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RE: The Ultimate Hormesis Paper
Bill,
Knowing the difficulties (opposition, foot dragging?) the author have had,
for years, in trying to obtain all the information necessary to follow
classical study designs, why not encourage the publication of the study as
it is, with all necessary caveats and recommendations for conducting what is
called a "rigorous" study, based on the possibility that Chen's et al. have
raised an interesting question and the suspicion that, should they be only
partially right, low dose risk is not what it is claimed to be?
This may encourage institutions in charge of assessing low-dose rate
radiation risk to launch an international cooperative effort and go to the
bottom of that question. The population is relatively well defined, medical
records are recent, and dosimetry is relatively good (much better than in
some expensive miner studies!). Not doing this would indicate that the said
institutions are not interested in getting a more accurate knowledge of
low-dose risk.
Best regards,
Philippe Duport
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu] On Behalf Of niton@mchsi.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 6:00 PM
To: Otto G. Raabe
Cc: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: The Ultimate Hormesis Paper
Otto,
It is difficult to comment without seeing the details of the paper. It would
be
interesting to see whether or not the comparison group was at least age
adjusted. If the investigation followed a rigorous study design, the
authors
should submit the paper to a credible scientific peer-reviewed journal such
as
the American Journal of Epidemiology, Health Physics, Radiation Research,
etc.
Wouldn't the easiest way to get attention for the study logically be
submission
to and publication in a reputable scientific journal?
Regards, Bill
------------------------------
R. William Field, Ph.D.
Community of Science: http://myprofile.cos.com/Fieldrw
> 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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