[ RadSafe ] Mohan Doss's comment on the BMJ article in RadSafe Digest Vol. 1950, issue 1

[Peter Crane]

Mohan, maybe I misunderstand you, but it seems that you are saying that any paper that disagrees with your viewpoint can be disregarded a priori, since experience shows that it is bound to be flawed. This does not seem consistent with the openmindedness and receptivity to new information that are hallmarks not only of good science but also of rational discourse generally.

RadSafers should be aware that the Subcommittee of the NRC's Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes presented their report to the full Committee last Wednesday. Their unanimous view was that although there was data on both sides of the issue, nothing had been presented so compelling as to meet the threshold necessary to reject the LNT and ALARA as a basis for regulation. They indicated that more study was needed, as well as an openminded approach to these issues. Their report was adopted unanimously by the full Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes. It should be stressed that their charter did not include evaluating the three petitions now before the NRC; rather, it was confined to giving their views on the LNT and hormesis. 

I hope, Mohan, that you will not ascribe the findings of the Subcommittee and the full Committee to pecuniary motives. That would do them a serious injustice.

Incidentally, Mohan, I am looking forward to hearing your views, promised some weeks ago, on both the significance of thyroid cancer and the relevance of the post-Chernobyl thyroid cancers. It will be recalled that the opinion of Carol Marcus was that the radiation doses were too low for those cancers to be relevant to this debate, whereas your opinion was that the radiation doses were too high for them to be relevant. Given that your petition claimed to be supportive of Carol's, I was puzzled by the apparent contradiction.

-- Peter Crane, NRC Counsel for Special Projects (retired)
-
 Message: 3
 Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2015 02:18:02 +0000
 From: "Doss, Mohan" <Mohan.Doss at fccc.edu>
 To: "The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics)
 Mailing
     List"    <radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>
 Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Any comment on the latest paper in
 The BMJ
 Message-ID:
     <AC6C50929935A441A1B6459EADCCB51D2525EA48 at EXMBSRVR02.medadmin.fccc.edu>
     
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
 
 Dear Parthasarathy,
     You can read my rapid response criticizing the
 design of this study at http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h5359/rr
 .  There are two other rapid responses critical of
 the article also.  In my opinion, there is good reason
 to ignore this paper.
     If there are any new publications that claim
 increased cancer risk from low-dose radiation, you can
 probably assume that they have major flaws negating their
 conclusions, since that has been the pathetic record of such
 publications todate.  Such authors have cried wolf too
 many times. 
     With best regards,
                
               Mohan