Millions of workers employed in the nuclear industry have been exposed to chronic low LET radiation, mostly to cumulative doses <100 mSv [1, 2]. A chronic threshold dose of ~10 mSv/day or ~200 mSv/year was found to cause an excess relative risk (ERR) for all solid cancers in irradiated human populations [3–7]. Luckey was the first to find a bioposi-tive effect of ionizing radiation on cancer formation in nuclear workers (Table 6.1) [1]. A similar study published 17 years later found similar results, that cancer mortality among nuclear workers receiving cumulative lifetime doses of <100 mSv experienced less cancer mortality (Table 6.2).
No relationship was found between radiation exposure and increased cancer incidence in 65 epidemiological studies of populations living around nuclear power stations, fuel reprocessing plants and weapons facilities and testing sites in the U.K., U.S., France and Canada [9]. However, evidence for reduced all cause and all cancer mortality has been found in most epidemiological studies of nuclear workers in scores of locations throughout the world, including nuclear power utility workers, nuclear fuel workers and plutonium workers [10]. The SMR for all cancer was 0.74 for combined genders in a cohort of 45,468 Canadian nuclear power industry workers (1957–1994) [11]. A reduced cancer risk (RR = 0.73) was found at cumulative doses of 20–40 mSv in nuclear utility workers of U.S., U.K. and Canada [12, 13].
Most radiation protection agencies deliberately ignore and dismiss radiation hormesis
(Charles Sanders)
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(2010). Nuclear Workers. In: Sanders, C.L. (eds) Radiation Hormesis and the Linear-No-Threshold Assumption. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03720-7_6
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