AW: AW: [ RadSafe ] Danger of ADJACENT HIGH-Dose Radiation

Wed Sep 3 08:32:22 CDT 2008

Rainer,
I have looked at the figures and read the article.  What is your point?  That you see a “hormetic effect?”  Of course you do. (What I do not see are error bars in the graphed figures.)  My comment to this astonishing finding is "So what?" It does little to explain the bystander effect of the transport of cellular releases across cell junctions.  Cellular repair, such as the effect of heat shock proteins, are known to occur in stressed and damaged cells.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_shock_protein In the design of this experiment, the finding at 36 mGy is an artifact in this experiment.  No “hormesis” magic here.

Furthermore, what makes you think that this represents a protective effect?  To me it is more likely the result of tumor cells being repaired due to some biochemical response to the low irradiation dose.  However, it is no guarantee that future radiation doses will not result in medulloblastoma. 

As for your comment that 36 mGy is relevant to radiation protection, that is you speculation.  The effect you note is only relevant to this tumor in this animal model.  Extrapolating such studies to humans is inappropriate.  I would think that you would understand that.   

I am looking beyond to a basic understanding of the science behind the effect.  We are entering a period of research where we can explain the underlying biological and effects, as is it possible that Cx43 limits the bystander effect.  What need to be determined are those factors and proteins that initiate the observed effects of apoptosis, cancer initiation and cellular repair. I think that the reduction in apoptosis over time as seen in figure 4 is a lot more interesting as it may indicate how long the bystander effect lasts.  

As a personal observation, I find it interesting that every "hormetic" effect has to be pointed out in every article, as if to justify the existence of hormesis.  Science is driven by the need to understand why things occur. This is where hormesis is lacking. All effects are not equal based on biological model, doses, experimental design, epidemiological studies, etc., so why should all "hormetic" effects be equal?  They are not.  This is why I do not consider hormesis is a science.  It is related to a “natural science” as practiced in the 19th century where collections of observation were made without any underlying evidence of how it works.  Kind of like stamp collecting.

My question to you is what is the relevancy of this study to life outside of the lab? Do you think that the bystander effect also occurs at low doses?  I would think that it does, but the statistical probability is so low that it may not be observable.  Ergo, high dose experiments need to conducted.
+++++++++++++++++++
It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory. 
Arthur Eddington 

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird at yahoo.com
--- On Tue, 9/2/08, Rainer.Facius at dlr.de <Rainer.Facius at dlr.de> wrote:

From: Rainer.Facius at dlr.de <Rainer.Facius at dlr.de>
Subject: AW: AW: [ RadSafe ] Danger of ADJACENT HIGH-Dose Radiation
To: crispy_bird at yahoo.com, radsafe at radlab.nl
Date: Tuesday, September 2, 2008, 6:32 AM

Dear John,

please do take a look at figs. 2D and S1 of the article and the supplement.

With respect to medulloblastoma, the protective efficacy of 36 mSv homogeneous
whole body exposure is patently manifest in these experiments - however you call
it and however you explain it.

One might speculate why Mancuso et al. curbed the presentation - only(!) - of
this dataset after 31 days. Would the protective action in their experiment
strike the eye even more spectacularly? Remarkably also, no referee seems to
have asked for a complete display of these data for the same observation time as
for all the others.

As regards relevance for radiation protection, the findings on 36 mSv whole
body exposure are relevant, very much so - with the usual caveats regarding all
non human/non in vivo data. 

For radiation protection, in contrast, the findings on abscopal effects of
nearly acute lethal exposures are irrelevant. After all, in this one point we
concur. :-)

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

________________________________

Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl im Auftrag von John Jacobus
Gesendet: Di 02.09.2008 04:26
An: radsafe
Betreff: Re: AW: [ RadSafe ] Danger of ADJACENT HIGH-Dose Radiation

Rainer,
I am puzzled why you would even mentioned hormesis when commenting on this
article.  It appears to me that the "magic" of hormesis is slowly
dissipating as better and better science shows what biological responses lead to
the observed low dose effects. 

