RE: If you do Science, use the Scientific Method!

["Stabin, Michael" <michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>]

From: BLHamrick@aol.com [mailto:BLHamrick@aol.com] 



>Nor should we claim that there are specific, quantifiable deaths

associated with any level of radiation exposure



I agree completely; this was the first point I made, about speaking up

when someone uses the LNT in a nonscientific (we said "reckless")

manner.

 

>If we don't know, then I think it's best to just say "we don't know," 



I agree, and believe I said as much.



From: John Cameron [mailto:jrcamero@wisc.edu] 



>in 1973 Frigerio et al.

>nuclear shipyard worker study

>100-year study of British radiologists

>other studies



I agree that many of these studies are compelling. If I lean in this

discussion, it is in favor of this body of evidence. But there is also a

substantial body of radiobiological data that I also find compelling,

about RBEs, bystander effects, and so on. I know a number of good

scientists who I know are not acting politically when they tell me that

such evidence against a threshold is strong. I know "science as

politics" when I see it (e.g. many of the Wing studies, Brenner's

Pediatric Radiology article on cancer risk from pediatric CT), and that

is not the case with the folks I am talking about. 



>We know what is going on at low dose rates if we exclude a-bomb

survivor data. 



I am not in favor of excluding any credible body of evidence that

addresses this issue. The a-bomb survivor data are very hard to

interpret, I agree, and some data more than others suggest linearity for

certain forms of cancer. The kind of complete theory that I hope to see

would explain ALL of the data, in-vivo and in-vitro, and give us a solid

footing for forming sound policy. Unfortunately, instead of working with

others towards this goal, many on both sides have taken the "earplugs

and megaphone" approach and staked out a position from which they will

not be moved by any evidence. This also is not the scientific method.



Mike



Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP

Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences

Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences

Vanderbilt University

1161 21st Avenue South

Nashville, TN 37232-2675

Phone (615) 343-0068

Fax   (615) 322-3764

Pager (615) 835-5153

e-mail     michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu

internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com



  

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