[ RadSafe ] More Fed agency promulgation of radiophobia

Fri Aug 26 16:10:17 CDT 2005

All:
As one who has lived, worked, and raised healthy kids around Hanford, and 
who has written and studied a lot about the health effects around Hanford, 
there has been a lot of nonsense written about it, even by "credible" (read 
incredible) scientists.  The first rule of toxicology says that "the dose 
makes the poison", yet rarely do any of the critics mention anything about 
the doses.

The Hanford Thyroid Disease Study (HTDS) developed the model for exposures 
from Hanford to the public.  The results were revealing.  First I must say 
that no credible cancer mortality excesses are found around Hanford, as 
Ethel Gilbert et al found.  The Standard Mortality Ratio (SMRs for Thyroid 
Cancer Mortality among the Hanford workers were well below 1.0).  This study 
was in the desparate search for ANY adverse health effects to the thyroid in 
people around Hanford.

The Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction (HEDR) study estimated that 
the highest I-131 doses were comparable to those experienced in thousands of 
thyroid patients studied ad nauseum by Holm et al and others.  These found 
little or no adverse health effects from these I-131 exposures.   The 
Hanford doses were basically  in the 1940s with the following pathway.  The 
maximum doses were estimated by assuming:
1.  that the recipient was a small child (the most vulnerable)
2.  That small child lived downwind at the time of release (wind roses from 
Hanford meteorological station show the predominant wind direction was from 
the NW to the SE)
3.  that the child drank milk taken directly from the cow (most kids drank 
bottled milk at that time imported from elsewhere)
4.  That the cow mostly ate contaminated pasture grass at the time of 
release (many cows ate bailed hay instead)
5.  That the cow had a healthy thyroid.

More recently the study done by Scott Davis et al the University of 
Washington also found little or no adverse health effects of their study of 
Hanford.

I would also like to add that none of these studies  made any corrections 
for dietary iodine.  As Dr. Marshall Brucer, first president of the Society 
of Nuclear Medicine, pointed out many times, often humorously,in his book "A 
Chronology of Nuclear Medicine"  both excesses and deficiencies of dietary 
iodine give rise to a considerable list of observable adverse health 
effects.  These were common in the 30s and 40s (before the widespread use of 
iodized salt, when these exposures occurred).

No one discusses these effects either.  Since there are no observable 
excesses of thyroid cancer mortality among the workers or the public, 
politics and money shifted the emphasis to a desparate search for any 
adverse health effect, however unlikely, or implausible.  And other causes 
of adverse effects on the thyroid (such as dietary defiecneis and excesses 
of iodine) were ignored.  In this way all adverse thyroid health effects 
were blamed on Hanford, whether it caused them or not.  (Yes, I know. 
Gilbert showed an excess of multiple myeloma as I recall, 3 observed and 1 
expected.  At the 95% level of confidence we'd expect, with declining 
probabilities, one or two excesses to occur out of 20 types of cancer from 
chance.  This is related to the problems of dealing with small sample sizes 
of rare diseases.)

Not to be outdone the DOE now makes available millions of your tax dollars 
and mine dollars now to those "victims" of Hanford.  They don't even have to 
prove they were harmed!!  The studies above in some cases cost nearly $30 
million keeping a lot of "credible" people employed.  But I digress.
Mike

Original Message ----- 
From: "Muckerheide, James" <jimm at WPI.EDU>
To: "James Salsman" <james at bovik.org>; <radsafe at radlab.nl>; 
<rad-sci-l at WPI.EDU>
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 12:23 PM
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] More Fed agency promulgation of radiophobia

> First, there are no significant exposures to the population, even though
> there could have been individual instances of significant exposures.
>
> As Ralph Lapp said in the early '90s: "Any credible scientist that 
> explained
> that no effects could be found were excluded from participating in the
> study."  And science knows that millions of people received much higher
> thyroid doses from medical diagnostics (especially before 1970 and the
> introduction of radioimmunoassay by Roz Yalow, for which she received the
> Nobel Prize), and the even higher doses for hyperthyroid treatment, with 
> no
> thyroid cancer effects.  (For the hyperthyroid patients there was no 
> leukemia
> or other cancers from the 10-15 rad whole body dose associated with the 
> I-131
> treatment.)
>
> ATSDR is so inept that was claiming that toxic chemicals have adverse 
> effects
> right down to zero, except they 'arbitrarily' allowed that there could be 
> no
> effects below the level of the Minimum Daily Requirement for these 
> vitamins
> and minerals.
>
> There is no credible science, nor scientists, involved.
>
> Regards, Jim Muckerheide
> ========================
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
>> Behalf Of James Salsman
>> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 2:19 PM
>> To: radsafe at radlab.nl
>> Subject: [ RadSafe ] More Fed agency promulgation of radiophobia
>>
>> Jim Muckerheide wrote:
>>
>> > Our responsible industry and government authorities need to develop and
>> > establish the institutional basis to question these results....
>> >
>> > Obviously, no credible "science" or scientists influence these results!
>>
>> I'm guessing Jim hasn't seen the videos:
>>
>>    http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hanford/health_care/video_presentations.html
>>
>> If he has, I wonder what his definition of "credible" is.
>>
>> > (Note: I am an Idaho Hanford 'downwinder' - Moscow, 1946-49 :-)
>>
>> Idaho residents don't have much to worry about.  Almost all the
>> really significant exposures were in Adams, Benton, and Franklin
>> counties in Washington:
>>    http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hanford/img/exposure_map.gif
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> James Salsman
>>
>> > BoiseWeekly: Lesson One: Don't Say "Fallout Shmallout"
>> > AUGUST 24, 2005
>> > BY NICHOLAS COLLIAS
>> >
>> > Last year, Idaho leapt to the forefront of the debate over
>> > whether the federal government should compensate former victims
>> > of nuclear fallout from radioactive tests and emissions (BW,
>> > "The Low Use Segment," November 17, 2004). And while the
>> > government has still not accepted full responsibility-at least
>> > by way of compensation-in heavily effected states like Idaho,
>> > Wyoming and Washington, at least it's trying to help doctors
>> > deal with its mess.
>> >
>> > The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,
>> > part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has just
>> > released a new video instructing doctors on how to combat the
>> > mental, as well as physical, ailments expressed by nuclear
>> > downwinders. Titled Hanford: The Psychological Dimensions of
>> > Radiation Exposure, the 30-minute video concedes that large
>> > radioactive releases did occur throughout the US-and that
>> > patients and doctors alike struggle against the vagueness of
>> > what, exactly, resulted from that exposure....
>>
>>
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> 