Re: NYT 8Jan00: Harald Hermann Rossi, 82,Innovator in Use of Radiation

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

Palmer,

Dr. Rossi didn't so much 'lead a minority movement on BEIR III,' he
fought for telling the truth. This is of much greater credit to him
than any scientific contibution. In my comments on his continuing
efforts, and his 'recent work' which you are not familiar with,
consider the exerpts below from his Rad Prot Dosimetry Editorial:

Regards, Jim
============

"Palmer G. Steward, PhD" wrote:
> 
> With all due respect, Jim, your comments, for me, misrepresent the impact
> that Harald Rossi had in the area of medical and biophysics.  I had some
> contact with Dr. Rossi in the 60's while a graduate student.  He popularized
> and gave experimental evidence of the concept of microdosimetry which was a
> very important contribution at the time.  Some of us who treasured our
> simplistic idea of LET did not initially appreciate him, but in the end he
> won our respect for being right and showing us we were wrong.  He later had
> the foresight to associate with and provide resources for Albrecht Kellerer
> who provided the theoretical underpinnings for microdosimetry.  Harald will
> always have a special place in my heart for the excitement he provided me in
> the course of this scientific development.
> 
> I don't want to belittle his later involvement in the "politics" of
> radiation protection, but this should not be, as scientists, the source of
> our reverence for him.  He did lead a minority movement on the BEIR III
> committee to remove the linear assumption for protection from sparsely
> ionizing radiation, but his scientific contributions also provide support
> for special concern regarding the health effects of densely ionizing
> radiation, which, so far as I know, he always believed to be the case.  I do
> not know of his activities over the last 10 years, but from what I do know,
> I find the New York Times obituary to be acceptable.
> 
> Palmer Steward
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Muckerheide <muckerheide@MEDIAONE.NET>
> To: MEDPHYS@LISTS.WAYNE.EDU <MEDPHYS@LISTS.WAYNE.EDU>
> Date: Sunday, January 09, 2000 3:05 PM
> Subject: NYT 8Jan00: Harald Hermann Rossi, 82, Innovator in Use of Radiation
> 
> >Friends,
> >
> >This is a great loss. Harald's recent work clearly documented hormesis
> >effects in the comprehensive evidence of credible epidemiology,
> >supported by the knowledge of biological responses in "whole" cells
> >and organisms. As recently as the Airlie Conference the rad
> >protectionist leadership ignored his recent Editorial in Rad
> >Protection Dosimetry showing clear positive responses at low-moderate
> doses.
> >
> >This followed his heroic effort of 20 years ago in BEIR III to move
> >radiation protection policies closer to radiation health effects
> >science (an effort completely undermined and reversed without
> >foundation by BEIR V, indeed with even greater confirmatory evidence
> >and commitments to suppressed and misrepresent that evidence, than
> >existed at the time of BEIR III).
> >
> >However, the impression given by this obituary is that he was a major
> >contributor to documenting and supporting ever more extreme radiation
> >protection. This seems a terrible disservice to a great and honorable
> >scientist.
> >
> >The fight between credible science and the self-serving policies of
> >the bureaucrats, their funded "scientist" minions, and those who
> >profit by this campaign to defraud the public, to fabricate public
> >fear and political support for ever more costly/profitable standards,
> >has suffered another great set back.
> >
> >Perhaps in honor of Dr. Rossi there will be some voices raised to call
> >attention to the credible results he has produced, with special
> >consideration of his recent work, along with obtaining some stronger
> >interest and initiative by the political and industry leaders that
> >have not yet undertaken this case on.
> >
> >For our RSH mission to bring honesty into radiation health effects
> >science and policy, his personal encouragement and support will be
> >greatly missed.
> >
> >
> >Regards, Jim Muckerheide
> >Radiation, Science, and Health
> >==============================
> >
> >New York Times, January 8, 2000
> >
> > Harald Hermann Rossi, 82, Innovator in Use of Radiation
<cut>

Rossi, H.H., 1999, "Risks from less than 10 Millisievert", Radiation
Protection Dosimetry, 83,4:277-9
   "There have been numerous conflicting studies and it is not clear
whether the radiation dose limits propounded during the last
half-century have resulted in any fatalities. A routine statement is,
that the effects of less than 10 mSv are unknown. It is becoming
apparent, however, that for two of the most important radiation
induced malignancies one can give a rather confident answer."
   "ICRP and various of its national counterparts have been attempting
to promote the belief that the 'assumption' of linearity is realistic.
In some instances, such as their collective effective dose, one can
add microsieverts. This amounts to a linear extrapolation over some
five orders of magnitude, which is rarely justified in any science,
and unheard of in biology. Of course the major argumant is that there
is a finite probability that a single charged particle can transform a
cell to a malignant type. In view of the microdoimetry involved this
is true enough but plainly irrelevant to well-established data showing
all types of cancer (incidence or mortality) versus dose curves in
experimental radiobiology. These include cases where radiation reduces
'natural' cancer. It is of interest to consider a particlar case
because it has been presented with a reasonable explanation.
   "Figure 1 shows the incidence of murine malignant lymphoma
following x-irradiation as presented by Covelli et al."

