Alex Roslin in the Montreal Gazette writes about the meaning of “safe” radiation levels in Canada on January 14, 2012:

But nuclear critics Dr. Dale Dewar and Gordon Edwards say Ottawa’s notion of what is a “safe” level of radiation can still cause serious health risks for some people.

In fact, Canada’s ceiling for radiation in food is set at a level that would lead to 5,000 to 8,000 cancers per million people over a 70-year lifetime of exposure, according to Health Canada’s models and those of a 2006 U.S. National Academy of Sciences report on cancer risk from radiation. (About half of the cancers would be fatal.)

That works out to 170,000 to 270,000 lifetime cancers if all 34 million Canadians were exposed at the “safe” level.

Read the full story via The debate in Canada: What is a ‘safe’ level of radiation?.