RE: safe at any level???

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

 From: Tim [mailto:tstead@ntirs.org] 



We said!



> I find hormesis very compelling.  For one thing,

> mankind has been on this planet for quite a long time

> absorbing all the radiation that the Earth and sky

> have dished out.  It is therefore quite unreasonable,

> after all this time, to assume that mankind (and

> indeed, all of Earth's terrestrial creatures) has not

> adapted in some way to ionizing radiation over the

> past tens of thousands - or millions - of years

> (depending upon your belief).



What's more compelling is that radiation is essential to life. At doses

kept below the lower levels of natural background, organisms and cells

in culture experiments show debility and death. See, e.g.:

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/3.2.1.4.htm and

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/1.2.1.htm and

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/1.2.3.htm 

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/1.3.htm 



> If you believe in evolution, then hormesis is a

> natural extension of that.  Survival of the fittest -

> those that could not tolerate radiation became

> extinct.  Those that could tolerate it survived.

> 

> If you believe in creationism, then it makes little

> sense to assume that God forgot about radiation

> protection when he created us.



Here, hormesis is NOT a matter of "protection," it's a matter of

biology. Essentially nothing produces a net damage to an organism at

sufficiently low doses. One scientist characterized this (not limited to

radiation, including, e.g., mercury, etc.) as: at a 'dose' low enough to

have ANY effect, the minimum biological protective/repair response is

greater than the effect, which contributes to the repair of the massive

quantities of the normal cellular damage rate (a billion times greater

than the damage rate from 1 mSv/year). See, e.g.,:

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/1.2.htm esp. on the 'continuity of

nutrient-toxin response' at:

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/1.2Gerber99.html and

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/1.2.2.htm and on "Janus" carcinogens and

mutagens (Janus is the god with two faces, with the point that these

have BOTH beneficial and damaging effects.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=m&form=6&dopt=r&u

id=9675327 and 



There's also the fact that people at the lowest background radiation

doses have significantly poorer health, more disease, and shorter

lifespans. See, e.g.:

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/2.1.htm and more generally,

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/2.0.htm and you can see more in the

subsections under 2.1:

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/DD3/Contents.htm along with more info on

biological responses (in whole organisms as opposed to cells which CAN

show linear responses (which why the rad protectionists rely on them)

under 3.1.



You can assume that the LNT apologists will continue to ignore the data:

See no evil; Hear no evil, Read no evil. :-)



> Tim 



Regards, Jim

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

************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/