No, I did not get cancer because of radiation

05-06-2024

At this point, it is safe to say that a non-negligible portion of the populace is aware of the aeroplane crash fallacy: despite being one of the safest forms of transportation (beating trains, even), a certain aprehension is felt whenever taking off in one. That's because aeroplane crashes are over-represented in media, and every facet of minor faults is discussed to minute detail.

Take for example the 787 Dreamliner scare of a few months back, which was a sudden drop of altitude caused by an unfortunate activation of the seat switch. Although "only" injuries were sustained during the event, it was embroiled in the Boeing controversy and therefore reported on extensively.

Radiation and cancer face the same relationship. Having been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and being heavily interested in physics/nuclear power, I was told multiple, albeit jokingly, that if "someone was going to get cancer, it was you". Yes, I've handled Cobalt-60 and Caesium-137 samples, but safely, and besides, this is not a type of cancer often associated with radiation. As a matter of fact, few are.

One article published in the British Journal of Cancer puts radiation-induced cancers as 2% of the total, naturally following a no-threshold model for radiation damage and extrapolations based on exposure data. As for excess cancers stemming from diagnostic radiation, the population-attributable fraction sits at a 0.6% average between multiple types of cancer.

Most interestingly, one paragraph cites how smoking literally poisons a set of data:

The 1376 cases of lung cancer attributable to residential radon represent 3.4% of the total number of lung cancer cases estimated to have occurred in the UK in 2010

The vast majority of radon-induced lung cancers are caused jointly by radon and active smoking in the sense that the lung cancer could have been avoided by avoiding either exposure; radon alone was estimated to be responsible for only 157 deaths in 2006 (0.5% of lung cancer deaths).

Naturally, cancer is also brought up when examining nuclear disasters, such as Chernobyl, but the number of excess cases for Chernobyl is often over-estimated and fails to take into account socioeconomic factors that followed the fall of the USSR, such as increased alcohol consumption, stress, drug use and a collapse of the healthcare system. There was no statistically significant increase over 10 years in leukemia cases (except for CLL in liquidators), and solid cancers faced a similar picture. There are roughly 7000 excess cases of thyroid cancer in the affected areas, nevertheless, some of these cancers may reflect ascertainment bias.

Although the presence of alpha-emitters can (to a degree) be linearly correlated with an increase in cancer risk, these risks are not equally distributed across the population, since those who come in contact with radionucleides on a daily basis will naturally be at an increased risk, albeit very small.

Even then, the number of excess deaths is not significant; cancer is the cause of just over 25% of all deaths in England, whilst it represented 27% of all deaths in a 15 country study of nuclear industry workers. Of these deaths, it is estimated that 1-2% of them might be attributable to radiation.

Of course, it's hard to get an accurate number as it is hard to control for lifestyle factors and pre-existing conditions, which is something mentioned in almost all studies. Which brings me back to the original point: there are many causes of cancer, ranging from viruses, to habits, to exposure to different compounds, all of which don't receive the same scrutiny as radiation. The number of radiation-attributable deaths is low in the nuclear industry precisely because of that oversight, but the association hinders radiation's "image", when it is barely a blip on the radar for public health.

One of the reasons my treatment is being effective as it is is due to radiation imaging, irradiation of blood (which made recovery from an infection possible), irradiation of hospital equipment. Radiation did not cause my cancer, but it's one of the pillars of the treatment that will get rid of it, and yet, we're constantly cowering and balking in fear at minimal doses of radiation.

The release of water containing tritium (let me remind you: tritium is a hydrogen isotope that occurs naturally in water) in Fukushima caused major public outcry, when the water being released has less tritium than the ocean itself. We're polluting the ocean with... water that is cleaner than the water in the ocean already?

Germany had no problem firing lignite-burning power plants that emit a gigantic amount of radiation compared to nuclear power plants, and causing cancer cases due to air pollution. Yet we fear nuclear power plants and chest x-rays?

Radiation should be treated with respect, not fear. It's a tool not too dissimilar from a table saw; obey basic safety legislation and you'll be unharmed. I am personally tired of all the cancer/radiation jokes, and if I have anything to blame for this situation I find myself in, it's not the gamma rays that are saving my life.