[ RadSafe ] Reply to comments of Carol Marcus and Mohan Doss
Ludwig E. Feinendegen
feinendegen at gmx.net
Wed Oct 14 09:12:27 CDT 2015
Thanks, Mohan! That is it and I will follow-up right away. Best, Ludwig
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] Im Auftrag von Doss, Mohan
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. Oktober 2015 13:19
An: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Betreff: Re: [ RadSafe ] Reply to comments of Carol Marcus and Mohan Doss
Dear Ludwig,
Thanks for your message. Please note the Radsafe mailing list does not
allow attachments. I would suggest cutting and pasting the text of your
attachment in your message. If the text is too long, or if it includes
graphics, I would suggest sharing the attachment on Google drive or similar
cloud storage and providing the link to it in your message to Radsafe.
With best regards,
Mohan
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: "Ludwig E. Feinendegen" <feinendegen at gmx.net>
Date: 10/14/2015 6:13 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: "'The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List'"
<radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>, 'RADSAFE' <radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Reply to comments of Carol Marcus and Mohan Doss
Dear Mohan:
Since the first reply mail this morning did not allow to open the
attachment, I reformatted and send the mail here again.
Thank you for your statements in reply to Peter Crane. You are quite right
and I agree even if you quoted only a fraction of the evidence that shows
the BEIR VII report to be seriously flawed.
I attach a statement I had sent in 2005 to Dr. Douple, who was secretary
with the BEIR committee. The work by Dr. Pollycove and myself was misquoted
by BEIR VII in a manner that is unacceptable in science. Peter Crane
referred in his statement recently to the BEIR VII treatment of Pollycove's
and my work and he liked it - obviously without having read the paper by
Pollycove and myself. The NRC should be aware of BEIR VII having
misinterpreted our work. And I hope Peter sees it too.
Best regards,
Ludwig
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] Im Auftrag von Doss, Mohan
Gesendet: Dienstag, 13. Oktober 2015 18:21
An: RADSAFE
Betreff: Re: [ RadSafe ] Reply to comments of Carol Marcus and Mohan Doss
Dear Peter,
I see a major difference between your approach and mine on this subject.
As a scientist, the final arbiter for me is evidence, and I rely strictly on
evidence to pass my conclusions. You said you are not a scientist, but rely
on others (Ian Fairlie, Jan Beyea) or advisory bodies (NAS). You also
belittle concepts because they are supported by those who you consider as
not reliable (Ann Coulter, Lyndon LaRouche). I examine the contents of the
statements by such people rather than dismissing their views outright. These
differences explain why our discussion/debate is not getting anywhere, e.g.
you do not respond to the evidence that I quote. You may note I have indeed
participated in debates/discussions in journals and in symposia on the
subject, with scientists and physicians. Though they do not declare winners
in these debates/discussions, I refuted the evidences quoted by my opponents
whereas they did not refute the evidences I quoted. So I have effectively
won the debate. Let me now discuss the reliability of the approach taken by
people/groups you have relied on.
BEIR VII stated the atomic bomb survivor data are the most important data
for estimating health effects of radiation. Also, Dr. Fairlie made the
following statement in Nov 24, 2011 "In fact, there’s quite a lot of
evidence of effects below these levels. For a start, the Japanese bomb
survivors’ data[5] – the major study on which all radiation authorities base
current risk estimates – suggests some effects at doses below 100mSv." (see
at http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/are-radiation-risks-overrated/ ). However,
in his Comments on the NRC Petition, Dr. Fairlie does not refer to these
data at all. Why did he not use these most important data? You may note
that these data, with improved statistics, do not support the LNT model any
longer, but are consistent with radiation hormesis. You may think this is
just my opinion, but other scientists who are long-time supporters of the
LNT model are agreeing implicitly with this conclusion, since they have
stopped referring to these data in support of the LNT model. For example,
Dr. Mark Little, in the 2009 debate in Radiology available at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19332841 , said: "Most of the information
on radiation-induced cancer risk comes from (a) the Japanese atomic bomb
survivors (b) .....". However, in the more recent debate in 2013
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24989368 he did not use the atomic bomb
survivor data to justify low-dose radiation cancer risk. In my opinion,
scientists should rely on data to pass conclusions, should not ignore
important data, and they should not use their prior conclusions to bias
which data to use. You may note there are plenty of faulty data in published
literature (hence the controversy in the subject) and so one would be able
to quote a lot of literature supporting the LNT model. Careful scrutiny is
needed to weed out the faulty articles. If you are not a scientist, it would
be hard to do this.
