ANL 92/23

[Al Tschaeche <antatnsu@pacbell.net>]

I recently ran across an excellent publication that I think all
RADSAFERS might like to read.  It is ANL-92/23, "Is There a Large Risk
of Radiation? A Critical Review of Pessimistic Claims," by Adnan
shihab-Eldin, Alexander Shlyakhter, and Richard Wilson.  A short version
of the report was published in Environment international, Bol. 18
(1992).

The Abstract is: "A number of situations where it has been claimed that
moderate radiation doses cause leukemia or other cancers are carefully
reviewed.  We look at cases in the United States, Great Britain, and the
Soviet Union.

"Usually it can be demonstrated that there is an alternative, more
probable, explanation for the effect seen.  In several cases the authors
of the papers have fallen into statistical traps.  The most frequent is
a posteriori selection of cohort boundaries in both space and time: a
trap illustrated dramatically by Feynman.  The next most common trap is
to arbitrarily select one out of many ways of looking at the data,
against which we were warned by Tippett.

"Several cohorts are compared with respect to the number of persons at
risk, average dose, and the number of cancers expected.  Of these, only
the cohort of A-bomb survivors in Japan and the recently unclassified
data on the vary large occupational doses for early Soviet nuclear
workers at Chelyabinsk provide evidence of clearly visible excess
cancers."

The authors, IMHO, have done an excellent job of examining much data in
numerous studies such as the work by Sternglass about infant mortality;
leukemia clusters in the UK and near Plymouth, Mass.; Chernobyl and US
mortality; the Portsmouth shipyard problem; leukemia among the Hanford
workers; plutonium from Rocky Flats causing cancer; cancers near TMI;
cancers in Utah from weapons test fallout; the Chelyabinsk cohort;
cancer from natural background; cancer among airline personnel; cancer
from diagnostic x-rays; cancer among medical technicians; cancer in the
nuclear industry (BNFL); cancer from Chernobyl; and a complete dismissal
of all of Goffman's claims.  It is a paper well worth reading.

The Discussion and Conclusion states: "Any discussion and review of the
effects of radiation on health is necessarily incomplete.  It has been
estimated that there are over 100,000 references on the subject (in
1992).  In making this review, we have only begun to address many of the
claims and have only read a fraction of the papers.  However, we hope,
and believe that we show how to address the main issues."

BEIR VII has a lot of papers to read.  Al Tschaeche antatnsu@pacbell.net
begin:vcard 
n:Tschaeche;Al
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
org:Nuclear Standards Unlimited
version:2.1
email;internet:antatnsu@postoffice.pacbell.net
title:CEO
x-mozilla-cpt:;0
fn:Al Tschaeche
end:vcard