[ RadSafe ] Letter: Homeopathy and Hormesis

[John Jacobus]

>From another list server.

---------------------------
Dear Group,

Ran across this Letter to the Editor in the latest
edition of Skeptical Inquirer.

See http://www.csicop.org/

I thought some of our group might find it interesting.
 I wish John Cameron (sp?) were still around to give
his views.

Skeptical Inquirer - the magazine for science and
reason - Vol. 30, No. 1 Jan/Feb 2006 p.68

Homeopathy and Hormesis:

Homeopathy is back, stronger than ever and more
global.  (See the review of Copeland's Cure, SI
July/August 2005.)  Now termed hormesis, it extends
homeopathy to include toxic chemicals and radiation,
among other hazardous materials.  Hormesis (defined
operationally as low-dose stimulation, high-dose
inhibition) is often used to promote the notion that
while high-level exposure to toxic chemicals are
detrimental to human health, low-level exposures are
beneficial, as in homeopathy.  Some proponents claim
hormesis is an adaptive, generalizable phenomenon and
argues that the default assumption for risk
assessments should be exposure to toxic chemical
induces stimulatory (i.e., "beneficial") effects at
low exposures.  And, thus, we need not worry.

The theory goes: even if high doses of or exposures to
an agent or chemical causes cancers or genetic
mutations or other toxic effects, smaller doses below
those that induce those adverse responses are most
often beneficial.  Radiation zealots began this
hormetic concept, but it has been expanded to include
other toxic materials.  This was built on the idea
proposed by Paracelsus (a seventeenth-century
German-Swiss physician) that "the dose makes the
poison," which the chemical industry extols in its
vested quest to exonerate its prized chemicals from
accusations of negative effects on human health. 
(Witness the recent attempt to cover up the
cardiovascular dangers of Vioxx.)  In science and
medicine and other endeavors, exceptions make or break
the rule.  In both homeopathy and hormesis, there are
exceptions too numerous to count.

The concept of hormesis or homeopathy is based largely
on empirical observations and does not adequately
consider the underlying mechanism(s) of action. 
Stimulatory responses are not always beneficial, and
some may be harmful.  Health decisions based on
purported beneficial effects of hormesis must address
differences between individuals in exposure and
susceptibility, including genetic, life-stage, and
health-status factors, among others.  Further, health
decisions based on so-called beneficial effects must
address the fact that other environmental and
workplace exposures may alter the low-dose response of
a single agent.

For more information, see "Fundamental Flaws of
Hormesis for Public Health Decisions," by Kristina A.
Thayer, Ronald Melnick, Kathy Burns, Devra Davis, and
James Huff, in Environmental Health Perspectives 113
(2005).

James Huff
The National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

+++++++++++++++++++
"It is not the job of public-affairs officers to alter, filter or 
adjust engineering or scientific material produced by NASA's technical 
staff."
MICHAEL D. GRIFFIN, NASA administrator.

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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