human genetics

["Thomas J Savin " <tjsav@LYCOS.COM>]

Greetings all,



I have been listening (actually reading) numerous posts dealing with the LNT, radon......etc.  One item has not been mentioned - that is Genetics.  Every indivdual is unique - even to a more limited sense - "identical twins". This is why in USEPA guidance allows for consideration of "subpopulations of concern" to take into account different reactions to insult.  They use an uncertainty factor of ten in noncarciogen risk assessment.  What this means is that, for example, the amount of toxin that is originally considered non thresold for effects is divided by ten.  This is considered "health protective" for the public.  



For cancer things are different, as we all know.  My point being that science is not advanced enough to really know how indviduals respond to insult. Case in point, everyone of my relatives has/had smoked - not one of them died of cancer and lived into their 80s.  Meantime other families have and had contracted cancer from smoking following in genetic lineage.  I beleive that there is a thresold for cancer for all. It just is varible from person to person.  If you look at numerous toxicology studies usintg B6C3F1 mice - a mouse bred to develop tumors more readily you can see that the control mice will develope tumors than the lowest dosed group. 



Obviously, there are limits, I don't care how genetically endowed a person is - one will certainly meet their dimise if copius amounts of smoke is inhaled or they are are irradiated from an atomic bomb.  This would be over their thesold limits.



Enjoy!,

Tom Savin





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