‘Science Communicator’ who wouldn’t know science if she fell over it and earns money from nuclear lobbying.

“For many years, I feared radiation more than cancer,” Lights says. Since she acknowledges holding irrational, incoherent views for many years, perhaps we’d best assume she may hold irrational, incoherent views now and for many years into the future.

For more information on Lights’ nuclear advocacy, see this Friends of the Earth webpage.