Dr. Fairlie also quotes data that have been discredited already, e.g. the
(Pearce, 2012) publication on childhood CT scans. This publication is quite
faulty as shown by many articles since then, including the recent article by
Dr. John Boice http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25816281 .
I will be responding to this and other evidences Dr. Fairlie has quoted
sometime soon, when I submit my comments to NRC. I have found the evidences
to be weak or not credible.
Re: NAS, BEIR VII Report: I have not been impressed with the quality of
their work. The BEIR VII Report quoted 2005 Cardis et al. article on
15-country study of radiation workers to support the radiation cancer risk
factors. Even a graduate student would see that Canadian data in that study
were far off from other data, and were the reason for the conclusion of
Cardis et al. 2005 study. Instead of asking the authors to investigate the
discrepancy, NAS quoted the data to support radiation cancer risk
coefficients. These data have since been discredited due to major problems
identified in the Canadian data. BEIR VII report also ignored many of the
data that showed reduction of cancers following low-dose radiation
exposures. They ignored the immune system which plays a major role in cancer
prevention, and as you may know low-dose radiation boosts the immune system.
With so many flaws, BEIR VII report is not a reliable document. Again, the
quality of the contents is what matters, not who or how many support the
views.
Re: Thyroid cancers vs. all cancers: I consider all cancers as major
problems to be addressed and solved but we do have to prioritize. You
ignored 30% reduction of all cancers. Hence my comment.
What do I know about thyroid cancer? I will be writing about thyroid
cancer (and other cancers also) in a journal article in the near future. I
will let you know when it is published, and you will find out what I know.
Re: corrupting influence of money in this field: For the origin of the
LNT model there is documentary evidence showing BEAR I/II Genetics Panel
members were motivated by research funds when they exaggerated the risks of
low-dose radiation. I was shocked to read what the members wrote in their
letter exchanges, as reported in a journal article. I could not believe it
and asked for copy of the letters from the archives. When they sent the
copies, I saw that the letters do indeed have those statements. Regarding
money corrupting my views on radiation hormesis: My work/responsibilities in
diagnostic imaging would be reduced if LNT model is no longer used in
regulations. If my views were motivated by money, I would have supported the
LNT model.
With best regards,
Mohan
-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Crane
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2015 4:03 PM
To: RADSAFE
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Reply to comments of Carol Marcus and Mohan Doss
Dear RADSAFERs:
In recent days, both Carol Marcus and Mohan Doss have responded to earlier
comments of mine on the hormesis petitions now before the NRC. I had pointed
out that Carol, ten years ago, had asserted that children were three times
as radiosensitive as adults, whereas her petition specifically asked that
all differences in radiation protection based on age or pregnancy status
should be abolished, and I asked what had changed in these ten years. I also
noted that Carol's argument was that the post-Chernobyl cancers could not
have been caused by radiation, and were therefore irrelevant to the hormesis
debate, whereas Mohan's argument was that the radiation doses from Chernobyl
were so high that they were irrelevant to the question of the effects of
low-dose radiation. Given that Mohan's petition claimed to support Carol's,
I hoped that he would address this inconsistency. Their responses, to which
I will reply further down, are as follows:
1.
What happened in the last ten years, Peter, is that I read more and more of
the scientific literature. A good scientist changes his/her mind based upon
reputable data. Therefore, over my scientific life I have changed my mind
about numerous ideas.
Carol S. Marcus, Ph.D., M.D.
2.
Dear Peter,
It is interesting that you did not respond to the considerable amount of
new evidence since 2005 for radiation hormesis (that I referred to).
