The Ultimate Hormesis Paper

["Otto G. Raabe" <ograabe@UCDAVIS.EDU>]

July 23, 2003

HPS Meeting, San Diego, CA



At the ongoing 48th Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society here in

San Diego, I encountered poster paper P.78 entitled "The Beneficial Health

Effects of Chronic Radiation Experienced in the Incident of Co-60

Contaminated Apartments in Taiwan." This paper has 14 authors, all

associated with nuclear and radiation protection organizations in Taiwan

including one from the National Taiwan University. The lead authors are

W.L. Chen and Y.C. Luan, Nuclear Sciences and Technology Association, 4th

F, W. 245, Sec. 3, Roosevelt Road, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.



About 20 years ago 180 apartment buildings comprising about 1700 apartments

were built using rebar containing Co-60 from a discarded source. It was

about 10 years before this incident was discovered. This paper discusses

the incidence of cancer and detectable genetic defects in about 10,000

people who lived from 9 to 20 years in these apartments. The highest

irradiated apartment had dose rates of about 0.5 Sv per year and the lowest

about 0.02 Sv per year. The paper describes dosimetric reconstruction

showing that the average total excess dose for the 10,000 people in the

study was about 0.4 Sv, while some had total doses as high as 6 Sv.



The authors compared the approximately 10,000 people in this study with

published cancer mortality statistics and reported an expected incidence of

cancer in these 10,000 people of about 217 cases of cancer during the study

period. The number of cases found was only 7. This demonstrated about a 97%

reduction in cancer incidence for people living in the high radiation

environment of these contaminated apartment. They found a similar reduction

in "genetic defects". The authors could not find any obvious confounding

factors associated with their study.



The abstract of this paper is found in a recent published HPS Journal

Supplement. You can write to the authors to get the whole paper. 



I was told by the program committee that this paper was submitted as a

poster to the HPS meeting held in Tampa last year. In that meeting the

title was "The True Health Effects of Radiation Revealed in the Incident of

Co-60 Contamination in Taiwan." Unfortunately, someone stole the whole

poster an hour after it was mounted last year, so few people saw it.



The authors seem to indicate that their work is not being given the

attention it deserves. Many would like to disregard it as nonsencse.

Clearly, there should be a detailed independent scientific evaluation of

these data and a more complete study to verify or discredit the findings.

I'm not sure who would be willing to fund such a study.



Otto

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

	Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP

	Center for Health & the Environment (CHE)

	(Street Address: Bldg. 3792, Old Davis Road)

	University of California, Davis, CA 95616

	E-Mail: ograabe@ucdavis.edu

	Phone:(530) 752-7754, FAX:(530) 758-6140

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

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