The Nation's Newest National Park ...

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by catswiththum

I had a lot of friends at the Savannah River site - had - more than half of them dead early.

But, you are right - it is hard to prove causation.

At the risk of sounding a bit morbid, if half die early and half die late, they may collectively die at an average age. The whole causation thing with ionizing radiation is tough, unless we're talking massive acute doses. In fact, there's a theory, radiation hormesis, that low doses of ionizing radiation (within the region of and just above natural background levels) are beneficial, stimulating the activation of repair mechanisms that protect against disease, that are not activated in absence of ionizing radiation