[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Cancer Factors



Ed,

First of all, these values are based on staticis, and we know how reliable they are.  This has nothing to do with the LNT.  Except for the EPA of 2%, they are all about the same. (Is this for radon, which is not low-LET radiation?)

If you read the summary of BEIR V, http://books.nap.edu/books/0309039959/html/index.html, they extimate the population-weighted average of death (not incident) following an accute exposure as 0.8% due to acute dose equivalent to all body organs from 0.1 Sv.  This works out to 8 X 10^-4/rem, or 0.08% per rem.  For protracted exposure over weeks or months, the risk is reduced by a factor or 2 OR MORE.  So the risk from a low dose rate can be 0.04%/rem or more from a protacted exposure.  See page 6 in the executive summary.

I believe that any time you take a single value and do not say what qualifiers are associated with it, you are fooling your audience or do not appreciate the uncertain of the value,

 RadSafeInst <RadSafeInst@cableone.net> wrote:

Recent comments on the list caused me to look up some of the cancer factors used by different organizations. Here are some I found: (All of these are for additional fatal cancers per whole body dose per year in rems)
 
    AFRRI:   0.08%
    Text Book of Military Medicine: 0.012% to 0.03%
    EPA:   2% (That appears to me to be two orders of magnitude higher than other organizations).
    ICRP: 0.05%
    In EPA 400-R-92-001, Oct 91, they quote BIER III as  0.03% per Rem.
   
Did I foul this up or are these people using random number generators (in addition to using unproven LNT assumptions)?                                            Ed Battle


-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com



Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more