Christopher Busby (born 1 September 1945) is a British scientist primarily studying the health effects of internal ionising radiation. Busby was a director of Green Audit Limited, a now dissolved private company which published a number of his books and papers, and scientific advisor to the Low Level Radiation Campaign (LLRC).Green Audit, About Green Audit
Following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Busby established a television and internet presence where he discussed the risks of ionizing radiation and the Japanese Government's handling of the disaster. A Japanese language website marketed tests and a mineral supplement (dubbed an "anti-radiation" pill, and condemned by leading scientists as "useless") that Busby advised could mitigate the effects of ingested radioisotopes.
Career Busby obtained a BSc in Chemistry with First Class Honours from the University of London. He later gained a PhD in chemical physics at the University of Kent, researching Raman spectro-electrochemistry. Busby was a member of the British government sponsored Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters (CERRIE), which operated from 2001 to 2004. In 2001, he was appointed to the UK Ministry of Defence Oversight Committee on Depleted Uranium (DUOB). Between 2003 and 2007 he was a Fellow of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Liverpool, in the Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, and he was visiting professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences until his retirement in 2012 University of Ulster. From 2007 to 2008 he was Guest Researcher at The Institute for Plant Nutrition and Soil Science of the Federal Agricultural Research Station in Braunschweig, Germany (FAL; from 2008 on JKI) confirmation by the then director Ewald Schnug and Jacobs University Bremen for a year and is currently Scientific Director of the private company Environmental Research SIA in Riga, Latvia. Busby is a former National Speaker on Science and Technology for the Green Party of England and Wales.
Second event theory and photoelectric effect controversy From 1987 onwards Busby has written on the health effects of ionizing radiation and developed what he has named "second event theory" (SET) and "photoelectric effect theory" (PET). He claims that these theories demonstrate that the widely accepted linear no-threshold (LNT) model substantially underestimates the risk of low level radiation (the LNT model is largely constructed from the 1958 to 2001 'Life Span Study' of the 120,321 Japanese Atomic Bomb Survivors () who were exposed to a powerful external burst of neutron and gamma radiation). Busby claims that in the low dose regime, radiation moderately above background causes more cancer than much higher levels of radiation i.e. a biphasic (bimodal) curve; a claim based on the work of Russian biologist Elena Burlakova.
Busby initially proposed the Second Event Theory in 1995, in his self-published book Wings of Death: Nuclear Pollution and Human Health claiming that isotopes which decay sequentially, emitting two or more particles in a short decay chain, have far greater genotoxic effects than predicted by the LNT model. According to this theory, the 90Sr-90Y decay chain would be ~30 times more carcinogenic than predicted by LNT. According to SET, primary exposure to a beta particle alters a cell to the G2 Phase, which Busby claims would render the cell highly radio-sensitive and more prone to malignant changes when exposed to a second particle.
SET was criticised by Cox & Edwards (2000) who stated that if Busby's "biologically implausible" theory was correct and all irradiated cells undergo transformation to the G2 Phase, it would cause an increased risk factor of just 1.3 times and predict, on the contrary, substantial risk reduction at low doses for single emitting radioisotopes. Furthermore, it was established in 1906 (The Law of Bergonié and Tribondeau) that cells in the G2 Phase are more resistant to radiation than cells in the M Phase (Radiosensitivity and Cell cycle). The Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE) report, on which Busby was one of twelve members, exhaustively examined the biological plausibility of SET and commissioned an independent consultant to conduct a literature review. In 2004 CERRIE rejected the SET by a 10 to 2 majority consensus (Busby and non-scientist Richard Bramhall, dissented). The rejection was made for following reasons:
The lack of biological plausibility for the basic preconditions of the SET The paucity of supporting evidence in the proponents' reviews of the SET The weakness of studies cited in support of the SET The absence of supporting evidence found by the independent review commissioned by the Committee
CERRIE also considered and rejected by 10 to 2 consensus the biphasic (bimodal) curve of Burlakova et al. (1999), due to the study's "substantial shortcomings"; tables were so ambiguous that the risk-dose response could be interpreted as linear, biphasic or even promoting health (radiation hormesis).
In 2011, Busby began selling a minority report for £25 on his website, in which he claimed that cancer risk from internal exposures to low doses of radiation is 300 times greater than predicted under the LNT model, that the LNT model is meaningless, and that cancer incidence rates in Sweden and Belarus increased by 40% since Chernobyl. His opinion on the magnitude of the cancer risk related to internal exposure to radionuclides is not consistent with the findings of analyses of lung cancer and internal exposure to alpha particles in nuclear workers.
