Minimizing the Threat of Radiation Exposure

Does the body adapt naturally to protect itself from radiation exposure? And if so can we calculate in this protective adaptability and relax about radiation exposures? Dr. Garry F. Gordon, who is considered the “father of chelation therapy,” thinks so, going so far as to say in a June 08, 2012 email to his FACT discussion group subscribers, “I have not been too concerned about the increased low-level exposure most of us might receive due to the nuclear power issues in Japan. I do not see a need to add anything to my personal program that is posted on my website just because there is some increase in low-level radiation exposure following the Japan nuclear power incident.”

Claudia French, RN (retired), the assistant director of the IMVA, wrote to me saying, “I was simply taken aback with shock when I saw this from the man who, above all else, warns us that toxicities are our daily companions and that we must constantly chelate to prevent the harm coming from these! Not to be worried about radiation from Fukushima due to hormesis (our bodies adapting to and automatically up regulating production of life-saving antioxidants) seemed in total opposition to what he has preached about lead and mercury… feeling that these heavy metals are harder to fight against than radiation?”

Claudia said, “He’s 77 years old now, and maybe if someone has been following his personal protocol for many years they might be more immune to the radiation than normal people, just like those of us who are up to par on iodine in our bodies won’t be so affected by I-131 radiation… but he seems to totally dismiss the common folk… in this recent email.” His protocol of supplementatiotn reportedly costs about $1,000 a month. Few can afford that!

Dr. Gordon is barking up the wrong tree when he asks, “Does low-dose radiation have a ‘hormesis’ effect whereby the body upregulates protective mechanisms for which the expected adverse effects are compensated?” Pointing to an article that suggests that glutathione is upregulated to deal with increased oxidative loads and using this point to suggest there’s no need to worry about heavy nucleotide particles is way off the scientific path.

Gordon said, “The body is less able to accommodate heavy metals from coal-burning power plants aggravated by dental fillings, GMO foods, vaccines, total burden of toxins and pathogens” than to the radiation coming from Japan. Sorry Gordon but you are swinging away from medical truth. Radioactive heavy metal particles are dangerous and of course nothing can compete with the toxicity of plutonium. There is enough plutonium in Japan to kill every person on this planet 10,000 times over and plenty of that was at Fukushima.

I would like to direct your and everyone’s attention to the teachings of Dr. Boyd Haley and some other heavyweight scientists who have already weighed in on this very important issue.

The medical profession as well as the public must wake up to what Dr. Haley said many years ago. His warning to the world’s scientists and doctors has mostly gone unnoticed, meaning we are left with a government, medical officials and doctors who have no idea of the real dangers all of humanity is facing as an entire nuclear plant with six reactors is abandoned (too hot to enter) and goes dangerously out of control.

In July of 2005 the National Academy of Sciences came to the conclusion that the preponderance of scientific evidence shows that even very low doses of radiation pose a risk of cancer or other health problems and there is no threshold below which exposure can be viewed as harmless.[1] Many scientists generally assumed that low levels of radiation are harmless since they produced no immediately observable effects.

However during the past few decades tremendously improved radiation measurement techniques, coupled with detailed laboratory studies, revealed many previously unsuspected hazards from low levels of ionized radiation. Some researchers have even added the view that chronic low-level exposure to radiation poses a greater risk than short-term high-level exposure.[2]

It was Dr. John Gofman[3] who promoted a linear no-threshold model for the dangers of radiation, suggesting that even small doses over time could prove harmful. His 1981 book, Radiation and Human Health, expounded on this and gave prediction tables for how much average life expectancy might be affected by radiation. He was professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, he worked on the Manhattan Project on uranium effects, and he established the Biomedical Research Division for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[4] His 1990 book says that “by any reasonable standard of biomedical proof” there is no threshold level (no harmless dose) of ionizing radiation with respect to radiation mutagenesis and carcinogenesis—a conclusion supported in 1995 by a government-funded radiation committee. His 1995/96 book provides evidence that medical radiation is a co-actor in about 75% of the recent and current breast cancer incidences.

“The results of surveys and biological monitoring of children and adults of Chernobyl point unambiguously to a steady, rapid and dramatic deterioration of health of all victims of the radiation impact of the Chernobyl accident,” wrote Drs. E. B. Burlakova and A. G. Nazarov of the Emanuel Institute of Biochemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.[5] Most interestingly they go on to say, “The dose dependence of the radiation effect may be non-linear, non-monotonic and polymodal in character. Over certain dose ranges, low-level irradiation is more devastating with regard to the results of its action on an organism or a population than acute high-level radiation.”

Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor emeritus of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in his book, Secret Fallout—Low-Level Radiation From Hiroshima To Three-Mile Island, indicated that the risk increased with each additional picture, as the studies of Alice Stewart indicated it did. This clearly implied that there was no significant healing of the damage and thus that the cancer-causing effects of radiation were cumulative.[6]

The geographic patterns of the changes in worldwide leukemia and infant mortality trends between 1945 and 1955 clearly matched the patterns of fallout. — Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass.

What few doctors and health officials recognize is that chemicals and radiation combine to act on the very same cellular enzyme pathways. One type of contamination reinforces and strengthens the others so medical treatments need to address both chemical toxicity and radiation poisoning simultaneously.

