RE: Testimony of Steve Wing to US House of Representatives

["Otto G. Raabe" <ograabe@ucdavis.edu>]

At 08:15 AM 7/28/00 -0500, Bruce Heinmiller wrote:
>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?
*************************************************
July 28, 2000
Davis, CA

Here is Steve Wing's dosimetry logic concerning risk factors from the
atomic bomb survivors:

The survivor data is analyzed by RERF using relative risk between dose
groups. There are no outside controls. The lowest exposed persons (less
than 0.01 Sv) become the de facto controls. The cancer rate in these lowest
exposed people is considered the background rate. If these people who are
listed as below 0.01 Sv were really exposed to much higher doses, as Wing
believes, then their cancer rate is not the true baseline, but is elevated
above normal baseline rates. Hence, when the risk at say 0.2 Sv is
considered, it is being compared to a bad baseline that has a higher than
normal cancer rate. Therefore, the increased cancer rate in the 0.2 Sv
group is being masked and appears to be much smaller than it really is
compared to truly unexposed persons.

I hope this helps....

Otto
	*****************************************************
	Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
	Institute of Toxicology & Environmental Health (ITEH)
	(Street Address: Bldg. 3792, Old Davis Road)
	University of California, Davis, CA 95616
	E-Mail: ograabe@ucdavis.edu
	Phone:(530) 752-7754, FAX:(530) 758-6140
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