Dr. Conca reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set new radiation guidelines that raise the acceptable limits on the radiation dose that can be tolerated by first responders and emergency personnel in the case of a nuclear incident, radspill, terrorist attack like a dirty bomb, or any other radiological emergency.
‘According to radiation safety experts, radiation exposures of 5-10 rem (5,000-10,000 mrem or 50-100 mSv) usually result in no harmful health effects, because radiation below these levels is a minor contributor to our overall cancer risk,’ EPA said in the document.
This change is long overdue, and has nothing to do with the present EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, or the Trump Administration. There has been a major push over the last twenty years by scientists in the field to change these limits - ever since Fukushima and Chernobyl showed the real danger of having too low limits. The Obama Administration was also trying to raise these limits.
We have long known that our established radiation limits were absurdly low and have led to widespread fear and panic over radiation levels that are the same as normal background levels across many parts of the Earth. Such unreasonable, and unscientific, limits cause unfounded fear, and have hurt and killed more people than the radiation released from events such as Fukushima or Chernobyl. This fear is also the reason that a dirty bomb attack would be successful against the United States.
A dirty bomb, or a radiation dispersal device (RDD), uses a conventional bomb, such as a car bomb, to disperse radioactive materials in a populated or financial district to cause great economic and social disruption disproportionate to their actual radiological effects and well beyond the physical destruction from their conventional bomb components.
A dirty bomb is a psychological weapon, not a nuclear weapon. Research has shown that few people, if any, would die from the radiation from a dirty bomb, even a big one, although hundreds would die from the conventional blast. But it would scare everyone. The panic and bureaucratic confusion would most likely prevent the correct and timely response, causing harm and even death during the evacuation, like what occurred at Fukushima, and driving clean-up costs upwards of several hundred billion dollars if detonated in an area like Manhattan. This is the strength of such a weapon, and it’s based on fear and misunderstanding of radiation.
These EPA changes raise the radiation limits that emergency personnel can take, making them less fearful of responding to an event, which will make this weapon less effective, and will make any radiological incident less deadly. The change was included as part of EPA guidance on messaging and communications in the event of a nuclear power plant meltdown or a dirty bomb attack. The September 2017 FAQ document, is part of a broader planning document for nuclear emergencies, but is not a federal standard or a law.
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