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RE: Threshold
Ruth,
Have you ever heard in an article that there may be x number of additional
cancers, but the normal incidence rate is y? We may have an understanding
of the risk of cancer, but many people do not. It is not that they are
stupid, but because they do not care unless it affects them or someone they
know.
Phlogiston was disproved. However, the LNT has not. And probably will not
because it not well defined. If you have two cell lines, and one is
radiosensitive or genetically unstable, you will have two different
responses. If you examine two different human populations you may also get
two different results. It is probably defined for specific systems with
specific end-point effects. What your complaint, if I understand it, is
that it is being applied to regulations. What I say is that some
regulations have a threshold below which no actions need to be taken. If
your statement implies that "talking heads" go before the Congress or are
contacted by the media and make claims of increased cancer deaths, I would
say that their comments need to be considered and responded to. The public
needs to know that (1) cancers or deaths occur in life and at significant
levels (2) radiation-induced cancers cannot be distinguished from the normal
variations that occur in the population, and (3) the predictions are based
on data that has many confounding factors, and may not be right. Our
regulations should be based on human epidemiology, but is really driven by
politics. And not those of the NRC, NCRP, etc., but by the anti-nuclear
commentators and their better lobbying efforts.
Have a nice weekend.
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024
E-mail: jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
-----Original Message-----
From: RuthWeiner@aol.com [mailto:RuthWeiner@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 12:36 PM
To: Jacobus, John (OD/ORS); radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: Threshold
In a message dated 4/19/2002 9:17:36 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov writes:
<< The public only hears that two excess cancer
deaths are the result of the TMI accident. They do not hear that the
normal
incidence rate is about 1,400 per year. These are the things the public
needs to hear. As you say, "there is no other honorable course."
>>
Yes, they do hear about the normal incidence of cancer. No the problem
is
not "with the LNT" it is with mindless adherebnce to the LNT. The LNT is a
theory that doesn't have much evidence to support it, if any. Phlogiston was
a theoretical concept that was abandoned after a lot of evidence about
oxygen
was obtained. It's just simply time we stopped invoking the linear
extrapolation to zero of the relationship between dose and putative cancer.
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