[ RadSafe ] Natural gamma rays supposedly linked to childhoodleukemia; compare aspirin toxicity

Sat Jun 30 12:11:10 CDT 2012

I died last Wednesday from overdose of aspirin and joined Jake. My 
platelet count remains fine and my blood seems to still be circulating. 
My weight  is 95kg and I consume a quarter aspirin daily.  My 
conclusions are shaky, but all methodologies at the 5%LOC were fine when 
last checked. They said my death was due to confounding which failed to 
respond to the approaching carcinogen. May I have permission to still 
post occasionally on the List?
Best,
Maury&Dog

===================================
On 6/29/2012 6:09 PM, Brennan, Mike (DOH) wrote:
> Hi, Bob.
>
> The only changes I would make is to assume 365 dose of 80 mg for people taking aspirin for preventive cardiac care as we generally take one per day.  I would then assume an LD50 of 365 mg/kg (well within your range) and an 80 kg person (as valid as 70 kg).  That way all the numbers cancel out, and you wind up with half of all the people taking aspirin for their hearts die every year.  Same message as you got, but the numbers are easier for me to do in my head.
>
> I believe you have a good example of why dose rate is at least as important as cumulative dose (and usually VASTLY more important).  I think it is a valid criticism for many documents talking about radiation and risk, though I can't say if it is on point for this paper, having only seen the shaky conclusion, and not the suspect methodology.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Cihak
> Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 3:39 PM
> To: 'The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List'
>
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Natural gamma rays supposedly linked to childhoodleukemia; compare aspirin toxicity
>
> It sounds like the paper in question uses the disproven "cumulative risk
> hypothesis" as also disproven in the "Kerala Cancer Hypothesis." Here's
> another example using aspirin as the toxin:
>
> According to http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band106/b106-6.html,
> Americans consume 34 billion aspirin tablets every year. According to
> http://hospitalstay.com/2009/01/whats-so-scary-about-acetylsalicylic-acid/ ,
>
> "more than 50 million people (or 36 percent of the adult population in the
>
> United States) consume 10 to 20 billion aspirin tablets annually for
> preventative cardiac care alone." Using the lower numbers, the total dose
> for these 50 million people would be 10,000,000,000*80 mg, or 800 billion
> milligrams or 800 million grams. (Incidentally, 10,000,000,000 tablets /
> 50,000,000 people, gives an average of 200 doses of 80 mg. per person.)
>
> According to
> http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/00300.htm
> the human LD50 for aspirin is estimated at 357 mg/kg, a higher number than
>
> other sources. This is a bit higher than the mouse LD50 at 250 mg./kg., and
> less than half the rabbit LD50 at 1010 mg./kg. so the estimate looks like
> it's adequate for this bad-case calculation. For a 70 kg. human, the LD50
> would be very close to 25 g. (or 80 325 mg. tablets, the standard American
>
> dose/tablet).  So if IF cumulative dose works here, we should have
> 800,000,000/25 or 32 million Americans exposed to the equivalent of the LD50
> every year. As half would be dead, we should have 16 million deaths per
> year. According to
> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=USA+annual+death+rate ONLY 2.5 million
> people die in the USA annually (apparently not counting aborted babies).
>
> For those who believe in cumulative risk, I therefore ask, "I take 1/4 of an
> aspirin tablet (81 mg.) every day to keep my blood a little thin. If I get a
> headache, I take 2 tablets. If I took 100 tablets, they would kill me. Given
> that Americans consume over 10 billion low-dose (80 mg.) aspirin tablets
> every year (i.e., not counting the 650 mg. doses for headaches, and even
> much higher daily doses for some people with arthritis), we should have well
> over 16,000,000 deaths every year from aspirin poisoning. Where are the
> bodies?"
>
> Please let me know if and where I've made mistakes in data, analysis,
> grammar, etc.
>
> Bob Cihak, MD
>
> Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
>
> 21310 Poplar Way
> Brier WA 98036
> home phone: (425) 822-6884
> e-mail: rjcihak at gmail.com
> Board Member and Past President, Association of American Physicians and
> Surgeons (AAPS), http://www.aapsonline.org
> Senior Fellow and Board Member, Retired, Discovery Institute,
> http://www.discovery.org
> Founding Board member, Retired, Evergreen Freedom Foundation,
> http://www.effwa.org
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of parthasarathy k s
> Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 3:52 AM
> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Natural gamma rays supposedly linked to childhood
> leukemia, INCREASE AT 12% per mGy!!
>
> Dear Bobby,
>
> Next time when I go to the thorium rich beach sands of Kerala, I shall try
>
> to count the dead bodies of those who died due to leukemia @12%per milligray
> and report back to the newsgroup!Can anyone fund my journey from USA to
> Kerala and back
>
> I expected some balancing arguments from Kendall et al.
>
>
>
> Regards
> Parthasarathy
>
>
> ________________________________
>   From: "Scott, Bobby" <BScott at lrri.org>
> To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
> Cc: Dan McCarn <hotgreenchile at gmail.com>; "Brennan, Mike  (DOH)"
> <Mike.Brennan at DOH.WA.GOV>; Andy Howard <howard at phys.iit.edu>; "Dixon, John
>
> E. (CDC/ONDIEH/NCEH)" <gyf7 at cdc.gov>
> Sent: Thursday, 28 June 2012, 14:20
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Natural gamma rays supposedly linked to childhood
>
> leukemia
>   
>
>
> Hi All,
>
>
>
> I have taken a look at the new paper by G. M. Kendall et al. in the Leukemia
> Journal claiming a link between natural background gamma rays and childhood
> leukemia. The paper is titled "A record-based case-control study of natural
> background radiation and the incidence of childhood leukaemia [leukemia] and
> other cancers in Great Britain during 1980-2006." Because of the additional
> radiation-phobia-related casualties in Japan that could be promoted by this
> article, I thought it to be important to take a close look at the modeling
>
> approach used by the researchers.  Of special interest was the mathematical
> form used for relative risk (RR) evaluation and what values of RR would be
>
> expected based on the RR function used when radiation doses are
> significantly greater than those from natural background.  The authors used
> an exponential form for relative risk , i.e., RR = exp(alpha*dose) for the
> natural background radiation effect. The authors claim that their calculated
> 12% excess relative risk (ERR) of childhood leukemia per mGy of cumulative
>
> red-bone-marrow dose from natural-background-related gamma rays supports the
> extrapolation of high-dose-rate risk models (e.g., based on A-bomb
> survivors) to low-rate exposure.  A 12% excess relative risk per mGy after
> low-dose, low-rate exposure implies a value of 0.12 per mGy for the
> parameter alpha.  With this value, RR for childhood leukemia at 100 mGy
> (similar to the annual dose from natural background radiation for the Kerala
> coast, India) would be calculated to be RR =
> exp(12) = 162,755. For a 200 mGy (20 rad) dose (similar to the annual dose
> from natural background radiation in Ramsar, Iran), RR would be calculated
>
> to be 26,489,122,130. As I think others may agree, such a derived
> dose-response function for leukemia RR for children raises serious questions
> about the validity of the results of the study of Kendall et al.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Bobby
>
> B. R. Scott
>
> Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute
>
> 2425 Ridgecrest Drive SE
>
> Albuquerque, NM 87108, USA
>
>
>
>
>
>
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