Since thorium is naturally present in the environment, people are exposed to tiny amounts in air, food, water and Lynas concentrate and "waste". The amounts are usually very small and pose little health hazard. Thorium is also present in many consumer products such as ceramic glazes, lantern mantles, and welding rods.
The idea that there is no safe level of thorium alpha particle exposure is outdated and stems from papers written by Hermann Muller in 1946.
"University of Massachusetts Amherst environmental toxicologist Edward Calabrese, whose career research shows that low doses of some chemicals and radiation are benign or even helpful, says he has uncovered evidence that one of the fathers of radiation genetics, Nobel Prize winner Hermann Muller, knowingly lied when he claimed in 1946 that there is no safe level of radiation exposure.
This isn't an academic debate, it's really practical, because all of our rules about chemical and low-level radiation are based on the premises that Muller and the National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) committee adopted at that time. Now, after all these years, it's very hard when people have been frightened to death by this dogma to persuade them that we don't need to be scared by certain low-dose exposures."
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