RE: Testimony of Steve Wing to US House of Representatives

["Heinmiller, Bruce" <heinmillerb@aecl.ca>]

Am I misreading the passages below?  Wing appears to be arguing that doses
were underestimated and that this underestimates risk.  But any radiation
risk coefficients that I've ever seen have dose on the denominator, and that
underestimating dose would thereby overestimate risk per unit dose.  Can
someone help me out here?

Bruce Heinmiller CHP
heinmillerb@aecl.ca



> Statement to the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee
> on 
>  Science, United States House of Representatives, July 18, 2000 
>   
>  Steve Wing, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, School of 
> Public 
>  Health, University of North Carolina 
>   
>  Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to 
> testify 
>  about health effects of low level radiation.  I am an epidemiologist on
> the 
>  faculty at the University of North Carolina where I have studied
> radiation 
>  health effects among workers at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Hanford and
> Savannah 
>  River under funding from the Departments of Energy and Health and Human 
>  Services.  Epidemiology, the study of disease in human populations, is 
>  especially important in risk estimation and standard setting because
> animal 
> and 
>  laboratory studies necessitate extrapolation from high to low doses, from
> 
>  molecules and cells to organisms, and from other species to humans (1-3).
> 
>  
> 
<snip>
>  
>  Detection of radiation risks depends upon the ability of an
> epidemiological 
>  study to classify persons according to their exposure levels.  A-bomb 
> survivors 
>  were not wearing radiation badges, therefore their exposures had to be 
> estimated 
>  by asking survivors about their locations and shielding at the time of 
>  detonation.  In addition to the typical types of recall bias that occur
> in 
>  surveys, stigmatization of survivors made some reluctant to admit their 
>  proximity (9).  Acute radiation injuries such as hair loss and burns
> among 
>  survivors who reported they were at great distances from the blasts (10, 
> 11) 
>  suggests the magnitude of these errors, which would lead to under 
> estimation of 
>  radiation risks. 
>   
>  Another bias occurs because of the higher exposures of distant survivors
> to 
>  residual radiation.  Fallout affected distant survivors in both cities
> (8, 
> 12). 
>  In addition, survivors who were shielded or exposed at greater distances 
> were 
>  strong enough to enter the areas near the hypocenters of the blasts
> within 
> hours 
>  of detonation, exposing themselves to residual radiation created by the 
> atomic 
>  weapons (8, 12-14).  Residual radiation exposures of lower dose survivors
> 
> leads 
>  to an underestimate of radiation risks. 
>   
> 
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