Re: Fw: Question on low-dose rad effects

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com>]

Jerry,

There is probably good reason to believe that the risk actually is in 
proportion to the number of cells - this makes sense from a DNA target 
theory consideration. I spoke with a PhD on breast cancer five years ago - 
the topic was the ethiology of breast cancer. The bottom line was that 
estrogen seems to be involved indirectly for most tumors regardless of any 
other factors discussed. At that time (well maybe more like in 1993??) the 
journal "Risk Analysis" had published an article about synthetic bras and 
whether they could absorb radon better than those of other materials - and 
this could potentially be a breast cancer risk - yes some people have 
unusual research projects.

Breast is a relatively radiosensitive tissue so with an open mind on 
scientific issues I asked could this really be a physical mechanism of 
interest (it sounds like the lung cancer - powerline/radon idea that our 
mass media liked)? Anyway, this PhD just said that size is a factor  
correlating with the risk of getting breast cancer - and she also pointed 
out that women with smaller breasts may not wear bras.

BTW, the sensational media could have filled at least two full pages with 
this - the danger of wearing bras - just like they did with men's underwear 
43 years ago when Ehrenberg and 1-2 other scientists wrote in Nature about 
the gonadal temperature (activation energies, transitional states, Arrhenius 
eqn. and the rest of that chapter if I remember right) and how it may 
translate to some mrem exposure similar to some UNSCEAR consideration - 
prof. Lars Ehrenberg (now emeritus) has told me about that event. He became 
first page stuff - and was then sued by an underwear producing company that 
had been mentioned in the article (the newspaper had mentioned that company 
- Ehrenberg had nothing to do with that part). As a follow up he was even 
invited to speak before a nudist club. Sorry about taking so much bandwidth 
but this is how science interacts with society...

To make a risk consideration the types of kilos/pounds and their relative 
fractions would also make a difference (muscle for instance is not 
particularly radiosensitive).

My personal comments only,

Bjorn Cedervall,    bcradsafers@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/bjorn_cedervall/
-------------------------------------------
>Given that both recieve a radiation dose of say 1.0 rem, have they both 
>experienced an equal degree of harm? Due to his/her larger mass, the 
>heavier individual gets twice as many ionizing events occuring near twice 
>as many DNA molecules any one of which might result in an adverse mutation. 
>Why doesn't the individual with twice the mass, get twice the risk???

Jerry Cohen
jjcohen@prodigy.net

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