Later work by Busby focused on the health effects of ingested depleted uranium particles and the photoelectric effect theory (PET). The photoelectric effect theory proposes that ingested uranium particles vastly increase the potency of natural background radiation, by 500 to 1000 times, via the photoelectric effect.pacifica.org radio , 31 January 2003 interview with Busby, Retrieved 10 February 2008"Scientist raises new radiation fear", news.bbc.co.uk, 5 July 2001 However, subsequent computer simulations by Pattison (2013) indicate that radiation enhancement via the photoelectric effect is minute, the radiation enhancement effect due to one 10 μm-sized DU particle in 1 cm3 of tissue is just 2 in 10 million greater than a particle not being present.
Conflicts with other low-dose radiation researchers Busby is the author of two self-published books on cancer incidence in Wales, Wings of Death and Wolves of Water.
The books were criticised in the Journal of Radiological Protection as "erroneous in consequence of various mistakes". According to Richard Wakeford, the editor-in-chief of the journal, a fellow CERRIE committee member representing the nuclear industry, and a specialist in the health effects of low-dose radiation (formerly with British Nuclear Fuels), Busby's work is "Deeply flawed".
Busby served on the UK Government's Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE), which operated between 2001 and 2004, and included medical professionals, scientists, delegates from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and Richard Wakeford representing the nuclear industry. Busby ultimately disagreed with the committee's conclusions and published a "minority report" with another committee member from LLRC. On the LLRC website page selling the minority report, it's claimed (without citation) that north Sweden cancer rates have increased by 40% since Chernobyl. A doctoral dissertation from 2007 was reported as saying that the area "has shown a small but statistically significant increase in the incidence of cancer". Martin Tondel, the researcher behind this work, was at last report, active with the Swedish section of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). "In this capacity Dr. Tondel has visited India and Pakistan several times with International delegations arguing for nuclear disarmament in South Asia." http://www.sasnet.lu.se/environlink.html
Antone Brooks (former Technical Research Director of the US Department of Energy's Low Dose Radiation Research Program) has also had differences with Busby.
Televised comments on Fukushima I nuclear accidents
In a 14 March broadcast on BBC, Busby was interviewed along with Ian Fells, and characterised the accident as "exactly the same scenario" as Chernobyl. While admitting that the containment structure for Fukushima Dai-ichi was more advanced than that at Chernobyl, he claimed there could be "nuclear explosion" rather than (as reported) a hydrogen explosion, if fuel elements had melted down and collected at the bottom of the vessel. He also asserted that radiation levels measured at a reactor north of Fukushima Dai-ichi (i.e. Onagawa) indicated that "up to 100 kilometers away, we are getting concentrations of plutonium, cesium and iodine" (sic – presumably radionuclides thereof) released from Fukushima Dai-ichi, making the releases comparable in his opinion to Chernobyl, in terms of human health impact. In response to Fells' characterisation of the worst immediate effects being loss of power to an advanced industrial society, Busby said "this is a radiological catastrophe already", asserting in particular that plutonium releases were a major cause of concern.
On 30 March 2011, Busby first appeared on RT (formerly known as Russia Today) stating that the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster was worse than being reported. During the follow-up interview on 13 April 2011, Busby stated that Fukushima radiation pollution could cause up to 400,000 added cancer cases among those living within 200 km of the reactor, with " reports of significant radiation ... even south of Tokyo".
Controversy regarding sale of "Anti-radiation" pills
Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Busby established an internet presence discussing the risks of ionizing radiation and a conspiracy theory involving Japanese Government's efforts to spread radioactive contamination throughout the country. He also marketed online, services and a mineral supplement he claimed mitigate the dangers of ingested radioisotopes.
Busby claimed radioactive caesium-137 released from the nuclear disaster can cause heart muscle damage and heart attacks in children and a mineral supplement, sold on his Japanese language website via 4u-detox of San Pedro, California, could prevent these deleterious effects (labelled Busby Laboratories, Formula 1, Christopher Busby Foundation for The Children of Fukushima). Busby says he bases his cardiac claims on the work of husband-and-wife team Yury Bandazhevsky and Galina Bandazhevskaya; known for their controversial claims that arrhythmia and heart attacks occurred in children at caesium-137 levels as low as 50 Bqkg−1 and that oral apple pectin increases its excretion (by comparison banana contains ca. 3000 Bqkg−1 of natural potassium-40).
Busby later self-published a document that he claimed offered theoretical support for his supplement, namely an ability to block certain radioisotopes from binding to DNA. However, his document also explains that his supplement cannot block caesium-137, because it does not contain a protective dose of stable caesium:
Note that even if the pills contained stable cesium it is unlikely that the stable cesium would increase the rate at which radioactive cesium is lost from a person. It has been shown by Prochazka et al. that the addition of stable cesium to the diet of pigs fails to increase the rate at which radioactive cesium is lost from the pigsProchazka, H; Jandl, J; Novosad, J; Neruda, O; Hejzlar, J; Spelda, S, Veterinarni Medicina (Prague), 1991, 341–348 https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/biblio/5321449