Oh, FFS! APNewsBreak: Trump's EPA moving to loosen radiation limits

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 radiation guidance 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,” Edward Calabrese, a toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts, said in 2016. He was to be the lead witness at a congressional hearing Wednesday on EPA’s push for what it calls transparency in science.The proposed rule would require regulators to consider “various threshold models across the exposure range” when it comes to dangerous substances.


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