Fear of Low Dose Radiation

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Low dose radiation has harmed few people, but the fear of radiation has killed thousands. I will back up this statement in future blogs.

Why do we fear radiation? Is it because we can’t see it, we can’t smell it, we can’t hear it? Yet many types of radiation are all around us and have been since the beginning of life on earth.

There are most types of radiation form a spectrum, yet evolution has only provided a very narrow window for our senses. We often call this window the visible spectrum, the colours of the rainbow, the light our eyes can see. Yet, if it was so important for our health that we needed to avoid all forms of radiation, why hasn’t evolution given us the tools to measure its intensity?

Advances in man’s technology have now provided the tools to measure the smallest amounts of low dose ionising radiation, tools such as Geiger counters and scintillation counters. I used scintillation counting extensively when I worked in biochemical and medical research.

We now know that our planet is bombarded from space by cosmic rays every day. The core of our planet is radioactive, and this helped to make life on earth possible by making the planet a little warmer. No matter where we live, radiation comes from the rocks below us. It is in the food we eat and the water we drink. The background levels in some places on earth are much higher than those in Australia.

Potassium is very important for the health of our bodies. All of this potassium contains a proportion of the radioactive  form of potassium, potassium 40. So, every time we eat a banana or a potato or indeed get enough veggies or protein in our diet, we take in potassium 40.

Uranium, a word that puts fear in many people’s hearts, is absolutely ubiquitous in our world. It is everywhere. At one stage of my career, I had a team of people and a laboratory truck that travelled all over the Northern Territory sampling streams and ground water. The lowest concentrations of uranium we ever saw were in waters downstream of Ranger and Jabiluka mine sites. Our radiological standards in Australia are pretty tough but even so the drinking water standards are tougher still. Uranium is far more dangerous as a heavy metal then as a source of radiation. Heavy metals do damage to our kidneys.

Instead of protecting us by making ionising radiation visible to us, evolution has protected us with biochemical mechanisms that prevent, and repair damage created by low dose radiation. When life began on earth, the radiation levels were at least four times greater than they are now and may have even been even 10 times greater.

We now know far more about the effects of low dose radiation on people and other forms of life than we do about most chemicals in our environment. I will share some of that information in future blogs.