However, you picked the least important among the cancers (~0.3% of all
cancer deaths in USA) - thyroid cancer - whose incidence is highly prone to
overdiagnosis and overtreatment - and pointed out some apparent
discrepancies between my statements and Carol Marcus's statements. Chernobyl
situation is somewhat complex, and I will respond to this issue after
studying it further. Your objections to the petitions have no merit based on
the vast evidence for radiation hormesis which you did not refute.
With best regards,
Mohan
To Carol, I would say that it is admirable that she continues to read in her
field, and that she is willing to change her mind in the directions that the
data takes her. (If she has read my comments on her petition, she will even
find herself praised in at least three places, though implicitly criticized
in others.) I would note that much of her reading must have been compressed
into the last three years, for it was as recently as 2012 that she
co-authored SNMMI guidelines that included this statement: “A causative role
for 131I in carcinogenesis, other than for thyroid cancer in children at
Chernobyl, is difficult to establish." Like Bill Lipton, I would be
fascinated to know precisely what piece or pieces of evidence produced the
epiphany that Chernobyl really didn't cause any cancers after all.
The same guidelines said, citing BEIR VII, “No threshold for
radiation-induced carcinogenesis has been firmly established.” Again, I
would love to know what made you decide, in the intervening three years,
that BEIR VII was part of a 69-year conspiracy to bamboozle the world about
radiation, rather than an authoritative source in the field.
In response to Mohan, I should acknowledge that I am not a scientist or a
physician. In my comments to the NRC, I incorporated by reference the
comments of Dr. Ian Fairlie, which may be found at the Regulations.gov
website. As far as whether my thinking the views of BEIR VII, Dr. Fairlie,
Dr. Jan Beyea, the National Academies of Science, etc. etc. more credible
than yours is "without merit," just because I am not a scientist, I would
cite the maxim of the great Samuel Johnson, that "a man may declare an egg
bad although he cannot lay eggs himself." I find what BEIR VII said about
the Feinendegen and Pollycove position persuasive, and I cannot imagine that
the NAS would come to any different conclusion now, notwithstanding that the
supporters of hormesis now include not only Lyndon LaRouche, who has touted
it for 30 years, but also Ann Coulter.
I am fascinated, Mohan, by your statement that I "picked the least important
of the cancers." I realize that this is a comparative statement, but it
seems to imply that thyroid cancer in UNimportant. Was that your intent? If
so, and you think that all there is to estimating the importance of a
disease is the fatality rate, no doubt you would rate river blindness as
utterly insignificant.
May I respectfully ask what if anything you know about thyroid cancer, apart
from the fatality rate? Are you aware that it is a lifelong condition,
because of the need to remain on medication, and that many patients have
difficulty arriving at a dose that comes close to restoring their
pre-illness quality of life? You might want to check the current issue of
"Thyroid," published by the American Thyroid Association, for an article on
the impacts of thyroid cancer on the quality of life. In addition, the
people who die of the disease are in general just as dead as those who
succumb to statistically more lethal diseases. There were about 1600 of them
in the U.S. last year.
Mohan, you attribute the views of the mainstream radiation establishment to
the corrupting effect of money. If we go down that path, why should we not
be even more inclined to link advocacy of hormesis to the corporations that
have contributed to the hormesis movement over time, such as R. J. Reynolds,
Philip Morris, Lorillard, British American Tobacco, ExxonMobil, Rohm & Haas,
and NiPERA, an arm of the Nickel Institute? To be quite clear, I'm not
suggesting that you or Carol or anyone else is a paid lackey of these
companies, I'm just making the point that the argument about money can cut
in more than one direction.
Finally, I do look forward to hearing your thoughts, whenever you are ready
to share them with RADSAFE, on the contradiction between your and Carol's
view of the post-Chernobyl thyroid cancers.
Best regards,
Peter
Peter Crane, NRC Counsel for Special Projects (retired)
"Some cats got it and some cats ain't." -- from "Speedo's Back in Town," by
the Coasters
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