Hormesis has always lacked a relevancy to real life.  Tell me how it would be
applied to the radiation workers?  To members of the public?  As you note, this
experiment is irrelevant to low dose radiation issues, but so is hormesis. 

+++++++++++++++++++

 It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational
results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory.
Arthur Eddington

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

--- On Mon, 8/25/08, Rainer.Facius at dlr.de <Rainer.Facius at dlr.de> wrote:

From: Rainer.Facius at dlr.de <Rainer.Facius at dlr.de>
Subject: AW: [ RadSafe ] Danger of ADJACENT HIGH-Dose Radiation
To: crispy_bird at yahoo.com, radsafe at radlab.nl
Date: Monday, August 25, 2008, 5:02 AM

Dear John,

the article by Mancuso et al. (2008) has been discussed here with respect to
its improper use of the term "bystander effect" instead of the proper
and long established term "abscopal effect" and with respect to the
dose the cerebellum of the shielded mice did receive due to finite attenuation
of the shields and due to backscattering from the body of the mice. Furthermore
it was pointed out that the findings from this experiment are irrelevant
regarding low dose radiation protection issues.

To my knowledge, in this discussion the term hormesis has not been mentioned at
all but once by myself. I drew attention to the fact (fig. 2D and fig. S1 of
the
supplement) that the data by Mancuso et al. exhibit the lowest (in fact zero)
incidence of medulloblastoma not for the un- or sham irradiated animals but for
those unshielded animals which were exposed to a uniform whole body dose of 36
mGy, i.e., that dose which the cerebellum of the partially shielded mice
received from stray radiation.

I agree that - in my view - Howard Long occasionally is straining the evidence
in favour of hormesis - just as you are trying to ignore or depreciate it. This
time however I am the one who is guilty of introducing the incriminated word -
though I mentioned it only casually at the very fringe of the discussion.

Best 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 John Jacobus
Gesendet: Sonntag, 24. August 2008 23:43
An: radsafe at radlab.nl
Betreff: RE: [ RadSafe ] Danger of ADJACENT HIGH-Dose Radiation

I wonder how many others on this list have read the article.  I am sure Dr.
Long has not.  I would be nice to see a discussion of the study as opposed to a
summary dismissal as it may go against the belief in hormesis.  Is that too
much to ask for?

+++++++++++++++++++
"Part of human nature resents change, loves equilibrium, while another
part welcomes novelty, loves the excitement of disequilibrium. There is no
formula for the resolution of this tug-of-war, but it is obvious that absolute
surrender to either of them invites disaster."
-J. Bartlet Brebner

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

--- On Thu, 8/21/08, Cary Renquist <cary.renquist at ezag.com> wrote:

From: Cary Renquist <cary.renquist at ezag.com>
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Danger of ADJACENT HIGH-Dose Radiation
To: "NIXON, Grant" <Grant.NIXON at mdsinc.com>, radsafe at radlab.nl
Date: Thursday, August 21, 2008, 1:16 PM

The distances involved in this experiment seem too far for diffusion of
radicals.
What I understand (grok [for the geeks out there]) from the few papers that I
have read...
Acute "low-level" exposures seem garner signal transduction responses
that favor cell death or very basic repair attempts.  Acute
"high-level"
exposures seem to result in signal transduction responses that favor
(emergency) repair mechanisms.
In this experiment, it seems that the (emergency) repair mechanisms are being
triggered in the shielded area -- the repairs are either acting on damage
caused
by the low-level scatter or the normal damage caused by cellular processes.

I see that normal wild-type mice in the experiment did not display any
carcinogenic response -- only the patch1 mice.  Normal mice did show short term
effects that seemed to be evidence for the transmission of the high-exposure
response to the shielded areas.

C.

