AW: WG: [ RadSafe ] Interesting article from a differentperspective - ODEMagazine

Fri Jul 4 06:04:16 CDT 2008

Dear Jim,

thank you for these references demonstrating once more that -in the low dose regime - the opposite of the LNT postulate is more often observed than the postulated association - to put it cautiously. 

However, this was not the topic addressed by the reference I am straining my memory to recover it. I have in mind a scatter plot with the x-axis giving annual (electric) energy production/consumption in kWh per caput and the y-axis some measure of the health status of the citizens of a given country - say lifespan. 

The entries for (nearly) all of the world's countries scattered neatly around a strictly monotonic increasing (straight?) regression line with the poor or developing countries populating the low energy supply/low lifespan quadrant and the rich industrialized countries populating the high energy supply/high lifespan quadrant!

Maybe I read this paper even in the 1980s. Perhaps someone else's memory is better.

Thank you one more and kind regards, Rainer

Dr. Rainer Facius
German Aerospace Center
Institute of Aerospace Medicine
Linder Hoehe
51147 Koeln
GERMANY
Voice: +49 2203 601 3147 or 3150
FAX:   +49 2203 61970

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] Im Auftrag von Jim Muckerheide
Gesendet: Freitag, 4. Juli 2008 00:41
An: Facius, Rainer; radsafe
Betreff: Re: WG: [ RadSafe ] Interesting article from a differentperspective - ODEMagazine

Dear Rainer et al.

The "1993" reference about Misasa is likely the book:

"HEALTH EFFECTS OF LOW-LEVEL RADIATION" By Sohei Kondo

Kondo reports on the data from a 1992 paper, which is referred to by Sadao Hattori at:
http://www.radscihealth.org/rsh/dd3/2.1.2.1.1.4Hattori94.html

Kondo provides the tables of the data from all the cancer sites, and the "all cancers" data that is presented in this "Figure 4."

There is a subsequent paper by an different group, Suzuki et al., in 1994.
See the abstract at:
http://www.radscihealth.org/rsh/dd3/2.1.2.1.1.4%20Suzuki94.html

The Sobue/Ye et al. group made a later conference presentation in 1997, pub'd again in 1998 in the Jpn J Cancer Res; and a later case-control study in 2000 in the J Radiat Res (Tokyo).  All of these can be linked from:
http://www.radscihealth.org:9000/rsh/dd3/searchResult2.jsp?keyword4=2.1.2.1.
1.4+Japan (which is also:
http://tinyurl.com/5kwhcc )

The full text/pdf of this 2000 paper is open and can be linked from the PubMed abstract.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
===========================

on 7/3/08 12:37 PM, Rainer.Facius at dlr.de at Rainer.Facius at dlr.de wrote:

> ________________________________
> 
> Von: Facius, Rainer
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 3. Juli 2008 11:41
> An: Johnston, Thomas; Academic-Medical Radiation Safety Officers 
> listserve
> Betreff: AW: [ RadSafe ] Interesting article from a different 
> perspective - ODEMagazine
> 
> Thank you, Thomas, for his pointer.
> 
> Given the fact that this lady, Ursula Sautter, writes from Germany, a 
> European stronghold of radiophobia, this article is remarkable indeed. 
> I can only speculate how many German news papers have turned down her 
> attempts to publish it here.
> 
> The closing 'cautionary' comment of Dave Eaton, director of the Center 
> for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health at the University of 
> Washington in Seattle merits special advertisement as a masterpiece of 
> scientific
> reasoning:
> 
> "For example, low levels of DNA damage may well activate certain DNA 
> repair pathways that increase the extent and possibly the efficiency 
> of DNA repair. But it is still possible that some of the low-level DNA 
> damage escapes repair and is ultimately detrimental. Thus I don't 
> think one can assume that all 'low-dose' responses are without 
> potential harm."
> 
> In other words (in view of the article's message) he appears to concede:
> We have no empirical evidence that exposure (of healthy people) to 
> (low
> LET) ionizing radiation up to say 200 mSv acute (Hiroshima/Nagasaki) 
> and to about 500 mSv chronic irradiation (epidemiological studies) are 
> detrimental to human health. To the contrary, we have empirical 
> evidence to the opposite from controlled laboratory work on cells and 
> animals as well as from observations in human populations - bolstered 
> by mounting insight into genetic/molecular control mechanisms which in 
> turn can be successfully described by quantitative models. But - 
> notwithstanding such knowledge:
> 
> " ... I don't think one can assume that all 'low-dose' responses are 
> without potential harm."
> 
> This counterfactual 'assuming' is prudent carefulness indeed - but 
> only in a world where there IS a free lunch, i.e., the world of (some) 
> politicians and (some of) their regulators which never pay the bill 
> for their decrees (all of them). The people ruled by such 
> philanthropism pay the prize. Given that escalating costs of energy 
> production will reduce its use, an example would be reduced lifespan. 
> Global studies have shown positive association between lifespan and per capita energy supply.
> (Unfortunately I can not spot the reference for this paper (in the
> 1990s) but hopefully someone can add this.)
> 
> Regards, Rainer
> 
> 
> 
> Dr. Rainer Facius
> German Aerospace Center
> Institute of Aerospace Medicine
> Linder Hoehe
> 51147 Koeln
> GERMANY
> Voice: +49 2203 601 3147 or 3150
> FAX:   +49 2203 61970
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl im Auftrag von Johnston, Thomas
> Gesendet: Di 01.07.2008 18:48
> An: Academic-Medical Radiation Safety Officers listserve
> Betreff: [ RadSafe ] Interesting article from a different perspective 
> - ODEMagazine
> 
> Ran across this article today and thought I would share with the Group 
> and originates from a perspective outside of our usual circles. The 
> magazine's coves uses the tagline: "ProRadiation."
> 
> "Small can be healthy," Toxins like radon and even DDT may have 
> beneficial effects at very low doses.
> 
> By Ursula Sautter <http://www.odemagazine.com/people/Ursula%20Sautter>
> 
> http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/53/small-can-be-healthy/
> 
> 
> Tom
> 
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