The Invisible Hazard: Accelerated Aging in Nuclear Workers and the Case for Biologically-Informed Safety Standards

The safety paradigm for nuclear workers, predicated on the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model for stochastic cancer risk, is dangerously incomplete. It fails to account for the unique biological signature of chronic, low-dose neutron radiation, which we argue induces a deterministic cascade of accelerated biological aging. This paper introduces the "Neutron-Induced Genomic Instability and Senescence (NIGIS) Cascade," a new mechanistic framework, and presents a quantitative, predictive model for the resulting "biological age debt." A risk projection for a career reactor technician predicts a significant divergence between biological and chronological age. We conclude that reliance on physical dosimetry is insufficient and propose that a new safety standard based on **biological dosimetry**, supported by a concrete protocol for a longitudinal biomarker study, is a scientific and ethical imperative.