Biological response data.

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

After adding this to a msg to John, I realized few would get that far.



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

Well 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 simple matter of biology. Essentially nothing can produce 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 biological 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&uid=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.



The LNT apologists will continue to ignore the data: See no evil; Hear no evil, Read no evil. :-) 



> Tim 



Regards, Jim 

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



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