RE: radon - and Parsons on hormesis

["Jim Muckerheide" <jmuckerheide@cnts.wpi.edu>]

-----Original Message-----

From:	Les Crable



Jim,



I signed off the listserv.  I was very tired of your pontificating and 

insulting posts.  For a nuclear engineer, you sure act as if you are an 

expert in all fields.



I am sure I am not the first person to sign off because of your

behavior.



Les Crable

==============



Les, You don't need to sign-off. You could 'kill' my msgs. But don't

throw stones then not expect responses with relevant info. I just

respond with what I know to your restating the mantra without

considering the info provided. Perhaps my 30+ years at this, including

Frigerio in the '70s, and the suppression of data (see Henry, of ORNL in

JAMA May '61), with the last 7 organizing science conferences with the

knowledgeable scientists (esp. biologists), engaging the literature and

getting straight answers from credible scientists (Lauri Taylor and his

"using LNT is an immoral use of our scientific heritage; Gunnar Walinder

on UNSCEAR experience "rad protection using LMT is greatest science

scandal of 20th Century), Jaworoski as UNSCEAR and former Chair) and

Int'l conferences/papers, and major private meetings, with world leaders

- setting up the IAEA Seville 97 Conf (til Abel Gonzalez trashed it as a

science meeting when he took over from Morris Rosen, to make it another

ICRP meeting) - leading to many of the 12 of us in Vienna in '96 to not

even attend. The Wingspread '97 meeting with 50 of the world rad

protection policy and science "leaders" (from Clarke, Sinclair, Meinhold

plus many of the science bureaucrats and political staff), and the

Warrenton '99 meeting with 75 of the leaders (to rescind the Wingspread

progress once the political damage control was worked out). Knowing

Sinclairs changing the '94 UNSCEAR report before printing after approval

by UNSCEAR and the General Assembly, and other specifics, telling a

"science group" one thing because they would know, but totally different

msg to politicians and bureaucrats.  To Congress, Domenici's speeches in

'97 and beyond, funding new research, the 2000 House hearings on the

LNT, etc. etc. Testifying, repeatedly, to NRC on the NCRP LNT study,

testifying and providing the literature from highly credible scientists

and journals (not our own results/conclusions) to these studies to NCRP,

on BEIR VII, etc.



Anyway, you and others may be interested in the following note from

Peter Parsons in Australia (and I cut off the bottom! :-)





Dear Dr. Parsons, 



Thank you for your contribution. I appreciate your perspectives on this

matter. Do you have any information on where the "hormetic range" is in

the dose resistent yeast life cycle? :-)  Has anyone examined where

gene, protein, or enzyme regulation reverses from upregulation to

downregulation, and vice versa, as Dr. Liu has done in China, largely

with Kunming mice?



I haven't downloaded and read your paper from the 12/01 QRB yet, so I

had not sent the following abstract to the group that I just received

yesterday. But I appreciate your continuing efforts to develop a full

understanding of the biological imperative, and the biological

mechanisms and evolutionary expectations/requirements for non-linear,

and potentially hormetic, dose-responses. You are most welcome, and

encouraged to share (and c/should have shared :-) the availability of

this paper, and relevant sources by others (including presentations

etc.) with the group (although many in the group forward less

information than a couple of years ago :-)



===================================== 

Q Rev Biol 2001 Dec;76(4):459-67  



The hormetic zone: an ecological and evolutionary perspective based upon



habitat characteristics and fitness selection. 



Parsons PA. 



School of Genetics and Human Variation, La Trobe University Bundoora, 

Victoria 3083, Australia. pparsons@senet.com.au 



Fitness varies nonlinearly with environmental variables such as

temperature, 

water availability, and nutrition, with maximum fitness at intermediate 

levels between more stressful extremes. For environmental agents that

are 

highly toxic at exposures that substantially exceed background levels, 

fitness is maximized at concentrations near zero--a phenomenon often 

referred to as hormesis. Two main components are suggested: (1)

background 

hormesis, which derives from the direct adaptation of organisms to their



habitats; and (2) stress-derived hormonesis, which derives from

metabolic 

reserves that are maintained as an adaptation to environmental stresses 

through evolutionary time. These reserves provide protection from lesser



correlated stresses. This article discusses illustrative examples,

including 

ethanol and ionizing radiation, aimed at placing hormesis into an

ecological 

and evolutionary context. A unifying approach comes from fitness-stress 

continua that underlie responses to abiotic variables, whereby selection

for 

maximum metabolic efficiency and hence fitness in adaptation to habitats

in 

nature underlies hormetic zones. Within this reductionist model, more 

specific metabolic mechanisms to explain hormesis are beginning to

emerge, 

depending upon the agent and the taxon in question. Some limited

research 

possibilities based upon this evolutionary perspective are indicated. 

========================== 



We are preparing a major revision (3rd Edition) of our compilation of

data sources to be out in March. I would very much welcome any new

contributions from you. I'll be glad to let you know whether we have any

source that you want to only briefly identify before sending. You may do

this to me, as a number of people do, or to the listserv.



Thank you. 



Regards, Jim Muckerheide 





-----Original Message----- 

From:   Peter Parsons 

Sent:   Mon 14-Jan-02 8:30 PM 

To:     rad-sci-l@ans.ep.wisc.edu 

Cc:     

Subject:        [rad-sci-l] Radiation resistance in yeast 



Draft for the RSH group. 



Friends, 



Klaus Becker on 24 December 2001 drew our attention to Bennett et al.

(2001) : Genes required for ionising radiation resistance in yeast,

Nature Genetics 29: 426-434.



This paper measures radiation resistance by survival fraction following

exposure to 80 K rads, which is an enormous dose compared with those

normally considered by the RSH group. At these high stress levels, a

large array of genes for radiosensitivity are revealed which are not

expressed under benign conditions. This type of result is general for

severe stresses, including temperature extremes and desiccation, as well

as radiation. Most of these genes are therefore unlikely to be expressed

in the hormetic zone. 



The radiosensitive genes cover a wide range of functional groups.

Furthermore 90% were sensitive to other agents - an important result

since one general response to stress of any kind is the production of

heat shock proteins, hsps.



Assume that metabolic reserves such as hsps are built up in response to

the occurrence of sporadic extreme stresses such as climatic stresses to

which all organisms are exposed. Such an adaptive response could provide

metabolic protection from exposure to various low-level agents in the

environment including ionising radiation at exposures exceeding

background. Elsewhere and in the press, I have discussed this suggestion

in the context of hormesis, for example Radiation hormesis: an

ecological and energetic perspective. Medical Hypothesis 57: 277-279

(2001).



Finally, I am most pleased that Jim invited me to join this e-mail

group. Basically I proceed on the premise that LNT models are

biologically impossible, which means that attempted explanations of

non-linearity are central for me. 



All the best for 2002 from mid-summer, Peter Parsons.   



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