Re: from lochbaum, differences in biological effects of radiation

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

ruth_weiner wrote:
<snip>
>  I don't know
> anything about immune system damage -- I thought radionuclides were
> carcinogens -- but then I am not a physiologist or doctor.
> 
> Ruth Weiner
> ruth_weiner@msn.cim

Hi Ruth, 

There is, of course, NO low-dose immune system damage. 

But there is immune system enhancement. See, e.g.:
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Data_Docs/1-4/14list.html
and associated selections from original sources in our State review.

Note: Sakamoto and Miyamoto 1987 confirm positive LDR immune response to
successfully treat and prevent cancer in mice, then applied to human patients
and a clinical trial on non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. There were substantial,
documented, survivorship increases at 5 years, and recently 10 years, and now
at 12 years not yet documented. Dr. Sakamoto presented at ANS Nov 96
(Washington) and Jun 99 (Boston) meetings, plus other US meetings, and his
work is being increasingly applied, now at Johns Hopkins, despite
ICRP/"radiation research" efforts to prevent gov't support to studies and
trials in the US and Japan. 

There should be no doubt that low-dose radiation has a very specific immune
system response. It is being used to cure cancer, and has for non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma since the 1920's, though we now know maore about the molecular
mechanisms of the positive immune response, see again, e.g., the recent (July
and Jan 2000) papers by Safwat:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10869748&dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10790282&dopt=Abstract
(Do you want a pdf of the full paper(s)?)

For data at the mechanism level see, e.g.:
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Data_Docs/1-5/15list.html
especially:
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Data_Docs/1-5/151ja95b.html
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Data_Docs/1-5/152lu91.html
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Data_Docs/1-5/153lu91.html
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Data_Docs/1-5/154lu96.html
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Data_Docs/1-5/157li87.html (HPJ 87)
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Data_Docs/1-5/1514po97.html

The recent RSH Data Doc supplements have numerous additional studies. We'll be
on the web (want to help?) But I can send them in Word format, or on paper.

There are hundreds of specific detailed papers showing specific immune system
and immune function responses since these sources, many of which have
distributed to radsafe as reported from the Nat'l Institutes of Health PubMed
system.

A few papers are at:
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Docs/index.html
especially:
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Docs/MP98_Ottawa.html
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Docs/IRPA10/Mitchel.html
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Docs/luckey98.htm

Regards, Jim
muckerheide@mediaone.net
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