Re: LNT, Collective Dose

["Jerry Cohen" <jjcohen@prodigy.net>]

"But EPA acknowledges its authority "to establish nonzero MCLGs for
carcinogens if the scientific evidence" indicates that a "safe threshold"
exists. See Final Rule, 63 Fed. Reg. at 69,401/2. And petitioners here
assume the validity of the linear default assumption. "

-- I sure don't want to hurt EPA's feelings :-), but the above statement is
total nonsense. There is no way to prove a threshold. Logically, it is
impossible to prove any negative. If you administer a given low dose to a
million animals and observe no effect, how can you be certain that if you
gave it to just one more, the effect would not be observed. Maybe "extremely
unlikely" doesn't mean impossible, but it's good enough for me.


----- Original Message ----- From: <BLHamrick@aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 1:20 PM
Subject: Re: LNT, Collective Dose



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