Dr. Conca reports that the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission thinks America should spend a lot of money and effort to change the safest radiological program in the world just so we can be the same as Europe. As if conformity in this area is important or that their safety record is better than ours. Which it is not.
NRC has proposed a rulemaking - ANPR - to change the existing U.S. radiation protection regulations to align with those of the International Commission on Radiological Protection - ICRP. The most important change would be to drop our present worker radiation limits from 5 rem per year to 2 rem per year (50 mSv per year to 20 mSv per year).
This is an unnecessary and expensive change that would not lead to better safety or lower exposures. The industry safety record is already as good as it can get. The NRC itself does not actually believe in adverse health effects of low-level radiation. They have said many times that, although radiation may cause cancer at high doses and high dose rates, public health data do not absolutely establish the occurrence of cancer following exposure to low doses and dose rates  below about 10,000 mrem (100 mSv. Studies of occupational workers who are chronically exposed to low levels of radiation above normal background have shown no adverse biological effects.
American radiation workers have the lowest work-related injury and death rate of any worker group in the world, including office workers and stockbrokers. According to data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, it is safer to work at a nuclear power plant than to sit at a desk trading stocks.
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