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Re: LNT



Thanks, Ruth S.,
Your evidence is interesting, as usual (and Ruth Ws and Jim's as well)

The usual 100rem, acute threshold for symptoms does seem uncomfortably close to the 50 rem ZEP in Luckey. I suggest 10 rem max, (which is 10 times a CT medical diagnostic dose)
or 0.5 rem/year minimum for hormesis (which is about the mountain state advantage over gulf coast states).

That range is wide, like dose of some medicines. Adrenalin blocker, Toprol, is effective at 25 mgm/day in heart failure, but requires 200 mgm/day for some hypertensives. About 10 x allows for individualization, as with medication. For a package under bed (Cameron) I have wondered about the safety of 1, many together, as in storage shipping and sales and 2, proximity to skin, with possible burns from direct contact (esp beta from Co60) with design for 10 rem/year through a 20cm mattress.

Would diffusing it in bed springs be safer?

Howard Long

Ruth Sponsler wrote:

I think some of the range mentioned may be appropriate
for mice but I think it's too high for humans.  The
gangrene may have been cured but were there after
effects?

I just read Parsons' QRB article today.  In it the
evolutionary aspects of variation in natural
background levels (_including_ geographic outliers
i.e. monazite sand region of Brazil and Ramsar Iran)
are very important. Levels above those found in nature
involve stress-derived hormesis (that transitions to
harm) rather than background hormesis.

7-14 cGy/y was sufficient to increase the lifespan of
mice(Caratero et al. 1998).

Very interesting subject as I used to study
temperature stresses and adaptation albeit on insects.
 

Parsons studied temperature and EtOH stresses and
adaptation in _Drosophila_ inhabiting rotting fruit
(lots of heat and alcohol in that mess) and found
adaptive responses that led him to the hormesis
theories as a generalized hypothesis.
===================================================
Caratero A, Courtade M, Bonnet L, Planel H, Caratero
C.1998.   Effect of a continuous gamma irradiation at
a very low dose on the life span of mice.
Gerontology. 1998;44(5):272-276.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9693258&dopt=Abstract

Parsons PA.  2001.  The hormetic zone: an ecological
and evolutionary perspective based upon habitat
characteristics and fitness selection.   Q Rev Biol.
76(4):459-467. (abstract already to list)

Parsons PA.  1999. Low level exposure to ionizing
radiation: do ecological and evolutionary
considerations imply phantom risks?     Perspect Biol
Med. Autumn;43(1):57-68.  (no abstract available)

~Ruth Sponsler aka Ruth 2

--- Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@cnts.wpi.edu> wrote:
> Note that Luckey's literature shows evidence for
> benefit 106 years ago!
> :-)  Or the U-ore or Ra-ore pads from the '20s-'30s,
> or as recent as the
> '60s. See Paul Frames "quack cures' page at:
>
http://www.orau.com/ptp/collection/quackcures/quackcures.htm
>
>
> In the '20s low dose radiation (to a few hundred
> rad) stopped gangrene
> in its tracks, virtually eliminating amputations and
> death when not
> advanced to terminal conditions.
>
> Regards, Jim
> =========
>
>       -----Original Message-----
>       From: hflong@postoffice.pacbell.net
>       Sent: Tue 15-Jan-02 1:42 PM
>       To: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM
>       Cc: lescrable@HOTMAIL.COM;
> radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
>       Subject: Re: LNT
>
>
>       "-hormetic range usually <10mSv/d or <50cSv acute
> exposure for
> mammals-."
>       TD Luckey Radiation Hormesis CRC Press, 1990 p42.
>
>       Thus up to half the dose giving symptoms, there was
> evidence for
> benefit 12 years ago. Cameron proposes that we
> enable deprived areas to
> supplement radiation, at least up to the mountain
> state background, like
> the nuclear shipyard workers with less cancer
> (doubling gulf coast
> background).
>
>       How about offering 10 x usual US background
> radiation, like
> those sections of Ramisar, Iran with best lymphocyte
> activation? Of
> course accidental overdose must be carefully
> avoided, as it is in spent
> fuel transit in England.
>
>       Howard Long
>
>       RuthWeiner@AOL.COM wrote:
>
>               At least for now I would go with the HPS statement
> that
> at less than 1 rem/year (I am not sure of this
> number)  the cancer risk
> should be treated as a distribution whose lower end
> is zero (those are
> not the exact words -- I am paraphrasing from
> memory).
>
>               What strikes me as ridiculous is multplying a
> population
> dose of, say, 15 mrem/year (the EPA air standard) by
> 0.0005 and saying
> that an individual exposed to this has one chance in
> 100,000 (it's
> actually 7.5E-6) of a "latent cancer fatality" from
> that exposure.  Even
> worse, that in an urban population of a million
> persons with an average
> exposure of 15 mrem, there will be 7.5 "latent
> cancer fatalities"
> attributable to that exposure.  It's the blind
> application of a linear
> extrapolation to zero that is simplistic and I think
> misleading.
>
>               The literature, including Health Physics,
> increasingly
> shows evidence of thresholds (and I am not talking
> about Bernie Cohen's
> papers).  One recent article on the atom bomb
> survivors seemed to show a
> threshold for cancer of 20 Gy!  I am not touting
> this -- I think we need
> to keep studying this and come up with the same kind
> of completely
> credible threshold that EPA has set for, for
> example, the common air
> pollutants.
>
>               Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.
>               ruthweiner@aol.com
>
>

> ATTACHMENT part 2 application/ms-tnef
name=winmail.dat

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