---
Cary Renquist
RSO, Eckert & Ziegler Isotope Products
Office: +1 661-309-1033
cary.renquist at ezag.com

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf Of
NIXON, Grant
Sent: Wednesday, 20 August, 2008 13:09
To: HOWARD.LONG at comcast.net; ROY HERREN; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Danger of ADJACENT HIGH-Dose Radiation

To add to Howard's comment:

Perhaps the mechanism for the DNA damage to adjoining tissue (the so-called
"bystander effect") is nothing more than a propagated free-radical
reaction having nothing to do with cell-to-cell communication. The high doses
would liberate such large numbers of free-radicals that the affected perimeter
of affected tissues would increase on physical grounds alone (diffusion theory
coupled with target theory). The "chemical that blocks cell-to-cell
communication" may simply be a free-radical scavenger.

Grant I. Nixon, Ph.D., P.Phys.
Science Specialist (Dosimetry/Physics/Engineering) BEST Theratronics
413 March Road
Ottawa, ON  K2K 0E9
Canada
tel. (613) 591-2100 x2869
fax. (613) 591-2250

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf Of
HOWARD.LONG at comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 12:36 PM
To: ROY HERREN; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Danger of ADJACENT HIGH-Dose Radiation

So, "high dose radiation - 12,000 times - chest x-ray" affects
adjacent tissue?
Would other severe injury, like crushed arm, affect the rest of the body? Of
course!

Why the surprise?

Why the false headline that it  "Hints at Dangers of Low Dose
Radiation"?

Hormesis, low dose good where high dose bad, must be taught. 
We must correct this disinformation by fearmongers to dismantle over-regulation
and liberate nuclear power.

Howard Long

-------------- Original message --------------
From: ROY HERREN <royherren2005 at yahoo.com>

> http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/818/3
>
> Bystander Effect" Hints at Dangers of Low-Dose Radiation
>
> By Jocelyn Kaiser
> ScienceNOW Daily News
> 18 August 2008That lead apron you wear during a dental x-ray is
supposed to
> protect the rest of you from radiation. But it may not work very well,
according
> to a new study. When cancer-prone mice were placed in lead containers
and
> irradiated on just the lower half of their bodies, they developed
brain tumors.
> The results suggest that radiation could be riskier than scientists
thought.
> The study builds on a surprising effect, first observed 16 years ago.
When cells
> in culture are exposed to ionizing radiation, even those not directly
hit
> sustain damage to chromosomes. Apparently, the irradiated cells pass
on a
> distress signal or emit some chemical that breaks the DNA of
neighboring cells
> (ScienceNOW, 7 September 2005). Although this "bystander effect"
has
been
> observed in tissue culture and recently in living animals, no
experiments have
> yet linked it to the main reason for concern: Bystander effects might
trigger
> cancer. Some scientists even suspect the opposite--that the bystander
responses
> could protect against the disease by killing damaged cells.
> Now it seems that the cancer risk is real. Radiation oncologist Anna
Saran at
> the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the
Environment in
> Rome and colleagues studied mice with a mutation in a gene called
Patched that
> makes them susceptible to brain tumors early in life. They placed
newborn mice
> in lead shields that protected their heads and upper bodies, then
zapped them
> with high-dose x-rays, or about 12,000 times the dose of a dental or
chest
> x-ray. The scientists found that the cerebellums of these animals had
higher
> than normal amounts of DNA damage and apoptosis, or programmed cell
death. By 40
> weeks of age, 39% of the shielded mice had developed brain tumors.
That's a lot
> considering that the rate was 62% in Patched mice that were irradiated
all over,
> including their heads. Patched mice that weren't irradiated did not
develop
> brain cancer.
> When the team injected the shielded mice with a chemical that blocks
> cell-to-cell communication before irradiating them, they detected no
DNA breaks
> and the amount of apoptosis decreased more than threefold. Even though
the
> irradiated tissues are far away from the brain, they are connected by
neurons
> that could be passing on bystander signals, Saran says. The results
appear
> online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.
> "This is a milestone paper," says Columbia University radiation
physicist David
> Brenner. He suggests that current estimates of cancer risk from low
doses of
> radiation--say, from naturally occurring radon and diagnostic
tests--may
> underestimate the danger by failing to take into account bystander
effects. To
> learn more, however, the mouse work should be repeated with lower
doses of
> radiation, Saran says.
>
>
>
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