[ RadSafe ] Serendipity

[Howard]

Jerry, Doug, Ed and all,
Unexpected benefit (serendipity) disrupts the status quo.  Patience will prevail.

Analogous to Cameron's disrupting discovery of much lower cancer and total death rates among nuclear shipyard workers receiving over 0.5 cSv more gamma than similarly healthy workers (p 0.005), and slow utilization of that knowledge, is my own experience with care of low back pain.  

We phoned 40 patients I had infiltrated deep into sacroiliac tender points with cortisone in lidocaine and discovered not a single recurrence of pain in the same location! Serendipity.
Many had seen chiropracters repeatedly, a few had disc surgery and all had the standard opiates and physiotherapy required by the new PPACA czar dictates (that I work to repeal).
Experience since with hundreds of patients (slightly different tenderness locations), likewise. Established organizations (doctors working for hospitals, chiropracters, NIH, etc) have refused to publish or practice this safer, thriftier cure that would displace their work.

Sound familiar? Limiting Hanford clean-up to a 10cSv/yr dose for potential residents and workers would defund most work there - as would choice of back bursitis treatment defund most chiropractic, back surgery and back disability business. Authoritarian capitalists and authoritarian socialists obstruct patient power - choice promoted by Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity (prefunded high deductible for patient choice of care).

"Life will find a way" Michael Crichton MD, (in Jurasic Park)

Howard Long

On Apr 12, 2011, at 2:38 PM, Jerry Cohen <jjc105 at yahoo.com> wrote:y

> It's a good thing Sir Alexander Fleming did not ignore the antibiotic effect of 
> the penicillium fungus because that was not what he was looking for.
> Jerry Cohen
> ________________________________
> From: Douglas Minnema <douglasm at DNFSB.GOV>
> To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
> Sent: Tue, April 12, 2011 1:34:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Relative Radiation Dose chart (UNCLASSIFIED)
> 
> Sorry for being late, been offline for a few days.
> 
> No, I don't think we need to attribute this to anything more than the fact that 
> the study had been done in a different era than today.  The healthy worker 
> effect was an accepted explanation at the time, and no further explanation was 
> deemed necessary.  Besides, this study was done by an operational group (Naval 
> Reactors) that was concerned about ensuring that their workers were safe 
> enough.  They were primarily military and civilian engineers, not a bunch 
> scientists looking for statistical tests of the LNT, hormesis, or any other 
> theory of the day.  Concern over the adequacy of safety programs appears to have 
> been the norm when Adm. Rickover ran that program.
> 
> I cannot say that they did or did not recognize that there may be some 
> significance to the results, I was not there at the time.  But my boss did note 
> that at some point they recognized that there may be reason to publish the study 
> so that it could be evaluated further, but perhaps they did not try as hard as 
> we would have liked them to today. 
> 
> 
> No offense intended, but I fail to understand why we (as a society, not 
> individually) always try to read more into such decisions than what is actually 
> likely to be there.  We should not be astounded that any particular group or 
> individual failed to do what we, as Monday-morning-quarterbacks, would have done 
> in the same situation.  As an organization, Adm. Rickover's NR is still the 
> model that other nuclear organizations strive to achieve; but their focus was 
> safety in design, construction, and operation of nuclear propulsion systems, not 
> epidemiology. 
> Doug Minnema, PhD, CHP
> 
>>>> "Ed Hiserodt" <hise at sbcglobal.net> 04/10/11 1:59 PM >>>
> Doug,
> What astounds me about the study is that none of the researchers appear to
> have been surprised or amazed by the results.  You would think that one of
> the team would at one time turned to another and said something like:  "My
> gosh, the most exposed workers had a SMR of 0.74 compared to controls.
> Shouldn't we look into the potential of using radiation as a prophylactic
> for cancer?"  But instead apparently everyone just shrugged and went home.
> Assuming it is not a conspiracy, to what can we attribute this attitude?
> Apathy?  Political correctness?  Nice Government Men shaking their heads No?
> Just curious,
> 
> Ed Hiserodt
> Controls & Power, Inc.
> Maumelle, AR
> 
> 
> 
> -----