Ludwig E. Feinendegen, Specialist in Radiation Medicine, Lindau, Germany

“Low doses of radiation stimulate the body’s defences”

Ludwig E. Feinendegen is a specialist in radiation medicine and has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board on Civil Defence and Disaster Protection at the German Federal Ministry of the Interior since 1974. Feinendegen is a signatory to an open letter (“An Open Letter to Advisory Bodies Regarding Low Dose Radiation Cancer Risk”), in which 23 scientists from around the world call on international authorities to establish the limit considered harmless for radiation protection.

“Even I was surprised back in 1979 when a doctoral student told me he had determined that cells exposed to low doses of radiation exhibited a change a few hours later that influenced the metabolism in the genetic material. This unexpected behaviour proved in further tests to be a positive reaction, not a negative one. The cells appeared to be stronger in their resistance. Actually, all we were interested was in developing a biological dosimetry so that we could make a statement about the radiation dose based on specific reactions in the cell. But now something emerged that challenged the popular notion about the effects of low doses of radiation. Those results have since been confirmed may times over. Today it’s for me established, scientifically-based knowledge: low doses of radiation act – with individual genetic differences – as a stimulant on the body’s defence system, like a ‘stress reaction’ – and not just for a brief period but over months, even years. This means that at low doses of radiation, the risk of developing cancer is reduced and not increased as conventional wisdom would have us believe and on which all radiation protection limits are based. This can now be seen in numerous epidemiological studies conducted on large groups of people. The authors of a recent study from India report that people in a coastal region, who are exposed to significantly elevated levels of background radiation, have only a slightly increased risk of DNA damage in their youth. After that, they live with a lower risk of radiation damage and therefore a lower expected risk of cancer until old age – just like people in a comparable region with a much lower level of background radiation. The linear no-threshold model assumes that there is a linear correlation between radiation dose and risk of developing cancer that begins with zero, which means that there is no limit between harmful and harmless. This has to be replaced as a matter of priority. It doesn't protect people at all from radiation damage, which doesn't even exist at low levels, but instead causes much more damage: through uncertainty and expensive, unnecessary radiation protection measures. I would like to see a major conference convened that would pioneer new approaches in radiation protection. On the one hand, there exists the legitimate right to be protected from harmful radiation. But conversely there is also the right to permit radiation that is of demonstrable benefit, not harm, to humans. The exclusion zones in Chernobyl and Fukushima would then likely have to be lifted, at least somewhat.”

 

read more:

Atomic bomb victims as a reference

Mensch + Energie

Vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen „Energiewende“-Debatten möchten wir einen kritischen Diskussionsbeitrag leisten für all jene, die mehr wissen wollen zum Thema Energie. Und wir möchten einen Beitrag leisten, die tiefen ideologischen Gräben zu überwinden, die Befürworter und Gegner trennen. Denn die Wahrheit wird bei diesem Thema sehr schnell relativ bzw. relativiert, man bewegt sich auf einem Feld, in dem sich Experten, Meinungsmacherinnern, Ideologen, Betroffene, Opfer, Lobbyisten, Politikerinnen und Weltenretter tummeln. Sie alle sollen zu Wort kommen, sie sollen von ihrer Wahrheit erzählen, der Wahrheit des Strahlenopfers ebenso wie jener des Kraftwerkbetreibers, des Befürworters und der Gegnerin.

Aus mensch-und-atom.org wird mensch-und-energie.org

 

header neumenschundatom2 

 

 

Eine Initiative des 

Logo neu2

We use cookies

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential for the operation of the site, while others help us to improve this site and the user experience (tracking cookies). You can decide for yourself whether you want to allow cookies or not. Please note that if you reject them, you may not be able to use all the functionalities of the site.