AW: [ RadSafe ] Re: No suggestion to change regulatory limits

[John Jacobus]

Rainer,
I appreciate your comments, and also agree that
low-dose radiation should be studied.  In fact, the
U.S. Dept of Energy is spending funds on such work.
http://www.er.doe.gov/production/ober/lowdose.html

Nevertheless, there are some who believe that the
regulators oppose changes to current regulations
because it would "make themselves obsolete," as you
say.  Obviously, you also believe that issue.

It is important to remember that the current thinking
about low-dose radiation effects, whether it be the
LNT or hormesis, may not be true in all cases and the
mechanisms are only partially understood.  I do
believe it is true that more than one hypothesis can
drawn from the same set of data.  That is one of the
underlying arguments between Tubiana, et. al, and
Brenner and Sacks in their papers that appeared in the
March 2006 issue Radiation and Environmental
Biophysics.

--- Rainer.Facius at dlr.de wrote:

> "I believe one of the purposes for performing and
> documenting hormesis studies is to influence the
> regulatory community to elevate regulatory limits."
> 
> John:
> 
>  
> 
> As a scientist I am more interested to learn "what
> are the facts" rather than satisfying regulators. 
> 
> Of course, somewhere the funding for such work has
> to come from, but from that perspective it could
> turn out to be counterproductive to advocate
> hormetic effects of chronic low dose and low LET
> exposures given the fact that much (or most?) of the
> funding is provided by those with a regulatory
> agenda which would risk to make themselves obsolete.
> 
> 
> So, I rather believe that those studying hormesis
> are also primarily motivated by a drive to learn
> "what are the facts".
> 
> Kind regards, Rainer
> 
> 

+++++++++++++++++++
"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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