Breaking news -- radiation is good for you!!!! Or...maybe not.

By Jonathan Parkinson | March 20th 2011 01:50 AM

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Yes, that's right! Despite everything you've heard and believed until now, high doses of ionizing radiation can actually make you healthy!!! We know it must be true, because noted public intellectual Catherine Ann Coulter says so.

Oh...wait.

Earlier this week, Ann Coulter wrote a remarkable column for Fox News, in which she claimed that any Japanese people exposed to excess radiation would be less likely to develop cancer. I had trouble believing this until I actually saw said column (see link below). Here's a verbatim quote:

"With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer."

You can read the rest of her short column here if you're interested (although I can't think for the life of me why you would be).

So what the hay does she mean? Ms. Coulter appears to be talking about a hormesis mechanism, whereby a very low dose of a stressor induces a protective effect by activating cellular responses like DNA damage repair mechanisms that are beneficial or protective. Well, there's a couple problems with her idea, the most important one being that a hormetic effect -- assuming that radiation does indeed induce one(which is a question for ongoing research) -- would take place at very low doses. At higher doses, ionizing radiation will induce harmful effects that override any positive effect you get from activating protective mechanisms in cells. Ms. Coulter seems to be assuming that if a little smidgen is good, a lot must be great! By that logic, I could prove that overdosing on Tylenol is a sure cure for pain(well, maybe a sure trip to the ER, anyway)...or that being sunburned is good for you (hey, a little exposure to UV light triggers vitamin D production, right?) and so on...Presumably Ms. Coulter has never heard of radiation sickness.

Does she really believe this? Or is she just trying to generate controversy? I have a tough time figuring out. Either way, I have to say I'm surprised, because I like to read up on controversial subjects before I write about them so I can make sure I have some idea what I'm talking about  -- but Ms. Coulter apparently doesn't share those inclinations. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, however, because this is the same Ms. Coulter who apparently told an audience some years ago that the country would be better off if women weren't voting. If she could make an outrageous, irresponsible, sexist remark like that, then perhaps it shouldn't seem surprising that she's willing to write something like this.

I don't like the dumb blonde stereotype because it's silly and prejudiced and because I am blonde, after all, but goodness. When I read something like this, I really don't know what else to say.


At least it's good for a laugh, I guess.