Professor Dillwyn Williams casts doubt on ICRP radiation risk model

In the Guardian of 18th January 2010 a letter from Professor Dillwyn Williams of Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge, called for an unbiased study of the consequences of Chernobyl. The letter was low key and it cleverly flattered the newspaper's thesis that popular fears about radiation are hysterical. But, the Professor added,

"After Chernobyl a variety of tumours have been reported to show an increased incidence in the general population."

This runs quite counter to the Guardian's key message because (as the nuclear establishment is fond of pointing out) "Chernobyl was a low dose event" - maximum doses of around 2 milliSieverts were not too different from natural background. Unless the ICRP's average dose model is flawed in some way, such low doses shouldn't cause any increase of disease great enough to see above the noise of spontaneous incidence rates.
The tail of the letter carried another sting. Professor Williams said the "unbiased study" was needed because

"Much of our knowledge of the health effects of radiation comes from a comprehensive lifespan study of those exposed to radiation from the atomic bombs in Japan. The effects of the bomb, due to whole-body external radiation by gamma rays and neutrons, differ from those from fallout, which involve internal beta and gamma radiation from isotopes."

This is a clear acknowledgement that,

• if the reported cancer increases are real,

and

• if they cannot be attributed to a cause other than Chernobyl fallout,

it follows that exposure to the radioactive species that got inside people's bodies is affecting their health in a way that's crucially different from the impact of external radiation.
Thanks Dillwyn; this is what we've been saying for 20 years.

An afterthought

It's curious that Professor Williams left alpha emitting radionuclides out of his list of internal radiation hazards. Thanks to Professor Malcolm Hooper for pointing this out. Alphas are a hazard ONLY when they are internal - the whole DU story, as Professor Hooper puts it. He was a member of the UK MoD's Depleted Uranium Oversight Board.

A further contribution

A reply from Dr. Ian Fairlie was published in the Guardian, 20th January 2010 - LLRC comments