How did a discussion about higher background exposure become a discussion about massive radiation exposure?

I am not surprised by the article’s announcement, because as Brendan pointed out, there has been evidence that the assumption was wrong that there is a straight line relationship from zero to high dose for how biology reacts to radiation, the paper calls it the linear no-threshold paradigm. This assumption has been the official government position on radiation and has driven policy for half a century or so.

For a few decades it has been hypothesized from observation that a zero background exposure is less healthy than a slight background exposure. This paper suggests that the background exposure can be higher than had been thought by many. The thinking is that cells can correct a certain amount of damage due to radiation, but that too much radiation overwhelms this ability.

It is rather interesting that we are so frightened of radiation that we have been unwilling to perform experiments or otherwise study the relationship between background and health.

And that’s the problem. One of the Human tendencies that defies my belief, is the nearly irrational desire to use linear progressions to model real-world situations. For rough cuts, the natural log curve is much better suited. It is nearly a certainty that when a scare headline appears, it is off of some linear progression. There is much more to the world than that.

Jerry Greenwood said;
“a 70+ rear ongoing study of the offspring of Japanese directly exposed to extremely high doses of radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has shown no difference in birth defects”

What if they were exposed to over 100 above ground nuclear bomb tests?
https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/nevada-test-site-downwinders
I grew up west of Saint George Utah, directly in the path of the nuclear fall out. Although I was born after the last above ground test, many of my friends growing up got leukemia (like my grandfather at 64) or cancer or consumption and died.
Some farmers died in their 50s or 60s but their widows would live to their 90s. All the old people I knew growing up were widows. (Men would work outside while the women would stay in out of the heat)
Farms were devastated by the die off of the livestock, many people moved away. Then the rebound occurred, The desert came alive. My friends and I would bring 22 rifles and shotguns to school because the bus driver would pay us a bounty on every rabbit we killed walking through his fields on the way to our homes. (It barely paid for more bullets) then the coyote problem, lots of rabbits means lots of coyotes/cougars chasing sheep and chickens.
Although the fallout which pegged the Geiger counters killed John Wayne and 40 of his cast members (check the link I posted above) lots of Hollywood movies continue to be made near my home. I was a child extra in “The Car” and roller skated with Jane Fonda when I was 16. (Electric Horseman)
40 years ago I was offered my grandmothers house and 5 acres for $10,000. Now the desert, I raced my dirtbike in, is selling a building lot for 250,000 each.

Who would’ve thunk it that the most irradiated part of the country is now the most desirable. (Utah’s housing market is number one in the nation again, Saint George has most of the millionaires)
From the link;
“It is estimated that nearly 150 million curies of radioactive material was released through the atmospheric tests conducted from 1951 to 1962. This amount of radiation equates to about twenty times the amount of radiation released during the Chernobyl nuclear accident.”

Washington County, (southern Utah) is considered one of the healthier places in the country to be. A favorite relocation of retirees for their health. Home of the Senior Olympics. Saturated with nuclear by products…

The freedom of information act allowed researchers to find out that they did 400 more underground test then the public statements.
In the mid-70s, one of those tests got away from them… I remember watching an outdoor projector movie, just after sunset, when Utah Hill on the Nevada border lit up like the sun was coming back up. Everyone stopped and stared asking if it was a forest fire or is it military flares from Nellis Air Force Base? (The hot shots, in their jets, would fly low over our town and mountains training for Vietnam and break the sound barrier on their way back to Nevada)
As the ball of light got bigger it began to get dimer until the entire western sky was a dull red with glitter. The Nevada test site is about 80 miles away next to area 51, but we all knew what we would need to do… wash everything down with a garden hose in the morning with masks on. The next day the wind kicked up so fiercely the dust blocked out the sun, almost like night. Very scary, I remember being upset because we weren’t going to the county fair after all.

Col Beausabre said;
“Not that I would go for a swim in a reactor’s cooling pool…..”
You will really like this!

The Nuclear Hoax – Galen Windsor
“He Eats Uranium, Ignites Plutonium In His Hand, Drank and Swam In Reactor Water!”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rMqHTbXm3rs&noapp=1
Information about nuclear materials that you’ve never heard before. Why the most valuable element on earth suddenly became “toxic nuclear waste”.

Here’s a transcript if you prefer to read it.
https://www.physiciansforcivildefense.org/2014/06/11/the-nuclear-scare-scam-galen-winsor/

He even exposed the three Mile Island scam in his investigation.

I wonder if 5G radiation is harmful? Just to the militaries radar… Raytheon will find out… In my backyard again.
https://www.raytheonintelligenceandspace.com/news/advisories/raytheon-bbn-enhance-5g-and-airborne-radar-coexistence

At least all the chemicals and nerve gas stored at Dugway proving grounds has been disposed of… So the only thing left to worry about is the military’s biological repository. (remember a request from a university for anthrax? And somebody there sent them live samples?)
The state passed a law preventing the military from building a “level five” facility in Utah (Wuhan was a level four) so Doug Way built a level 4.99 facility! No wonder Stephen king used it in his book “The Stand”.

That such a large study replicates what was known over 25 years ago is great news (especially for space travel).

Expect the public health people to ignore it, and especially expect EPA to ignore it. NRC might adapt it. They have always had much better people there.