[ RadSafe ] Please Critique This Reply by Rosalie Bertell

[Eric D]

Rosalie wrote:

<<< Did you have a nano-pathologist on your committee for the re-examination
of this issue? How did you get around the expected damage to or failure of
the biological repair system?>>

Damage is due to dose rate and dose.  Failure of a repair system is due to
dose rate and dose.  This has been shown time and again.  The body is
wonderfully designed to repair the effects of radiation until the dose and
the dose rate get too high.  No one is trying to get around it.

These good people are working to estimate the actual dose.  Others on this
list are doing the epidemiology to verify the relationships and still others
are caring and have cared for people with doses from negligible to extremely
high.  The results are the same and are consistent with current risk
estimates.

One issue that is usually raise in relationship to nano-particles is site of
deposition.  This is out of my expertise but a post by Philippe Duport
addressed the issue:

<< Particles in the 0.001 to 0.1 micrometer behave in the same way as
unattached radon decay products of the same size.  Aerosl particles of that
size, owing to their high diffisivity (high diffusion coefficient) are
deposited in the upper part of the respiratory tract (nose, larynx, trachea,
main bronchii).  They do not reach the lower parts of the lung, certainly
not the alveolar region.  Does this help?  Experiments with diffusion
batteries demonstrate that fairly well

Philippe Duport>>

The second issue is cellular update of small particles and that has also
been addressed and folded into the models currently in use.

I have not had a chance to read the entire article you posted yet.  I read
the introduction and there is an incorrect statement that I have seen on
many anti-DU activist sites that I don't really want to see propagated.
"Air friction" does not cause DU to ignite.  I could not believe it the
first time I read it and now to see it in a published paper is really
disheartening.

Just a request to those of your review papers take note of the introductory
material.

Eric Daxon
PhD, CHP

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