Exposure to radiation causes a cascade of free radicals that wreak havoc on the body. Radiation also decimates the body’s supply of glutathione, which allows free radicals to run rampant through our body’s tissues and organs. Though there might be some kind of hormesis effect with an uptick of glutathione body defenses, it is vital to understand that glutathione levels cannot be sustained without all the precursors being supplied—namely selenium, magnesium and sulfur.

The International Commission on Radiation Protection [ICRP] exists in practice largely to play down the effects of radiation on human health, and to shield the nuclear industry from compensation claims from the public.

Dr. Gordon we do not need anyone to go around being a mouthpiece for this insanity. To basic science, all radiation is dangerous and life-threatening though of course we do need the sun’s radiation and even the background radiation from the universe to support healthy life down here on earth. But according to modern medicine and the United States government there is nothing to worry about—radiation and heavy metals both are as safe as mother’s milk and that’s why dentists feel free to put mercury in people’s mouths and pediatricians feel it’s okay to inject mercury via vaccines directly into babies’ bloodstreams.

Dr. Gordon wrote saying, “Have you any access to the PBS documentary about the wolves over-running Chernobyl who have high reactivity but are entirely normal and healthy and did you know that there is a 900-pound fish in the pool at Chernobyl? This documentary did not set out to claim all is well; they just show you exactly how things are today at this abandoned facility and its surrounding areas. Did you know that atomic energy personnel exposed by accident to very high levels of radiation who for a while had no sperm later on had all sperm counts return and they had normal children?”

Garry I even know of a group of women who went back to live in the shadow of Chernobyl and they are doing pretty good. I also have read that childhood death rates are obscene and that they want to build lots more nuclear reactors no matter how dangerous they are over the long haul.

The paper you pointed to in your email suggested that, “Biochemical changes in response to radiation exposure among a small group of interventional cardiologists suggests that individuals might adapt to low doses of radiation by upregulating several processes, leading to the release of antioxidants and cellular apoptosis via higher levels of caspase-3 activity in the lymphocytes.”

We are not surprised to hear these researchers find that oxidative stress is actively countered by the body, which will stop at nothing to defend its own best interests. It will cannibalize scarce body resources to increase antioxidant response. The body of a being who has a strong will to live will rise to the occasion if their body is provided the basic resources of organic sulfur, magnesium, iodine, selenium, as well as bicarbonate, to ease everything along.

The strength of the cells’ adaptive capacity is directly related to nutritional sufficiency and proper cellular respiration that removes toxins and wastes through the cell wall. There is no secret or mysterious “hormesis” effect that should pacify us into relaxation about nuclear and heavy-metal contamination!

Cells can respond to stress in various ways ranging from the activation of survival pathways to the initiation of cell death that eventually eliminates damaged cells. Whether cells mount a protective or destructive stress response depends on different factors, but the most important is nutritional status. Bicarbonate deficiencies are also a key factor as is dehydration and the intake of compromised water (fluoride and chlorine) and or polluted air.

A large part of my work since Fukushima has been to put together the strongest protocol for radiation and heavy metal exposure. Both radioactive particles and heavy metals have the same or similar chemical toxicities. There are plenty of basic substances like magnesium, sulfur, sodium bicarbonate and iodine, not to mention medical marijuana, selenium and clay that are not on your personal list (and the magnesium in your protocol is too little and in the wrong form). These items should be on everyone’s list as inexpensive top-priority items for heavy metals and nuclear particles that must be neutralized if at all possible.

I think you have the trust of many doctors around the world as you have had my trust. You have said that I am one of the best health writers/researchers alive and I have said you are one of the most brilliant doctors on earth and these statements have been on my IMVA Publications site for years. I hope you can receive this feedback because you have important responsibilities to your readership.

Yes your protocol is excellent, even for radiation exposure, but you do not have the authority or the science behind you to belittle the threat. And about six billion people cannot afford your expensive protocol, so you are not covering the needs of humanity and you’re certainly not honing in on the radioactive iodine issue when you say you are not worried about radiation from Japan.

Special Note: To his great credit, my colleague Dr. Garry Gordon previewed this essay and he gave blessings that it should go out as written saying, “Controversy is good.” Actually it is wonderful to get his perspective for it gives us hope that if one takes care of oneself properly one stands an excellent chance of surviving the heavy metal, chemical and radioactive toxicities that are higher now than ever before on our planet. Dr. Gordon says, “We all must fight in order to maintain optimal health.

Dr. Gordon has extensive experience and to his own satisfaction has concluded that the body will recover from heavy metal and radiation insults if one goes through intensive detoxification and nutritional programs like his own. This does not mean we are not facing serious health challenges from toxic exposure but it does mean we are a strong race and can recover from much if given the chance.

In terms of what we should have been worrying about all along in terms of heavy metal contamination consider these facts:

Each year in the U.S. an estimated 40 tons of mercury are used to prepare mercury-amalgam dental restorations. Scientific studies have concluded that the amalgam is the source for more than two-thirds of the mercury in our human population.

Mercury from amalgam fillings has been shown to be neurotoxic, embryotoxic, mutagenic, teratogenic, immunotoxic and clastogenic. It is capable of causing immune dysfunction and autoimmune diseases. — Dr. Robert Gammal

And thousands of tons of mercury are put into the atmosphere each year from coal-burning energy plants as well as crematoriums, municipal and hospital incinerators.

Dr. Mark Allan Sircus, Ac., OMD, DM (P), Director International Medical Veritas Association, Doctor of Oriental and Pastoral Medicine, http://publications.imva.info, http://blog.imva.info