EPA moves to weaken radiation regulations, says a little might be good for you - Polidicks

https://apnews.com/6a573b6b020e453c90ecd5e84aa23f57 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is quietly moving to weaken U.S. radiation regulations, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — like a little bit of sunlight. The government’s current, decades-old guidance says that any exposure to harmful radiation is a cancer risk. And critics say the proposed change could lead to higher levels of exposure for workers at nuclear installations and oil and gas drilling sites, medical workers doing X-rays and CT scans, people living next to Superfund sites and any members of the public who one day might find themselves exposed to a radiation release. The Trump administration already has targeted a range of other regulations on toxins and pollutants, including coal power plant emissions and car exhaust, that it sees as costly and burdensome for businesses. Supporters of the EPA’s new proposal argue the government’s current no-tolerance rule for radiation damage forces unnecessary spending for handling exposure in accidents, at nuclear plants, in medical centers and at other sites. “This would have a positive effect on human health as well as save billions and billions and billions of dollars,” said Edward Calabrese, a toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts who is to be the lead witness at a congressional hearing Wednesday on EPA’s proposal. Calabrese, who made those remarks in a 2016 interview with a California nonprofit, was quoted by EPA in its announcement of the proposed rule in April. He declined repeated requests for an interview with The Associated Press. As recently as this March, the EPA’s online guidelines for radiation effects advised: “Current science suggests there is some cancer risk from any exposure to radiation.” “Even exposures below 100 millisieverts” — an amount roughly equivalent to 25 chest X-rays or about 14 CT chest scans — “slightly increase the risk of getting cancer in the future,” the agency’s guidance said. Calabrese and his supporters argue that smaller exposures of cell-damaging radiation and other carcinogens can serve as stressors that activate the body’s repair mechanisms and an make people healthier. They compare it to physical exercise or sunlight. Mainstream scientific consensus on radiation is based on deceptive science, says Calabrese, who argued in a 2014 essay for “righting the past deceptions and correcting the ongoing errors in environmental regulation.” U.S. agencies for decades have followed a policy that there is no threshold of radiation exposure that is risk-free. The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements reaffirmed that principle this year after a review of 29 public health studies on cancer rates among people exposed to low-dose radiation, via the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan in World War II, leak-prone Soviet nuclear installations, medical treatments and other sources. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates electronic devices that emit radiation, advises, broadly, that a single CT scan with a dose of 10 millisieverts may increase risks of a fatal cancer by about 1 chance in 2,000.

Insert some fallout meme here or something cause fucking lord this country is turning into a fucking over the top parody ffs

How about the EPA guys who want to change this hug a fuel rod first?

How soon do you think they're going to repeal the laws against child labor so that we can "compete with the Chinese".

Just in time for Fallout 76, my immersion from dying from my skin pealing off and bleeding from my mouth will be great.

I accept that I'm far from an authority on radiation, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that.

yeah, actually, it damaging the cells and having the cells keep repairing themselves, is how you get cancer, iirc

Frighteningly, that may not be that much of a stretch with the Child Prison Camps being a thing, but that is another topic.

Was this a move endorsed by a Mr snruB?

I'm not a doctor but this sounds ludicrously stupid.

shoot yourself with smaller bullets to build immunity from larger ones

This is why I will never for Republicans in my life, as bad as Democrats can be they crucially believe in things like facts, reality, and reason.

this seems to be this administration's goto logic, honestly. how the hell do you equate radiation emitted from a reactor to any sort of physical excercise at what point does something like jogging or running about cause cancer? im gonna guess these were the guys that opened their science textbooks in 5th grade and only looked for the "look at page 69 for boob"

This is like insane, hardcore propaganda levels of misinformation and lies. They compare it to physical exercise or sunlight. I'm no doctor but I'm also not a fucking idiot We're physically designed to live in sunlight, we aren't physically designed to radiation from Xrays. Yet the sun still causes damage. https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/capture56.png?quality=80 This is what sunlight can do over 20+ years to a trucker.

A toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts is saying this horseshit.

The fucking EPA is literally taking science advice from Ann Coulter Ann Coulter says exposure to low levels of radiation is good for.. Trump is turning the US government into a fucking garbage fire

Getting radiation poisoning to own the libs. God I hope this ends soon, the damage is almost completely irreparable and I don't think we'll be able to take more

Frankly we need 16+ years of Democrat presidents like after the Great Depression to sort the country out.

When people say this administration is cancer they really mean it.

I propose the White House be the testing ground for this theory. A 2 year trial run would be enough, no? Maybe a secondary test site at Trump tower would be good to increase the accuracy.

Yo can a federal judge get on this bullshit if they ignore the public comments like I'm 100% sure they will.

yknow, they say radiation cures cancer

We are all living as NPC’s in Grand Theft Auto.

The radiation regulation is supported by Steven Milloy, a Trump transition team member for the EPA who is known for challenging widely accepted ideas about manmade climate change and the health risks of tobacco. He has been promoting Calabrese’s theory of healthy radiation on his blog. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/229156/0659f497-21c3-403c-b5bf-324d2d8032a4/image.png

What a coincidence to find this thread, I was just looking for "haha oh boy here we go again"

ffs I hate when people perpetuate this meme. This only works with explosives and severe burns.

Does this mean we can start putting glowing radioactive materials into softdrinks? https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8e/07/eb/8e07eb9f1c548e09c18fc76f37b1f068.jpg Make it happen boys.

Boy, I can't wait to have yet another generation be viscerally opposed to nuclear power because of these fucks. What a pile of assholes.

It doesn't. This was a fad that was proved wildly dangerous and is the very thing Fallout parodies. Literally radioactive water was sold as a 'health and beauty booster' despite nobody knowing a god-damn thing about it. "But Firgof, that's crazy! How could they do that; surely some sort of regulatory agency would've stepped in!" And one did -- the EPA. Trump doesn't want to make America 'Great' again. He wants to make America 'the 1910s' again. https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-drink-radiation

The bright side is nobody really got hurt because the radiation they used was weak enough that it faded to harmless levels by the time the drink arrived on the shelf, making it just very overpriced water.