[REF: Covelli V, Di Majo V, Coppola M, Rebessi S, Radiat Res 1989
Sep;119(3):553-61 "The dose-response relationships for myeloid
leukemia and malignant lymphoma in BC3F1
mice."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=2772145&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b
Abstract:
"The present analysis of data on the induction of lymphoma and myeloid
leukemia in BC3F1 mice has indicated some new and interesting aspects
regarding the shapes of the dose-effect curves. The incidence data can
be interpreted by radiobiological models of the induction process
coupled with cell inactivation. In particular, for malignant lymphoma
the dose-response curve after X rays can be described assuming a
quadratic model corrected for cell inactivation, while the incidence
data after fission neutrons are best fitted by a linear model which
also allows for cell inactivation. Myeloid leukemia has also been
induced in BC3F1 mice. The bell-shaped dose-response curves observed
after irradiation with either X rays or neutrons are explained by
assuming simultaneous initial transforming events and cell
inactivation with the data for cell inactivation at higher doses being
in agreement with data reported for other strains of mice. A value for
relative biological effectiveness of 4 is obtained at the lowest
neutron dose used. The value of the inactivation parameters can be
compared with those of the cell inactivation probability per unit dose
for the bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells, which are believed to be
the target cells for these tumors."]

   "After an obvious drop from the control frequency (~57% to ~45% @
~0.5 Gy) the curve rises slightly above it (59% @ 2.0+ Gy) and then
declines to low values. [Fit to expression.] In this scheme the
'radiotherapy' of existing malignant cells is, at both low and high
doses, more important than the carcinogenesis. [Qualifications of the
limitations of the expression, and the effect of low control
incidence.] 
   "However, according to the above equation an initial reduction of
the dose-effect curve must occur regardless of the magnitude of the
coefficients involved. It is a simple matter to show that the minimum
occurs when: [equation 2]
   "...D(min) is small when a(0) is small. More importantly a small
a(0) and an even smaller minimum of the curve are subject to large
statistical uncertainties. Nevertheless if Equation 1 applies there
must be what has been termed 'hormesis' below a finite dose."
He goes on show consistent results discussing:
   "Figure 2 shows data by Shimizu et al..." 

[REF: Dose Response Analysis among Atomic Bomb Survivors Exposed to
Low Level Radiation" In: "Low Level Irradiation and Biological Defense
Mechanisms" 71-74, Exerpta Medica, Amsterdam, 1992. See, e.g.,: an
extract from Pollycove 1994:
http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/Data_Docs/1-2/1/1/12119po94.html 
Rossi also discusses the invalid DS86 doses due to the failure to
include the neutron doses now known to exist.]

and

   "Figure 3 shows the results of a survey of information on lung
cancer mortality from x-rays at fractionated doses."

[REF: Rossi HH, Zaider M, Radiat Environ Biophys 1997 Jun;36(2):85-8
"Radiogenic lung cancer: the effects of low doses of low linear energy
transfer (LET) radiation."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=9271795&form=6&db=m&Dopt=b
Abstract:
"A critical review of the literature leads to the conclusion that at
the radiation doses generally of concern in radiation protection (< 2
Gy), protracted exposure to low linear energy transfer (LET) radiation
(x- or gamma-rays) does not appear to cause lung cancer. There is, in
fact, indication of a reduction of the natural incidence." See also an
extract of their paper, with "Figure 3," at:
http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/Data_Docs/1-2/1/1/12119po94.html ]

"The most important data are from diagnostic (fluoroscopic)
investigations of patients with tuberculosis where the lungs were
subject to relatively uniform doses and 'negative risks' were
observed. [Discussion.]"

   "The 'negative risk' of leukaemia from acute irradiation extends to
smaller doses than those for lung cancer which involved protracted
irradiation. Both curves look like the beginning of the curve for
murine malignant lymphoma. If they are in accordwith Equation 1,
relative risks are less than 1 at any dose below a threshold. The
reduction of the control incidence may be due to other causes but it
seems unlikely that the curves would rise again to values larger than
1 at very small doses.
   "There is thus reason to believe that doses of less than 10 mSv do
not cause lung cancer or leukaemia because larger doses reduce the
frequency of these malignancies.
   "The data in Figure 3 are for protracted lung irradiation and
indicate a threshold near 2 Gy, a value in excess current occupational
limits (1 Gy from an average of 20 mGy a(-1) for 50 years) and near
the possible but quite unlikely lifetime dose of 2.5 Gy permitted
earlier (sine the 1950s). The threshold for leukaemia appears to be
near 0.2 Gy of acute gamma radiation with an admixture of neutrons
which, at this time, is uncertain. This as well as reduction with
protraction make it unlikely that current, or even earlier, limits
posed a hazard of leukaemia."

   "...unless reliable data contradicting Figures 2 and 3 are produced
it can be concluded that we have partial information on the effects of
very low radiation doses."

HH Rossi
105 Larchdale Avenue
Upper Nyack, NY 10960 USA
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