HPS Newsletter

["Ted Rockwell" <tedrock@cpcug.org>]

Friends:



I just got my latest HPS newsletter in the mail today.  It's got some pretty

shocking stuff in it.  The Guest Editorial by Ken Mossman is headed "The

Debate is Over: Lessons Learned from Cohen's Ecological Study."



Under the sub-head "Who is Responsible for Making the Case?" he writes

"Selected studies (e.g. Cameron 2003) are often used to support radiation

hormesis as a generalized phenomenon without adequate explanation of the

results from the huge number of epi and other studies that do not support

homesis."  This, ignoring the statement in NCRP-136 that most populations

with LDI  do NOT show deleterious effects and in fact show beneficial

effects."



Mossman continues, "In making the hormesis case, proponents must address all

of the published data."  This, in face of the repeatedly noted fact that LNT

proponents consistently ignore the massive data supporting hormesis and

refuting LNT.



Then he says, "Well established theories are difficult to overturn."  This

despite the fact that NCRP reports concede that "few experimental studies,

and essentially no human data, can be said to prove, or even provide direct

support for the concept [of harmful effects from LDI]"



Mossman's last section is headed "There is no substitute for good science."

Which seems to refute everything previously written in the piece.



Then on page 22 we read that Mossman has been awarded a Guggenheim

scholarship for his work "concerning the applicability and requirements of

the precautionary principle to the management of technological risks

including control of ionizing radiation."  These awards, the article notes,

are based on "distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise

for future accomplishments."



That's just one item in this newsletter.  Then there's the lead item on the

new and FINAL (emphasis in original) dosimetry for A-Bomb Survivor Studies.

I won't take the time necessary to comment on that here.



Then we have a letter from Walter Huda, blasting Cameron's suggestion that

"most people need more radiation to be healthy."  Huda goes on to assure us

that "The ALARA principle is thus designed to minimize all unnecessary

risks...and I am very comfortable with using this philosophy of radiation

protection."



I trust there are those in RadSafeLand who will voice their concern over

these dogmatic assertions that anybody who IS anybody is comfortably aboard

the LNT express and the rest of us fringe folk will now quit heckling them.



I plan to document my concern formally to the NCRP, NRC, DOE, and EPA,

citing the very NCRP documents used to defend it, which concede that science

does not back the conclusion and the data show the opposite, but that they

argue we should ALARA toward zero on the basis of the precautionary

principle.  Let us then publicly discuss the issue on that basis: the facts

will show that unlimited use of ALARA and the use of collective dose to

estimate deaths, results in massive costs of resources and lives, with no

public benefit.



I hope others will express themselves on this subject.  It's particularly

ironic that this comes at the very moment of the Annual Belle Conference,

where toxicologists and others take hormesis as a long-established

principle, applying also to radiation.  To quote toxicologist Ed Calabrese

in the December 2002 Discover magazine:



"I have so much data--this is so overwhelmingly convincing--that I don't

think anyone rational could deny that hormesis exists."



Ted Rockwell