Radioprotection of plants & animals

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

I have read a draft report that deals with radioprotection of other species. 
It is easy to reject all this as "crazy" and stop right here but I think 
that it is time to look at what's going on. After all people in more than 20 
countries are involved already. It is time to sort out the central issues 
and ask questions.

The first and most fundamental question is why?
If we look at ICRP - it is essentially about protecting people against acute 
effects or genotoxic effects (germline, teratogenic and/or cancer - mainly 
cancer I would say). For other species we could ask - is it about 
extermination - or what is the suspected problem?

There are many subproblems involved in this - from a scientific point there 
are issues that either can't be answered or will be very costly to answer 
(what are the priorities in research etc?). Because the multidimensional 
topic - it is easy to be confused and feel lost (what are the RBE values in 
a lobster, seastar, bean or kelp etc, etc?).

I will only give you some ideas by picking out a few examples of what I have 
read. For instance, regarding endpoints, the following are discussed: 
genetic drift (a statistical issue that seems irrelevant, the term is used 
for situations where there are say three alleles A, B, and C - suppose then 
that the parents have AB and AC respectively and their offspring gets AA and 
AB caused by random segregation of germ cells - so the gene C is lost), 
chromosomal aberrations, point mutations, induction of mRNA and/or proteins. 
The latter three relate to genotoxic effects (OK we may not want cats, dogs, 
pigs, cattle or fish to get cancer - but where do you draw the line?).

I say why are endpoints like chromosomal aberrations even discussed if it is 
not for genotoxic effects? Are we going to protect roaches against cancer? - 
If you don't like the idea - try to define the "good species" and you run 
into trouble - I think I referred to this as the "cuteness gradient" 
previously (goes from koalas to Plasmodium and bilharzia).

I am interested in contact with Radsafers who are interested in 
scientifically based reasoning around these issues (please write me 
directly) to make all aspects clear. I have already gone through much more 
of this than I have written here (course of evolution, taxonomic criteria 
and definitions of taxa, population dynamics, cross breeding barriers and 
other topics) and am willing to give these reports some challenge.

If we don't care - we may in the future have to consider a hypothetical 
reference organism with an American football shape and then... (I should 
stop here but it is easy to imagine what kinds of ideas could be included). 
Is any Radsafer aware of any published papers that said "wait a minute" 
(contrasting the stuff that is already out there - I gave you some refs. 
previously).

The draft report suggests a lot of future research... OK - I'll stop here - 
hope no Radsafer dropped dead because of these lines. Please add or correct 
whatever needs to be added if I missed anything.

Obviously my reflections not necessarily shared by others,

Bjorn Cedervall   bcradsafers@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/bjorn_cedervall/

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