Leave me out of this!!

[ROBBARISH@AOL.COM]

To the list:

 

Somehow, in simply pointing out that my papers were published in  

peer-reviewed journals, I have become associated with the ongoing  dispute between the 

radiation hormesis supporters and their detractors. How this  happened is 

possibly explained by the fact that my posting is  reproduced over and over as Long 

and Jacobus go at each other.

 

I do, however, want to comment on two remarks from Dr. Long that also keep  

recurring on my screen as these remarks come around on a seemingly daily  

basis. The first is:

 

"However, the spin from the editor who refused rebuttle of Dr  Barrish's LNT 

assumptions,

gave bogus fear to the flying public, including  my patients."

 

My reaction to this direct quote from Long is the following: Long  previously 

stated that the editors of the Journal of the American Board of  Family 

Practice rejected a letter to the editor from him that would have  commented on my 

paper. As stated in my original message, I had  nothing to do with this 

rejection. The quote reproduced above implies that the  editor produced some "spin" 

which "gave bogus fear" to readers of that journal.  Factually, there was no 

editorial comment on the paper either before or after by  the editors of that 

journal. The paper appeared, period.

 

So what Dr. Long is actually saying is that the editors of JABFP, by not  

allowing him to comment on the paper in print,  allowed my discussion of LNT to 

give "bogus fear" to the  flying public. I'm not sure how much of the flying 

public reads the JABFP, but a  reading of the paper will show I made the 

statement "the risk of very  low-dose radiation remains unproved and might, in fact, 

be nonexistent" (page  196).  This followed a paragraph discussing the 

controversial use of LNT in  making quantitative risk estimates. I later prefaced any 

risk estimates  with a warning that the LNT model was assumed.

 

And if a possible increased fatal cancer risk of 1.00001 (page 197) is  

fearful, I compared it to driving 3,000 miles in an automobile, spending 1 hour  in 

a canoe, or riding 130 miles on a bicycle! (page 197). I'm sorry if some  of 

Dr. Long's patients (who apparently read JABFP) were frightened by that  

comparison. I trust he helped them overcome these fears.

 

Also, Long writes:

 

"I hope Dr. Barish will update his article, as he seems inclined to do  

(below)." 

 

I don't see how he infers my intentions to update that paper from  anything I 

posted here on Radsafe. The conclusion of my JABFP paper states  that the 

risk to ordinary travelers is "minuscule" (page 199) Why would I update  it?

 

The paper also does, quite correctly, remind readers that  there are 

recommended fetal exposure limits published by the NCRP and ICRP that  might be 

exceeded by airline crewmembers or very-frequent flyers. It references  a 

calculation by the United States Federal Aviation Administration in which the  authors 

(Friedberg, et. al.) state an increased risk of 1.0003 associated  with the 1 

mSv dose limit during pregnancy. I do remind the readers  (remember they are 

family-practice physicians, this is not a public magazine)  that "current 

statistics show that about 600 of every 10,000 children are born  with abnormalities 

that have serious health consequences." (page 198)   Would the possible 0.03% 

increase implied by the FAA use of LNT cause  "bogus fears"? Apparently Long 

thinks so. If that's the case, let him convince  the NCRP and ICRP to raise 

the recommended dose limit for pregnant women. I  assume the FAA and its 

European counterparts will follow those  recommendations. 

 

Please, gentlemen, if this thread continues, snip me out of the future  

postings!

 

Robert Barish, Ph.D., CHP

_robbarish@aol.com_ (mailto:robbarish@aol.com)