MIT released a new study last week proclaiming that “the guidelines governments use to determine when to evacuate people following a nuclear accident may be too conservative. “

The study by Olipitz et al (aka: MIT mouse study) is being used to advocate for a sweeping downgrade of nuclear safety policy. This is based on a five week low dose external radiation exposure study of mice.
(Werner Olipitz bio)
The MIT promotional announcement of the study included these claims:

• “Current U.S. regulations require that residents of any area that reaches radiation levels eight times higher than background should be evacuated. However,the financial and emotional cost of such relocation may not be worthwhile, the researchers say.”
• ““There are no data that say that’s a dangerous level,” says Yanch, a senior lecturer in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. “This paper shows that you could go 400 times higher than average background levels and you’re still not detecting genetic damage.”
• “Until now, very few studies have measured the effects of low doses of radiation delivered over a long period of time. This study is the first to measure the genetic damage seen at a level as low as 400 times background (0.0002 centigray per minute, or 105 cGy in a year).”
• “Though the study ended after five weeks, Engelward believes the results would be the same for longer exposures. “My take on this is that this amount of  radiation is not creating very many lesions to begin with, and you already have good DNA repair systems. My guess is that you could probably leave the mice there indefinitely and the damage wouldn’t be significant,” she says”
  
• “However, the researchers say that more studies are needed before evacuation guidelines can be revised.”

One of the two researchers quoted by the MIT press release also predicted less than a month after the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, that there would be no or only minimal bad health outcomes from Fukushima.  She also went on to make predictions about the workers health outcomes at a time when the exposures and even who some of the workers were was unknown. More on her later in the article.

Some Key Issues With The Study:

• The study was only 5 weeks
• The study looked at external exposure only (ignoring internal exposure), existing evidence shows accident exposures are drastically different than the lab scenario used in the MIT study
• The acute group and the chronic group were irradiated by different methods
• A previous study using a lower rate and longer duration of exposure disputes MIT’s finding
• The numbers of mice in the study groups are extremely low and of a possibly radiation resistant type, a non-standard mouse was also used
• The isotope used, iodine 125 has a considerably different (lower) gamma energy than the common nuclides in an accident.
• Claims that there are very few studies of low dose radiation

Read the rest of the story by clicking HERE

MIT No-Evacuations Study Debunked